Panama x Malawi - Probiotic & Organic Indoor Soil Grow

[TheFertilizer]

I was waiting a while to start this journal, and then life just kind of got busy and I forgot to make a journal. So now I'm right on the verge of starting to flower these Panama x Malawi plants that are 100% sativa landrace, and also one Platinum Girl Scout Cookies x Cherry OG. I'm not really sure what the makeup of the PGSC x Cherry OG is, or if it's even really Cherry OG it was crossed out, but can see a lot more Indica influence with it. Was the only female of 5 seeds.

I started them out in Happy Frog, but decided shortly after that I wanted to try a soil where I'd have to do water-only through flower. I ended up making two separate mixes because I needed to transplant before the soil with amendments would be done cooking.

So I started out with 33% Sunshine Mix #4 with Myco + 33% Perlite + 33% EWC and mix this up into 2.4 cu. ft. Then I added ~2 cups neem seed meal, ~8 cups of Down to Earth Bio-Live and ~1 cup of azomite. The EWC I used also had kelp meal and rock dusts added.

Well so as I said I had the plants needing to be transplanted from solo cups into 1 gallon pots pretty soon but had to let this mix cook for 4 weeks. I decided to mix up the same base mix minus the Bio-Live, Neem Seed Meal and Azomite. The plants did like that quite a bit...

Here is day 1 as they went from solo-cups of Happy Frog into my basic mix.

A day later...

Four days from transplant...

So I let the amended soil mix cook for 4 weeks, and in the meantime had quite a struggle with high temperature differences, the plants didn't all FIM right, etc. and so they got very stretched the canopy got very uneven. They also got farily pot-bound waiting for the soil, but finally I did get them transplanted into 3 gallon pots.

I was a little worried about how much Neem Seed Meal I used in the mix because it was 2x the upper limit on the box. Now, on top of that, the original base mix that I had of 33% Sunshine Mix #4 seemed a little soggy, so I cut it with more perlite until it was 50% Perlite and then 25% EWC and 25% Sunshine Mix #4. Using that revised base mix, I then mixed that and the amended mix 50/50 and that's what I used to transplant them into the 3 gallon pots. I think with the EWC it should still prove as nutritious as they need because they seemed pretty happy with just the base mix.

So yeah here you can see how much taller some of the plants got than the others...

Until today when I put the scrog up...

Once again the scrog is kind of an afterthought because I realized I was going to run out of ceiliing, but also because these plants got so uneven in height I wanted to keep the canopy even. So for now I just have the taller plants kind of bent and looped under, and I am honestly not really sure how to continue training the other ones into the net. I figure I should let them veg out and get a little taller for a week or two at least while the taller ones get the message to start growing laterally.

The only input I plan to use besides plain water is Lactic Acid Bacilli Serum. It's made by taking hot water your rinse through rice, fermenting for a week or so, and then mixing into milk and allowing the milk to curdle and separate. The stuff in the middle is this yellowish liquid that's a highly concentrated probiotic. Besides that and some molasses, this will be a water-only grow.

 

[TheFertilizer]

I got the scrog net down the taller plants quite a ways, not without snapping one of the tops of of them. Whoopsie. I've got the ones in the front coming up through the net a good bit, slowly spanning the limbs out through the net, but I feel like I'll have a few weeks of vegetation left to get them all big enough and the net filled up. Probably more than a few... Then on top of that, this is a landrace sativa so I'm looking at a pretty long flower time. Might as well not rush things, hopefully it will be worth it.

Little worried about my temperature. For some reason I'm running about 8-10 degrees F warmer inside of the tent than my room temperature. So far it hasn't been too much of a problem because I'm staying in the 78-82 F range, but on the other hand I have very low humidity--21% - 28%. I've tried running a humidifier in there before without much success, but I've also never really had humidity much higher than that. I feel like any intervention I might take will just throw in more variables into the scenario, and I'm really not sure how foliage feeding will work out with this scrog net. It's polyester and might absorb the water and hold it next to the plants and present a mold issue.

I think the humidity might be the culprit behind my slightly-burned tips, but I really am not sure. So far it doesn't seem like it's impeding growth, and I'm having a lot of mixed opinions about whether my soil could be responsible, being "too hot". That's the main reason I want to try to bump the humidity up, to see if it helps the tips out a little bit.

Anyway, not really much left to say. Just waiting it out.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Have been foliar spraying with LABS to try to get the humidity increased. Pre-flowers are starting to shoot out all over. Would like to see some of the smaller plants filling up through the net a little more before I flip to 12/12 though.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Flipped to 12/12 today. From everything I've heard the plants will stretch quite a bit so I didn't think I could afford to let the net fill out much more in veg. Pruned some lower branches to save as cuts before flowering started, but I'm saving most of the pruning until a little later down the line after stretch.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Just doing a little more training today. This would be a lot easier if I had a stiff net, but I found if I supercrop the stems and then tuck them under the net they stay down pretty well.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Took some clones off the plants today. I decided that if I really like one particular plant's bud over the rest or if I notice some real differences I'd like some clones to be able to grow that particular one again later on. So I took as many clones as I could of each of 5 plants, though I had already pruned so the branches still there were pretty small. I have the branches I pruned in a tupperware in the crisper if these ones don't turn out, but it will be all mix-n-matched again.

 

[TheFertilizer]

A bit concerned about one of the plants. I spotted the leaves going down to 3 fingers, and now I have noticed it going down to 1. This usually isn't a good sign but I can't remember specifically what it indicates. I'm only seeing it in one and I just started the 12/12, so I can't go back and try to make it better.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Decided to put a picture of the girls looking nice up...

 

[TheFertilizer]

Things are progressing a long slowly. I am going to put the HPS bulb into the hood today now that I see pretty developed flower clusters and I'm pretty sure I can handle the stretch. I'd like to wait another week or so into flower but I don't want to deprive of it a good red spectrum for too long while it's building flowers up. I don't know I'm still debating on that, I may just wait so I don't have to get up in time to catch it before the lights come on. I need to get a green bulb.

In the meantime I decided to take a few clones off each of the plants to keep in case one has better flower than the others. Already seems like one plant shows signs of stressing easier than the others, and I know one smelled a lot different during veg though it's hard to find now. So I took two clones off each trying to for redundancy sake to make sure I save some cuts for each plant. I use this little oxy-cloner with an airstone in it and it has quite amazing success.

So from the 30th they barely started showing roots until now they've practically blown up. Need to transplant them pretty quick but I'm still waiting it out a bit because I had to give them a neem oil treatment.

Meanwhnile the flowering ones.

Well, it's pretty much just me around here it seems, so I don't think I'll be making too many more updates for a bit. See you guys when the clones are established in their own pots and flowering is a little further along.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Finally got a new HPS in today. As I was preparing to put my other one in last week, I noticed a small scratch along the envelope and didn't feel safe using it anymore because of the location right on that little "angle" that Apollo bulbs have in their HPS bulbs. I'd used it for two cycles anyway, so I just got a fresh iPower for $12. Max lumens and cheap piece of mind for the win.

Meanwhile, I think I'm done tucking and training. A couple of the satellite branches stretched up too high, so I kind of bent them over in an "arc" shape and I hope that ends up working out. First time scrogging so I really am flying by the seams of my pants on this. But I don't think that they will be able to conduct a lot of phototropism the deeper into flower they go so I want to get the branches where they're gonna stay and focus on defoliating for light penetration from here on out. I'm a little worried about how these things are gonna hold themselves out once the weight starts packing on the branches, so I've tied some of them down with rubber-covered-wire.

Got clones off most of them, the only one that didn't really take was the Panama x Malawi #4 cut but it really doesn't seem like it's that unique so I'm crossing my fingers I'll still have cuts of the phenotypes I like. My biggest concern is them simply getting too big before I'm done flowering these ones. I'm thinking about cutting my T5 down to half the lights so they're in more of a "stasis" than actively growing, because that light can really put on some vegetative growth. I'm going to wait until they're well established in soil before doing that.

I've also had to deal with some russet mites. Everyone's worst nightmare... Well, I'm not sure if I picked them up in some Amazon Bloom or if they were just around, but I had some clones planted in the Amazon Bloom soil that I bought as kind of a hold-over because I didn't want to use up my custom mix. They ended up with little brown dust marks on the tips of the leaves and on a site where I super-cropped a stem. Then one of the neighbors had leaves folding up and yellowing on top and I recognized the signs, but still decided to have a look with my 120x pocket scope and saw their little larvae wriggling around. Yuck. I've sprayed 3 times with neem oil, first with a 2-day delay and then with a 3-day, and also given a root drench. I threw the other infested plants and the Amazon Bloom soil out completely. Well I put the tote that had the rest of the soil outside in the freezing temperatures--see how the little dormant assholes like a good neem drench in the spring. But I didn't want to just toss it out completely, that stuff is good organic soil--least according to the ingredients.

Just a few pics...

Also I really recommend a bubbler cloner like I'm using above versus rockwool cubes. I've had a 100% success rate as far as getting roots. The Panama x Malawi #4 that I lost had roots, but just barely started, so if I had waited another day or two it would have took fine. I even had two PGSC x Cherry OG cuts taken from deeper in flower that rooted just fine. All it is, is an OxyCloner but with water and an air-stone in it instead of the little sprayer nozzles it comes with. I'm sure you could find other ways to DIY a similar setup, even in a larger scale.

The hygrometer on a string serves two purposes... To get a better idea of what the conditions are at the canopy level, and also just gives me a nice constant 16" reference. I set it just above the canopy and I know the light is just about 16" above the bottom point of the hygrometer.

 

[Gee64]

Hey Fert✌ Great strain choices! I have some Panama Red and some Malawi seeds that I will grow once I get a 2nd tent to dedicate to flower. Mind if I watch?

 

[TheFertilizer]

Hey Fert✌ Great strain choices! I have some Panama Red and some Malawi seeds that I will grow once I get a 2nd tent to dedicate to flower. Mind if I watch?

Nah come on in, could use some visitors!

Yeah ACE has another cross of Malawi x Panama that's supposed to be more "trippy" but they listed this as their highest yielder and it didn't seem like it was any slouch in potency.

 

[Gee64]

I love your probiotic approach. Do you use any teas to widen your variety of microbes?

 

[Gee64]

or are teas even needed here? The EWC will definitely supply some

 

[TheFertilizer]

or are teas even needed here? The EWC will definitely supply some

I'm sure teas would probably help but for me the approach was to try to keep it as close to plain-water going in as possible. I am using some LABS but I don't consider it that much more work because I literally just splash a little in from my mason jar into a gallon jug, fill it up, and water with that.

I have considered using some sprouted-seed teas to supply different enzymes, but since it's the first time working with this mix I'm just kind of trying observe how it does and keep it simple.

I'm pretty sure this Bio-Live stuff has a lot of goodies in it too...

My bin the other day had some nice little bits of mycellium going.

 

[Gee64]

The BioLive does look like nice stuff. I ordered some PurpleHaze x Malawi seeds last night. They probably arent quite as good of a cross as yours but I couldnt resist them lol

 

[TheFertilizer]

The BioLive does look like nice stuff. I ordered some PurpleHaze x Malawi seeds last night. They probably arent quite as good of a cross as yours but I couldnt resist them lol

I thought that one looked interesting too, it was really hard to pick which ones to buy. I still want to go order some Malawi but will probably wait until I have tried what I have in my little seed vault.

 

[Gee64]

collecting seeds is a sickness all of its own ;-))

 

[TheFertilizer]

collecting seeds is a sickness all of its own ;-))

Yeah I have a jar full of genetics (boy that sounds bad) in my fridge that I probably need about ten years to get through haha It's hard to not order more stuff to keep in there in the meantime, especially the ACE "limited editions". In fact I should probably go see if there's even any Malawi x Panama left...

 

[TheFertilizer]

Well my clones were not liking that mix so much, so I had to replant them into a more milder dilution of it. At first I mixed in 5 gallons of the hot mix and 5 gallons of my more mild mix, but knowing how much of the amendments I put into it, I knew that I could still dilute it by another 50% and would still be within recommended minimums. They were looking pretty nute burned in it, so I think now I know for sure that mix is too hot for clones/seedlings.

Meanwhile the flowering plants are coming along nicely for 4 weeks. I attempted to pollinate one of the Platinum Girl Scout Cookies x Cherry OG buds with some feminized Blackberry Kush pollen so we'll see if I get any seeds out of it, there wasn't much pollen so I'm crossing my fingers. I like how well the buds are developing for 4 weeks in, but I'm running low on meds again already so it looks like it's going to be another run where I'm dry by the time I harvest