my outdoor grow in india (12 latitude)

MajorCoco

MajorCoco

Well-Known Member
I think you're right about the colour, but it is best to look at the plant as a whole when deciding if it is done. By the sound of it the plant has suffered from the rain, and stress can do strange things to the trichomes. Don't forget that just because you have cloudy or amber trichomes doesn't mean that your plant will not continue to grow new trichomes!
If you can give it another week then you should hopefully start to see new calyxes and trichomes, or the existing pistils turning fully brown/red and starting to shrivel. Although there are exceptions, particularly with sativas, most plants are not mature until the pistils have mostly all turned brown. It's then that looking at trichomes becomes most useful.
 
keebod.dobeek

keebod.dobeek

Active Member
@MajorCoco

That is when I realize the disadvantage of a webcam microscope. I can't take it to the outdoors :| Only option is to cut something from the plant, and bring it to the computer where the webcam is connected.
The particular bud whose trichomes I posted are from a tertiary branch tip. Tertiary as in, it is a branch that happened on a secondary branch.

When a couple of days pass without any rain, then I can see trichomes on the small leaves around the bud area. But they all get washed away in the next rain. This is why such less amount of trichomes.
In the past five months of it kept outdoors, three initial months were monsoon(rain throughout day and night). This is when the core of flowering happened. Luckily no mould. Budworms, just three till date.
Then there was a month without rain, and this last month including right now, its the thunderstorm season. So, that part about rain damage is true :)

I will give it another week, and then cut another bud piece and check for trichomes again :)

PS: Instead of starting a new thread to post my questions, I had been posting in this thread, as the OP is already growing a similar indian landrace sativa.
 
R

ropedraggr

Member
Elchup,

Agree with you.. Ordered some from attitude and perfect delivery 18 days +tried the three freebies first.. All three fem and healthy.. 100% germination.

Got a second bunch from AMS.. Order arrived in 8 days..and complete so that goes against their general review...Don't know how good the seeds are yet..

Why don't we start a forum / thread for growers in good ole bharat, can share some seeds as well mate.. Had a pretty successful indoor grow now looking for an out door in the coming summer at home....

If ur up for it pm me and then we can get things started.. BTW looking for some kerala gold seeds..any ideas??

cheerio
 
elchupacabra

elchupacabra

Well-Known Member
your plant is nowhere near finished, much like mine...don't look at trichomes when you're growing outdoors, it's a lot easier to tell by the overall look of the plant...if you look closely you CAN see the colour of batches of trichomes, when the plant is near ready, if you look at it really really close and hard you'll see patches of amber coloured trichs and patches of cloudy ones. you can tell when it's finished. just wait it out, my guess is our equatorial sats will not be ready till jan. i'm positive there are also several that go on freely till march.

i'm sorry i don't trust anybody who says they have kerala gold...people are convinced they have kerala gold and 95% of the time it's crap...not saying anything else...and even if you had kerala gold, good good weed with a seed, it's very very much possible that the resulting plant from the seed looks nothing like its mother or father. however the opposite is equally probable as well...

harvested white satin, rains were getting pretty bad, didn't want mould like the one papaya bud...

anyways i've included photos of the updates...getting kinda frosty and starting to get a really nice smell out here...
first i have pictures of most of my plants - 3 of 4 landraces, blue widow, a skunk, a couple of other sativas from walkabout, all are at some stage of flowering or the other, the landraces lagging behind ridiculously in comparison haha...

at the end, the two budshots are immediately post harvest of the white satin. i meant to take a picture of the entire main cola but by the time i remembered i'd cut all the buds off of it.

the harvesting pictures are of the kali chakra - had to slice her cause of a lot of mites. lesson learnt. everything's out of order...different cameras and a bunch of other shit.
 

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keebod.dobeek

keebod.dobeek

Active Member
@elchupacabra
Both Jan and March are too much longer than what I expected :P
By Jan the plant would be in flower for 6 months or 24 weeks.
By March, it would be in flower for 8 months or 32 weeks, which is unacceptable! :O

I started using the term 'kerala gold' just because that is what I could find over internet. The locals used the word 'munnar gold'. This 'munnar' is a place in idukki district, and some call it 'idukki gold'.
There are three variants. One seedless, and the costliest, and they mostly go exported.
Second, is rarely seeds. This is the one I got. 7K for a very less amount in terms of quantity! But, super strong! High lasts for over 4-4.5 hours when mixed with 50:50 ratio. This is the max I tried as I did not want to get caught with all red eyes :D
The third is the one thats mostly circulated in outside-kerala and overall indian market.

Are your landrace buds bigger than your finger's thickness?
Mine are not, and they aren't growing more pistils. The pistils are all brown till their center on the top buds while the bottom buds are just 25% brown.

The Kali Chakra pics look awesome! That's one strain that I had kept in cart, and would've bought if my card had no issues :P

2012-11-03 17.52.21.jpg
 
elchupacabra

elchupacabra

Well-Known Member
man, you need to understand that the indian varieties will not grow and flower according to information you've read about weed. growing is conceptually the same but technically different altogether when growing near the equator, and with equatorial strains. what do you mean 8 months is 'unacceptable' haha nature doesn't care what you think is acceptable, it'll grow as it feels like growing mate...that's the effect of evolving in the tropical equatorial region. the plant's game plan will basically be something like 'grow vegetatively as much as possible till the rains pass, soak up the rain, use it to grow ridiculously big with the intense tropical sun, hold off on flowering as long as possible, then when the rains stop and the sun comes out again as usual, flower like crazy. oh yeah, it might be a wee bit cold by then, better stack on them trichomes to keep me warm, keep water away, and trap the stray floating pollen. no need to rush, the sun isn't going anywhere.'

that's very very different from your normal cannabis plant from the rest of the world's climates, where the mentality is 'as soon as i see signs of a small drop in temperature and a visible reduction in daylight hours, i'm gonna flower like mad so i don't die of cold by october'

you should have done some research mate, tropical cannabis varieties are well known to flower into jan, feb, and march. and while our definition of 'flowering' is from the initial emergence of pistils, i really feel the plant hasn't really started 'flowering' till mid september on average, considering my four landrace plants.
 
elchupacabra

elchupacabra

Well-Known Member
patience will be a useful weapon in your arsenal. trying to speed up a natural process which has been well refined through millennia of natural selection is difficult when you're using nature's light and weather to grow your plants.
 
keebod.dobeek

keebod.dobeek

Active Member
elchupacabra said:
man, you need to understand that the indian varieties will not grow and flower according to information you've read about weed. growing is conceptually the same but technically different altogether when growing near the equator, and with equatorial strains. what do you mean 8 months is 'unacceptable' haha nature doesn't care what you think is acceptable, it'll grow as it feels like growing mate...that's the effect of evolving in the tropical equatorial region. the plant's game plan will basically be something like 'grow vegetatively as much as possible till the rains pass, soak up the rain, use it to grow ridiculously big with the intense tropical sun, hold off on flowering as long as possible, then when the rains stop and the sun comes out again as usual, flower like crazy. oh yeah, it might be a wee bit cold by then, better stack on them trichomes to keep me warm, keep water away, and trap the stray floating pollen. no need to rush, the sun isn't going anywhere.'

that's very very different from your normal cannabis plant from the rest of the world's climates, where the mentality is 'as soon as i see signs of a small drop in temperature and a visible reduction in daylight hours, i'm gonna flower like mad so i don't die of cold by october'

you should have done some research mate, tropical cannabis varieties are well known to flower into jan, feb, and march. and while our definition of 'flowering' is from the initial emergence of pistils, i really feel the plant hasn't really started 'flowering' till mid september on average, considering my four landrace plants.
Click to expand...
What you said about indian strains are true with the rest of my plants. They all started their stretching towards end of september and started pistils everywhere by the end of october :) This is because they were started outdoors directly.

The picture of the plant I'm posting is one odd one out. This was under 24/0 lighting indoors for two months, after which it had been kept outdoors under 12/12 sun. This 24 hours light to 12 hours light outdoors must have triggered the flowering as in a week it started stretching and pre-flowering. Soon, virtually without any delay, more and more pistils started. This went on for nearly four months now(august till november). Now I cant see new pistils growing anywhere. Just the existing pistils are browning.

Also, the munnar grow/sell people told that they harvest twice a year. This is possible only if veg+flowering completes in a total of 6 months time :|
 
elchupacabra

elchupacabra

Well-Known Member
its the plants genetics playing out. the plant intuitively know that it has time. all my indian strains have gone through 3 distinct stages -vegetative, preflowering, and (now) flowering. the preflowering stage is like a vegetative stage with a bit more stretching and a pair of calyxes per node. this stage lasts 2 months under a normal growth pattern.
 
keebod.dobeek

keebod.dobeek

Active Member
Well, pre-flowering phase isn't part of flowering phase when we see things like 8 week flowering hybrid and so on?
And in my case, the pre-flowering did not last more than 2-3 days instead of two months :|
 
elchupacabra

elchupacabra

Well-Known Member
see i think you have the basic understanding of some things wrong

first of all

who says they can't harvest twice? after september 21st, anything that's started will go into flowering a lot faster than it would if planted in june or any time after the spring solstice. secondly, to harvest twice, all they'd have to do is plant one half of the seeds when the other half is halfway done. for example, plant the first batch in april/may, and plant the second batch after monsoons. the first one will probably take a little under a full year to finish, while the second set of plants will take probably less than half that time due to photoperiod. the harvests will probably be a matter of anywhere from a month to 4 months apart depending on when they plant. assume that in general, as far as indian sativas are concerned, the plant requires x inches of height and a minimum of 12 hours of darkness to flower. with normal plants, regardless of whether or not they've reached x inches (or x amount of budsites, mass, or whatever the plant uses to quantitatively decide) they will start flowering if under 12/12. however, these sativas in the south indian half of our continent have the minimum size to reach before flowering as a more important pre-requisite than photoperiod. flowering will only happen if the size criteria has been reached and the photoperiod is compliant, within reason. while equatorial sativas don't care as much about the photoperiod, that is still the primary influential factor in inducing flowering. that is why your preflowering was short. also, i wouldn't take any of the things i said as HARD and FAST rules...there are bound to be exceptions and this is only my first grow. if you ask me, your plant is still in the preflowering stage...my plant also went through a similar stage where pistil production stalled, pistils became brown, and only recently she started developing more pistils and calyxes.

and from my understanding, if you're growing a plant under 12/12, preflowering indicates a start in flowering for normal hybrid strains - it is a sign that heavy budding will follow shortly; that is not the case with our equatorial sativas. the preflowering (i think) happens so long before the actual flowering in the wild because the males will be done well before the females are done budding. however, the pollen will need to be collected when released by the male plants ; the pistils, if you observe, will be coated with small baby trichomes, which will be able to trap floating grains of pollen, something that cannot be done without pistils. this will maximize the plant's chance of reproduction and make it more likely to produce seeds for the next season.
 
T

thc666

Member
guess its time to free cannabis of the bad name its acquired among common non stoners, the trend is just moving at godspeed, every1z smokin pot dese days.

so sad we have shitty, seeded, laced bud when these plants themselves can be grown so beautifully taken all precautions of a healthy life to be provided to the plant.

I GUESS ITS TIME I ADD MYSELF TO THE BANDWAGON OF OUTDOOR GROWERS .!!

BAGSEED, and its called WIDOW_MAKER (haha)!!
FEMALE in preflowering. !!

GERMINATED ON : 15th july12
cursot.jpg
 
keebod.dobeek

keebod.dobeek

Active Member
elchupacabra said:
see i think you have the basic understanding of some things wrong

first of all

who says they can't harvest twice? after september 21st, anything that's started will go into flowering a lot faster than it would if planted in june or any time after the spring solstice. secondly, to harvest twice, all they'd have to do is plant one half of the seeds when the other half is halfway done. for example, plant the first batch in april/may, and plant the second batch after monsoons. the first one will probably take a little under a full year to finish, while the second set of plants will take probably less than half that time due to photoperiod. the harvests will probably be a matter of anywhere from a month to 4 months apart depending on when they plant. assume that in general, as far as indian sativas are concerned, the plant requires x inches of height and a minimum of 12 hours of darkness to flower. with normal plants, regardless of whether or not they've reached x inches (or x amount of budsites, mass, or whatever the plant uses to quantitatively decide) they will start flowering if under 12/12. however, these sativas in the south indian half of our continent have the minimum size to reach before flowering as a more important pre-requisite than photoperiod. flowering will only happen if the size criteria has been reached and the photoperiod is compliant, within reason. while equatorial sativas don't care as much about the photoperiod, that is still the primary influential factor in inducing flowering. that is why your preflowering was short. also, i wouldn't take any of the things i said as HARD and FAST rules...there are bound to be exceptions and this is only my first grow. if you ask me, your plant is still in the preflowering stage...my plant also went through a similar stage where pistil production stalled, pistils became brown, and only recently she started developing more pistils and calyxes.

and from my understanding, if you're growing a plant under 12/12, preflowering indicates a start in flowering for normal hybrid strains - it is a sign that heavy budding will follow shortly; that is not the case with our equatorial sativas. the preflowering (i think) happens so long before the actual flowering in the wild because the males will be done well before the females are done budding. however, the pollen will need to be collected when released by the male plants ; the pistils, if you observe, will be coated with small baby trichomes, which will be able to trap floating grains of pollen, something that cannot be done without pistils. this will maximize the plant's chance of reproduction and make it more likely to produce seeds for the next season.
Click to expand...
I did not calculate in that manner :P I was thinking to harvest twice, they run two separate grows in one year by having two grow seasons one after the other. Not simultaneous.

The height aspect might not be true with every strain in india, as I have four types of seeds planted and growing.
One has been flowering for quite some time now, which I was talking about. This is around 4 feet tall now after height increase stopped.
There is another which started flowering by the end of september which is continuing to flower now. Around 2 feet in height and still gaining height.
One just around 4 inches tall started flowering again at the end of september. Around 3 feet in height and going on.
Last one started stretching, by mid october. Just 4-5 inches tall, and tiny immature, but flowering started within just two weeks from germination.

Except the one plant that started flowering 4 months back, the other three all started flowering by the end of september. Just that each of these three plants have a different height and age.
One is around one month old.
Second is around 1.5 months old.
Third one is just 10-14 days old!

I have seen those trichome like growths on the two hairs/pistils of each calyx. They are really trichomes too? They don't have that mushroom head on top. Just a straight tubular growth.
 
elchupacabra

elchupacabra

Well-Known Member
1) you can't make calls on genetics in general unless you've grown at least a few hundred seeds out - i've grown about a hundred or so different indian seeds, but only from seed to about a month into flowering (this is apart from my main grow just to get an idea of genetics and maybe find something special. found only two so far...). furthermore, conditions have to be held constant between all test specimens. but you're still free to make guesses

2) yes yes those are the trichs...
 
keebod.dobeek

keebod.dobeek

Active Member
I can't say such sentences on strains. I was just saying I have four strains even though landrace, growing at the moment which all exhibits a different growth-pattern(phenotype?).

Today I could see trichomes with naked eyes without any magnification! :D

2012-11-08-14.47.41.jpg
 
elchupacabra

elchupacabra

Well-Known Member
i can see white spots on your leaves, or my comp needs a major major cleaning...but you should watch out for white flies, or worse, spidermites...taking care of them isn't easy once they're there full swing...
 
keebod.dobeek

keebod.dobeek

Active Member
Well, I'm using a water soluble foliar spray kind of fertilizer The instructions say we have to add 5 grams in one litre of water. But, I don't have an option to measure such tiny grams, and hence, just add 'some', the way we add chilly powder or turmeric powder while cooking without really measuring precise amounts mentioned in the recipe :|

I started initially with a very small amount, but gradually, with each feeding, kept on increasing the amount I add. But I think I must have gone too high, as this foliar spray, when dried, leaves residue on the leaves. Thats what those chalk-dust like powdery thing you see on the leaves. It goes off when we wipe it with fingers, though.

I understood what you meant by those white flies. I had once got it on my tomato plant, long back. They are messy ;) They fly here and there when I had sprayed them with neem oil plus. Neem oil plus is what I liked compared to just neem oil. This has Azadirachtine at 500ppm along with neem oil.
 
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