HopHead 1st Journal - Afghani - NL In Soil From 2007 Seeds - Harvested

[HopHead]

air pump

Do you mean water pump or air fan ?

I have a Turbo Kloner which has the pump as you describe but it also has a fan which draws air out of the reservoir. I believe it's purpose is to cool, maybe to counteract any heating of the water by the water pump. I have the cloner in a room which is on its own heating zone which keeps a very stable temp. I had it set for 23C and the water in the cloner stayed at 23C with no variance. I checked that and the pH daily. So with the fan pulling air out and the top fitting loosely I expect there was an air exchange going on continuously. Also, I was removing the top daily to inspect the stems/roots which should be sufficient to cause the air to refresh.

I'm trying to understand the air stones but not quite getting it. I'm guessing the air stones are in the reservoir under water. I would think that the water would replace the air in the stone before long so do you remove them regularly so the water evaporates and in essence replenishes the stones with air ? And then reintroduce them to the reservoir ?

 

[ShiggityFlip]

The air stones are supplied by an air pump. I have tubes that go through grommets in the side of the reservoir and connect the air stones to an external air pump.
I am going to the turbocloner site to see what yours looks like inside.

 

[HopHead]

Just a quick correction to my previous post. The fan doesn't draw air out of the reservoir. It does the reverse; it blows air into the reservoir.

 

[ShiggityFlip]

Yeah I checked out the system. Pretty interesting. Should work fine for exchanging the air inside. I don't do any stem scraping. I just cut at a45 degree angle through a node while underwater. I know people have said that underwater is not necessary but it has been the source of my fastest and highest success rate. If I use cloned or rooting hormone it is at this stage, dissolved in the water when I make the cup. This way if vacuum draws inward when the cut is made it will pull some hormone water inside the plant.

I sit my cloner on cement to act as a heat sink for the pump and resevoir. Warm water holds less oxygen and invites bacterial and fungal growth. No dome on top, when the stems are being constantly sprayed there is no need for one. I put it on the edge of my veg light so they don't burn up from too much light.

I'm still interested I using ultrasonic misters. The first one I got is not the best so I need to order another.

 

[HopHead]

Things are going well here and I hope the same is true for all members. I took cuttings from Adma, Nash and Abby to clone on Feb 6. Their bottom branches weren't long enough to clone when I cloned the others so I waited until the other cuttings were planted. I took 3 cuttings from the bottom branches of each plant. I wanted to do a comparison cloning to see if there is an advantage to using cloning gel and I also want to see if there is a dead zone in my cloner. All cuttings except 1 was scraped. Cloning gel was applied to the cut end of 1 cutting from each plant for a total of 3. Cloning gel was applied to the entire stem from cut end to underside of collar to 1 cutting from each plant for a total of 3. And the remaining 3 cuttings had no gel applied. I spaced and alternated the cloning sites so that location shouldn't be a factor. This time I've kept the temp at 24C and today I changed the water and added Cloning solution and Root Excelurator one day sooner compared to my 1st cloning. So far there is no explosion of roots; checking daily and will update in a weeks time.

VEG Grow Room
Clones are all doing well. The temp is cold; as low as 10C at night and usually around 15-18 during daylight so I expect growth to be slow. Abby has remained in the Veg Room because he's not welcome in the flowering room yet. He'll have to wait until the Flowering Room is emptied. If he becomes unruly then 1 of his clones will take his place and he will take a 1 way trip to my compost bin.

Abby's male preflowers.

FLOWERING ROOM
Way too crowded for a 430w HPS light but seeds are the goal here so I expect things will work out well. The original 5 plants have finished 4 weeks and looking forward to 3 more weeks. I'll be thinking seeds instead of trichomes so my anticipated 7 weeks of flowering may be extended. We'll see. The original 5 plants are on the downside of the stretching curve. I hope. The 2 recent arrivals Nash and Adma are just starting on that curve and are sitting on a bed to get them closer to the light.

Noel grew 5.5" in the last 7 days and is 43" tall. She developed the 1st trichomes and is maintaining the lead in that department. So far she is my favorite. All the buds pictured are the top flowers on the main stem.

Nell grew 3" in the last week and is 25" tall. Her stalk is arched otherwise she would be taller. I have her sitting on a 5 gal bucket to get her closer to the light when the plants are all together.

Ally grew 7" in the last week and is 36" tall. He loves the attention he's getting from the girls. That lucky bas%#*d. The day following my last post he started pollinating. Everyday I get his pollen airborne. I don't have a fan in the room so I shake and blow the pollen onto the girls. I'm looking for a fan. Unfortunately the local stores aren't stocking them yet. Who would want a fan in the winter anyway ?

Atly grew 11.5" in the last week and is 52" tall. She's the tallest. Sativa genes ? Looking forward to sampling her.

Adli grew 9" in the last week and is 39" tall.

Adma is 15" tall and was moved into the flowering room on the 6th. She grew 2" in 4 days and is starting to stretch. Pretty sure she is female from her preflowers.

Nash like Adma was moved into the flowering room on the 6th. Pretty sure Nash is male. I plan to breed him; he has a compact growth with short and wide leaves which are Afghani traits.

I water all the plants in the flowering room from the bottom. I fill the saucers when the plants are light in weight about every other day. One day this past week I filled the saucers twice to give them a heavier watering. I noticed a couple of the plants had their stem tips drooping a bit so I figured they were thirsty. I'd rather underwater at this stage than overwater, even though flowering plants need more water. Humidity in the room is higher than I like (53-69%) so I'm keeping the soil surface dry by bottom watering and picking up any discarded leaves to try and prevent any mold. One morning I could definitely feel the high humidity when I entered the room. Giving adequate space between plants is difficult but I'm trying my best. Only seeing 1 or 2 gnat flies so the bottom watering seems to be working. Hopefully the local store will start stocking fans soon. Giving some thought to putting a dehumidifier in the room. We'll see.

So I started with a Family of 9. One turned out to be intersex with both male and female preflowers. Three turned out to be male and I intend to breed all 3. Five turned out to be female which I intend to breed with the 3 males in 3 different flowering sessions. Following these 3 flowerings I intend to flower sensimilla.

Wish you all the best.

 

[ShiggityFlip]

Crazy jungle plants. You are going to end up with a metric crap ton of seeds! Seeds for years!

 

[HopHead]

Crazy jungle plants. You are going to end up with a metric crap ton of seeds! Seeds for years!

Yea, I shouldn't run out of Afghani/Northern Lights seeds during my lifetime. Should be enough for breeding purposes I think. I'd like to try and isolate Afghani indica landrace, Northern Lights hybrid and Thai sativa landrace. Don't know if that is possible but I intend to try. At the very least I should find some interesting phenotypes.

In 2007 I collected over 2500 seeds from 4 females pollinated by 3 males during 1 flowering cycle. If these plants produce similar numbers over 3 flowering cycles I should end up with 10,000 seeds total. Johnny Appleseed or rather Johnny Marijuanaseed ?

 

[HopHead]

The cuttings I took on Feb 6 still have not rooted - day 12 today. Not giving up but am disappointed and perplexed. Just have to keep working on my cloning until I get better results.

The clones from my 1st cuttings are doing quite well in the cold veg grow room. Temperatures ranging from 10C to 18C in the last week. Winter is showing signs of drawing to a close so temps should improve. Abby is showing a few male flower buds but they're staying closed for now. There is a goji berry plant waking up from its winter sleep and 3 peppers plants trying to survive an overwintering. I've been combating aphids with a mineral oil/soap solution which they (the peppers) apparently don't like. I've been successful at keeping the aphids off the cannabis so far. It's important to treat aphids before they grow wings which they do after about 5-7 days.

In the flowering room things are going well. Nash and Adma are 12 days since the flip and are beginning to stretch out. No stigmas showing on Adma and Nash's male flowers haven't opened yet. Adma will stay in the flowering room to be pollinated by Ally if he can keep it up - pun intended. Nash will hopefully pollinate the next group. Timing may make this difficult so I'm hoping his cuttings will root.
Adma is 20.5" tall. She grew 5.5" in the last week and 3" in the last 4 days.

Nash is 25" tall and he grew 5.5" in the last week and 3" in the last 4 days.

Ally is having a blast pollinating all the ladies. The girls are showing signs of fertilization - brown stigmas and swollen calyxes where the seeds are swelling. 5 weeks down and the start of week 6. So it looks like 2 more weeks and hopefully I'll be hanging the mothers to dry. Here's the gang flowering. I'm only seeing 1 gnat fly when I go in the room so the bottom watering seems to be working at limiting their chance of reproducing. Humidity still higher than I like at 58 - 67% this past week and temps low at 12 - 21C. I'm being careful to not water too much hoping this will prevent any mold or mildew. So far so good. Keeping an eye on the stores for summer fans to arrive. I have a large floor fan and a dehumidifier if the need arises.

Ally is 38" tall and has grown 2" in the last week. The stretch is over and he's busy producing pollen.

Adli is 42" tall and has grown 3" in the last week. Hoping the girls will start filling in now that the stretch is over.

Nell is 27" tall and has grown 2" in the last week.

Noel is 45" tall and grew 2" in the last week.

Atly is 57" tall and grew 5" in the last week. My camera tripod wasn't tall enough to allow me to get a good pic of her top flowering cola so I settled for flowers lower down.

With 7 plants flowering under a 430w HPS the bud size is going to be limited; also because of seed production. In the past I've found 4-5 plants do well with this light. My rule of thumb is 100 watts per plant so this grow is about 50%. Hopefully when I flower for sensimilla I'll have added an LED comparable to 1000w HID.
Until that happens I'm happy with things so far. Hope everything is going well for all 420 members.

 

[HopHead]

My last posting was Wednesday, Feb 17th. On the 18th I removed Ally the stud. He accomplished his job to fertilize all the females. Removing him gave a little more room for the rest of the plants. I collected his pollen and have it stored in a small vial in the freezer. This is more of a trial run to get some experience because I have a number of future sativa grows planned where I want to collect pollen for storage.

On Monday the 22nd I was considering whether to remove Nash who's a male and was on day 17 since the flip. While trying to decide I noticed first one and then another aphid on him. My decision became very clear. Off to the compost. Haven't seen any other aphids in the flowering room so I'm hoping he was the only one infected. That would be highly unlikely but possible. He and Adma were only recently (21 days ago) brought up to the flowering room. Before that they were in the veg room in the basement where there were aphids on some pepper plants. So one or more made it to Nash or they came from eggs in the soil. In any event the flowering period should be very close to the end so aphids at this stage shouldn't pose much of a problem. Today is day 45 and in the past I've always harvested Afghani/Northern Lights around the 49th day. Mind you I didn't know about when exactly to harvest. I was taught in the 90's to harvest when about 1/4 of the stigmas turned brown. This grow I'm watching the trichomes and will harvest when I see cloudy starting to turn amber. Noel was the first to develop trichomes and some of hers seem to be starting to cloud over now. All the others are still crystal clear. Their stretch has stopped and water uptake has decreased. I'm being careful to water only when they are thirsty - light weight - and only water from the bottom to reduce any chance of mold. So far so good. The height measurements below were recorded on Wed the 24th.

Nell is 28" tall and grew 1" in the last 7 days.

Adli is 42.5" tall and grew .5" in the last week.

Atly is 59" tall and grew 2" in the last week. After Noel she has IMO the next best trichomes. I'm thinking of keeping a clone of her and Noel growing for a while to be mothers.

Noel is 45" tall and didn't grow at all in the last week.

Adma is sure looking like a male to me. I was pretty sure he was a female but it looks like I was wrong. Of the nine plants I started there was 1 intersex so I'm keeping an eye on Adma. Flower buds haven't opened yet but I'll have to decide what to do with Adma. If he's intersex then he'll be composted. I may collect pollen from him or include him in the next flowering.

Here is Pussycat totally loving the flowering room.

Well I had a failure with my clones. After 19 days I pulled the plug on them. On day 7 I changed the water and I'm quite sure I screwed up when I heated the water to 30C allowing it to lower to 24C (room temp) through the night. In my first cloning the water was heated to 27C and allowed to lower to 23C. Next time I'll try maintaining a 23C from start to finish. Nothing really lost (lots of other clones and tons of seeds) but I still have work to do on cloning obviously. Better to experiment and make mistakes when there's not much at stake.

I will post some picks of the veg room in my next posting. I'm planning to transplant 4 females into 5 gal pots in preparation for the next flowering. Not sure if that flowering will be for seeds or sensimilla. I'm leaning towards females only.

I hope everyone is doing well.

 

[ShiggityFlip]

Great pics and I love the technique share. Really nice trichs on atly and noel!

 

[HopHead]

Thanks Shiggs. You're too kind. If my successes and failures, adventures and misadventures help anybody then I'm more than happy to share. Sometimes discoveries are made through mistakes (ie. penicillin).

I must say I was surprised to see the trichome production on Atly and Noel. I wondered why the trichomes developed after pollination when the seed pods were enlarging. Curious, because I had assumed that the trichome's purpose was to attract pollinators by way of aroma. Birds don't have a sense of smell so I figured they weren't for seed dispersal. I checked with Jorge Cervantes in his The Cannabis Encyclopedia and he says "Biologists hypothesize that trichomes evolved as a defense mechanism...against offensive insects and mites". Defense makes perfect sense to me. They protect the flowers and the seeds. He also talks about other benefits the trichomes provide to the plant; less palatable to animals(except humans, lol), can inhibit some fungi, help insulate from wind and low humidity, and forms a natural sunscreen against UVB light rays. Who woulda thought ?

 

[David Bowman]

Hope all is well in your world.

Is this grow still alive?

We would love to be updated with some pictures and info.

How about posting a 420 Strain Review?

If you need any help with posting photos, please read our Photo Gallery Tutorial.

I am moving this to Abandoned Journals until we get updates.

Sending you lots of love and positive energy.

 

[HopHead]

Hope all is well in your world.

Is this grow still alive?

We would love to be updated with some pictures and info.

How about posting a 420 Strain Review?

If you need any help with posting photos, please read our Photo Gallery Tutorial.

I am moving this to Abandoned Journals until we get updates.

Sending you lots of love and positive energy.

Thank you for your interest, slight nudge, lots of love and positive energy. I've been intending to update but have put it off while being busy with other demands.

The grow is still alive in the veg room; the flowering plants have been harvested and are curing. I took some photos and will take more for my next post which I will try tomorrow. So this is not abandoned by me, just a little tardy on posting which I apologize for. Having harvested and something available to sample after 5 yrs sobriety from cannabis might have something to do with my tardiness.

Sending lots of love and positive energy back atcha.

 

[ShiggityFlip]

Glad everything is cool HH!

 

[HopHead]

Glad everything is cool HH!

Thanks a lot Shiggs. Appreciate your sentiments. Everything here is cool and going well. I hope the same is true for you as well.

It's been a month since my last post so I have an overdo update. I'm posting some pics I took on Mar 2nd of the girls and their trichomes. A few hours after these photos were taken the lights turned off for the last time. The trichomes were clouding over and fully formed. I didn't see any amber trichs so I could have left them for probably another week but I wanted to clean out the room. After 40 hrs of darkness they were cut down at soil level and hung upside down in the basement. Seven days later I trimmed off the stalks and leaves and laid them out on an 8-tier herb dryer net. Two days later I bottled them and monitored the humidity with a couple of small meters. The temp in the basement was 15 - 18 C and humidity averaged 46%. I didn't take any pics of the plants hanging to dry due to stealth reasons. I expect to be set up better for my next flowering and harvest and will be able to provide better picture documentation for that grow.

This is Noel. She and Atly were/are my favourites - best trichomes. Noel was a good height for my set-up so I'd like to keep one of her clones around for awhile.

Adli was a nice plant, less trichomes to my eye, nothing special.

This is Nell who is a good candidate for SCROG in my opinion. I may give this a try with a couple of her clones.

Atly was the tallest and had good trichome and was the 1st to show trichs.

These are pics of the harvest as of today. I've been sampling since Mar 4th harvest day so the yield was a little bit more than what is in these pictures. But the yield was small due to seed production. I didn't weight the yield so I'll do that tomorrow and try and extrapolate to get an idea what the yield was. As the seeds drop out of the buds I place them in the larger container and once a week I pour them into the small pill vials. That way I know the seeds in the larger containers have to dry further while the seeds in the smaller vials can be packaged and frozen without much further drying. Looks like I'll end up with a couple of thousand seeds. When I process the seeds I'll post some pics.
I've been trying to determine tastes and smells but my talents in that department are minimal. I find Atly has a floral smell - faintly reminiscent of rose. The other 3 smell the same to me. At first they all had a green chlorophyll smell but that has changed to a predominant sweet scent. As far as taste they all taste the same to me. Smooth but nothing distinctive. Of course I will continue to sample and try and identify smells and tastes, lol. I expect the curing process will affect both smell and taste. In the past I always froze the harvest so I've never cured Cannabis before. Since harvest I've been very busy so I haven't had a chance to sample and sit and ponder/wonder. The highs seems to last about 4 hrs and have varied from energetic to couch lock. Atly and Noel more energetic and Adli and Nell more couch lock I think. I'm going to continue testing to see if this is true. There are many influences that affect a person's day so I expect the highs to vary.

In my next post I'll have pics of the clones and Abby (male). He hasn't begun to stretch but his male flowers are blooming hidden close to the main stem. With a dozen ladies around I can't blame him. Four of the clones are in 12'/5 gal pots and will be pinched/pruned soon. The other 8 are in 6"/.75 gal pots.

Hope everyone is well and your gardens are happy.

 

[HopHead]

Just a few pics of the veg room I took on Mar 26th. I haven't been able to log in since my last post; not sure why but after requesting a new password and updating all seems well again. I will be taking more pics soon and posting them when I get a chance. I've cleaned the harvested bud of seeds and will be discarding any unripe ones. The bud is now in air-tight containers curing.

Here are the clones.

Here they are labeled. You can see similarities with each phenotype.

This is Nell who has swirly leaves. She was the shortest of the four and had a bent stalk which makes me think she would be a good candidate for SCROG.

This is Abby (male) who is really anxious to go into the flowering room. He's had flowers for some time now and is starting to spread his pollen.

I've been cleaning out a room which will be my flowering room but I have quite a bit of work to do to make it ready so Abby and the 4 clones in 12" pots will have to wait a little longer. My plan is to let Abby pollinate the 4 clones the first 4 weeks of flowering and then remove him for the remainder of the flowering period.

Hope everything is green for you all.

 

[HopHead]

Hope everybody is well and your garden is thriving.

I'm closing this journal as completed. My outdoor veg, herb flower gardens are requiring my attention and this grow is kinda finished. Bud is in the jar, seeds are in the freezer and clones will be flowered sometime in the future. So I won't have time to continue posting to this journal and I don't want it considered abandoned. I plan to start another grow journal in the fall with sativas. I have a number of Thai and African sativas to grow so they will be in my next journal.

Here are some pictures of the seeds I harvested. Total count of seeds was 1485 for the 4 girls. I chose the darkest, largest and the ripest-looking seeds to freeze; 493. The remainder are in the fridge and will be spread around the countryside to do their thing.
Adli seeds; 505 total, 138 keepers for freezing are on the left, the ones on the right will see the wild outdoors.

Adli keepers.

Atly seeds. Tried to upload another pic which exceeded size boundary so that pic won't be posted. Like the Adli and other girls it showed both keepers and wild outdoors. 377 total count with 157 keepers.

Nell seeds; 242 total with 79 keepers

Noel seeds; 361 total with 119 keepers

A comparison of the 4 phenotype seeds. The seeds showed distinctions between the girls. Nell was the palest/whitest. One was greener, another was browner. It's been a couple of weeks since I froze the seeds so my memory of which was which is too vague to be sure at this point.

Here is a pic of the seeds packaged with details of parentage, characteristics, etc. I package the seeds in tinfoil that has its edges folded over 3 times to make a waterproof(I am led to believe) seal. That packet is then put in a baggy with the information paper before being stored in the freezer. This method of storage should last many years. My 2007 seeds were stored this way and proved to be over 80% viable 8 years later.

As I stated earlier I will return with another Grow Journal in the fall.

 

[David Bowman]

Hope all is well in your world.

Thanks for sharing this grow with us.

Please head over to the 420 Strain Reviews forum and post your smoke report there too.

I’m moving this to Completed Journals now.

Have you started a new grow you would like to share with us?

If so, please feel free to start a new journal here: Journals in Progress

Sending you lots of love and positive energy.

 

[ShiggityFlip]

Epic seed post. I will borrow that aluminum foil trick for my Seeds when I make them. +reps!