Emeraldo's 2020 West-Facing Balcony Grow

Fallish feeling in the air. Cool nights, down to 50F. Today was up again to 92F, hotter than the last few days. Summer ain't over, and fires still burning, but the smoke hasn't been as bad lately. I hope the far-reddish hue on the horizon at sundown is scaring the plants to death so they'll panic and produce more THC in their last clinging tremor of death terror.

Hah! Lol, gotcha! Lol. Nah, I try not stress the plants, their too beautiful to torture.

Interesting how the G13 x Haze, center below, has stretched up to par with Dream Berry and has really budded up.

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Dream Berry on left, White Widow lowest on right, G13 x Haze above WW. G13 Haze's branches...

Here's the opposite view.

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Skinny woody mainstems on Super Lemon Haze and Gold Leaf. Mainly because of the lack of sun, but...

See comment on photo
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White Widow, Sept 21

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White Widow, Sept 21

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Dream Berry, Sept 21

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G13 x Haze on left half of photo, Gold Leaf in upper right

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Blackberry, Sept 21
 
nice journal @Emeraldo plants look tall and those trichomes :thumb: .
 
PK1 said:
nice journal @Emeraldo plants look tall and those trichomes :thumb: .
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Indeed, they are all budding up beautifully! :green_heart:
 
Progressing along nicely Emeraldo. Nice that you've got blue skies back for the flowering end game and the smoke haze has gone. How much longer do you imagine your girls have to go before all ready for harvest. I imagine you wont still be battling freezing overnight lows in November like last year's Arjan's Haze #1. It will be so interesting what your evaluation of the 7 strains is once dried and cured. :ganjamon:
 
Hey Stungi

I've been puffing the Acapulco Gold for about a week now. It's very nice. Different from the Mex Sat, less cerebral. Very nice relaxing sweet body buzz. Head high takes a few minutes to hit, but when it arrives it is strong. I'm sort of wishing I had waited longer with the AG harvest, but so far it has turned out well. About one third of the AG bud is still ripening in the September sun, trichomes looking more and more opaque.

We'll soon know if the washed bud is any good. I haven't tried it yet, it is curing. Am still taking bud off the "tree" and quick drying in a thin paper bag on the water heater.

To your question, I think the indicas, white widow and gold leaf, ought to be next. Both are in full flower and am watching to see when pistils will turn brown and curl. Seems that will be in early to mid-October. The sativas DB, BB, and G13 Haze were all said by their breeders to be harvestable in mid- to late October. Given the strength of the sun here, my experience in past grows tells me the plants along the railing will be super ripe by late October, and I may be able to start on them earlier than that.

I don't really have a clue about Super Lemon Haze. She is the least happy in the grow. I will let her go as long as she wants. Up to a point.

How far away would you say my Blackberry is? There just aren't enough brown pistils yet, the trichomes are mostly clear still. Another month, most likely.
 
Frigging beautiful Emeraldo! :thumb:
 
Update...

White Widow is now, by the book, as ripe as she'll get. Harvestable this weekend. Trichomes abundant and cloudy, occasional amber bits glimmering in the digital microscope. Some clear, but fading fast. Pistils practically all rusty and many are withdrawn, some still curling up. Classic case of ripeness, by all indicators.
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White Widow, Sept 30

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White Widow, Sept 30

Super Lemon Haze by Franco of Greenhouse Seeds is flowering! I didn't know what to expect, she has been finnicky and hard to please, she had issues with windburn and heat, leaves turning bright yellow in July, it hasn't been the easiest. But she is a super silver haze x lemon skunk, a project by Franco r.i.p. The lemony terpenes are already discernible... Due to be harvestable in late October, big, fat buds on a stick.

Don't worry, I am washing all bud this year of wildfires, that ash and dirt on the leaves will come off easily. Bud looks so much better when it's been washed.
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Super Lemon Haze, Sept 30

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Lower bud on Super Lemon Haze, Sept 30


Gold Leaf is a heavy producer...
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Gold Leaf, Sept 30

...so heavy, in fact, she wanted some support today.
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Gold Leaf, Sept 30

Gold Leaf is of course from I Love Breeding Marijuana.com where it is said that Gold Leaf is a mostly-indica but grows long and lanky like a sativa and with the bud structure of a sativa, which I can confirm. Said to be harvstable in early October.

G13 Haze not due to be harvestable until 3d week of October, according to Barney...
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G13 Haze, Sept 30

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G13 Haze popcorn, Sept 30
 
Emeraldo said:
Update...

White Widow is now, by the book, as ripe as she'll get. Harvestable this weekend. Trichomes abundant and cloudy, occasional amber bits glimmering in the digital microscope. Some clear, but fading fast. Pistils practically all rusty and many are withdrawn, some still curling up. Classic case of ripeness, by all indicators.
IMG_2440.jpeg

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White Widow, Sept 30

IMG_2439.jpeg

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White Widow, Sept 30

Super Lemon Haze by Franco of Greenhouse Seeds is flowering! I didn't know what to expect, she has been finnicky and hard to please, she had issues with windburn and heat, leaves turning bright yellow in July, it hasn't been the easiest. But she is a super silver haze x lemon skunk, a project by Franco r.i.p. The lemony terpenes are already discernible... Due to be harvestable in late October, big, fat buds on a stick.

Don't worry, I am washing all bud this year of wildfires, that ash and dirt on the leaves will come off easily. Bud looks so much better when it's been washed.
IMG_2435.jpeg

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Super Lemon Haze, Sept 30

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Lower bud on Super Lemon Haze, Sept 30


Gold Leaf is a heavy producer...
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Gold Leaf, Sept 30

...so heavy, in fact, she wanted some support today.
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Gold Leaf, Sept 30

G13 Haze not due to be harvestable until 3d week of October, according to Barney...
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G13 Haze, Sept 30

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G13 Haze popcorn, Sept 30
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Great photos. Great subject.
 
Emeraldo said:
Gold Leaf is of course from I Love Breeding Marijuana.com where it is said that Gold Leaf is a mostly-indica but grows long and lanky like a sativa and with the bud structure of a sativa, which I can confirm. Said to be harvstable in early October.
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Quite a few people have reviewed Gold leaf very highly but it is rather a mystery what it's genetics are. I shared an order from 420 that had GL included so I have a couple of yet untried seeds of it. Have you tried an early test of the GL yet? I am interested in what you think of it, especially as you've tried a reasonable number of named strains to compare.
 
@Stunger, Robert of 420 just says GF is 60% indica, 40% sativa. I was interested to read it grows and buds like a sativa though predominantly an indica. This is the result of selecting phenos with a sativa look.

I looked closely at some of her buds an hour ago, though it is hard to get a good look, just given her "over the raingutter" inclinations. The microscope shows she is still about 50% clear trichomes, with some cloudy. I think she needs another week at least. I haven't quick-dried her for a sample yet, that will come in this week.

Speaking of sampling, I've sampled Acapulco Gold (all harvested, washed, now curing), Dream Berry (unharvested because it's early still, though the latest sampling looked much closer, will smoke some of that tomorrow), and today I will, for the first time, smoke Blackberry, which has been looking very good under the microscope and also smelling very good. Am thinking of harvesting about half of the White Widow on the weekend, will also look again at GL at that point, as well as harvest some of the Blackberry too.

Last year it was G13 Haze that really blew my socks off. It hit me head, body, and soul. Lucky I had two more seeds and grew one out again this year on the shady side, looking forward to trying her soon, harvest by Oct 21.

Greetings

PS you were asking about the comparison Mex Sat v. AG. My Mexican Sativa in 2018 was harvested in early November after maybe 10 weeks of flowering (am not sure exactly how long because I was gone for a month when she started) and had a very cerebral effect. Maybe that was an "early harvest"? In comparison, the AG this year was harvested in two batches. The first, harvested Sept 13, has a nice cerebral head high and also a sweet pleasant body buzz. The second round of AG was harvested Sept 27 and is more sedative, nice before bedtime. Neither batch is as cerebral as Mex Sat, but really very enjoyable. If your Mexican Sativa does grow well for you this year, and if you want body, I would suggest letting her go as long as possible, maybe she will produce more of a body buzz.
 
I am really hoping that what I grow and get to sample this growing season will help me get a better appreciation of the distinction of a cerebral head high and a body buzz. My brother has a far less restrained outdoor growing space than me, and will be able to grow out more variety so I will at least be able to sample and compare some of his at the end of the growing season.

The Mexican Sativa should be a great help in appreciating the Sativa cerebral head high. I believe it would have been a full Sativa that I enjoyed many years ago in Nepal and that was an absolute ripper, joyous, funny, that we walked for miles on, a real lovely smoke that we found growing in a field near a house which we then purchased a couple of big branches from the owner that filled a big bag with buds, we must have found it at just the right 'trichome' time. There was place selling drinks and accommodation nearby where we crudely heated some up of the wet bud on tinfoil to dry it, then smoked it, we got so ripped from it we couldn't function well enough to carry on walking so we got rooms there for the night. I didn't know about trichomes back then or Sativa and Indica differences. Getting weed was solely in the hope of a great high and great time from it. The few named strains I've had have all been hybrids. So a real Sativa will be a good yardstick to reacquaint myself with.

I was recently had the good fortune of being able to partially share an order with another poster here for a few seeds of Mango Sherbert and was generously given some of the freebies that came with them.

Buoyed with my recent WSE ordering success I am thinking of trying for another order for perhaps a couple more CBD strains, as they seem to be getting some high praise from folk for relaxation/pain/sleep ailments etc, it may be good to get some as I'm getting older. I have always wanted strains that give a great high, but now it seems like potentially handy to have a few seeds for CBD too. Some folk talk about mixing in a bit of both when they have a toke for an added relaxing great effect, and I know of several people who praise it highly for pain relief, my brother in law with his 3 blown out disks is one, he has been able to dramatically reduce the painkillers he was on.

WSE also have a sale on Blue Dream which I think they rate at 70% Sativa, not sure how that goes, it sounds like it is a popular one for those countries which have dispensaries but I'm not so sure amongst our 420 community whether that is perceived to be a great strain or not. Another unusual strain they have is 'Pinkman Goo' which has the legend of it oozing out resin drops in a guttation manner which I believe I have seen occasionally on plants, however I have read of others who have said they have tried smoking these guttation secretions and didn't feel anything from it so I am thinking that it is probably more advertising, it is hard to go on just a few reviews. Chemdawg and Green Crack are amongst other Sativa leaning strains that seems to get consistent high praise. Do any of these register with you as being great ones to get?

Somewhere over this next fortnight I need to pop some seeds and get this year's grow underway. I am mindful that if all goes well (like last year) I could have a serious bunch of buds oozing dankness into the air in a few months time. It is easy to get gungho about it when the plants are small, but later on when they are big with dank odors it can get a bit stressful as you wonder how much of it is reaching neighbor's noses - especially when the smell is invading your own house at times thru closed doors and windows, and daily you hear helicopters flying past to add to the unnerving thoughts. I thought 3 on my balcony was really more than enough last time, but I am wondering whether I can perhaps add some autos for an earlier harvest that would be finished before the photo girls are ready. One of the freebies I got about is a Lemon Haze auto which might be interesting to set off too. Not sure what else to kick off with the Mexican Sativa and Godfather OG when I'd really like to do far more varieties!

Last year I popped the seeds mid Sept and found it a struggle to restrain their growth enough when it was threatening the stealthiness of the grow. So this year I will start them a little bit later, but I still would like to let them grow a good big rootbase, but I intend to try doing some supercrop style crushing of the branches to encourage their canopies to grow more restrained in size before letting them go for it when budding.
 
Stunger said:
The Mexican Sativa should be a great help in appreciating the Sativa cerebral head high.
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Well, yes, I think so. The sativa cerebral head high is just sompin' you gotta experience! But the sativa part is not just the Oaxocan "landrace" genetics. Nota bene, Sensi Seeds crossed that Mexicano with South African Durban Poison, a sativa. The third angle on this strain is lf course the famous Afghan hashplant, indica. So Mexican Sativa is partly mexican and is mostly sativa, and certainly gives a cerebral head high. And maybe less body buzz than some sativa-ish strains (unless the suggestion is right that you might let her ripen into the sunset...)

PS I sampled the Blackberry today. A stunning body-cerebral buzz-high! Am really looking forward to sampling more as we get towards ripeness!
 
It sounds an excellent yardstick to experience. It's funny that some of it's genetics come from Oaxaca, I was there in the late 80's and totally oblivious to such quality of weed being nearby. In fact I visited a lot of countries that had great weed and it would have been possible to have collected seeds too. It's like the guy in the early days of Bitcoin when they were worths just fractions of nothing and he had stored a few thousand of them on an old computer which he threw out at rubbish dump only to later find they would be worth millions and no way of recovering it under all the tons of other rubbish.

It is an interesting point of when to harvest. I have been for no reason, other than I read the general weight of advice to let plants run, basically somewhere around 10 -30% amber has been what I have gathered as being a good safe point to harvest at the right time. I am probably wrong, but I am imagining that some sort of sweet spot of 2 or 3 weeks is good enough to be close enough to aim for. I have a CBD Express Auto to try this coming grow where to obtain the highest CBD level it has to be harvested earlier. So for sativa to get it's 'head high' qualities I can appreciate that too could be reduced and turn into more of a body buzz if maybe left to flower overly long.

It will be interesting how you find the G13 this year, will it be very similar to it's sister last year or have a different expression.

I had assumed if sativas took longer to be ready that they would nonetheless reach a similar expression of trichome appearance as indica or hybrids, and then one doesn't have to bother with counting days/weeks, but can merely go by it reaching the appropriate desired appearance. Is it different for sativa or indica or hybrid? Do you have a general ideal of trichome appearance that you can apply to all of them?
 
Stunger said:
...It is an interesting point of when to harvest. I have been for no reason, other than I read the general weight of advice to let plants run, basically somewhere around 10 -30% amber has been what I have gathered as being a good safe point to harvest at the right time. I am probably wrong, but I am imagining that some sort of sweet spot of 2 or 3 weeks is good enough to be close enough to aim for. I have a CBD Express Auto to try this coming grow where to obtain the highest CBD level it has to be harvested earlier. So for sativa to get it's 'head high' qualities I can appreciate that too could be reduced and turn into more of a body buzz if maybe left to flower overly long.

It will be interesting how you find the G13 this year, will it be very similar to it's sister last year or have a different expression.

I had assumed if sativas took longer to be ready that they would nonetheless reach a similar expression of trichome appearance as indica or hybrids, and then one doesn't have to bother with counting days/weeks, but can merely go by it reaching the appropriate desired appearance. Is it different for sativa or indica or hybrid? Do you have a general ideal of trichome appearance that you can apply to all of them?
Click to expand...

This year, unlike most years, I have been with the plants in the grow every day since they were germinated. The plants that are predominantly or "mostly" indica (White Widow and Gold Leaf, both 60% indica) have had a shorter flowering period and are now in the harvest window. The sativa dominant plants need another two or three weeks, their trichomes mostly clear still. In the Himalaya, the growing season is short and indicas evolved to ripen earlier and take a sturdy plant morphology. Sativas from tropical zones where the day length doesn't shorten that quickly, or shortens less and only very slowly, take longer to start flowering and flower for longer. I think the trichome life cycle on both plant types is similar.

It took me several grows working with a digital microscope to figure out what is going on there. I probably still have a lot to learn. There is a point where the clear trichomes start turning opaque, still basically clear, just getting a little bit cloudy. It can be deceptive to think this cloudiness is ripe But that is not cloudy ripe. "Cloudy" (ripe for harvest) is really getting solidly intransparent and light greyish, whitish, and the presence of amber in some significant amount, maybe 10%. Now that my wife has indicated her preference for sedative effects as a sleep aid, am going to partially harvest some of the ripe "mostly indica" plants this next week and leave half on the plant for another week or two, to maximize the CBN for her.

Sampling the new strains is an experience, nay, an adventure. The Acapulco Gold flowered so early and quickly, I am glad I recognized that and harvested most of that plant in the first round. About a third of the bud was left on her and then harvested two weeks later. That second and final AG bud harvest is much more sedative, but the effect overall from AG is a wonderfully pleasant and euphoric feeling. And long lasting. If I smoke AG in the late afternoon, I am still feeling high at bedtime and it helps with sleep too. I would recommend that one.

With Dream Berry (very close now) I started sampling when the trikes were just turning from clear to kind of smoky-looking. First, I smoked some Dream Berry with mostly clear trikes four days ago, and this was just a head high. I could not discern a body buzz. This head high can be stimulating, energizing, the mind is racing -- without much body feeling. Then, two days ago, I cut ripe-looking bud from Dream Berry with about half cloudy trikes and it has been quick drying on top of the water heater. Will sample that one today. Dream Berry's bud structure, at least the way I grew her, is far from compact, I will not be able to go after every bit of bud, there's just too much and too fluffy.

Blackberry by Nirvana has been the surprize this year. Sampled her for the first time yesterday. Effect was powerful already at this unripe stage, still mostly clear. A rich strong body buzz with stimulating head high. This first sample effect was not super long lasting, like Acapulco Gold. I've cut another bud to dry and as I go to sample her again in 2 days, I will notice how it has changed. I expect to get to know the plant better, her effect. I haven't really done so much sampling in past grows, didn't see the sense or didn't have time. Blackberry's buds are easy to work with, compact buds, and am appreciating that aspect too, with so much bud to process, the physical form of the bud can be a positive factor. It's easy to damage the trikes with too much handling, and the compact bud is easier to work with.

Am also looking forward to the G13 Haze for the second year. Last year I harvested that on Oct 15. We'll see how she is doing, but it will be later this month. I expect her to be different if only because she grew this year on the shady side of the balcony.

A you thinking of growing a plant at your brother's (?) garden in the ground? Or would that be in a large pot?
 
Emeraldo said:
In the Himalaya, the growing season is short and indicas evolved to ripen earlier and take a sturdy plant morphology. Sativas from tropical zones where the day length doesn't shorten that quickly, or shortens less and only very slowly, take longer to start flowering and flower for longer. I think the trichome life cycle on both plant types is similar.
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In fact as you say that, I realize I have probably assumed wrong that the live plant I sampled high up in the Himalayas was most likely an indica, a landrace presumably that has grown in that area for generations.

Emeraldo said:
I cut ripe-looking bud from Dream Berry with about half cloudy trikes and it has been quick drying on top of the water heater. Will sample that one today. Dream Berry's bud structure, at least the way I grew her, is far from compact, I will not be able to go after every bit of bud, there's just too much and too fluffy.
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This one will be interesting. Sometimes those fluffy bud plants can be very deceiving. I know what you mean about more time spent trimming.

Emeraldo said:
Am also looking forward to the G13 Haze for the second year. Last year I harvested that on Oct 15. We'll see how she is doing, but it will be later this month. I expect her to be different if only because she grew this year on the shady side of the balcony.
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My own balcony is restricted in sunshine. One end of it gets probably an hour an a half more sun from the other end. I am not sure on previous harvests whether I have noticed a difference.

Emeraldo said:
A you thinking of growing a plant at your brother's (?) garden in the ground? Or would that be in a large pot?
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I wont be growing anything at his place. But he's keen to grow 'greedily'. I'm hoping he doesn't over push that approach and draw unwanted attention to his garden.

I also much like the idea of having a variety of jarred bud so I can choose the effect I want and to minimize developing a tolerance.

Whatever I grow I can't help feeling the drive to maximize the yield, when it would make some sense to perhaps grow more and smaller plants to get a variety. Part of the mindset to maximize a plant's yield is because here in NZ the law judges on the number of plants the grower is caught with, so there is that incentive to grow out a plant fully rather than grow out lots of plants just a little.

This time last year I was growing homemade regular seeds because 2 seed deliveries were seized and I had no female seeds. Whereas this year I now have more female seeds than I have space to grow. I am thinking to grow 3 photos on my balcony. And the thought to also grow maybe 3 autos with the idea that their flowering would be timed to finish before the photos start, in order to minimize the resulting dank odor, it'd be like running 2 grow cycles. But there is one more thing I am thinking (and this is getting potentially messy), I'd really like to reverse sex some plants to make female seeds as altho I now have a variety, my seed numbers are mostly just 1 ,2 or 3 seeds. Yesterday I brought some cloning gel with the thought that I could take cuttings or use the topping cuttings to clone then reverse sex those to gain female pollen and make some female seeds. I am probably being too greedy, but there is only this opportunity once a year and I feel it should be attainable. Altho, it does complicate things because if I have 3 photos, and say 3 autos, and if I managed to grow out cuttings I would end up with even more plants, so then I would have to consider growing some on the ground where it starts reducing the stealthiness and increasing the potential odor for the neighbors. And bearing in mind there is an underlying feeling of stress with the need to keep it all hidden and low key. But in saying that it would be a great achievement to realize some home made female seeds and then 'know' how to do it.
 

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