Light Wars - Attack of the Clones

[Slammy Pajama]

Hello Friends!

Back again for another round and another experiment. Here we are mid winter and back in the tents. We have had a lot of interests in our pursuits, thus this run will be an attack of the clones! Dialling in the light cycles will be extremely tricky. The lights are currently at an 8:16 interval and are set to be on at night to keep them warm. We receive about 12 hours of sunlight around the time we want to take cuttings and send them on there way. This will increase up to almost 15 hours at the peak. There will be a lot of changing happening and hopefully we can slowly acclimate without sending them into flower.

Top to bottom in the first photo - We have planted a Lemon Haze, a Girl Scout Cookie Extreme and a White Widow. The first WW didn't make it and we planted another. Temperatures range from 12 - 25 Celsius in the room. It can get a little cold at night, so there is a little panel heater in there. We have a great humidity ranging from 40 - 60%.

Day 21 for the LH and GSE - Looking good, but slow growing due to the cold.
Day 14 for the WW - This second seed is yet again struggling. We are suspicious she is hungry.

 

[garybo]

2 of the girls look great, but the WW looks somewhat pale, perhaps she will pull out of it.

Curious, did you put the plants directly into the soil, or use some sort of starter plug? I'm still trying to figure out which is the best method.

 

[Slammy Pajama]

2 of the girls look great, but the WW looks somewhat pale, perhaps she will pull out of it.

Curious, did you put the plants directly into the soil, or use some sort of starter plug? I'm still trying to figure out which is the best method.

Yea the WW is definitely hungry. We are going to use a microbial inoculation to boost the bacteria/fungi activity, as this is the second WW seedling that has struggled to get started in that particular pot. The WW genetics have definitely been the weakest of the ones we've received to date, but it may also be that I haven't been experienced/patient enough to give them the start they need haha. I'll also jam a pH meter into the soil just to make sure it's not way out of whack, but it's all largely the same batch of supersoil I've had for the last year or two, so should all be relatively cooked down and equally hot/bio-available.

As for starting them, I don't have a lighter or less aggressive seedling mix to use, so they just get supersoil from start to finish. Most of my runs I've started them in smaller pots and progressively up-potted as they've outgrown their homes. However, I've done some experimental runs where I've gone directly into the final pots, and this has proven to be the least work/easiest to get them happily established. They seem to search for the bottom of the pots before really aggressively growing up top, and unless I can time the up-potting perfectly enough, then I lose time between up-pots as they slow down and hit the maximum of their pot size. The plants that go directly into their final pots seem to be slightly slower to start out, as the main taproot really reaches down searching for the bottom of the container, but quickly have overtaken the others as they have full freedom to stretch into the totality of the soil mass after that.

The super lemon haze is looking terrific, and hopefully will appreciate the whole 30L! I am justttt starting to see a little interveinal chlorosis in the bottoms of the older established growth, so I'm going to keep an eye on that and see if they need any additional nutrients or microbes along the way. Our water seems to have a good amount of trace minerals to keep the plants from needing much additional CalMag or other additions along the way (haven't tested it or anything), but I am certainly still new to growing and to supersoil, so my mix isn't exactly perfect! Super excited to try and keep this last Girl Scout Cookie going strong though, as it is the very last seed from the 5 we got 4 years ago, and it has been a stellar genetic to work with!

 

[garybo]

Yea the WW is definitely hungry. We are going to use a microbial inoculation to boost the bacteria/fungi activity, as this is the second WW seedling that has struggled to get started in that particular pot. The WW genetics have definitely been the weakest of the ones we've received to date, but it may also be that I haven't been experienced/patient enough to give them the start they need haha.

Thanks for the reply SP, I'm curious as to how you fair out with using microbial inoculation on the WW, I'm at the belief that there is really nothing that can be done if a seed (or human for that matter) has weak genetics from the get go, but if you can pull it out of being in funk, I would love to know the the result and how it was done.

I'll also jam a pH meter into the soil just to make sure it's not way out of whack,

How is that done? Is there a special ph meter that reads soil, or just put a ph meter (used for liquid) into the soil?

The plants that go directly into their final pots seem to be slightly slower to start out, as the main taproot really reaches down searching for the bottom of the container, but quickly have overtaken the others as they have full freedom to stretch into the totality of the soil mass after that.

Makes sense. Lately I'm examining putting the seedlings into a jiffy pod, then after a few days when I'm convinced the plant is healthy, I put it into a biodegradable 3" pot, which after a week or so, assuming the plant is still evolving, it goes into its final resting place, which this year is 5 gal fabric pots. Last year it was 10 gal pots.

I am justttt starting to see a little interveinal chlorosis in the bottoms of the older established growth, so I'm going to keep an eye on that and see if they need any additional nutrients or microbes along the way.

We think the same there, before I joined 420, reading the leaves was the furthermost of my intellect on how to grow a marijuana plant. There are some very smart cultivators here, that I'm thankful for, who shared their savvy, all one has to do is ask a question. By the way, good luck with that last Girl Scout, if you don't mind, keep me up to date with her progress. 5 year old seeds should still be viable, assuming they came from healthy parents.

Been fun chatting, take care my friend.

​

 

[Slammy Pajama]

Day 27 - Lemon Haze & Girl Scout Cookie Extreme
Day 20 - White Widow

13 - 25 - Celsius
52% - 64% - Humidity

All the ladies received some Epsom salts for magnesium and some Green Supreme for a boost of microbes. We will probably take our first clone cuttings this weekend!

 

[Slammy Pajama]

Thanks for the reply SP, I'm curious as to how you fair out with using microbial inoculation on the WW, I'm at the belief that there is really nothing that can be done if a seed (or human for that matter) has weak genetics from the get go, but if you can pull it out of being in funk, I would love to know the the result and how it was done.


How is that done? Is there a special ph meter that reads soil, or just put a ph meter (used for liquid) into the soil?

One of the best plants we have ever grown was a WW. This was in our first run, but it also had these odd false seed pods. This WW is from the same batch and apparently after researching, the WW is a hungry genetic.

Yea there are PH meters that you can stick into the soil. Some people of are the mind that this isn't an accurate way to measure the PH. Most PH test kits are paper for liquid and there are digital pens. You have to make the soil into a slurry.

 

[Slammy Pajama]

Day 31 - Lemon Haze & Girl Scout Cookie Extreme
Day 24 - White Widow

Average -
22° C
54% - Humidity

Range -
11° - 23°
51% - 61%

Gave the girls a water and will be giving them another water to fully soak them before lights out. As you can see there is a bit of run off when I just cleaned the tent.... The WW is definitely struggling and hungry. She is now in a more extreme praying position. The lower leaves are yellowing and the upper leaves are curling up. We were hoping the Green Supreme would help and are waiting to see a change, but this was only four days ago.

Almost time to top both our GSCE & LH (probably already later than I had intended for the LH). The leaves and stem on the LH are huge, but there is still a little yellowing that has come in since the addition of Epsom salts on one of the newer growth leaves. It's different to the interveinal chlorosis that led to us to apply the Epsom salts, but it's very stark along one edge of one leaf, and she is also curling the serrated edges of that leaf. Maybe she hit a pocket of concentrated or uncooked soil? Not sure! But we'll keep our eye on it and see if any other changes need to be made going forward. We do still have some egg shell ferment that we can apply if it looks like there's a need for additional Calcium after adding the Epsom salts. However, I'm hesitant to act too quickly and start throwing too many different changes all at once. Best to watch and wait a little longer!

I'm thinking of having a go at cloning the cuttings we get from topping the happy two, but no need to be hasty. We'll get plenty of shoots that will be good candidates by the time these ladies flesh out a little more. There is already substantial branching out of the lower growth for the size these ladies are currently, especially with the LH being a Sativa-dominant hybrid and being much more of an apically dominant genetic in previous runs. No complaints here!

 

[Slammy Pajama]

Day 35 - Lemon Haze & Girl Scout Cookie Extreme
Day 28 - White Widow - Rest in Peace
Day 1 - Jack Herer

Range -
11° - 22°
52% - 61%

Here are all the ladies today! The LH & GSCE are looking nice, short and bushy with tight internodal spacing.

The LH is a monster with huge leaves and a thick stem. The leaves are literally the biggest we've ever seen! We topped her today and took away a leaf, so that the light could penetrate through. Sanitized the cutters and put the clone in a peat cup. Keeping an eye on the one odd leaf, but it seems to be isolated. Could just be some damage from being wet and sunburned.

The GSCE is not quite ready to be topped, but soon enough! Someone took a bit of a chomp out of her, but decided she was not tasty enough to continue. Hoping our wolf spider friend will patrol and keep threats at bay.

The second WW has not made the cut again. We tested the pH with a probe and it seems to be fine at 7. Not sure if the seeds are too old, the microbiome is off or if there is a pest below attacking the roots.

BUT despite tragedy we also received a little package from @CropKingSeeds. They were quite cheeky in the way they sent them and we are so happy with the service! We have had great success with 420 in the past, but they no longer were able to ship to Australia.

We ordered a variety - Jack Herer, Platinum Cookies, Salted Caramel, Strawberry Kush, Tangie and received some free mystery seeds. We are excited to try the Strawberry Kush, as it's a CBD. We immediately threw down a Jack Herer, because we have been dying to give this strain a try. We have heard nothing but great things from people and we are so stoked!

I did put some DynoMyco down in the hole with the seed, so we'll see if that helps her along in the coming weeks!

I'm not exactly expecting to see the clone take root, as it was not as much of a cutting as I was originally intending to take. But the stem grew too thick too quickly and I had to cut it further up to avoid massacring the main stem at too thick a point. Fingers crossed though, I'd love to start having more of that vigorous lady in the garden!

And hopefully we won't have to wait too long to see our first Jack Herer appear, this is a strain I have been dying to try! So many good options to choose from, I almost wish we had more space to throw more down! But I have a feeling that with our plans to go crazy with cloning this year, space will begin to be a problem very soon...

At least it's a good problem to have!

 

[Slammy Pajama]

Day 43 - Lemon Haze & Girl Scout Cookie Extreme
Day 9 - Jack Herer

Range -
15° - 23°
58% - 63%

Here we are a week later. Both the GSCE & the LH are recovering from the topping. The vertical growth has slowed down, while branching out nicely. I will water them in the morning before lights out with some eggshell ferment and a tad bit more Epsom salts to supplement for the Calmag deficiency.

We excavated to inspect what was happening with the Jack Herer, as she had still not popped out. This is the same pot we had two White Widows fail on us. Pictured below we found that she has barely cracked the shell of the seed. We put her back in, watered a bit and hope she will make it.

Only time will tell if the little clones from the GSCE & the LH take root. We suspect the pill bugs had a bite out of the first clone from the LH. We put some coffee grounds on top to deter them and have found this has worked in the past.

 

[Slammy Pajama]

Day 55 - Lemon Haze & Girl Scout Cookie Extreme
Day 21 - Jack Herer

Range -
11° - 24°
49% - 64%

The LH & GSCE are looking good, but taking their sweet time! This is probably due to the low temperatures. They are super thick and drinking a lot less as well. I have only been watering with a litre each about twice a week. I gave them a bit of a rotate today. Since this grow began, we have given them Coffee grounds, Eggshell ferments, Epsom salts, and @GeoFlora Nutrients Veg.

The interveinal chlorosis is not as predominate as it was a few weeks ago in the older plants. We had to intervene with the supplements listed above. We also went in about 3 days ago and top dressed with some added minerals from Stone Age. The amendments were lightly watered in and hopefully gave the plants the boost they were missing.

We were really worried the JH was not going to survive, but here we are! She finally broke the surface last week. Looks better than the other 2 failed White Widows, who both seemed to have nutrient deficiencies, became stagnate and died. The JH doesn't appear to be in distress and is not showing signs of slowing down. The WW seeds were about 4 years old and temperatures were cold at times, so this probably contributed to the failed attempts.

 

[Slammy Pajama]

Day 85 - Lemon Haze & Girl Scout Cookie Extreme

Jack Herer - Rest in Peace

Range -
13° - 26°
48% - 66%

It has been a solid month since an update. The Jack Herer ended up yellowing and dying off like the other White Widows did. She started off stronger, was bigger and lasted longer, but didn't survive. The pot was removed from the tent and we have focused on the other two ladies! Here is the last picture of the JH on September 5th.

The other two ladies received a big training session, with a combination of LST, defoliation, and taking some cuttings of some of the tallest shoots to keep the canopy even. I got 8 cuttings between the two plants that we'll spend the next 2 weeks or so trying to root. We set up the other tent and put them in there with a light cycle that will roughly match the day cycle outside around the time that they should hopefully be rooted and ready to plant outside. Ideally this will make for a more seamless transition from the cloning tent to the outdoor garden just in time for the start of the season!

Today they were given a topping of minerals and NPK. They were also given a soaking then mulched. Everyone looks happy after the stripping down of leaves and the training. The Lemon Haze is looking good, but the Girl Scout Cookie is looking suspiciously like she is trying to flower!

 

[Slammy Pajama]

Today's Update
Temp: 18-26
RH: 49-62%

Still looking very flowery in there, so I bumped up the lights by an hour so they are now running 16 hours on, 8 off. I previously had them down on 15 hours to try and make the transition easier for the clones going from controlled lights to a 13.5-14.25 hour day maximum outside. Hopefully this doesn't mean the clones will have a hard time growing in our area!! But only time will tell. We did have some very confused plants last season...

Girl Scout Cookie:

Super Lemon Haze:

Still good colours though, and I'm glad we top dressed as there looks to be some yellowing creeping in a little on the girl scout. We'll keep an eye on her and see how they like the additional hour of light! I may toy with moving one hour to the middle of the dark period, as I've seen some people have good results with weird interrupted dark cycles like that for vegging. And I'm always down for an experiment!

The first round of cuttings are still mostly looking good. I don't see any roots or new looking growth yet, but it's only a week since the initial cut. I'll baby them for at least another week, and see how we are looking then!

 

[Slammy Pajama]

Day 92 - Super Lemon Haze & Girl Scout Cookie Extreme

Range -
Temp: 19° - 26°
RH: 52% - 66%


The Ladies! Still Vegging out from left to right: Super Lemon Haze & Girl Scout Cookie Extreme. They definitely seem to be reverting back to veg, so I'm not sure if that additional hour of light really sent them back into veg, or if we maybe had a light hiccup earlier on that has since resolved itself? We will see! Last season was very difficult transitioning from the tents to outside at about 14 hours of light, but that was a pretty direct transition from 18h of light without being gradual or planning it very well... Haha so I am hoping that the plants can strategically/gradually take a shorter day like 13 or 14 hours without trying to flower, because that's the best we get round here if I want to have a real crack at outdoor growing!

Super Lemon Haze

Girl Scout Cookie Extreme

We forgot to include this in the last update. This had grown over night in the Girl Scout Cookie pot..... we believe it is called Dog Vomit Slime Mould. It had actually weighed down and engulfed one of the lower leaves that was still on the plant! It was gross, but intriguing!

The clones are still taking their time... Looks like we've only really got 3 potentials left. I might try and cut back more of the leaves next time, so they aren't trying to photosynthesise or transpiring quite as much and hopefully we'll get a higher success rate as we continue taking rounds of cuttings!

 

[CelestialNurseries]

Dog Vomit Slime Mould

That's a new one to me...thanks for the knowledge...If you're serious about cloning spend the $10 and by a prop tray with a venting dome...it will help so much.

 

[Mike Wright]

Hope all is well in your world.

How did this grow turn out?

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.