Arjan's Haze #1

Time for an update. Critical (RQS freebie) and White Widow x Bubblegum (a freebie from Canna Seeds) were harvested first week of October. Both those strains grew very well and were harvested right on time. Arjan's Strawberry Haze (two plants) and my sole Jack Herer were harvested end of October with abundant pistils: some clear, mostly cloudy and a bit of amber. So I've harvested all except Arjan's Haze #1.

Yesterday was November 1, and, in terms of pistil development, Arjan's Haze #1 is looking about like the others looked in late August or in the first weeks of September. For the longest time in August and September, it seemed the other strains were pushing pistils massively while all Arjan's Haze #1 did was create delicate green pre-flowers that seemed to have tender green pistils. That was prior to October 1. Pistils developed in October, and now are pushing out as I would expect based on other strains I've grown. But jeez it took her a long time...

In October, the temperatures were in the 60s and 70s over the last weeks, at that has let her continue to ripen nicely. But lately it's gotten colder, down into the 50s during the day and at night, even into the high 40s. Still, Arjan's Haze #1 looks like she can handle that. Very much alive and green (though many fan leaves have yellowed). Given the cooler nighttime temperatures, I've moved her to a warmer spot, into a different greenhouse, where she can have enhanced sun warmth during the day, up into the 70s again. Here some shots taken on November 1:

Arjan's Haze #1, a large and lankey plant needing lots of room and, as harvest nears, she needs ties to support her heavy and long branches. When will she be ripe?
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Arjan's Haze #1 on Nov 1

Pistils are looking good, but how much longer will the temperatures let her ripen? Sooner or later it will freeze, maybe in about 6 weeks. The official info from GHS website suggests Arjan's Haze #1 should be ripe for harvest October 21. For me, it is looking more like November 15. Or maybe even a little longer. I'm giving her nothing but plain water at this point. Will post final photos before harvest!
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Arjan's Haze #1 on Nov 1

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Arjan's Haze #1 on Nov 1
 
Now that the timeline is coming down to the final stretch, I thought more frequent updates might be useful for the next Arjan's Haze #1 grower. I've never seen the look of this plant in flowering before, so it is a bit unfamiliar to me. This plant is withstanding the cooler days and nights now, flowering into November. It is clearly into senesescence without losing its green leaves. This isn't anything like GHS' Arjan's Strawberry Haze, not in look nor in aroma, though the thick look of the pistils reminds me of how Sensi's Mexican Sativa (70% sativa) looked one year ago. Arjan's Haze #1 is also stated to be 70% sativa, so the longer ripening time was to be expected. But the expected harvest around Oct 21, which is what GHS reports on their website for an outdoor grow, is just not going to happen here. More later...

Here a few shots of Arjan's Haze #1 from today, November 4.
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Arjan's Haze #1 on Nov 4

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Arjan's Haze #1 on Nov 4

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Arjan's Haze #1 on Nov 4

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Arjan's Haze #1 on Nov 4
 
Hey Emeraldo, great growing! Your plants look really good. I wonder if the Arjan's Haze #1 will top the Mexican one you did last year as that sounded like it came out fantastic.

We're in Spring down here in NZ now, and after the 'outdoor off season' when I made compost and re-amended the soil, and this time taking your advice I added some dolomite lime to hopefully avoid what seemed like a pH nute lockout midway thru flowering. I have 2 white widows and 2 gorgonzola/white widows starting out from seed that I harvested from last year's grow. 1 of the Gorgonzola/widows I am letting grow up to be guerilla grow to hopefully be hidden amongst some Bay Laurels, and the other three I am trying my hand at quadlining them.

Anyway, great growing, keep up the good work!
 
Stunger

Great to hear from you, thanks for writing. Yes, for you it's time to sow again, the fun starts over. I am almost done reaping, ready to let it rest a while.

A cup or two of dolomite lime is definitely not a mistake for your soil as I'm sure you'll see. I used my old soil from last year in the tomatoes this year and started over from scratch for cannabis. I found an organic soil base consisting of 50% wood fiber and 50% composted bark in a garden shop, so this soil is similar to a forest floor. I even started a thread about it and got some input a few months ago. Wood fiber soil is the basis of my growing medium, but there isn't much else in that mixture that would feed hungry plants. It doesn't have nutrients or amendments, it barren of NPK. So I added what I thought was needed, and ran into one issue: calcium deficiency.

One lesson I learned this growing season was the necessity of adding calcium/magnesium to my soil. I actually diagnosed a calcium deficiency and realized I had not added enough calcium/magnesium (also known as Cali-Mag) to the wood fiber soil. The result was that the lower fan leaves yellowed towards the end of veg, especially on the sativas. I looked it up and, sure enough, calcium was desperately needed or else the mobile element calcium was going to be transported away to other areas of the plants where calcium is needed. I mixed some Cali-Mag with water and poured it into the soild. I don't know exactly how, but the problem disappeared. The leaves that were already yellow did not improve, but the yellowing problem stopped. Next time I'll remember to add a good cup of Cali-Mag to each tub of soil.

You remembered the Mexican Sativa. It's still my favorite from last year, maybe for all time. It invigorates but leaves the head clear. Fortunately there's still some of it left, as it was a good producer and top quality. I'll let you know how the Arjan's Haze #1 is when I know. Harder to grow than Arjan's Strawberry Haze (which have both been harvested). Am getting a bit concerned about the cold temperatures coming on, I hope the Haze #1 will ripen nicely over the next two weeks, maybe the weather will warm up a tad.
 
Hi Emeraldo,

As well as Dolomite, I also added in some gypsum to my containers, as I used it in my vege garden where the soil has a certain amount of clay and it can be good for breaking clay up. I believe gypsum gives some calcium availability too. Dolomite has magnesium as well as calcium, I have not used CalMag before, but I presume it must give something additional to Dolomite as it is mentioned often. Perhaps I need to get some and be ready to add it to the soil in flowering if I get the yellowing of leaves that occurred in last season's grow.

I have been reading on high brix gardening which seems very interesting, as well as exciting for the benefits it gives. As you are doing in your wood fibre forest floor approach the Brix people don't advocate high NPK numbers, but as you and they say, it is calcium that is most needed. I bought a worm farm set up after last season's grow, and it is now humming along making plenty of 'worm tea' which I am diluting somewhere in 5:1 to 10:1 range, and I feel the cannabis as well as my vege garden are doing well with it so far. I think the High Brix approach also advocates foliar feeding which I may get another mist hand sprayer to try this too. The mist sprayer I currently have I am planning to use to spray Colloidal Silver on a selected female branch in an attempt to create some feminized seeds.

I bought a second refractometer as it was only a few bucks and I thought would be interesting to see what readings I get from it. I have only tried in on a seedling leaf so far and it gave approx 8.5 brix reading. But soon as my quadlining plants grow out I'll have some more leaves available to test again.

Yes I often recalled your praise of the Mexican Sativa when I am perusing the genetics of seed bank strains. It will be interesting how you find Arjan's Haze #1, and what seems a more Brix approach you are taking with the low NPK. When I think back to a plant I grew from an unknown bag seed several years ago I often wondered why it came out so sticky and produced such a fantastic high. Of course it may have had some freak genetics, but It may have been from a semi unintended Brix approach I used, as I never amended the soil which was a simple bag of shop bought organic soil, it is possible that it's low NPK contributed to a super sticky result, I dunno, the other thing I did with it, was that I added 2 or 3 inches of volcanic scoria to the bottom of the container, at the time I was only doing this to avoid the roots getting 'wet feet' in the container, but now I wonder whether the scoria gave the plants roots a good source of minerals which I now understand is part of the High Brix approach. Once again I don't know, but when I re-amended my containers for this season I poured a quantity of scoria and scoria dust into the base of the containers, I also mixed in some paramagnetic rock dust to the soil as well. Hopefully not over done, we'll see in time.
 
Stunger said:
Hi Emeraldo,

As well as Dolomite, I also added in some gypsum to my containers, as I used it in my vege garden where the soil has a certain amount of clay and it can be good for breaking clay up. I believe gypsum gives some calcium availability too. Dolomite has magnesium as well as calcium, I have not used CalMag before, but I presume it must give something additional to Dolomite as it is mentioned often. Perhaps I need to get some and be ready to add it to the soil in flowering if I get the yellowing of leaves that occurred in last season's grow.

I have been reading on high brix gardening which seems very interesting, as well as exciting for the benefits it gives. As you are doing in your wood fibre forest floor approach the Brix people don't advocate high NPK numbers, but as you and they say, it is calcium that is most needed. I bought a worm farm set up after last season's grow, and it is now humming along making plenty of 'worm tea' which I am diluting somewhere in 5:1 to 10:1 range, and I feel the cannabis as well as my vege garden are doing well with it so far. I think the High Brix approach also advocates foliar feeding which I may get another mist hand sprayer to try this too. The mist sprayer I currently have I am planning to use to spray Colloidal Silver on a selected female branch in an attempt to create some feminized seeds.

I bought a second refractometer as it was only a few bucks and I thought would be interesting to see what readings I get from it. I have only tried in on a seedling leaf so far and it gave approx 8.5 brix reading. But soon as my quadlining plants grow out I'll have some more leaves available to test again.

Yes I often recalled your praise of the Mexican Sativa when I am perusing the genetics of seed bank strains. It will be interesting how you find Arjan's Haze #1, and what seems a more Brix approach you are taking with the low NPK. When I think back to a plant I grew from an unknown bag seed several years ago I often wondered why it came out so sticky and produced such a fantastic high. Of course it may have had some freak genetics, but It may have been from a semi unintended Brix approach I used, as I never amended the soil which was a simple bag of shop bought organic soil, it is possible that it's low NPK contributed to a super sticky result, I dunno, the other thing I did with it, was that I added 2 or 3 inches of volcanic scoria to the bottom of the container, at the time I was only doing this to avoid the roots getting 'wet feet' in the container, but now I wonder whether the scoria gave the plants roots a good source of minerals which I now understand is part of the High Brix approach. Once again I don't know, but when I re-amended my containers for this season I poured a quantity of scoria and scoria dust into the base of the containers, I also mixed in some paramagnetic rock dust to the soil as well. Hopefully not over done, we'll see in time.
Click to expand...

The dolomite lime has some cali-mag in it, but I have the impression it is more of an additional "trace" amount of calcium, not what you would add to specifically prevent a calcium deficiency. I say that because I added plenty of dolomite lime to my wood-fiber based soil mix this past Spring, and I nonetheless had a calcium deficiency. Next year I will add a cup of cali-mag to each 30 L tub in mixing the soil and not rely on the trace amount in the lime. I think it is better to add an ample amount in mixing the soil up than have to scramble and make up for a deficiency later when the leaves are turning yellow all of a sudden at the peak of vegetative phase.

I am not sure what high-brix gardening is, please explain.

Sounds like your worm farm is producing some good soil too.
I had an uncle who went down and started a worm farm :ganjamon:

I did foliar spraying of neem oil mixed with surgical soap this year to prevent bugs from attacking the plants and it seems to have worked well for the most part. The white butterfly did not eat the top buds to the extent they did in past years, so that is a good non-toxic pest prevention. I sprayed the neem oil / soap mix every two weeks or so before the fourth week of flowering as it is an organic application and loses its effect after a few weeks.

Yes, the Arjan's Haze #1 and the Arjan's Strawberry Haze are strains that need nutrients in goodly amounts but GHS says on their website that the grower should be careful not to overfeed. I guess watching the plants for deficiencies is the way to go. As for pH, in videos online they recommend pH of 5.7 for soil, and fortunately for me the wood-fiber/bark soil mix came with an official pH of 5.8 stated on the package, so it provided a good starting point. After adding lime and organic souces of NPK my soil pH came in at around 7, and after that I consistently watered the plants all summer long with cheap bottled drinking water that I pH-adjusted to around 5.7-6.0 with a few drops of vinegar.

As for your luck with the bagseed, I wouldn't attribute the stickiness and fantastic high you had to low NPK. Low NPK risks a deficiency of N or P or K. But what you describe about the volcanic scoria and rock dust really makes sense to me: Above all, the roots need oxygen for a happy plant. That rock layer in the bottom of your pot gives the roots oxygen because the drainage is so good.

Over the years I have learned one thing: Grow the roots! Above-ground problems have to be dealt with, but growing the roots is the most essential thing in growing cannabis, which means not only giving the right nutrients, adding micorrhizae fungal networks, giving correct pH (acheived through adjusting the water pH), mixing up a loose soil that allows drainage and allows oxygen to reach the roots between waterings.

Cheers

Emeraldo
 
Hi Emeraldo,

I'm a big fan on growing the roots too, not so much from experience but more from reading other growers accounts of plant improvements by doing so. All my containers have holes drilled in them for improved aeration, and to prevent the soil leaking out with watering I have an 'airey' landscape type fabric, lining the container but still allowing air thru. I did this last season and are doing it again as unless I buy new containers or duct tape the holes up then I am committed to continuing this. I felt doing this created much improved root growth in last season's grow, as did a layer of mulch on top.

Interesting that you drop your water's pH to the level you want with a few drops of vinegar. After my possible nute lockout pH experience last season I will consider that too. As this grow I will be monitoring the pH which I never did last season, altho in saying that it will be with a cheap soil pH meter so I'll have to use my own eye as well. My soil component of last years super soil mix was mostly peat which I understand breaks down to a more acidic pH, maybe that's what happened to my grow last season. Now with the addition of Dolomite it seems to be around 6 - 7 range, good to know you were able to lower it fine using the vinegar.

Re High Brix gardening; I have no actual experience in this. I only became aware of it very recently. I had long been aware of organic gardening, and of other variations such as permaculture, Rudolph Steiner etc. But my curiosity became piqued at reading that when plants were grown to high brix levels they resulted in being tastier, sweeter, and were far more resilient to pests. Stories like 2 farmers growing the same crops being hit by locusts and the paddocks that were grown to high brix levels were untouched by the locusts while the other farmer's crops were decimated. Similar when sheep grazing pastures are high brix, the sheep eat not just the grass but thistles that usually go uneaten. One of the 420 members, DocBud, has some high brix journals, as do others, and I understand he also markets a high brix growing kit, not much good for me being here in New Zealand. I think one of his high brix crops came in at 32% THC if I remember right, I don't know if that's merely a great strain or from his high brix approach but it sounds an outstanding result. The view I seem to get is that organic living soil is great, but high brix takes it to another level. I have no experience in this, just read a lot of intriguing testaments of it's results. I can't say I actually understand it so I could be way off. But measuring Brix levels is done with a Refractometer, which measures the index of refraction of a liquid sample, light bends when passing thru a liquid, pure water with no suspended solids would have a brix level of zero. When checking the Brix level of, say cannabis, you would take a leaf or two and compress it in something like a garlic press and let a drop or two of the resulting sap/juice to fall on the refractometer's prism, fold down the cover and look thru the eyepiece to take the reading. I bought a old second hand refractometer for less than $10, and have seen them selling new for $30 - $40 (Chinese models), my one works perfectly well, I am sure as well as it did when it was new over 30 years ago, there is not really anything to go wrong with them from what I can see. You often read that a refractometer measures the sugar levels of the plants juice/sap. But I understand it is more correct to say it measures the levels of dissolved solids, these can be sugar, but also too, amino acids, minerals, flavornoids, vitamins, oils, hormones etc etc. The higher the % level the better it is. Apparently when cannabis has a Brix above about 12% it becomes very pest resistant. If you are getting 18% that is very good, some people have managed above 20%. At a higher brix levels the cannabis plant's leaves apparently take on a more 'waxy' appearance. I read of an interesting comparison of high brix grown plants compared with several different but highly esteemed organic living soil approaches, and surprisingly, to me at least, they all measured brix levels that were low'ish, like maybe 8% or thereabouts, whereas the high brix garden grown plants were in the 12% - 18% range. With High Brix, the traditional weighting of high NPK is not the main thing but mineralization is. I understand that Calcium is the most important mineral in quantity for high brix, maybe 100 time more than Nitrogen. Some things I've read on High Brix suggest to not have lots of compost material in your soil which probably would be seen as mostly good in a usual organic approach. I find the Brix approach very intriguing but I am not clear myself yet on what exactly to do for it. At the end of the day, I am re-using last season's home made super soil, I wasn't about to throw that out and start again. I did add some more amendments and let it cook for 3 or 4 months for this season, then with the calcium in mind I also added dolomite, gypsum and ground up mussel and oyster shells as well as rock dust and a scoria layer on the bottom. So far my plants this season are looking nice and healthy so that's encouraging at least :hookah:
 
Stunger said:
Hi Emeraldo,

I'm a big fan on growing the roots too, not so much from experience but more from reading other growers accounts of plant improvements by doing so. All my containers have holes drilled in them for improved aeration, and to prevent the soil leaking out with watering I have an 'airey' landscape type fabric, lining the container but still allowing air thru. I did this last season and are doing it again as unless I buy new containers or duct tape the holes up then I am committed to continuing this. I felt doing this created much improved root growth in last season's grow, as did a layer of mulch on top.

Interesting that you drop your water's pH to the level you want with a few drops of vinegar. After my possible nute lockout pH experience last season I will consider that too. As this grow I will be monitoring the pH which I never did last season, altho in saying that it will be with a cheap soil pH meter so I'll have to use my own eye as well. My soil component of last years super soil mix was mostly peat which I understand breaks down to a more acidic pH, maybe that's what happened to my grow last season. Now with the addition of Dolomite it seems to be around 6 - 7 range, good to know you were able to lower it fine using the vinegar.

Re High Brix gardening; I have no actual experience in this. I only became aware of it very recently. I had long been aware of organic gardening, and of other variations such as permaculture, Rudolph Steiner etc. But my curiosity became piqued at reading that when plants were grown to high brix levels they resulted in being tastier, sweeter, and were far more resilient to pests. Stories like 2 farmers growing the same crops being hit by locusts and the paddocks that were grown to high brix levels were untouched by the locusts while the other farmer's crops were decimated. Similar when sheep grazing pastures are high brix, the sheep eat not just the grass but thistles that usually go uneaten. One of the 420 members, DocBud, has some high brix journals, as do others, and I understand he also markets a high brix growing kit, not much good for me being here in New Zealand. I think one of his high brix crops came in at 32% THC if I remember right, I don't know if that's merely a great strain or from his high brix approach but it sounds an outstanding result. The view I seem to get is that organic living soil is great, but high brix takes it to another level. I have no experience in this, just read a lot of intriguing testaments of it's results. I can't say I actually understand it so I could be way off. But measuring Brix levels is done with a Refractometer, which measures the index of refraction of a liquid sample, light bends when passing thru a liquid, pure water with no suspended solids would have a brix level of zero. When checking the Brix level of, say cannabis, you would take a leaf or two and compress it in something like a garlic press and let a drop or two of the resulting sap/juice to fall on the refractometer's prism, fold down the cover and look thru the eyepiece to take the reading. I bought a old second hand refractometer for less than $10, and have seen them selling new for $30 - $40 (Chinese models), my one works perfectly well, I am sure as well as it did when it was new over 30 years ago, there is not really anything to go wrong with them from what I can see. You often read that a refractometer measures the sugar levels of the plants juice/sap. But I understand it is more correct to say it measures the levels of dissolved solids, these can be sugar, but also too, amino acids, minerals, flavornoids, vitamins, oils, hormones etc etc. The higher the % level the better it is. Apparently when cannabis has a Brix above about 12% it becomes very pest resistant. If you are getting 18% that is very good, some people have managed above 20%. At a higher brix levels the cannabis plant's leaves apparently take on a more 'waxy' appearance. I read of an interesting comparison of high brix grown plants compared with several different but highly esteemed organic living soil approaches, and surprisingly, to me at least, they all measured brix levels that were low'ish, like maybe 8% or thereabouts, whereas the high brix garden grown plants were in the 12% - 18% range. With High Brix, the traditional weighting of high NPK is not the main thing but mineralization is. I understand that Calcium is the most important mineral in quantity for high brix, maybe 100 time more than Nitrogen. Some things I've read on High Brix suggest to not have lots of compost material in your soil which probably would be seen as mostly good in a usual organic approach. I find the Brix approach very intriguing but I am not clear myself yet on what exactly to do for it. At the end of the day, I am re-using last season's home made super soil, I wasn't about to throw that out and start again. I did add some more amendments and let it cook for 3 or 4 months for this season, then with the calcium in mind I also added dolomite, gypsum and ground up mussel and oyster shells as well as rock dust and a scoria layer on the bottom. So far my plants this season are looking nice and healthy so that's encouraging at least :hookah:
Click to expand...

Hi Stunger

I tried to get the pH correct this year. With ample lime, the soil pH was (according to my cheap little soil pH meter) around 7, which was higher than the breeder Green House Seeds recommended. So I used the Hanna pH meter for water to figure out how much vinegar to add to a 1.5 L bottle of cheap mineral water I got at the supermarket by the 6-pack (this water also has some calcium and magnesium in it). Anyway, if I add 30 drops to 1.5 L of this water, it came out consistently between 5.2 to 5.7 (a little variation between waterings is beneficial). With soil by itself at pH 7.0 and if the water was 5.5, I figured the plants would get an overall environment of around 6.0. That was apparently ok.

If you go the route of lowering pH with vinegar, I would note that a really soft water is more difficult to adjust. I tried it with distilled water (extremely soft) and just a few drops lowered the pH way more than I wanted.

Brix I have only heard of in the winegrape harvesting context. In California, the grape grower will test the brix to see if the grapes are sufficiently sweet to make wine. Winemakers insist on a certain brix before they'll buy the grapes, say 23 brix. I understand it is a measure of sweetness, of sugar content. It would be interesting to hear more about brix and cannabis. If I had to guess what it means, I'd guess that the grower somehow facilitates the production of sugars in growing the cannabis plant, particularly during flowering, which sugars translate into heightened THC and terpenes.

By the way, do you have any seedlings yet? Aren't you in the equivalent of May in the northern half?

Today I am working against the cold weather to get my Arjan's Haze #1 to ripen. The cold has set in and -- for the next week at least -- it looks like the outdoor temperatue will hover around 40 F (4 C), which is death to a cannabis plant unless I get it to a warmer place. The greenhouse it is in is just as cold as outside because the overcast sky blocks all sun most of the time. I've never grown into a cold November, so I didn't really have a plan.

Bring the plant indoors? That crossed my mind, but this plant is so lanky and sprawling. So I actually did something new for me and saved the day by installing a heater in the greenhouse. It's an old convection heater I've had for years. The temperature inside the greenhouse is now around 60 (15 C), which I hope is warm enough to keep the plant alive until it has finished flowering. Right now there are still new white pistils pushing out every day, so my guess is it will still take a week or two. Below some shots I took with the iPhone today:
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The Arjan's Haze buds look nice in the pics, sugary, and I am sure they would give a pleasant kick, but they do look like they can further benefit with more time. Hopefully the heater works well without altering the humidity adversely. It is difficult keeping late flowering outdoor plants happy when the cold or wet weather sets in earlier or longer than you want.

Re Brix; It does sound like sugar plays a part in it. I have read of those who swear by adding molasses to the soil when watering, and read of growers who swear by adding milk too. Some say it is more ideal to set up the soil, over time without these things, where instead the soil biology takes care of everything. It seems there are a variety of approaches that get high brix levels. When testing the sap of leaves, different readings can be obtained at different times of the day, or before or after the leaves have been watered or foliar feed. I hope that regardless of whatever 'quirks' there are to the readings, that I can still get a general idea on what my plants brix levels are, and see how they fare in relation to the observed health of the plants. However, all numbers aside, I only really care about the quality of the resulting high. I am encouraged by people who have tried high brix cannabis and swear it is up another level from organic. So I'm curious what readings can be obtained and how that relates to the end result.

I will bear in mind your experiences with using vinegar to lower pH. Your plants looked great last season so given that you are trying different things this time it is good you have got them looking healthy again. Mine looked great up until half way thru flowering then the yellowing leaves and probably ph nute lockup issue. This time, so far they are looking good, plus they have dolomite gypsum oyster/mussel shell, and receive worm tea most days. So hopefully this time I can keep them looking good till the end.

Yes, I started this season's grow mid September by germinating 2 white widows and 2 white widow/gorgonzola crosses. They have been going for 8 weeks and so far are looking good. All of them are in containers outdoors. One of them I am letting grow tall to be secreted amongst a Bay Laurel hedge when it grows a little taller, it is about 40cm at the moment, and the other 3 I am 'quadlining', last season I took a fluxing approach. I think that fluxing in a grow tent is probably the best way to allow the time necessary in veg mode for the flux structure to maximally develop. But quadlining perhaps will make more use of the limited time available when growing outdoors (while keeping a low profile as they're on a balcony) with as many colas as possible, for that reason I am currently thinking I will keep all over/under lateral growth on the quad 'arms' whereas in my fluxing last season I pruned these off. Or, if I prune any off it will only be the thinner weaker lateral growth regardless on whether it is under/over or side to side. It seems to me that the resulting bud density on colas is always the most on thicker lateral growth so too much a shame to prune off.

My plants this year are regular's from last season's bred seeds, I also tried to pick them under magnification using that 'internet' method of choosing possible female seeds based on whether they have a 'volcano divot' at one end of the seed. I picked the 4 seeds that I germinated based on this just because it seemed there was no loss to do so. I have never tried it, so it will be interesting to see what gender they turn out.
 
Stunger said:
The Arjan's Haze buds look nice in the pics, sugary, and I am sure they would give a pleasant kick, but they do look like they can further benefit with more time. Hopefully the heater works well without altering the humidity adversely. It is difficult keeping late flowering outdoor plants happy when the cold or wet weather sets in earlier or longer than you want.

Re Brix; It does sound like sugar plays a part in it. I have read of those who swear by adding molasses to the soil when watering, and read of growers who swear by adding milk too. Some say it is more ideal to set up the soil, over time without these things, where instead the soil biology takes care of everything. It seems there are a variety of approaches that get high brix levels. When testing the sap of leaves, different readings can be obtained at different times of the day, or before or after the leaves have been watered or foliar feed. I hope that regardless of whatever 'quirks' there are to the readings, that I can still get a general idea on what my plants brix levels are, and see how they fare in relation to the observed health of the plants. However, all numbers aside, I only really care about the quality of the resulting high. I am encouraged by people who have tried high brix cannabis and swear it is up another level from organic. So I'm curious what readings can be obtained and how that relates to the end result.

I will bear in mind your experiences with using vinegar to lower pH. Your plants looked great last season so given that you are trying different things this time it is good you have got them looking healthy again. Mine looked great up until half way thru flowering then the yellowing leaves and probably ph nute lockup issue. This time, so far they are looking good, plus they have dolomite gypsum oyster/mussel shell, and receive worm tea most days. So hopefully this time I can keep them looking good till the end.

Yes, I started this season's grow mid September by germinating 2 white widows and 2 white widow/gorgonzola crosses. They have been going for 8 weeks and so far are looking good. All of them are in containers outdoors. One of them I am letting grow tall to be secreted amongst a Bay Laurel hedge when it grows a little taller, it is about 40cm at the moment, and the other 3 I am 'quadlining', last season I took a fluxing approach. I think that fluxing in a grow tent is probably the best way to allow the time necessary in veg mode for the flux structure to maximally develop. But quadlining perhaps will make more use of the limited time available when growing outdoors (while keeping a low profile as they're on a balcony) with as many colas as possible, for that reason I am currently thinking I will keep all over/under lateral growth on the quad 'arms' whereas in my fluxing last season I pruned these off. Or, if I prune any off it will only be the thinner weaker lateral growth regardless on whether it is under/over or side to side. It seems to me that the resulting bud density on colas is always the most on thicker lateral growth so too much a shame to prune off.

My plants this year are regular's from last season's bred seeds, I also tried to pick them under magnification using that 'internet' method of choosing possible female seeds based on whether they have a 'volcano divot' at one end of the seed. I picked the 4 seeds that I germinated based on this just because it seemed there was no loss to do so. I have never tried it, so it will be interesting to see what gender they turn out.
Click to expand...

Heater works very well. With temps down to 37 F (2.2 C) last night, the greenhouse was at around 63 F/17 C this morning and outwardly the plant hasn't suffered at all from the cold. Humidity is not ideal at around 30%, but I've set a large pot of hot water over the heater so maybe that will help.

Brix. I've added molasses during flowering in the past, not sure if it helped, maybe. Molasses is of course sugar. I've also used various bloom boosters promising to fatten the buds and increase resin production to mind-blowing levels. Again, not sure whether I can confirm an affirmative effect. If you give it to all your plants, you won't know if it causes a superior bud or not, nothing to compare. However, if your crop is absolutely incredibly wonderful, you can say it was the brix. ;)

Sounds like your new grow is well into veg. I wanted to try the "mainlining" approach this year but ended up just topping the plants twice. Topping did what I wanted, which was mainly to keep their height down for stealth reasons. Sounds like that is what you would like. You can also just bend and tie down the branches that get too tall.

Interesting theory about the seeds. Never heard of a volcano divot, will have to look into that. So you know the seeds were all "regular"? They were not from a plant grown from feminized seed?

One of mine this year was a Jack Herer regular from Sensi. Actually, I got three regular seeds as freebies and two popped, one was female. She produced a large amount of nice fluffly bud, and the stone is so different from the sativas I'm used to growing. Jack Herer is said to 45% indica, which makes for a truly nice mix of head/body effect.

Anyway, thanks for the comments on my Arjan's #1. Yes, she is getting sugary, every day a little closer. But it seems she might need two more weeks. Here some pix from today:
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Nighttime temperatures sank to freezing last night. Inside the greenhouse, however, the convection (radiating) heater kept the temperature at around 64 F / 18 C, with humidity around 32%. During the day, outside temps hang around 40 F / 4 C all day long now, but with the heater on a medium setting the greenhouse will stay around 68 F / 20 C.

Humidity is also ok. When I take a pot full of hot water and set it over the heater, the humidity improves to about 40%. Otherwise, when that water has cooled, the humidity stays around 32-34%. This low humidity is, according to a lot of grow-websites, an acceptable level for late flowering.

So am hopeful that the Arjan's Haze #1 will, after all this time and effort, make it to finish in a healthy condition. I've been reading the available info on temps/humidity in late flowering, and my set up seems to be within the ideal temperature and humidity guidelines now, with the heater and all.

The calyxes are swelling and the trichomes are proliferating, white pistils still predominate. Will post pictures again in a few days, when there is maybe something more to report.

Cheeers,

Emeraldo :green_heart:
 
Hi Emeraldo,

You are doing fantastic under pretty challenging circumstances with your Arjan's Haze #1. Fingers crossed you can help it get the necessary conditions to reach maturity, looking great so far. It will be interesting how it compares to the Mexican Sativa.

I have previously used the LST approach to keep the height of the plants below where they become visible to neighbors but I found this to be somewhat messy as it requires ties that become very lengthy to the branches when the plants get taller. I only have about 70cm to play with when height of the container is about 40cm. What I like about a Fluxing, Quadlining approach is that the pruning training begins very low down and therefore the subsequent tying down to further train the growth all occurs short and low to the rim of the container. The ideal to me, is too train all the cola bearing arms to pretty much stay low and go out horizontal in veging, then once in flowering let the colas grow vertical. Having said that, I haven't achieved such highly trained growth so far myself. Last year after a short holiday, I came back to find the plants had stretched up considerably and at that point I gave up on further training. So they took on more of a manifolding appearance which necessitated me buying balcony rail herb troughs to hide the taller colas from neighbors. This season I intend to keep on top of it, to try and keep the vegetative growth going horizontal until flowering growth take over and then let it go vertical.

Regarding the theory of being able to pick female seeds from male seeds. I presume this is very unlikely. Lots of people diss it. However some people swear they have a lot of success in doing this, others have stated that they tried it and failed to grow females. I feel there isn't anything to lose by having a go at it myself. So I guess I'll know once the genders become apparent as to whether there is anything in it or not. And of course, the fact I am only running 4 plants is in no way enough plants to really say the method works or not even if the outcome is favorable. However if the outcome is favorable then I will no doubt try it again for future grows.
Here is a link I found on our 420 site where this approach is discussed. The picture of the seeds with 'volcano divots' being identified as female and the rough less 'volcano' divots being male has been around on the internet for some time.

Can you tell which seed is male or female?

I found this in a file i down loaded,i hope its good info :peace: 420 :rollit:
www.420magazine.com
 
Thanks for the moral support :)

Last night the lows were about 30F / -1 C and today we're enjoying a whopping 43 F / 5 C. Of course, inside the heated greenhouse all is well and cozy at about 70 F / 21 C. I can't resist taking a closer look each day. Reminds me of that Buddy Holly song...

Every day, it's a gettin' closer...

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Looking really good, sugary, and the leaves are still so nice and green at this late stage of flowering. Given the temperatures you're dealing with, wow, what an outstanding job you're doing by managing to still give the plant a good environment.:thumb:
 
Thanks again, I guess it's a sign of a healthy plant -- green right up to harvest.

But I've never had to fight off freezing temperatures just before harvest. I figure I'll give her another 10 days or so. GHS says Arjan's Haze #1 should be ripe with 11 weeks of flowering (for indoors), so thinking back to when I think she started flowering (around Sept 9), then Nov 21 would be about right on that measure. Of course, I won't harvest until she looks just right! Two photos from today, Nov 12.
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Stunger said:
...What I like about a Fluxing, Quadlining approach is that the pruning training begins very low down and therefore the subsequent tying down to further train the growth all occurs short and low to the rim of the container. The ideal to me, is too train all the cola bearing arms to pretty much stay low and go out horizontal in veging, then once in flowering let the colas grow vertical. Having said that, I haven't achieved such highly trained growth so far myself. Last year after a short holiday, I came back to find the plants had stretched up considerably and at that point I gave up on further training. So they took on more of a manifolding appearance which necessitated me buying balcony rail herb troughs to hide the taller colas from neighbors. This season I intend to keep on top of it, to try and keep the vegetative growth going horizontal until flowering growth take over and then let it go vertical.
...
Click to expand...

Keeping on top of it means being there. If you're going to be away, like I was for a month, it would be a challenge to do the mainlining thing. It looks like it takes daily attention over a long period.
 
I think that is right. When the veg growth is occurring, one does have to be ready to secure down the growth tips to keep them growing out horizontal, that has to be do be daily or every couple of days. Once the tips start growing up unchecked, they can become quite tricky/impossible to get back down again. My current grow is at least a month ahead of the previous season's growth because I germinated this season's beans earlier than last season. I think in one or two more weeks all the quad arms should be over the rim on the containers and at that point I'll secure them to the rim where they will no longer be able to lift up, and then train the growth tip to grow around the rim for 1/4 of a turn where they will meet the next quad arm which will be similarly trained and secured, at that point with all 4 quad arms like that I will let growth turn vertical. If I can get that in place before going away then I think the resulting plant height should be nicely contained to just a couple of feet high and will remain discretely out of sight of the neighbors.

The way I have described above for outdoor Fluxing/Quadlining only has one single topping occurring, but it is the training that will keep it's height contained. As I understand manifolding, that generally speaking, there is 3 or perhaps 4 toppings occurring and little or no training, so while the plant is allowed to grow out it does so in a nice bush type manner that is perhaps 3 feet high, give or take a bit, but nowhere near as high as it would have gone if it were freely grown out, ideally when topped 3 times it'll have 8 nice baseball bat colas, or 4 times 16 colas etc. Whereas in Fluxing or Quadlining, each flux/quad arm will grow a cola and each growth shoot coming off the arms will grow a cola. So done well and all going to plan, can result in a lot of colas. So far the 4 quad arms of my plants are showing 8 colas each or 32 per plant at this early stage, so all going well maybe I can aim towards double that. But as we learn in growing this lovely plant it is best not to count your chickens before they hatch! :goodluck:
 
Stunger said:
I think that is right. When the veg growth is occurring, one does have to be ready to secure down the growth tips to keep them growing out horizontal, that has to be do be daily or every couple of days. ...

The way I have described above for outdoor Fluxing/Quadlining only has one single topping occurring, but it is the training that will keep it's height contained. As I understand manifolding, that generally speaking, there is 3 or perhaps 4 toppings occurring and little or no training, so while the plant is allowed to grow out it does so in a nice bush type manner that is perhaps 3 feet high, give or take a bit, but nowhere near as high as it would have gone if it were freely grown out, ideally when topped 3 times it'll have 8 nice baseball bat colas, or 4 times 16 colas etc. Whereas in Fluxing or Quadlining, each flux/quad arm will grow a cola and each growth shoot coming off the arms will grow a cola. So done well and all going to plan, can result in a lot of colas. So far the 4 quad arms of my plants are showing 8 colas each or 32 per plant at this early stage, so all going well maybe I can aim towards double that. But as we learn in growing this lovely plant it is best not to count your chickens before they hatch! :goodluck:
Click to expand...

Thanks for that. I was thinking of trying manifolding, with maybe four tops (is that where the Motown band The Four Tops got their name?). Well, anyway, I started singing to my plants when they'd gone into stretch: "Reach out, Darlin'! Reach out for me! Ahhhh'll be There, to love and comfort you-oo-ooh!" And lookie what happened: The four tops I had originally planned on turned into about 16 tops! Total snippings: 3.
:yahoo:
I guess "manifolding" is less work than "mainlining". There is a good growweedeasy page on that technique. But ultimately, for me, Two Tops prevailed, and so did Limited Training (because of my vacations), which is a good technique too because I am not around to obsess over the plants.

Turned out fine because two toppings slowed the fast growing sativas down so that they reached about four feet in height. Even the tallest Arjan's Strawberry Haze was four feet tall with four main colas and many many other side branches. I like topping twice because the technique makes the side branches develop strongly and they end up as tall or taller than the main colas, all competing for the apical position and they all fill out nicely with an even canopy. In post # 40 above, the elder ASH photo shows how four so additional side branches passed up and ended way taller than the four "topped" points in the center. Take a look at both ASH plant photos at the beginning of post # 40 above in this thread: I mean in particular the way the "elder berry" pushed out strong side branches was a nice way to keep a fast-growing sativa contained to about 4 feet. (But from your posts it seems that height is probably too tall for you anyway).

Maybe an even better photo of how the "elder berry" put out taller side branches than the "Original Four Tops" was in a photo I never posted before now. I dug this out now because she was headed into October and I had defoliated a little, and the photo shows how the side branches passed up the slowed growth in the center.

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For me, the main problem is now getting to the finish line in this freezing weather. Nighttime temps last night were 30 F / -1 C again. There was a layer of ice on the surface of the rainwater collector next to the greenhouse. Nice thing about the freezing weather is at least during the day the sun is mostly shining and that keeps the greenhouse warm. When that happens, I actually have to turn the heater down when the sun comes out, or else the inside temperature can easily go up dramatically into the low 80s F / high 20s C, which to my understanding is too warm for late flowering.
 
By the way Stunger, you mentioned molasses. I recall reading a great thread over on another mag, ic mag, a long long thread that generated a lot of interest and insights. A side-by-side comparison of good ol' molasses with a commercial product, Canna Boost, to see if there was anything to the theory that a lot of these boosters are maybe just plain ol' molasses anyway. By a grower in UK named Hazy Lady who is very smart and did a fantastic job moderating. Check it out: Canna Boost V Molasses - side by side comparison. - Side by Side Grow Experiments - International Cannagraphic Magazine Forums

Well, now. Here it is, November 14 already. Am thinking maybe letting her go as long as Nov 28, if needed:
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