My 2009 Alaskan Ice (GreenHouse Seeds) Grow

[vibesAgwan]

Originally Posted by sativasam

Sorry to hear of your strained ankle, at least a smoke will take the edge off (any excuse to blaze one up)

Good to hear no fresh symptoms have appeared as those plants are very nice and it would be a real shame to lose any of em. I would also confer with your grow buddy to see if he has any advice as if he has planted his in similiar soil nearby he may have come across the same symptoms and may know of a remedy. I would also ask him how often he watered during your recent dry spell you had. Good luck.

Keep it green.

Well I'm pretty much at my friends house everyday haha. His plants have been outdoors for a longer period of time, and have not yet encountered any problems. He hasn't even been feeding them until very recently (due to lack of money). I would say he is watering once a week type of thing, but not BIG waterings, just enough so the plants feel refreshed .

Originally Posted by that70sshow

wow your plant looks great. if you read the description about the AI on attitude it has the same characteristics of your plant. wich is great. awsome looking sativa

Thanks alot! Yea the AI is a beautiful plant, has a real christmas tree look about it hehe.

[sativasam]

I hope your AI is looking a little better lately. I have just purchased a seaweed based additive that has many and various trace elements in it, particularly calcium and magnesium which will hopefully fix your problem permanently.

:: BioBizz

That should do the trick if your problems persist. NPK value 0.1-0.1-0.1 with calcium and magnesium at 0.1 and 0.2 respectively. All natural and organic as well, not as cheap as some as I payed about £9 for a 500ml bottle, though you only need to use 3-5ml per litre. As to where you would purchase this I just wouldnt know in your part of the world.

Keep it green.

[vibesAgwan]

I went down to my local grow shop a couple days ago and bought a ph meter for water, a litre bottle of ATAMI Growth and ATAMI bloom nutrients.

They are bio nutes and have been very successful in previous grows.

My friend has a bottle of the alga mix aswell so i may have to borrow some of that from him.

I am now thinking that the browning of the leaves could possibly be due to the ph being too high. It is only now that i have realised that the ph of the water is between 7 and 8. Ideally I would like to bring this down to 5.8 or somewhere around there. If anyone could suggest any techniques (aimed for outdoor growing) to bring the ph down which have worked successfully I would be greatly appreciative. On the other hand I dont know the ph level of the soil itself, which could be completely different, but I might as well work on changing that of the water.

Apart from all of that the weather has been great (high 20's with full sun and a nice breeze). There has just been a nice heavy rain, which is what the ground needed. I have been continueing with the trimming and I am watering her with roughly 3ml of nutes per litre to start off with, and the plant is now starting to really take to the outside and is coming along nicely!

Here are some recent pics I took today:

[sativasam]

Nice to see your plant looking better established in its new home. Rainwater is slightly acid without any ammendments, you can also buy phosphoric acid that will bring down your ph, Canna also do a dedicated ph balance additive.

Will you be topping that plant at all as sativas can be very single cola dominant, the lst will help but It it will be interesting to see if your plant develops the dominant main cola and wether the other branches yield some phatt buds. I certainly didnt expect the AI to be quiet so sativa dominant, but am pleased that it is as I like the up high most of the time.

I myself will certainly be topping and fimming mine at around 3-4 ft to ensure bushiness. A friend also recommended stressing the plant by snapping the main stem just below the central grow tip but leaving it attached so the plant bushes out more yet still retains the larger central cola once recovered from the damage. I have not tried this and have no idea if it works or not but will certainly give it a try on one or two of my plants.

Keep it green.

[vibesAgwan]

I think I am not going to bother with any topping of the plant or anything. I don't mind if she only has one main cola (as long as it gets nice and fat). I'm really just going to keep on with the stretching and trimming and let her dictate her own grow in that sense.

Do you by any chance have any pics of yours? Would be nice to see how some other AI's are doing!

[sativasam]

I just got some pictures tonight of my first outdoor plants but havent transferred them from the cam yet. My first batch of Nirvana seeds Papaya and the freebie mazar have just gone outside totaling eight in the bush I just hope they can manage the low UK temps outdoors tonight, though it shouldnt drop below 10 degrees C so all should be well without hardening off the plants first I hope. Gave em all a Rhizotonic and some alg-a-mic at about 50% strength, though only a litre each as they are still young and it rained recently.

The femmed seedlings are yet too see daylight but I have a new 150w metal halide lamp blazing away which they seem to like. The Nirvana seeds stuff germed and grew 2-4 sets of leaves in 2 weeks in plain untreated coco peat mix, these are the plants that just went outside.

Meanwhile my 5 alaskan ice will be at least 5 days before its ready to go outside as I havent dug holes yet!! I also have a Quicksilver auto, a Diesel and there are 4 Dutch passion Taiga on a similiar schedule, all feminised for a total of 11 femmed plants Me an a buddy will be digging through the weekend so smoke a Phat one for us please I just hope the Ice finishes in time in the UK climate.

Maybe we both should start a grow journal soon.

Keep it green.

[vibesAgwan]

hehe sounds like you have quite a grow going along there, cant wait for pics :P

Recently I've been noticing that I'm finding an awful lot of tiny little black insect things with wings which are all in the new growth. I'm not sure what they are called exactly but I do know that they go into the new growth and suck away the nutrients and also lay they're eggs there aswell.

I have been going around my plant every day picking these little insects off of my new growth along with all the eggs they leave behind.

I tried to take some pics but they are too small for the camera to zoom clearly. I could best describe them as TINY little flies or mosquito looking things.

If anyone could suggest a natural way of getting rid of these I would be more than thankful.

[sativasam]

The scourge of the aphid or more specifically, from your description, the blackfly the bane of rose growers globally. Looks something like this: Aphid control, how to get rid of Aphids.

Some tips in the above link too.

You should be able to get some insect larvae that will eat them all and their eggs when introduced into your garden, people in the US release Praying mantis and Ladybirds.

In the UK we use these: Just Green Just Lacewing Larvae - From £16.00 - Just Green Check the bug houses that will ensure a good population for years to come. Some of these bugs if encouraged will return year after year multiplying and therefore keeping down the aphid population. The non flying larval stages of the ladybird bug and lacewing are preffered as they dont fly away.

There are various natural and chemical bugsprays that will work too, just be sure to get something that kills the eggs too. Also check the stickies for a homemade organic bug spray recipe I saw somewhere. One teaspoon of dish washing detergent in a litre or two of water, sprayed will kill mosts of them but may not kil the eggs.

Meanwhile in my garden I have 12 holes to dig and over 150litres of compost to shift several miles before my next seedlings are ready to go outside. I just wish I could get some of those bugs to keep the mozzies off me!!

Keep it green.

[vibesAgwan]

thanx for the info, helps alot!

Until I find the charger for my camera I wont be able to upload any new pics unfortunately

She has being doing great though, also the weather has been perfect (just under 30 degrees with full sun) so I'm very happy with the progress.

Good luck with all your preparations !!

[vibesAgwan]

finally found the battery charger. Ive got some new photos I took today of my plant and also my friends plants.

The first picture is of the tallest Alaskan Ice, roughly 170 cm. The second picture is of the smaller Alaskan Ice. The third picture is of the Himalaya Gold. The 5th picture is also of the Himalaya Gold, but the interesting thing with this plant is that the main stem/trunk breaks off into 4 MASSIVE colas!! Its absolutely beautiful. The 6th picture is yet again the Himalayan Gold which represents how beneficial stretching is, just look at the growth on that one lower branch! The next pic is just a collective pic of my friends plants, he also has another alaskan ice hiding behind the monster :P.

The last pic is of my Alaskan Ice. She may look small compared to my friends but she is coming along great

Hope you enjoy!

[sativasam]

Very nice Agwan and +rep on the Lst pics as the plants are really responding nice to it. I like the way those lower branches are bushing out and growing up at the bottom of some of those plants. This should stop the single cola dominance of the sativa and promote more budding sites. I also wanted to see how Lst worked as I once trained the top two growtips horizontally after topping an indoor plant with very similiar results, this certainly helped my limited indoor yield. A high P and K fertiliser is essential to get the best from such training as the plant needs the extra feed to maximise potential yield.

That Himalayan gold looks nice too being another monster which will be a nice alternative smoke to the Alaskan ice I would expect.

When do you expect your plants to start flowering btw?

Meanwhile my outdoor garden has survived a real storm or two recently and bugs have nibbled the odd leaf we appear to be past the worst of the weather here and the plants seem to like their new home. We've had the odd sunny day between the storms and I cant wait to see if they have now started to shoot upwards, pics will follow soon.

Keep it green.

[vibesAgwan]

Seems I have forgotten to update this ha.

I expect to see visible signs of flowering in early august, and the plants should be ready by roughly mid to late October.

I took some new pics of mine today so let me know what you think, I'm very pleased

[domin8cs08]

that is gonna have one kickass harvest. post the dry weight as soon as you can

[that70sshow]

nice stem.

[cantharis]

Coming on nicely.