Motafina Fall 2018: Damnesia, Chemdawg & Royal Cookies

[MotaFina]

Here's D1 at harvest:

D1.jpg

• MotaFina
• Dec 12, 2018

Damnesia 1 at harvest

And here's seedlings for the next grow - Damnesia front left (a week behind), Liberty Haze front right, Royal Cookies back left, RQS Critical back right.

NewSeedlings.JPG

• MotaFina
• Dec 12, 2018

New seedlings for next grow

 

[BluePhoric]

My problem with popcorn is with the trimming. I get tired of trimming the little leaves off the little buds, so I end up just lopping them off into a pile and then add them in with my sugar leaves. After an hour or so of trimming, what I consider 'popcorn' goes from dime-sized to quarter-sized. By the end of the trim job, I'm lopping off big ol' buds as popcorn, just to get done with the work!

Does the girlfriend help with the trimming ?

Mine usually does, but I did it alone once... long, boring and arduous.
Cant imagine doing 1.6 pound ;-(

Do you do trim wet or dry ?
I do wet. Did dry once... didn't like that at all. I put the popcorn and trim to dry in paper bags that I shake every day.
BUT... the colas can dry pretty quick if trimmed wet then suspended and ventilated, so one needs to control the RH level.

My room is usually ~40% RH... that's why I enclose the colas in some box to help with RH.
A day or two at low RH is ok to get the drying started... but then it should slow down a bit.

BP

 

[BluePhoric]

Do you know about Water Curing ?

I read a bit about it last night. I'll certainly try that with part of my harvest.

The curing happens BEFORE the drying...
so in poor drying conditions, it should get rid of chemical and chlorophyll taste.

Supposedly, in the end, it can make the buds less fragrant and tasty.
Seems like a good compromise (for personal use) if the product is well cured, less harsh and more potent...

I find the traditional mason-jar burping and curing process to be long, not so straight forward, and costly in Boveda...

BP

 

[MotaFina]

Does the girlfriend help with the trimming ?

My wife helped with trimming on the last grow. She got a kick out of it, but I think she realized how much work it is and only kinda half-assed offered to help this time.

I usually trim wet. I tried dry trimming one branch of the Royal Cookies, and I liked the way that bud turned out. It took longer to dry and didn't get the brittle outside like the wet trimmed stuff. But dry trimming seems way harder to do.

 

[MotaFina]

Do you know about Water Curing ?

I read a bit about it last night. I'll certainly try that with part of my harvest.

The curing happens BEFORE the drying...
so in poor drying conditions, it should get rid of chemical and chlorophyll taste.

Supposedly, in the end, it can make the buds less fragrant and tasty.
Seems like a good compromise (for personal use) if the product is well cured, less harsh and more potent...

I find the traditional mason-jar burping and curing process to be long, not so straight forward, and costly in Boveda...

BP

Yeah the curing process is definitely not straight forward. It's probably something you just need to get a feel for from experience....I'm still learning.

I don't like the Bovedas. I tried the 62's and the bud seemed way too dry. And it seemed to change the flavor too. What I do now is vacuum seal the jars once the buds are at the moisture level I like, then store the jars in a cool, dark place. The last Damnesia crop was jarred for about 8-9 months that way and it seemed to just get better and better until we ran out.

Water curing seems counter-intuitive, but who knows until you try it!

 

[BluePhoric]

So many things are counter-intuitive but right !

 

[BluePhoric]

Having one jar full of rapidly cured buds appeals to me ! The rest can cure slowly...

Fill jar with fresh buds + water. Replace water every 12h. Do that for several days...
Every chemical, salt, chlorophyll, sugars etc are dissolved in the water, but THC is intact.
Put buds to dry in any fashion (ex: dehydrator). Can even de-carboxylate them.
Buds are cured and ready to smoke in < than a week.

Buds are ugly, lost much of their scent and their appeal, but are the smoothest smoke and as much or more potent than traditionally cured.

Seems counter-counter-intuitive to me !

P.S.: Some even water-cure their AVB (already vaped bud). Watering AVB until water stays clear. Most of the bad taste is gone, and the AVB can be used, like in cannanutter without giving an awful taste.

 

[BluePhoric]

Popcorn, SOG, SCROG...

Are you familiar with "mainlining" ? You seedlings may not be too big to start, if you so desire...

Looks like a great way to control and harmonize the way the plant grows.

Main training is done on the young plants.
You prune all growth tips that are no part of "the plan".
You end up with a specific number of equal colas, either 8, 16, or 32 (if you top 3, 4 or 5 times respectively).

Plants grow very symmetrical, nothing is allowed to grow except the main colas.

Pretty sure I'll try that next grow. I'll probably do a short veg, so only 8 colas per plant may be a good idea.
Then again, I'll have at least one sativa dominant (80%), and not sure if that would be appropriate for that plant.
I could start and see how the plant grows...

BP

 

[MotaFina]

Are you familiar with "mainlining" ?

I've been interested in the "quadline" method and might try that on some of these seedlings. Especially now that the Damnesia is a week behind. It should slow down the ones that are ahead so that the Damnesia can catch up. The quadline is like mainline but slightly different. A 420 magazine user 'Asesino' is the champion of the quadline.

 

[BluePhoric]

I like Nebula's manifold. A bit faster than Nugbuckets mainlining.

I'd like to achieve a shape like this, to fit 2 medium plants side by side to fit in a square shape...

I know I'll never achieve exactly that, but maybe a little ;-)

 

[BluePhoric]

This made me laugh !

 

[MotaFina]

This made me laugh !

Looks like it was topped once very early, then trained to grow horizontal. I like they way they've balanced out the opposing branches with a little piece of string.

 

[BluePhoric]

Any training/topping done on the little girls ?

 

[MotaFina]

Nothing yet. I'm going to top the Liberty Haze and Critical at 5 nodes down to 4 nodes, wait for recovery, then remove the two bottom branches, then start training out the two remaining branches. I've not done any HST up to this point so this will be my first attempt.

I started up a new journal for the next grow: MotaFina's Winter Garden 2019: Liberty Haze, Damnesia, Royal Cookies & Critical

 

[MotaFina]

Synopsis - Final Thoughts:

Strains - Damnesia, Chemdawg and Royal Cookies

Damnesia is my top strain. I will always have at least one Damnesia in the tent. My wife loves the high more than any strain she's ever smoked. It's an easy, forgiving plant, yields are great, and the seeds are relatively inexpensive. Buds are long, fat and dense. Aroma and flavor are earthy. Thick smoke with a high that creeps up on you, gets you up and moving, and rarely progresses into dry eye or couchlock.

DamnesiaBuds.JPG

• MotaFina
• Dec 18, 2018

Damnesia buds

Chemdawg is a great strain that I'd grow again. Unfortunately, I biffed on two of the three seeds, so I don't have any more to grow. It's an attractive plant with buds that are crystal coated. I did get some nanners about midway through flower, but the bud doesn't appear to be seeded (I did find two seeds in the Damnesia!). Foxtails came out at the end of flowering, so maybe it was sensitive to heat. The buds are long and fat, but broken up more than the Damnesia. Yield was medium....this was the lowest yielder on this grow. The aroma is awesome...spicy, floral, with a hint of petroleum. I tried it once and liked the high, but I'll need to try it again to give an accurate smoke report.

CDBuds.JPG

• MotaFina
• Dec 18, 2018

Chemdawg buds

Royal Cookies was an odd strain. The pheno I got was really dark green throughout the grow. It grows different than any cannabis I've ever grown. The lowest branches reach all the way to the top of the canopy and are stout. There was never a need to support the buds because the branches were strong and the buds were small. The buds are crystal coated with huge calyxes, but overall very small buds. I didn't think the plant would amount to much, but it surprised me with over 5 oz of small, dense, crystal coated buds. The aroma is muted but more like a petroleum than a baked good. Smoke is thick and expand-o with a quick hitting high that is somewhat energetic, but is a little too cerebral for me. Nice for listening to music though.

RCBudRibbon.jpg

• MotaFina
• Dec 18, 2018

Royal Cookies buds Xmas

Nutrients - Nectar for the Gods sample line with additions of Cultured Biologics instant tea, SLF-100 and molasses

Worked great again. I'm running low on my bottles so I'll need to make a decision to either re-up with this line or try another. I was using their sample kit and it lasted two grows, although I had to buy a few bottles that get used up quicker than the others.

Soil - Supersoil mixed with Coast of Maine Stonington Blend

Awesome mix....working great. I'll continue with the same.

Lighting - CFLs for seedling stage, 400w MH up to week 3 of flowering, 1000w HPS for flowering

No problems this time with heat. If I grow in the summer again, I'll have to do something to control the heat from the 1000w bulb.

Pots - 7-gal plastic and fabric

I don't notice much of a difference between the plastic and fabric. I haven't dumped out the root balls yet, so we'll see how the root balls developed in them later.

Water - Tap water treated with de-chlorination solution

Much simpler than purchasing RO water from the grocery store. I'll continue with this practice.

Process:

Germination: Wet towel process

Veg - No nutrients were added. Instant tea a couple of times. No problems here.

Training - I started out trying to do the 'quadline' method, but didn't get that right. So it turned into just a basic LST to produce about 15-20 buds per plant. I'll try to quad again on the next grow.

Flowering - Nutrients added during flowering. Plants seemed to love everything I gave them. Some nanners showed on Chemdawg, so maybe they're more sensitive to heat. Otherwise, this went fine

Drying/Curing - Wet trim, then hang in dark space with airflow. Drying was too quick...it took 3-4 days. I'm curing in jars now with daily/weekly burping. After about a month of decreased burping times, I'll vacuum seal the jars for long-term storage.

Overall, this was a successful grow. I'm very happy with the strains and the yields.

My next grow is started, featuring my go-to strain Damnesia, more Royal Cookies and attempts at two new strains, Liberty Haze and RQS Critical. Here's a link: MotaFina's Winter Garden 2019: Liberty Haze, Damnesia, Royal Cookies & Critical

 

[BluePhoric]

Funny how GSCookies is said to be Indica dom... and it clearly has a sativa dom high...

With those hybrids, you cant tell how the high will be from how a plant grows.
Sativas that grow like Indicas, Indicas that grow like sativas...
Short plants that have Sativa-like foliage...
And then different phenos can give different results, ahaha.

 

[MotaFina]

I had a good sample of the Chemdawg last night....took 3 big tokes. Wow...this one is good! The high is initially uplifting and fun. It put me into a really good, talkative joking mood. After about an hour or 90 minutes it turns to a more relaxing, sleepy high with some dry/red eye. I'd say it's a great strain for evenings.

 

[BluePhoric]

I had a good sample of the Chemdawg last night....took 3 big tokes. Wow...this one is good! The high is initially uplifting and fun. It put me into a really good, talkative joking mood. After about an hour or 90 minutes it turns to a more relaxing, sleepy high with some dry/red eye. I'd say it's a great strain for evenings.

Chemdawg from Humboldt ?

 

[MotaFina]

Chemdawg from Humboldt ?

Yep....Chemdawg #4. Wish I had more seeds.

 

[BluePhoric]

SeedFinder says probably (OG Kush x Sour Diesel) mostly Sativa... Chemdawg (Humboldt Seed Organisation) :: Cannabis Strain Info

Deliciousseeds says 60%-40% Sativa-Indica.

Dinafem says 60% Indica / 40% Sativa.

Zamnesia says Sativa dominant.

Seedsupreme says Indica dominant.


I hate that... One cant be sure of anything.

BTW, in the Humboldt catalog, didn't see no Chemdawg. Maybe they will be discontinuing it ?

BP