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Awesome pics chromophore! They are looking great. Very soon both of us will reap the rewards of our "Helicopter" parenting. :thumbsup: Doesn't sound like I really need the Epsom salts with my soil grow then.I have been feeding Molasses with my bloom so I will flush with straight water just because it gives me something to do besides staring at them. ;)
Meditate.Quote:
Originally Posted by catbuds
Are you sure they where not just to green still? I've had dank sticky stuff you couldn't smoke in a joint, but always found away to fire it up. Maybe it was just tooo goood?? :S5: But you I believe. :smokebong:
After some reflection, maybe ex thought you were going through stash to fast, slipped you some real green. :joint1:
Completed flushing of the 4 girls using catbud's protocol. The girls are in 5 gallon pots so I was prepared to use 10 gallons. But by 5 gallons the ppm of the flow-through had stabilized, so I went with a 5 gallon flush. My ppm data for the flush was nearly identical for all four plants. For example:
water going in: 152 ppm, pH 6.6, temp 68F
1st gallon flow-through: 583 ppm, pH6.3, temp 64F
2nd gallon flow-through: 338 ppm, pH 6.1, temp 64F
3rd gallon flow-through: 316 ppm, pH 6.1, temp 65F
4th gallon flow-through: 212 ppm, pH 6.2, temp 65F
5th gallon flow-through: 190 ppm, pH 6.2, temp 64F
6th gallon flow-through: 188 ppm, pH 6.3, temp 66F
7th gallon flow-through: 192 ppm, pH 6.3, temp 65F
8th gallon flow-through: 180 ppm, pH 6.5, temp 65F
9th gallon flow-through: 188 ppm, pH 6.5, temp 64F
10th gallon flow-through: 202 ppm, pH 6.5, temp 65F
Despite the bump up in ppms in the 10th gallon, the flushing had clearly plateaued by the 5th or 6th gallon. Flow-through by the 5th gallon was nearly clear.
1st gallon flow-through: Attachment 297613 5th gallon flow-through: Attachment 297614
And finally, I sampled some tiny buds that I had collected and trimmed last weekend while thinning lower material from the plants. I figured it would be a good way to practice trimming and drying. I do realize that something harvested that early will probably have different effects from the ripe product, but I will say this: much to my surprise it tasted smooth and almost cool, sugary with just touch of spiciness. But very light flavor. The effects were delightful. really heady, talkative, euphoric. My anticipation for harvest is nearly unbearable.:pimp:
...."My anticipation for harvest is nearly unbearable."
I feel your pain. :stoned:
The two different flowering "styles" are still apparent, but the buds are starting to look "dense" for lack of a better word. I've been using a stereo-microscope to check trichomes. Wow what a treat to view them that way. Seeing them at this magnification (50-120X), I'm revising my earlier descriptions. I would say the majority are still clear, whit a sizable fraction which appear to be still forming (heads haven'e opened up completely). Cloudies only make up maybe 25%. I think I've got another two weeks for sure at this rate.
Attachment 297743 Attachment 297744
cool, lemon skunk 9 weeks afggoey 8 weeks that should be an interesting cross. This will be a heavy indica with some sativa after tones. As lemon skunk is a 50/50 hydrid & afgooy I believe is 80/20 "indica dominant".
look at them little orange hairs! this guy will be loaded with those, You may want to consider going a bit longer given the size of the plants to allow the buds to fully mature
:thumbsup:
I agree with growdemon. Think you have a little longer to go than just 2 wks. I enlarged the pics, & I think you will have more, & plumper trichromes. Just keep an eye on trich color with your 'scope, you'll be fine. I can't wait to hear dried bud weight! I bet you're already doing the happy dance! Boy, are you gonna be tired before harvest even gets here! Maybe you should sit down, burn a fattie & get some rest, Jungle Boy! LOL! ;)
Agree with you both. A grower friend of mine came over last night and looked things over carefully. He said the largest buds are at best 1-2 weeks away, probably 2-3. Then there is a ton of stuff below them. I just have to be patient. I'm going to stat logging trichome color, size and density for each plant.
Thanks Growdemon the lineage on those as best as I can tell:
seeds: Afgooey x Lemon Skunk, f1
Afgooey= Afghani#1 x Maui Haze Apparently Afgooey takes on most of her Indica parent's traits, though people really like the effect and consider it balanced for an Indica dom. The smell of these plants is like warm candy apple mixed with skunk. Weird but very pleasant.
Lemon Skunk= Skunk#1 x Citral (or "unknown" skunk, there are several varieties out there apparently) this one is Sativa dominant.
I'm really looking forward to testing this cross. I think it may be a very interesting combination of exotic flavor and electric effects.
they look great my friend.
Wow....Just wow. That 2nd pic is amazing. How many megapixel? Great Shot, and amazingly frosted, that will be some potent medicine.
"Welcome to the Jungle..." :) comes to mind with your grow...awesome.
OMB I use a Canon 5D MkII which has a 22MP sensor, but most of theses type images have been cropped. I shot these with a 180mm Macro lens. I'm not entirely happy with my photographs so far because I can't get things to be completely still. This is important, because at such magnification you have to stop your aperture way down to get everything in focus. That means a long shutter speed, and the main air exchange fan creates just enough movement to make problems. I could shut it off but things heat up real fast when I do. I'll keep playing with it. Maybe I'll get some good ones tonight.
Managed to raise my HPS almost 5 inches and that really opened up the light. Did some more thinning because I have a ton of bud development in the low to mid canopy and it's just dense in there. I hate taking healthy fan leaves but I need to get some light in there, and because the big colas are so heavy now that they want to fall over, I'm forced to stake and tie things up, and that makes it even more crowded. But the bud production now is just jaw-dropping. I simply can't capture it properly in a photo. There are buds appearing in every nook and cranny of the canopies, even growing sideways out of other buds :jawdropper: My grower friend was over again last night and he was blown. He thinks I still have 2-4 weeks to go as some plants are ahead of others and the trichomes are still clear, and he says the production is still ramping up and the plants are still green and lush, making him constantly shake his head and giggle.
Here is a pic of two of the plants after staking Attachment 297795 The plant on the right is the one I am really excited about. The colas are still filling in (some stem still visible between buds) but the calyxes are plump and bright green. But what really intrigues me about this plant, is that the colas are up to 16 inches in length (one may end up 2 feet in length if it fills in completely), and the trichomes are incredibly dense. Almost all water clear. My friend was amazed that this plant is putting trichomes on stems, petioles, and even on the larger fan leaves! He just looked at me and said, "dude, this plant is a winner". I wasn't able to get good close-ups last night, but here is a couple of pics closer up on that plant:
Attachment 297797 and cropped a bit more Attachment 297798
All four plants back in the room and really you can't even see most of the action. It is truly a jungle. Attachment 297799
The fragrance of these plants is intriguing. Really hard to describe. There is a definite musky, earthy dark tone, but also something heavy and sweet, like caramel and sour apple. One plant definitely has some skunk to it, but the other three are really dark and sweet. It just keeps getting better. Waiting for harvest is almost agonizing.
Best damn first grower I ever saw...:thumbsup: Chromo? I can see why your friend just giggles looking at your forest, but the anticipation is a killer, no?
A few more trichome pics. Wow, photographing under an HPS is a challenge. Really harsh, unforgiving light. Before I harvest I'm going to pull these out into normal light and see if I can get some decent macro shots. These plants deserve it.
Anyway, here are a couple shots of trichome development on pheno #4, which is the plant I'm most excited about Attachment 297811 and Attachment 297812
here's a shot showing the trichome production on the petioles and surfaces of the larger fan leaves on this plant Attachment 297813 I think the Afgooey mother's traits are really coming through in this plant. Sticky, stinky and still a ways to go. All I can say is, wow.:dance:
Love those Macro shots Chromo. That Pheno 4 is amazing. I sure understand why you would want to clone her! :jointsmile:
Current batch of clones. OMB you can see the two pheno 4 flowering twigs in the rear. After one day they look ok. I'm wondering if I should remove all of the flowers from them and just let the small fan leaves remain. Also note the offending rockwool cubes. I don't like the fact that there is a plastic wrap around each one because it seems like it would suffocate them, but nowhere have I found instructions on whether to remove them or not. :wtf: The heat mat is keeping things up towards 68F this time as opposed to 55, so hopefully that will stimulate growth a bit. The tray is being held away from direct contact with the heat mat by some wood blocks. I may remove them and see what my temp reaches. I'm in a basement office space and it's cold in these parts, so that may be the way to go.
Attachment 297818
Also, I was careful this time to apply rooting hormone to the lower node area first. I then lowered the twig into a glass of water until the water level was just above where I wanted to make my final angled cut. I then made the angled cut under water. There are two reasons I wanted to try this. First because it keeps rooting hormone from coating the fresh angled cut and possibly blocking water uptake. And also to prevent an air embolism from forming at the cut site, which will prohibit capillary action and starve the cutting. An old florist's trick.
Onward and forward.
Looks good Chromo! Now comes the waiting game...I would try and get the temp to 75 degree's on those cuttings, but either way it's a big improvement over the 55 you had. Cutting of the flowers?...I don't know my friend. I would think that would actually be a good idea, but I would be concerned the twig would concentrate energy trying to repair the cut instead of rooting.
You might consider adding a drop of Big grow to a cup of water and spritzing/watering with that mix, anything to encourage root growth with those flowering cuts.
Biggest thing with the 3 I took in flower was being patient.
It took 3 weeks for them to root and "turn" back to Veg. Glad to see you have plenty of stem....worst comes to worst and they didn't "go", you can cut 'em again as Weezard
explained and get another shot with the same cuts.
Breathe on 'em, talk to 'em and keep them warm brother. Everyone likes encouragement! :)
From a few days ago. Such graceful, beautiful plants. I never really appreciated them until I grew them.
Attachment 297858
Good Job!!!
Once you appreciate them- they show you the real shit then….have fun!
Chromo, do not remove the plastic from around the rockwool cubes! It helps with the capillary action, keeps the cube intact, & once the roots start growing, it keeps them from being exposed. Your buds are awesome! Anticipation is a killer! Makes it oh so tempting to harvest a tad too young, but DONT DO IT! Just follow the trichromes guys, no matter what the leaves, hairs or anything else is doing.... follow the trichromes.....
-- So Chromo, if these clones take off for you, do you think you'll be making a large part of your grow from them? (BTW, when you take cuttings from budding plants, or even veg plants, you can keep them under 12/12 & they will still do their thing, maybe even better. No stress from going from flower to veg & back again). Have you read up on re-vegging? GREAT thing to do. Gives you many, many branches to clone from, or a REALLY heavy producer the second time around. If you flower it out again, you will have to thin the hell out of it though, still almost forcing you to clone it. But you may want to give it a try with your favorite girl. She's worth it. :)
-remove the plastic only when you plant it into soil. :)
Thanks, catbuds. I left the rockwool condoms on, and I'm glad I did because I don't think it would be easy to get them back on once they're off! My plan for the cloned buds was to return them to veg, and use them as further cloning stock for my next growing cycle, which won't be until August or September. This timing is a problem because I have a number of young clones of varying ages hanging around now with nothing to do until next Fall. I cloned that budding plant based only on feel, because it feels like the mother is going to be killer. And I have a confession to make, of which I am not proud: when I took clones from these plants back in November, before they started flowering, I did not label them properly, and now I don't know which goes to which. Additionally, not all of the mothers produced successful clones, while others produced several. So until I flower them I won't know whether I even have one from that plant. Major brainfart.:mad: I also have clones from the batch of plants which are presently waiting to flower (different strain from what is flowering now). So I have to figure out how to babysit all these clones over the period when my basement and grow-room are getting torn down and remodeled this summer.
As for the flowering plants, I have been taking careful notes on the trichomes, and am lucky that I have a nice little stereo-microscope to view them with. As of last night, I see about equal amounts of clear and cloudy trichomes, and no ambers. Some plants are a little further ahead of others but that's the average at this point. Based on how they have developed up to this point, I'm guessing at least another week to 10 days. Though they are looking nice, they still have some swelling and filling to do. Hopefully.
Coming up on 8 weeks here in a day or two, and some changes are occurring. Trichomes are definitely moving along in development, probably 20/70/10 clear/cloudy/amber. Odor is intense. The plants are slowing their water intake and fan leaves are starting to yellow. Some buds are still not as filled in as I would like, but I think I got some stretch in early flowering, and many of my upper nodes are fairly far apart. Lots of big chunky nuggets though. I feel like some of the top buds may be close to harvest, but I'm going to wait a couple days and see how fast trichome ripening is taking place. It seems like it has accelerated, while the plants themselves are slowing. Pictures tonight.
Well, 8 weeks of 12/12 complete, and the urge to harvest is almost unbearable. But I know they need more time. I'm still getting swelling, the process is moving up the buds, and the in the lower portions the calyxes look like the have seeds in them they're so plump. But the upper parts still need some swelling. Trichomes are on average at a nice distribution of maybe 25/65/10 (clear/cloudy/amber), si that could take a little more ripening as well. But I'm guess by next weekend the clippers and scissors are going to be in action. Some pics:
the widest angle I can get. They've pretty much filled the room with a Sea of buds. Attachment 297958 another pano Attachment 297959
my favorite bud, she is a long, continuous spiral of egg-sized buds. She looks like she's dancing Attachment 297960
this is a shot of my "favorite" plant. I call her "Sativa" because she has a longer, taller habit with long, narrow colas. But her buds are deeply aromatic and coated with sticky, gooey trichomes.
The long bud on the right measures 27 inches in length. So far:smokin: Attachment 297961
This is a shot of (part of) my second favorite plant, I call her "Indica" because she has a relatively compact, bushy habit and fat, pagoda-shaped buds. She is a beauty Attachment 297962 Amazing the variation in this f1 batch of seeds.
Pretty aren't they
ranger they are amazing. I never really thought much about the aesthetics of these plants until I grew them. I always thought of them as simple, kind of boring even in flower. Seeing them develop and getting to see them in person has totally changed my mind. Datura is still my favorite plant in terms of elegance and blossom beauty, but Cannabis is making up ground quickly.
@ranger - This is pure art ! Nature and the gardener are the artists :-D
I love the pics of your plants - seeing such great buds make the GrowBitch horny like always ;-)
@Chromophore - I can feel exactly what you are saying about the feeling seeing them developing.
I do this the first time and it's so exciting like the first love in teenager age. Damn this is crazy....
Hugs to u guys...
By the way.. anybody seen catbuds ? I miss her... Hope you're fine sister..
I think she's hanging out over at MNS forum.
Still here. Been forum hopping trying round everybody up. Almost there. I'm a member of several forums & I'm trying to round up those of us who wander 'off topic' a lot & get us all over to MNS where they have PMs (private messages). There are also topics that are taboo here & MNS actually has a sub-forum for. This will always be our 'home forum', we're just broadening our horizons. Come on over! ;)
DATURA!!!! Guess we all know about the wild variety; grows rampant in corn fields here, but the cultivar, Angel Trumpet! OMG! Prettiest thing I've EVER seen! Every garden should have a few! I am so enraptured by the beauty of this flowering wonder that I nearly have an orgasm just looking at it! Now if we want to discuss the wild native, we'll have to do so on the other fourm (& WE CAN!!!!). This flower is so beautiful & HUGE, the one companion that can do it justice is the big beautiful blue clematis, Jackimani (sp). Takes my breath away just visualizing that! There's one new hybrid of Angel Trumpet that I don't care for. Forgot the name, but its purple & the flowers are upright. A huge plant with HUGE blossoms should have pendulus, hanging flowers. On the upright purple one, you only get to see the backsides of the flowers. If I want to see backsides, I'll go to a strip club! Ok, off topic! Got some forum hopping to do! ;)
I grow 5 or 6 varieties in my flower garden, depending on what re-seeds and what other types of seeds I can find. Buy them mostly from JL Husdon, Seedsman. My very favorite is a variety of D. Wrightii. It has a strong but graceful habit with huge, silvery-green leaves, and the flowers...hard to describe how awesome they are. Huge crystal white trumpets with subtle band of electric blue/violet at the very edges. The throat turns to a creamy butter color as it gets down to the anthers. They open at dusk and release an aroma that comes straight from Heaven. People on walks always stop at my house and marvel at them when they're heavily in bloom, usually in September. In the morning I find bees and other flyers down inside, rolling around totally intoxicated and coated in pollen. :cool:
Yeah..... Angel Trumpets have a way of making even roses seem drab. ;) I want to grow a bunch this year & get some new clematis to go with them. :
Ok, ok, I admit it...I'm weak. I gave in to my primal urges, yet again. Yes, that's right, I harvested a cola last night, even though I knew it probably wasn't ready and everyone has warned OMB and I to be patient. I swear the bud was telling me to do it. I hadn't smoked any so I know what I heard was real:weedpoke: Aside from that, my reasoning was that the buds seemed uniformly swollen from their bases to their tips, hairs completely brown, and the trichomes were mostly amber and cloudy. However, once I got the branch all trimmed up and hung, I took a nuggety little bud off of it and popped it under my scope. Down inside the calyxes the trichomes were dense and swollen, but evenly mixed clear and cloudy. No ambers. So the trichomes on the sugar leaves were more developed than those inside the bud. I guess the lesson here is that I need to stop using the sugar leaves to gauge ripeness. Oh well, it's just one cola, and not really a huge one anyway. I'll go back to twiddling my thumbs and checking my watch constantly....
Here's the workbench, patiently waiting for action...Attachment 297974 Some little nugs I've been sampling...Attachment 297975
Current batch of clones after 8 days...Attachment 297976 The front and middle are clones taken from my current batch in veg (Purple Wreck X Lemon Skunk). The front two are taken from the most vigorous plant and the clones reflect that. The rear portion of the tray contains my experiment. These are cuttings taken from my two "favorite" plants currently in flower (Afgooey X Lemon Skunk) from which I did not previously have successful clones. So far they look like they're doing ok. I'm following the advice given to me by several people and am watering them with oxygen-saturated water at least once a day. Keeping temp.s between 69-75F. What I would like to do if possible, is get those flowering clones to root, then try to continue flowering, but try to force one of them to produce male flowers. If I can, I'll take pollen and fertilize the flowering clone from the sister plant. Assuming I can even do this, is it a good idea? Are sibling crosses considered a wise move, or does that usually give unpredictable/poor results?
personally, I look for the majority of the trics to turn cloudy. My friends and I like like ti that way. All cloudy and amber is way late and too narcotic for us, usually. With some sativa strong strains you'll wait FOR EVER for cloudy to change to amber and it may never happen at all. So you probably have some excellent smoke from that bud when it's dried and cured.
Yes I know catbuds likes lots of ambers for her pm meds. I'm looking for something a bit more social and talkative. My patient does have pain issues, but she has made it clear that she doesn't want chronic that will render her inoperable. So maybe clear/cloudy is the way to go.
You're going in the right direction with backcrossing siblings. I'm not even gonna try to spell this one, just give you an abrev. Gib. acid. Hormone to induce male flowers on fem plant. :)
Gibberellic acid. When I tried to type it the auto-correct gave me "Barbarella". LOL. Great advice catbuds, I have access to GA.
Ok. I found the spelling....Gibberillic acid. You do however know you will be making feminized seeds, right? You can let her pollenate herself in addition to her sister. Google, cannabis & the use of gibberillic acid. :)
Attachment 297984gibberellic acid. She's a beauty..
Ugh!!! I misspelled gibberellic! Hand wrote it & I made the 'e' too skinny! LOL! BTW.... why does your basement look like a lab? Hummm.... Are you re-creating Frankenstein's little buddy down there or something? Guess that would be appropriate since he's green! :)