PeeJay's Neophyte Breeding Adventure

[SweetSue]

What an interesting perspective of our virtual neighborhood PeeJay. I'm not sure how I feel about being pegged as polite. You certainly do your share of keeping us from becoming complacent.

 

[Whitty08]

What an interesting perspective of our virtual neighborhood PeeJay. I'm not sure how I feel about being pegged as polite. You certainly do your share of keeping us from becoming complacent.

Completely agree!

 

[Whitty08]

PJ, I'm having troubles with my Blueberry. Her growth is very slow and she's really not able to support her weight, as her stalk is too spindly. I've got a fan circulating the air around her 24/7 in hopes that she'll start strengthening her stalk. What shall I do? Thank you for your help.

 

[Lady Cannafan]

I can't believe how much foliage erupted on those plants.
Awesome!

You're going to run out of space..........

 

[Lady Cannafan]

Got a question for ya PJ.... The 2 WW.. 1 in PJ soil and 1 in FF.... the one in PJ soil is perfect... beautiful color and very tight nodes... so far just a perfect specimen.... then the 2nd one in FF soil is like the leggiest thing I have ever seen... They are both fem beans or I would be convinced the lanky one was going to be a male.... but assuming they are fems as they are supposed to be.... why would the FF babe be so much taller and lankier.. They have both been treated exactly the same and under the same lights... I have grwon WW before a couple of times but both times it was an auto so I don't know which is the norm... the lanky one or the short bushy one... or would the soil make that much difference at this stage or is it just genetics...
I like the structure of the girl in your soil much better and I think I will use her to clone from but am just curious if you think it is the soil that is making the differences or the genetics... both beans came from the same place but I do know that doesn't make a lot of difference... you can get different traits from the same lot.... Anyhow just curious what ya thought.........

Hi Dennise,
I have your answer from the source. ;-) The mother plant was referred to as "gangly", so it is in the genetics. The sister was chock full of buds, even though gangly in appearance while growing. The mother plant of your seeds, bolted and seeded out.
There was a timer failure during the grow, the result was the plant going too long into flower and it produced nanners and seeded.
Hope that helps you on that question.

 

[Dennise]

It answered it perfectly........

 

[Lady Cannafan]

It answered it perfectly........

You are very welcome my friend.

 

[PeeJay]

PJ, I'm having troubles with my Blueberry. Her growth is very slow and she's really not able to support her weight, as her stalk is too spindly. I've got a fan circulating the air around her 24/7 in hopes that she'll start strengthening her stalk. What shall I do? Thank you for your help.

Whitty, I went and looked. Sorry I've been away from home for a few days and haven't been on much. Some of the things that have been giving you problems you are already aware of. Others you may or may not be... With your permission I will repost pictures and text from your current journal here and slap you around like a red-headed stepchild. I don't want to get into a spitting match with other people who post in your journal but am more than willing to bare your ass to anyone who reads my journal if you are interested. Not saying I'm the be-all and end-all of cannabis growing by any means but I can express my opinion here and if anyone takes exception or is offended by what I have to say they don't have to come here, read it, or try to explain to you why I'm wrong.

I'll update all tomorrow or Monday. I could go back and search Sue's journal but that is a pain. There was some talk there a while back about letting pots get dry. Sue was awesome about asking folks to show what it was like when plants got thirsty. I liked Gray's response the best.

It has been crazy hot and dry here and I've been away for four days. I left everything 100% hydrated when I left but the greenhouse has been experiencing 105 - 110 F temperatures and RH of 10-20%...

This is what I found when I got back.

Darkstar:

Sage n' Sour:

I gave them water. After 90 minutes:

Four hours later:

Sue, you may note that if the yardstick from 6 days ago was still there it would not be visible...

I'm not advocating that anyone should do this to their plants, just that you should have a sense of where things go bad.

When reading journals I caution people to take the time and go back and look at progressions and growth rates. Anyone can claim that they are growing the bestest weed ever. Things are pretty basic here in my corner. Good watering practices. No " wonder additives." I don't stress.

It ain't that hard...

 

[SweetSue]

OK, that was way better than anything you'd have found on my journal, whizz kid (and I say that with all due respect and affection). But you already knew that. I thank you for that excellent learning experience. I shouldn't buck you so much, should I?

 

[Whitty08]

Whitty, I went and looked. Sorry I've been away from home for a few days and haven't been on much. Some of the things that have been giving you problems you are already aware of. Others you may or may not be... With your permission I will repost pictures and text from your current journal here and slap you around like a red-headed stepchild. I don't want to get into a spitting match with other people who post in your journal but am more than willing to bare your ass to anyone who reads my journal if you are interested. Not saying I'm the be-all and end-all of cannabis growing by any means but I can express my opinion here and if anyone takes exception or is offended by what I have to say they don't have to come here, read it, or try to explain to you why I'm wrong.

I'll update all tomorrow or Monday. I could go back and search Sue's journal but that is a pain. There was some talk there a while back about letting pots get dry. Sue was awesome about asking folks to show what it was like when plants got thirsty. I liked Gray's response the best.

It has been crazy hot and dry here and I've been away for four days. I left everything 100% hydrated when I left but the greenhouse has been experiencing 105 - 110 F temperatures and RH of 10-20%...

This is what I found when I got back.

Darkstar:

Sage n' Sour:

I gave them water. After 90 minutes:

Four hours later:

Sue, you may note that if the yardstick from 6 days ago was still there it would not be visible...

I'm not advocating that anyone should do this to their plants, just that you should have a sense of where things go bad.

When reading journals I caution people to take the time and go back and look at progressions and growth rates. Anyone can claim that they are growing the bestest weed ever. Things are pretty basic here in my corner. Good watering practices. No " wonder additives." I don't stress.

It ain't that hard...

I am quite alright with that. Just a novice here, I have way more to learn about this hobby. Anyway I can go about improving my knowledge and skill I will do regardless if it looks favorably on myself. I greatly appreciate the help.

 

[CareStaker]

Hey PeeJay, great to see you around I'll have to get caught up.

 

[Lady Cannafan]

Oh, those poor thirsty plants! I would have just sunk to my knees if I saw that.
So glad to see that they bounced back.

Don't do that anymore ya hear?!

::

 

[PeeJay]

I am quite alright with that. Just a novice here, I have way more to learn about this hobby. Anyway I can go about improving my knowledge and skill I will do regardless if it looks favorably on myself. I greatly appreciate the help.

Whitty, you already know that the biggest problem was that your seedlings were too far below the cfls. If you want to minimize stretch you should have the lights if they are cfl or t-5 literally 1-2" above your plants. I didn't notice what spectrum the cfls are. Make sure they are ~6500k (cool white or bright white) and are not 2500k (soft white or daylight). The red in the 2500k bulbs will cause stretch. You probably have the right kind but I thought I'd mention it. Look at Sue's journal. She has a good example of cfls right on top of seedlings going on. You really can't get too close...

It seems like you had some trouble losing the seed jackets. If you plant a little deeper the jacket will get pulled off by the soil and the cotyledons will be open right away. This also prevents stretching. I like to plant 1/2 - 3/4 inch deep. It is really useful to measure by placing a piece of tape on the end of a pencil and using the tip to make the hole.

Your watering looks a little wonky to me. I realize that you are in fairly big pots (2 gallons) but you still need to water the whole pot. There are several pictures like this in your journal:

It looks like you are putting little bits of water around the stem instead of watering the whole container. When you water, water well and saturate the soil. Then don't water for like 5 or 6 days when they are small.

You're doing ok. Just keep the wobbly girl supported and eventually she will hold herself up.

Hey PeeJay, great to see you around I'll have to get caught up.

Mr. Staker. I was over looking at your place the other day. You grow such pretty plants. My bad for not saying hello while I was there.

Oh, those poor thirsty plants! I would have just sunk to my knees if I saw that.
So glad to see that they bounced back.

Don't do that anymore ya hear?!

::

I didn't drop to my knees. I did curse. They have recovered beautifully.

 

[SweetSue]

I would have cried. I almost did cry when I saw the pictures. Don't do that again PeeJay.

 

[PeeJay]

I'm going to update in chunks today like I did last week. First the indoor tent. These two were ok while I was gone. The darkstar was a little droopy and needed a drink and I just gave it a couple of quarts to tide it over until this morning. The two plants are in 10 gallon pots. This morning it took 6 gallons to get the soil back to a fully hydrated state. They got a snack of 2tsp / gallon of 2-3-1 cold water fish emulsion. The darkstar has stopped stretching finally. The lights are only about 12" above the tallest tops. I'm going to hold off on raising them a litle longer since I don't have much higher I can go without removing the pulley systems. I really don't want to deal with a major tent reconfiguration if I can help it.

Here is a marginal picture of the whole tent. It is day 20 of flower and day 27 of 12/12. The Darkstar on the right is a little slower out of the flowering gate than the Cheese on the left.

The Cheese is cranking it out.

The Darkstar is also making resin. It is a 10-12 week strain, long for an 100% indica and sort of pokes along at first from my experience.

 

[Lady Cannafan]

Darkstar is brightening up and shining her stars!

Nice update. It's so packed in there, and with goodlys. ;-)

 

[Whitty08]

PJ, thank you for the advice! I shall make the necessary changes on my next grow. You're right about the seed depth, I don't think I had her deep enough, maybe a 1/4" from the top of the soil. You're suggesting even as tiny seedlings to water the entire container, is that so you don't have to water as often, or for root development? Thank you again for your help, it's greatly appreciated!!

Wow! That flower tent looks incredible, I'm surprised by the length of the flowering period for an Indica. The Dark star looks incredible!

 

[PeeJay]

SWICK side by side update:

These babies are all between 16 and 19 days old. They don't get much in the way of full sun. The Panama have provided some snacks for an unwanted guest.

The Panama is a 100% sativa and is not liking the very low humidity and high heat. Sativas in general like a more humid equatorial climate. Still, only one has burned up.

Sativas and indicas, in general, experience different wet/dry seasons. Sativas typically hale from areas where the flowering season is wet and the spring is drier. Indicas are the opposite. All in all the 100% indica Paki Chitral has been doing better than the Panama in the very low humidity we've had here for the last week.

8 Paki on the left and 8 Panama on the right. Before getting all excited about how much bigger the SWICK plants look remember that they are sitting in trays and are therefore closer to the camera.

Here is the biggest and best SWICK Panama side by side with the biggest traditional watering Panama. SWICK is on the left.

It looks like SWICK has the edge here. Water roots are growing out the bottom of the SWICK pot. I popped the rootball out of the container for a look. You can see that there is a large collection of water roots at the bottom of the pot. Dirt was going everywhere. LOL When I popped the traditionally watered plant out it was pretty dry and more dirt was going everywhere. I couldn't manage the camera and the fragile root ball at the same time so I gave up. Anyway, the traditional plant does seem to have more finer roots distributed throughout the soil. I'll do a better job next week...

The Chitral as a group are doing well. I expected that because they are better suited to my climate.

Here is the biggest and best SWICK Paki next to the biggest and best traditionally watered Paki. SWICK is on the left.

In this case I think the traditionally watered plant has the edge. The SWICK plant is looking flabby and the traditionally watered one looks like it means business. In both cases things are very close to being equal. SWICK is darn good for the first three weeks.

As far as labor savings... Well even though the big plants were dying of thirst when I got back home yesterday none of the small plants, SWICK or otherwise needed water. It took me about 3 minutes to water the traditional plants this morning and about 1 minute to top off the SWICKs. I just don't see SWICK as that much of a labor saver so far but that may change as the plants continue to get bigger.

 

[SweetSue]

These and your observations were very insightful. This is looking like what we were expecting, that it might be more beneficial to develop the fine roots early using wet/dry cycling and then progress to the SWICK later.

I did notice the height difference. Geez PeeJay, you know me so well and we've really just met.

Thank you for doing this PeeJay. I considering a small experiment of my own using tiny felt cups for the seedlings to see if that might make a difference. The air pruning the felt creates might facilitate that fine root development better on a SWICK. I need to make a few small planting cups and give it a go.

 

[PeeJay]

Update - the big greenhouse plants:

These two recovered nicely from their near death experience. They are metabolically healthy plants.

There are going to be a ton of fat colas...

Getting the Sage 'n Sour to branch was a chore but I'm really happy with her structure going into flower.

I look to the 25th of July as a start of flower date and the Sage 'n Sour didn't let me down. She is already making trichomes.

Darkstar isn't quite doing it yet, but as we saw in the tent this strain takes it's time getting motivated. It also results in a complete loss of motivation when you smoke it...

Ok, now I need to get a fan hooked up in the new little tent and get some beans going to replace the 4X4 girls when they are done....