Sensi’s Eagle Bill Gets Its First Grow On 420 Mag

[Aroxol]

Laying in bed last night, I was thinking about the height of the plants I recorded vs. the height of my cabinet and it dawned on me there is absolutely no way in hell the measurements I took could be correct... so I just measured again this morning.

The short version is my last measurements were wrong. I measured from the base of the pot instead of the top of the coco (which is where I need to measure from), below are the REAL measurements. I think the 3 day dark period definitely caused more of a stretch than we would’ve seen otherwise, but no where near as intense as what I posted last week.

PLANT	Week 0	Week 1 (Day 7)	Week 2 (Day 14)	Week 3 (Day 21)
BL4	7.2”	8.5”	11.5 (HT 12.5”)
BL1	7”	8.5”	9.5 (HT 10.5”)
BL2	7”	9”	12.5 (HT 13.5”)

I’ll still test again several times, but now my confidence is back up that this light change absolutely works as well as I thought it would. Also, I replaced all digital timers with mechanical, so life is good. Sorry for the screw up on my part, was just a consequence of me going a little too quickly last week. As you can see, the distance from the coco to the floor is 7”, so that’s what I removed from last week’s measurements.

We’re back baby! And new week 3 measurements on Wednesday.

 

[Aroxol]

Week 3 Results:

M represents median height.
T represents tallest top.

PLANT	Week 0	Week 1 (Day 7)	Week 2 (Day 14)	Week 3 (Day 21)
BL4	7.2”	8.5”	M=11.5” (T-12.5”)	M=13” (T-14.5”)
BL1	7”	8.5”	M=9.5” (T-10.5”)	M=13” (T-14”)
BL2	7”	9”	M=12.5” (T-13.5”)	M=14.5” (T-16”)

After 3 weeks of flower under blue light only, stretch was only 2x or less across 3 phenos of eagle bill (sativa). I look at this is a fairly successful demonstration that stretch is reduced under blue lighting for the first 3 weeks of flower. I can tell some of these phenos would reach for the sky if I let them (which I’m about to).

Now the question is how will the plants react when I flip them over to traditional red spectrums - will they explode into great heights or remain in their compact size? Time will tell.

For the next part of the test, I’ll be turning the “veg” setting off completely (i.e. no more blue spectrum) in favor of the “bloom” setting (i.e. red spectrum). I will make this change tonight and continue to measure height weekly.

What’s pretty nice is if you look up the Eagle Bill strain, they call out 2 commonly identified phenos - I appear to have those plus an extra

BL1 is sort of a hybrid grower and somewhat compact (this is my extra pheno I believe).
BL2 is a very traditional sativa grower (known pheno), and would be super tall under normal lights.
BL4 is the compact shorter grower (known pheno).

Bonus comment: 3 weeks into flower it seems like this would be a good strain for growers concerned about smell. After becoming accustomed to diesels and skunks, this almost doesn’t even register for me. It smells great upon a stem rub, but not super smelly (yet).

Numero Uno (BL1)

Numero Dos (BL2)

Numero Quatro (BL4)

 

[Aroxol]

So far so good under the switch to red spectrum, and the plant has responded well to complete removal of Botanicare’s Cal-Mag Plus in favor of pure calcium carbonate and sea salt. Here’s a pic dump and I’ll measure again for on Wednesday. Plan is to let these grow pretty natural/ unaltered this round and then regenerate these same plants post harvest into a new amended coco blend and absolutely blast them off in my main tent (aligning to the shungite/ structured water plant face-off schedule).

Also, a grafting update. The bulk graft has grown and grown well, but I had to secure it with a zip tie as I could tell it was about to topple over under its own weight. This sort of makes me think a graft frankenmom may not work well for certain strains and/or I need to find a more structurally sound way to graft. I’ll probably just cave and buy a tissue culture kit for phenos I want to keep and kill all moms.

 

[TurboBucket]

I really like the idea of keeping strains via tissue culture. I have a bunch of bonsai mom's right now but I have to continually maintain them.
I think with tissue culture you could keep a far larger assortment of strains in a much smaller space.

 

[Aroxol]

Definitely! As small as baby test tube per cutting. The culture kits online look like absolute overpriced garbage, so I’ve decided the better approach is to understand the agar gel mix you need to create and then just buy those ingredients and some tubes. It’s our curse to always feel like we need to hoard strains, but like you I’m just tired of the management. LMK if you come across any good content/ offerings and I’ll do the same. So far all my research is telling me I can make culture nutrient solution gel for $30-40.

 

[TurboBucket]

That's kind of where I stalled out and shifted focus. I couldn't find any suitable agar that wasn't directly marketed for that and uppriced accordingly. Maybe I'll take a stroll around the web later and see what turns up.

 

[Aroxol]

Awesome man, I’m waiting on replies and will post them here when they arrive. We can collectively determine where our BS meter is at with the answers

Taking off for the night, cheers man.

 

[DonChiefums20]

That graft is still pretty cool. I’m keeping my eyes peeled for any tissue culture info. When I looked it was just so expensive I didn’t even look long.

 

[Aroxol]

Nothing to do with eagle bill, just a little bud porn - cookies (forum cut)

 

[DonChiefums20]

Nothing to do with eagle bill, just a little bud porn - cookies (forum cut)

Looks so tasty!

 

[Aroxol]

Ok folks, height test is officially over, absolutely no (literally zero) increase after switching to red. As a result, I Defoled a little and trained some branches down to increase airflow.

Now onto the more fun stuff, phenos. At this point in the grow there is a clear winner based on looks, smell, and bud structure...and that winner is pheno BL2. You never know until the grow is done and you get to smoke them, but if I had to stack rank at this point it would be the 2,1,4. The good news is while I was hopeful, I wasn’t really seeing too much potential with this strain, but now I can tell #2 is a star is and will produce sparkling beautiful buds. Excited to see what she can do in the main tent under serious lighting, amended coco, and CO2 during the ultimate structured water/ shungite rumble in the jungle energy showdown.

 

[Aroxol]

Had to make the fateful decision today on who stays and who goes to comply with the rules...incredible bulk, your time has come old friend. Before she rides off into the garbage can sunset, here’s what the graft looks like, basically started rooting inside it looks like.

 

[Aroxol]

Da-da-da-day 35 Flower

Everything’s cruising along, treating this as a slow burn mellow grow post the light test. Right now I’m running 1.2EC in 3 gals of water, very little of which is actual nutrients. Large portion of that number is being driven by infused sea salt and pH down (which I have to apply in fairly large doses due to the calcium carbonate). I’ve really been on a light feed kick and the plants seem happy and healthy. Here’s some photos.

 

[DonChiefums20]

Looking good stacking nicely I see!

 

[Aroxol]

Looking good stacking nicely I see!

Yessir, smell very good too. Interested to smoke and vape them. Also curious to see how the regen will work/ look once I chop these off at the knees in about 4-5 weeks.

 

[Aroxol]

Hope you’re all having a great Sunday. Caught the plants as lights were going off, here’s a lazy morning photo dump. You can see how different the plants are.

-One lacks frost but will have the heaviest yield.

-One is super frosty with the highest bag appeal and will be lower yielding (I think).

-Ones sort of in the middle on frost and yield.

I’ve quite enjoyed this style of grow - having them in the same pot with the same low feed has done a tremendous job showing off characteristics, I gotta say. The frostiest pheno of the bunch is what I’m about to grow in my main tent alongside Sundae Driver, and I’m pretty excited to see what she’ll do with intense lighting and CO2 in the mix.

 

[Greatgasoo]

They are looking frosty! How many days into flower are you?

 

[Rucifer999]

NICE!!!! I've read about grafting in the past but haven't seen a journal yet. Can't wait to see the outcome.

 

[Aroxol]

They are looking frosty! How many days into flower are you?

Today is day 39 and I’m guessing they’ll go about 10 weeks. The super frosty one is the BL2 pheno/ plant from previous pics. In veg I was convinced BL1 was going to be the best of the lot, but #2 came alive in flower and I expect her to be super frosty by the end.

 

[Greatgasoo]

Well they are looking really healthy. Going to have some nice smoke. Good luck with everything!