There is a crack in everything...

First, I can't edit my last post, but I will explain one of my bullet points. When I covered the pollinated branch with a plastic bag (to prevent the spread of pollen in the communal tent), I came back a couple of hours later and the bag was filled with condensation, and moisture is the enemy of pollen so I was sure I had killed the pollen and it wouldn't take, so I was frustrated. The buds are showing signs that it did take, so I suppose plastic bags can work also. Just keeping it real.

Some pics from this morning -- 3 weeks and 3 days after flipping to 12/12:

Thai Skunk F1 (Wild Thai x Island Sweet Skunk)


Diesel Skunk F1 (NYC Diesel x Island Sweet Skunk)



This it the 2x4, I'm getting some growth height differential, but so far able to deal with it by tipping the lights... looks pretty obvious that the indica dom hybrids are on the left, the sativa doms on the right.




One shot of the 3x3 canopy -


Last shot is of one of my impregnated buds. The first time (this is only my second time) that I intentionally pollinated was in my outdoor summer of 2016. None of the buds hairs turned brown and shriveled up, so I figured I did something wrong. When processing the bud at the end of the season, sure enough each plant had one branch loaded with seeds. This time they are changing as I had read they would.




These tents are way more crowded than I prefer to grow, but with so many plants I want to grow and so little space to grow in, this seems like my best option. So far the dehumidifier has been both keeping things dry and providing enough warmth to maintain decent temps at night, although I'm still running the AC during the day. That will change I imagine in the next week or so, and I'll be setting up some heat and putting the AC away.

I'm looking forward to seeing what these grows produce and how it compares to the final output of my COB/SIP/SCROG set up. Each has benefits, this of course provides more options when growing from regular seeds. I do hope to break out some SIPs next run in the 2x4.

A couple of weeks into November and some days I'm still running the AC during the day and the heat at night -- but both only kick on for small amounts of time. I hope that by Thanksgiving the AC will be in storage and expect the heat will begin working harder.

I took down my Citi 1818 lights and using the kill-o-watt and the internal potentiometer dialed them both to right around 150w, or 75w per COB so that they are running a little cooler and now have even output (before one pair was running at about 160w, the other at about 180w). Those 4 cobs are going to be recycled into a single larger 6 cob light this winter. My opinion: external potentiometers are absolutely superior to the internal ones. The internal ones are, IMHO, a pain in the ass -- they are very sensitive to tiny movements which translates for me to being inaccurate. The only reason I'm OK with them in this build is that I'll dial them in at the beginning to balance the lights, and then use tent height/distance from the plants to control the intensity. I have that luxury in this tent since it will (probably) always have short plants in it.

I'm 4 weeks into flower which is when I top feed and add more dry nutes. This grow (for the most part) is showing little signs of needing anything, so I'm going to go really light in that area. It looks like the way I amended this soil has some legs. I'll definitely give them some silica, tea, and maybe some Bloom juice periodically as I water, but added dry nutes will be about 1/2 of what I normally do. It's one of the challenges of having a half dozen strains in one grow, they all have varying appetites so no formula covers all of them.

At some point I mentioned that my plants were loving my 75w cobs, and I let them get down to about 14" from them. Yesterday I noticed the hairs on the top buds of one plant were starting to show some burn stress. So (in addition to turning them down some) I raised them up a couple of inches. Citi 1818's need some room @75w. Since these plants were grown close to 12/12 from seed, they aren't going to have height problems and I have the head room to keep the lights away from them as needed.

The 2x4 is the taller of the two tents. The plants in this grow are small, they take up at most the bottom 1/3 of the tent. Next run (with a rebuilt light in there too) I want to go back to running some big plants, and fill the space up.




Stoned attempt at figuring out an optimal spread for six cobs in a 3x3:

I'm noticing small instances where there are brown shriveled hairs on buds randomly around the tents... so my "selective" pollination technique was not very selective, I'll have to work on that. It's not a big deal, it's not like I'm selling it. Since there were three males involved, I can't be sure what the random seeds will be. We store bud in big canning jars, and then move some to smaller jars to keep handy for smoking. I'm going to drop a little container into each strain jar so that we can save the "bag seed" I'm creating. Not sure what I'll do with it, but sometime I might do a 12/12 from seed SOG 'fruit salad' grow (since even though I won't know the specific parents, I do know that all the parents are strains we like...).

Next round the goal is to just have one male, that way even if I have stray seeds at least I know who the father is. At this point I can't imagine ever doing any serious breeding, I just don't have the room for all the cloning and proper controlled pollination. But for some reason I do enjoy making new strains and continuing a line to restock our seeds from strains that we like.

...speaking of seeds, in spite of having a hard time getting my phone to focus where I want it to, out of a half dozen shots, I got at least one that tells the story... (pollinated on 11/04)

The longer plants go, the more their differences show. With a half dozen different strains all being given the same everything, I'm starting to see some like what I'm doing more than others. So I've started to do a little selective changes, but nothing drastic.

Seeds are looking good, I should get plenty of identifiable ones from this run. I do look forward to growing some regular sized plants next grow, all these mini's are cute but the space could produce so much more.

Everything is looking good Rob. Flowers are shaping up nicely.

I had a few "Who's your Daddy?" seeds this year as well. One of my patches had to be abandoned due to security concerns, but I did go back after they had died to collect seeds. The main ones I wanted had five plants in a small plot. 3 girls and 2 boys. But it's better than not having any seeds off them I guess. Here is the ones off the biggest plant. It was bag seed {a decent commercial diesel, with 9-10 seeds in a qp}, but worth trying again, when hopefully I will be able to smoke the buds. Seeds don't look too bad to have been on dead plants.



There was three Hurricane Head IBL plants in a nearby plot that picked up a little of the pollen too. Not sure if I will ever pop any of those seeds or not.

Thanks Larry, no prize winners but it looks like everything will finish and produce. Some are starting to smell really good and are starting to fill out. Once I get past 6 weeks usually things start to get really interesting. This was the first time I tried to do a seed run with lots of plants that was also a production run. Next time I'll split those objectives up; in the 3x3 I'll do the breeding run -- not top them, flip them early, and run as many as I can fit in there in small pots, and then the 2x4 will be for replenishing the meds in a more substantial way with just a pair of big girls.

My pollinating on every level is improving. The actual technique of doing it in my small space will have its challenges, but now I'm getting a feel for the big picture time factor, and with this long-term time investment I am not messing around with random strains anymore. I need to focus my efforts and stick with well known origins and specific goals. This is especially important since I'm not doing outdoor grows anymore -- they used to produce about 2/3's of our annual meds. Now it's all going to come from two indoor grows per year, which puts more pressure on using every square foot productively.

Those seeds look good Larry, should be some healthy plants in there. I imagine "in nature" seeds sometimes stay on the plant and still germinate the next spring, I bet they'll pop.

too larry said:

Everything is looking good Rob. Flowers are shaping up nicely.

I had a few "Who's your Daddy?" seeds this year as well. One of my patches had to be abandoned due to security concerns, but I did go back after they had died to collect seeds. The main ones I wanted had five plants in a small plot. 3 girls and 2 boys. But it's better than not having any seeds off them I guess. Here is the ones off the biggest plant. It was bag seed {a decent commercial diesel, with 9-10 seeds in a qp}, but worth trying again, when hopefully I will be able to smoke the buds. Seeds don't look too bad to have been on dead plants.

There was three Hurricane Head IBL plants in a nearby plot that picked up a little of the pollen too. Not sure if I will ever pop any of those seeds or not.

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Speaking of pollination, I'll share my way of doing one limb. I use a plastic bread bag with the pollen in it. {a gallon ziplock will work if it's a shorter limb} Then you spray down the rest of the plant with water while the bag is in place. Once it is good and wet, you go ahead and remove the bag.

I've done two limbs with two kinds of pollen in the past. You just need to wait at least a week between doing the first one and the second one. Put the bag on another limb, spray the plant down good, and remove the bag. Just make sure you mark the limbs. and keep them separate at harvest time.

Some observations from this micro-grow:

Quick shot of the tops of this scrappy group of small plants


These are both Dream Catchers in different tents, the first is under 3000k the second under 4000k -- the 3000k is further along. No science with such a small sample group, but I have noticed this pattern repeating.



Growing five "Mystery" from seeds, I've got several phenos, but also noticed the 3000k/4000k phenomenon -- the first pic is under 3000k and the second under 4000k, and once again the 3000k is further along.



This Diesel Skunk is finally starting to frost up, I've been told that some of the 10+ week strains can take longer to get going



I'm not sure what this frosty girl in a 1 gallon pot is (long story), but she's dense as can be an smells great. She'll be measured in grams not ounces, but I bet she'll taste great.



I am really looking forward to having fewer plants going and vegging them much longer next time. It's tricky starting with regular seeds, I'm going to cram the biggest pots I can fit into the tents, veg them, flip them, and then remove the boys -- saving one stud to start the next generation.

Six weeks and one day, this is my favorite part of the grow when they start to really fill out and (hopefully) frost up.



Edit; the first and last photo are Diesel Skunk, and if they are like their mother they will be a 10-11 week flower strain, which is (I have been told) why they sometimes frost up later in flower. So far that's been true, the first few weeks of flower they had none, and frost started to form after about 4 weeks.

I've also been told that THC is not only found in trichomes, and some exotic landrace strains will have little visible trichomes but will still get you totally wasted. I have yet to experience that myself, but it is an interesting concept.

I'm enjoying some fall colors on one of the Dream Catchers... maybe its because I'm originally from the Northeast, but I always love a plant that shows some nice color on its way out.

Week 7 buds, some need another week, some need 2-3.

Dream Catcher


Diesel Skunk


Lucy Banner


Forgetful Cindy


Mystery P1

Dream Catcher


They pretty much have exactly the same nutes, so its interesting to see how they have varying degrees of nute burn -- the different strains reacting differently to the same soil environment.

That last grow went off the rails. I had about a half dozen different strains, and every single plant in the grow hermied to one degree or another. One group was not a surprise, they were from seeds from a hermied plant, but the others were a mix of seeds I made from known sources, and commercially produced seeds. For it to be so ubiquitous I have to believe it was an environmental issue.

It's not a "light leak" thing, the room the tents are in goes dark when the tents are dark. I experimented with a new set of nutes, using a technique where you load the bottom 1/3 of the soil with time-release nutes and let the plant access them as it needs over the course of grow. I was not precise about measuring them, I naively thought there really couldn't be too much. Now I think there was too much. That's the only plausible explanation I've come up with.

Most of them hermied towards the end of the run, only producing 2-4 male flowers low in the plant, so most did not produce mature seeds or many of them. I did some breeding during this run but with unknown (hermie) pollen flying around that was a bust. In the end we got plenty of smokeable weed, so the grow was not tragic, however it was a bummer. Not that I've ever thought myself an expert, but I never imagined that after several years of growing I'd screw up so badly that I produced two full tents of hermied plants -- and I'm not even 100% sure why it happened.

I'm starting my first run of 2018, and I can't stop experimenting but I hope not to repeat those mistakes.

Here's one last pic from that run that came out nicely of an OGS Forgetful Cindy (I gave them a copy to use on their website):

Humanrob said:

That last grow went off the rails. I had about a half dozen different strains, and every single plant in the grow hermied to one degree or another. One group was not a surprise, they were from seeds from a hermied plant, but the others were a mix of seeds I made from known sources, and commercially produced seeds. For it to be so ubiquitous I have to believe it was an environmental issue.

It's not a "light leak" thing, the room the tents are in goes dark when the tents are dark. I experimented with a new set of nutes, using a technique where you load the bottom 1/3 of the soil with time-release nutes and let the plant access them as it needs over the course of grow. I was not precise about measuring them, I naively thought there really couldn't be too much. Now I think there was too much. That's the only plausible explanation I've come up with.

Most of them hermied towards the end of the run, only producing 2-4 male flowers low in the plant, so most did not produce mature seeds or many of them. I did some breeding during this run but with unknown (hermie) pollen flying around that was a bust. In the end we got plenty of smokeable weed, so the grow was not tragic, however it was a bummer. Not that I've ever thought myself an expert, but I never imagined that after several years of growing I'd screw up so badly that I produced two full tents of hermied plants -- and I'm not even 100% sure why it happened.

I'm starting my first run of 2018, and I can't stop experimenting but I hope not to repeat those mistakes.

Here's one last pic from that run that came out nicely of an OGS Forgetful Cindy (I gave them a copy to use on their website):

View attachment 4073512

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beautiful photo there Human BB8

Tim Fox said:

beautiful photo there Human BB8

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Thanks Bro, me and the iPhone get lucky sometimes.

Here are some pics of the start of 2018's first grow.

I've got some seedlings started. The pots that look empty have popped a root, but haven't broken the surface. They were older seeds and are taking their sweet time. I've got LSD (Hermetic Genetics, the older ones), and Double Diesel and Willamette Valley Pineapple (both OGS) going. My plan before starting this grow was to try and breed some more LSD, it was kick ass in my outdoor in 2016 and I'd love to have more seeds for indoor growing. For fun, I would pollinate one branch on one of the Jack Herer clones for some F1 madness. So far the LSD is not off to a strong start, so that plan is on hold until they prove themselves still viable and hardy.



I've got a pair of Jack Herer's that I'm going to use in a sort of a comparison grow for my own purposes. One will be in a SIP, the other a conventional fabric pot. In many ways they are not equal, ranging from size/shape/health of the clones to nutes I'll be growing them with. The purpose of the comparison for me is to have a side-by-side example of the different growth patterns each encourages, and see in the end how much each produces for me. SIPs have been more reliable and less maintenance in terms of watering, but have grown tons of thin "sucker branches" and a ton of leaves, and require much more branch pruning and defoliation. I look forward to seeing after managing both as best I can, which produces more bud, and if one is better quality than the other.

***
Edit: later that day... I've decided to abandon the SIP/non-SIP comparison. After reviewing my notes from previous grows, I think the plant in the SIP would grow too fast and take over the scrog. If I kept hacking it back to allow the other to fill out, effectively I would be topping it repeatedly causing it to produce endless small buds -- not my thing. I think to do a SIP/non-SIP comparison I would have to do it in separate tents where they don't share a SCROG and I could let each one set its own schedule.
***

Yes, they are overwatered in this pic, I hate plastic pots but find it difficult to up-pot from fabric, so I use them for the first part of the grow.


Here's a close-up of the Jack, I love a plant that starts frosting up early.

(when I first blew up the picture and saw the dots for a second I thought it might be the worst mite infestation I'd ever seen, and I ran back out with a loop to verify... they are indeed trichomes, lol)

looking good. keep us informed with hermie issue. I had a hermie issue a year ago too along with another friend of mine, as well, and a couple other guys I know. maybe heat stress

VegasWinner said:

looking good. keep us informed with hermie issue. I had a hermie issue a year ago too along with another friend of mine, as well, and a couple other guys I know. maybe heat stress

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Thanks. I did a bunch of things differently, but its hard to know what could do that.

When you say heat stress, do you think it was a short term thing where things got too hot for a period of time, or that the grow overall might have been a few degrees warmer than the plants would have liked?

Humanrob said:

Thanks. I did a bunch of things differently, but its hard to know what could do that.

When you say heat stress, do you think it was a short term thing where things got too hot for a period of time, or that the grow overall might have been a few degrees warmer than the plants would have liked?

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Glazed over this and saw you mentioned having to run heat and ac in the same day due to temp swings. If your constantly going up and down with temp that will also impact rh too. I have difficult time with this particularly on the shoulder seasons, I need a better insulated area. What I have seen I belive to be the result of temps too low.

Question
If you seeded them why would they have freaked out and gone into reproduction mode, the hormones should have been present to tell the plant to chill, we got babies on board? Though if all hermed and ther is no constant genetic factor it seems it must be environmental.

SSGrower said:

Glazed over this and saw you mentioned having to run heat and ac in the same day due to temp swings. If your constantly going up and down with temp that will also impact rh too. I have difficult time with this particularly on the shoulder seasons, I need a better insulated area. What I have seen I belive to be the result of temps too low.

Question
If you seeded them why would they have freaked out and gone into reproduction mode, the hormones should have been present to tell the plant to chill, we got babies on board? Though if all hermed and ther is no constant genetic factor it seems it must be environmental.

Click to expand...

For me, the heat put out by the dehumidifier at night sort of leveled off the cooler night temps, I ended out with a pretty narrow temp range overall between day and night, never truly hot or cold. That was a fall/winter grow, now I'm doing a winter/spring grow, I don't have enough AC power to do a summer run.

I know what you mean about having pollinated and then having the plant go hermie... that's a tough one. 2/3's of these seeds were suspect -- some were from a plant we loved but could not identify that hermied, so we collected those seeds. In my outdoor runs (2 consecutive seasons), they NEVER hermied -- it only happened indoors. Others were F1's of crosses I made, so those could be weak genetics, this was their test run. The last 4 were OGS seeds, and one I ran outdoors last summer and it did not hermie, but it did hermie indoors. I have to think this is environmental.