Oh No - It's A Green Hole! - Reverse Thrusters! - Dammit - Too Late!

[SweetSue]

I'll be looking forward to that Roach. I have two no-tills that I'll be leaving in my daughter's care while on vacation. One sits on a SWICK - couldn't be simpler. The ten gallon I planted in a bag set into a crate. This makes a SWICK difficult. A drip system may be the way to go.

 

[TheRoach]

I have to caulk a couple leaks it has, but is performing really well. One thing I would change would be using adjustable flow drippers vs fixed flow emitters. I am not sold on the idea of feeding teas or drenches trough the drip system, because of how easily the emitters clog. Lights on is 9 pm and its 7 pm, so in a couple hours I should be uploading some pics.

 

[Spitz]

I'm dialing in a system with a 230 GPH pump. I put 1/2" ball valves at each drip ring. I've got a hydro timer that lets you program up to 3 "on cycles" per 24 hrs (with a 1 min minimum). I'm yet to figure out an effective drip ring (currently working with a commercial one) and still trying to determine how long the ph perfect nutrients are stable. I've got a sump pump for the waste res but haven't even started to tackle that yet. Sure wish I had access to a drain!

 

[Weaselcracker]

That's something like I have I think, Spitz. A bag of goodies I was given by a friend. I would have an electric pump on a timer, with a garden hose (or whatever) running to a manifold. The manifold I have accepts up to eight 1/4" lines running from it. There's a pile of 1/4" line with lots of different fittings, valves, elbows, tees, sprinklers, drippers, etc., all with flow control valves. It's not particularly expensive looking stuff. Since I would need a separate system for the veg room, I'll probably be doing research and see what the best options are and whether I should be upgrading a bit or not. 1/4" lines and all those cheap looking fittings seems a bit untrustworthy, but I think as long as the water was well filtered I'd be ok and not get clogging. I'm skeptical about running nutrient through it all.
I don't have the headroom to elevate my rainwater barrel enough to make gravity feed work, hence the pump.
I figure I need that wet-dry cycle. So I picture having the water come on just once every five days or six days for a full soaking. Is this what you're thinking Mr Roach?

 

[TheRoach]

I was thinking about watering every other day with less water.
My irrigation system is barely 3 ft above ground, and water pressure is very strong

 

[Weaselcracker]

~FLOWERING~

Here are a couple no-frills pics of the flowering Blueberry and Pineapple Chunk from Friday. The older PC, strung up in the dangly mobile contraption, failed to get her picture taken before the camera battery died.

Pineapple Chunk

Blueberry

Both these plants, like the Mama Thai, were put into flowering six weeks ago. They're still happy. PC got a touch of nute burn a couple weeks ago.

I can see how growing a bunch of small plants could make me a better grower. With the faster turnaround time and a higher plant count I would be able to observe and do comparison studies and fine tune everything so much more effectively than growing plants that take half a year to finish, as I do now. Interesting thought, but I'm not tempted at the moment

 

[Weaselcracker]

~VEG ROOM~

A pleasant surprise awaited me, as most of my veg plants are recovering quickly from the wilty flu and starting to look like real plants again. Yay!

The leaves of the affected plants are still quite small and lower growth is a bit funky, but they look way better. The Mama Thai is still looking pretty rough, but she is also somewhat improved.

New baby Thai Stick is down by Mama's feet, maybe that will cheer her up and distract her from her flu. Get well soon Mama, so you can take care of me.
ขอหายไวไวไทยแม่!! ฉันรักคุณมากเลย!!

The three Malawis.

I topped them last week, reluctantly. Despite my dreams of growing nice untrained plants like Spitz's, I just couldn't see a way around it if I'm not going to be around full time to deal with tall plants, tweak lighting distance, etc. I'm going to have to go with what works for now, and scrog them. I don't know what these plants are capable of. They're already quite large and have big thick stems on them. I need the option of chaining them up to a scrog screen. Sorry Malawis.
The other reason for topping was to get them to grow some side branches for cloning, which they immediately did. I labelled the plants A, B, and C and took two cuttings of each.

If they root before their parent plants show sex I may put them into 12/12 to reveal the moms and dads. The curly looking cuttings in the very back are Mama Thai.

 

[lexort420]

They are looking great weasel!

 

[Weaselcracker]

Thank you Lexort. I wish I knew what caused the strange growth in the veg plants to begin with. It could have been a ph swing, maybe ph crept too high behind my back and I blinked and missed it. I try to keep ph at 5.8 these days. Landing on the higher outskirts of the ph ranges always caused me issues. The silica raises ph and maybe it could have been something to do with that- like things got askew in the containers and I missed it. Or it could have been...overwatering or other root problems? I never saw any signs of root problems... I really don't know. Just glad the problem seems to be on it's way out the door.

 

[lexort420]

Glad to hear its straightening out now. Could very well have been a ph swing mine usual do odd things when my ph is off lol.

 

[nivek]

Good wet coast Sunday to you weasy,, hard to believe just a couple months ago the world was on fire around here,, good luck getting one going today,, haha,, snowing like mad in the mountains,,, none in the valley,,, yet,, cheers pal

Oh, btw,, garden looks fab bud,, picture of health,,

 

[nivek]

Weas, one more q iffin I might,, major important,,

You ever get hyderized??

 

[jojo677]

Good conversation on watering systems, it's something I've been giving a lot of thought to recently. Do share pictures if you decide to set it up!

Those seeds plumped up fast. Wow. It looks like you should have a good supply for the future. This is your first shot at breeding, right?

That squirrel conversation caught my attention, as I've been recently wanting to eat a tree rat! A lot of personal friends have tried them and they love em. Plus they're just right outside your window... Squirrel stew is supposed to be a favorite. I almost shot one this morning, but he didn't look quite big enough to fill me.

The plants are looking great too. I didn't realize how big the Malawis were until I saw the shears for scale. You're going to have some good sized plants on your hands.

 

[lexort420]

If you do nab yourself a squirrel let me know how it tastes lol

 

[Weaselcracker]

Yes and a good day to you too Nivek. Evening now, and been dark as night here for hours already. Was out zipping around in waterworld all day. Now battening things down for the next storm. We get a fair amount of hurricane force winds here which come through regularly this time of year and blast us pretty hard, depending which direction they swing in and which nook we happen to be sheltered in at the time. This next blast looks like an inconvenient direction.
These aren't 'real' hurricanes like the east coast gets, still, 120+ km/h winds can get pretty raw, as you know if you ever have stood through the sunroof, or stood on the roof of, a car driving down a freeway.
Speaking of dumb youthful exploits though, yes certainly I've been Hyderized! Oddly enough I was just talking about this recently on OldMedUser's journal, in relation to making extracts. At one point I smuggled quite a few bottles of that crazy stuff across the non-existent border and got up to various life-threatening exploits with it.

The flaming shots were going down 'ok' at first. Then buddy took a few seconds extra to screw up his courage, extra seconds which resulted in fried lips and screams of pain and an impromptu firebreathing demonstration from him as the carpet caught on fire and much excitement and creative language ensued. We beat out the flames with our bare hands. It was many weeks before my blisters healed enough to do anything much. The guilty carpet was replaced, and not surprisingly I never did flaming shots of Everclear ever again.
Oh to be young again..
I wish I had access to Everclear now I'd find more useful uses for it.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Thanks JoJo. I won't complain about how the plants are doing, all things considered. Yes the Malawis are growing big. I'll flower them sooner rather than later. Not only are they large but the stems on them are extremely thick, unlike the other sativas.

I suppose one day I will try a squirrel. I can't see why these ones wouldn't taste good, as they mainly feed on seeds and such. I've just heard that they aren't good. This place also swarms with delicious deer so I'm usually not starving enough to go for the tree rats, not that I'd be against trying them. Let us know if you devour one and how it is. As I mentioned, you may have a different, tastier, type of squirrel than I do?

I'll for sure write it up if I get some auto-watering going. Chances are I won't anytime soon as things just seem to keep getting busier and I'm hard pressed to keep up with it. Makes me disinterested I making new work for myself when I there are always important housekeeping things to do first.

This isn't exactly my first breeding attempt, but it's been a long time, and I never had a clue what I was doing. Still don't. I did various accidental crosses and made various 'shit mix' strains a long time ago. Mostly outdoors. I doubt that the Mama Thai/Stick cross will be any improvement on the Mama Thai, but it seemed worth taking the chance to make a few seeds since I had the Thai Stick male. Especially since Ace Seeds stopped selling the Thai Stick and is completely out of all Thai strains last I checked.
I'm very impressed with how fast those seeds form. Makes me realize that at least it should be quickly obvious whether a plant has been successfully pollinated or not. I'll try to do a Thai Stick/Thai Stick pollination as well.

 

[lexort420]

When it comes to breeding a sativa with a sativa wouldnt you have to worry about passing on hermie genes even more so since ive read sativas are more prone to that trait?

 

[Mello136]

That's why there is a small window between sexing and pollination because the seeds form so quickly. Good luck with the thai/thai breeding. I would love to get my hands on some of those stick seeds from ace but like you said Ace stopped the line. G'morning BTW

 

[PotChimp]

I'm trying to do the same thing you are, Weaselcracker. I just used my last male Thai Stick pollen on this female Thai Stick plant last night:

 

[Mello136]

Looks good Chimp, how long until seeds show?