The Dragon's Lair Super Lemon Haze/Original Sour Diesel/Chocolope/Confidential Che

Hi, this will be my first journal.

Strains –

Green House Seeds Super Lemon Haze Feminized x 3
Cali Connection Original Sour Diesel reg. x 4
DNA Chocolope fem. x 2
Reserva Privada Confidential Cheese fem x 1
Cali Connection Jedi Kush reg. x 1

Equipment and Lights – 400w T5 4 bulb 6,500k bulbs, two 85w 6500k cfl, 1 90w UFO LED, 4x4 veg room, 15” exhaust fan, 20” passive intake.
Flower room 4x4 feet, two 400w HPS, 1 90w UFO LED, possibly additional cfl or UVB, 15" inline exhaust fan.

Soil & Nutrients – LC’s soilless mix – 5 parts peat, 3 parts perlite, 2 parts worm castings. 1 tblsp per gallon crushed oyster shell for ph buffer. Advanced nutrients Micro, Grow, Bloom with big bud, overdrive for flower. Will also be using molasses for flowering along with triacontonal as a supplement and epsom salts.

I’ve decided to make a journal to keep track of everything and to kill the time in between waiting for things to happen. I hope to keep pics and update often. Most importantly I hope I don’t leave it unfinished like so many others I've seen. I'd like to say thanks to all the other journals and posts on here that have helped me gain the knowledge which I have now.

I'm particularly interested in reporting on the 4 Original Sour Diesels from Cali Connection and the 1 Jedi Kush I put in there. Because there are no journals on them that I've seen anywhere. I went with a mostly sativa grow(cause that's what I like) and added the two indicas (confidential cheese and jedi kush) for balance. So, here we go!

Today I began germination using the paper towel method. The seeds are now in paper plates in plastic bags.Temperature and humidity is at 27C and 77% Humidity. Have my fingers crossed for high Germination rates!

 

Today I checked them about 21 hours later and:

1 out of 3 Super Lemon Haze has cracked
2 out of 4 Original Sour Diesel's have cracked
1 out of 2 Chocolope cracked and has a decent taproot
The 1 Jedi Kush cracked and has taproot
The 1 Confidential Cheese cracked and has taproot

I still have some uncracked SLH's and Sour Diesels, so I'm going to wait until morning before checking again and then planting everything that already has a taproot.

I'm tempted to plant the ones that already do have taproot and let the others stay behind in the paper towels until they crack or don't..

I misted them very lightly when I checked on them. I also took them out of the air conditioned room and moved them into a drawer in my more warm and humid bedroom.

pics

Original Sour Diesel


Confidential Cheese


Jedi Kush


Super Lemon Haze

 

Well, good news. I checked on them this morning and all had taproots
So that's 100% germination rate with the paper towel method for me.
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So I'd like to take a moment and say "damn you" to all the people on the threads making me question this technique and slamming it saying its not good or doesn't work as well as others. I read lots of debates between this and going straight to soil. As you can see, they both work well. Only thing about the paper towel is that it's an extra step where you risk damaging the taproot, but save soil and see straight away what's fastest. So now I know which of my seeds are really strong.

All those people made me have my doubts but I guess there was no reason to worry. I was very precise and did everything just right moisture and temperature wise. I feel like putting them in the warm and humid room helped. Next time I might try straight in soil with a couple of strains, just for comparison. But I'm happy with my 100% success this time.
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Anyways, I put them all into their pots now with prewatered and moist soil. Some of them had some long taproots, like the Chocolope's which you'll see is more than an inch long. I am a bit worried about them and hope they turn out well. The Confidential Cheese also had a curled taproot. This is because I chose to leave them in there to wait for the others to crack. The Jedi Kush had a pretty gnarly taproot too. The SLH's and Sour Diesels were just lovely

I'm attaching a picture so you can see the moisture of the soil. Moist, but not wet. I also have them under the lights now, which I'll show. I also tested the runoff of the soil and was disappointed to see it was at 6.95, because i'd previously tested a sample batch of the same soil mix and got 6.7 Also, I was shocked when I tested the ppm and it was at 1300. What the hell is that? I use RO water that's 12ppm. The only thing I added to the water I used for the soil was a couple of drops of vitamin B-1. No way it could have had that strong of an effect. I'll be using only RO water now, and watch them carefully

Now I'm just waiting for sprouts, wish me luck.

Pics

Original Sour Diesels


Super Lemon Hazes


Chocolopes, check out how long that taproot got. It was one of the first to crack I think, handling it got me nervous. I hope she turns out ok


The Jedi Kush, it had a fat taproot with a bit of width in the middle


The Confidential Cheese, the taproot curled around under the seed, ready to push it out of the soil. Definitely planted that taproot down.


As you can see the soil is moist, but not wet


Setup

 

update

I checked for sprouts and sure enough, my babies are starting to pop out of the soil. I went kind of crazy last night worrying over whether or not I should cover the pots with plastic wrap to keep it more humid, but after doing so, I went back later and took it all off, lol.

I read that excess moisture was the number 1 cause of fungus and seedling rot. So it scared me and I took it all off. Besides, the soil is already moist and the room is at 60% humidity. So the plants just needed air in my opinion.

Anyway, here's what sprouted thus far:

ECSD #1 and #3
SLH #2 and #3 (come on #1! I named you #1 because you germinated the fastest!)
Chocolope #1. (#2 is still kind of sitting there barely at the surface)
Jedi Kush
Confidential Cheese

So all that's left to sprout are ECSD #2 and #4. Also Super Lemon Haze #1, and that Chocolope #2 has yet to fully emerge.

Some of the pots were looking fairly dry and I think I'm going to water before lights out tonight. I struggled with whether or not I should do this, but after feeling about an inch down and feeling it was dry, I think I should. I definetely don't feel like I'd be drowning them with a watering. They've just been receiving misting since the initial planting.

I guess that's all there is to report. A very nervous and anxious time, I'm so excited and I can't wait!

Pics

The Confidential Cheese. One of the first to crack in paper towels, and now one of the first to sprout


Super Lemon Haze #2, sorry that my damn camera kept focusing on the soil in macro. It was pissing me off and I couldn't get it to focus on the seedling


Chocolope #1. This baby was the one with the longest taproot in paper towels, one that I was worried about damaging. But looks like she might be the strongest grower of all. Perfect example of a seedling shedding it's shell.


The Jedi Kush, yeah baby. Also one of the strongest, sprouted quick and now looks great


Here's the Chocolope #2 I said isn't emerging yet. It's been at the surface like this for the whole day. If she's like that tomorrow I'm gonna see if I can help her out somehow


Sorry no pics of the two ECSD seedlings. Couldn't identify them well because my macro shots didn't include the pots with the names on it.

 

Thanks man

 

UPDATE

Second day in soil and ALL have finished sprouting! So that's 100% germination and sprouts!!! Those ECSD and Super Lemon Haze that took the extra day to sprout now look pretty good I must say. This morning when I first saw one of the ECSD rising from the soil and opening the cotelydons I noticed that they were yellow, and got worried. But when I came back in the evening it was all green and open.

I must say I'm slightly surprised and almost kind of worried everything germinated, because I planted 11 in anticipation for some failure. I only wanted to have about 7 or 8 females in the end....so unless my Jedi Kush turns male, and 2 of my ECSD turn male...I'm gonna have like 10 females. Which is too many for my room.. So that means I'll have to veg for a shorter time so that they don't overgrow the room and lights I have prepared for them.

But I've grown so attached to them all that I don't really wish for any males or runts to kill off.

I took some good macros of the sprouts, and figured out a setting on my camera (a canon G10, awesome camera btw) that focused on the seedling and not the soil in macro. So here they are as of today:

ECSD #2, just sprouted today


ECSD #4, also just sprouted


SLH #1, also just sprouted. Isn't she pretty


Chocolope #2


Confidential Cheese, one of the healthiest looking thus far


Jedi Kush, also a strong one. Hehe, the force is strong with this one


Super Lemon Haze #2. I wanted to show this one because of the stretch. I'm not really liking that. So I've moved the lights down a couple of inches. I don't want the plants getting too hot though


Family picture



On another alarming note, as I was touching the soil on Chocolope #2 to check if it was dry or not a FUNGUS GNAT flew out of it. I killed the little bastard as he was the only one in the room. He was easy to see with all the white. I made sure to seal the room and this has me worried. I don't know if it was or did plant eggs in the soil. I'm definitely watching it closely.

I also watered a couple of plants last night that were getting a bit dry, with phed water of 6.6 I used lemon juice as the ph down, still waiting on my aquarium grade ph down.

 

Update

Nothing really new to update. I guess this is the part where you just wait a while. I can't feed them nutes, I can't train them, I can't check them for sexing. Basically all I can do is wait and check temperatures and humidity, and soil.

Temperatures are at an average of 27C and humidity at about 50%

A few pics, cause I'm bored.

The stretchy Super Lemon Haze #2


The Original Sour Diesel #3


The Jedi, this one's turning out to be the strongest perhaps.


The Confidential Cheese, also neck and neck for the best looking seedling.


Actually, if I were to give out an award for the "best looking seedling" I think it'd be a close call with the Sour Diesel #3, The Jedi Kush and The confidential cheese. But in the end it might go to the Jedi Kush, because it's developing the next set of leaves faster, and it's shorter. It almost looks like a rubber toy with it's thickness and cleanliness. Just look at it!

On a little side note I ordered some Azadirachtin insecticide (found in Azamax, but I got some other local kind that's .5% I think) in anticipation for fungus gnats. No way I'm gonna let those little bastards get a hold of my grow.

I can't wait to see how my babies look in two weeks.

 

Thanks a lot man, I chose the strains carefully and I'm quite proud of my choices. Can't wait to get sativa b-b-b-blasssteddd.

Got 2 high times cup winners (if that means anything) which also happened to have positive reviews from users on this and other forums(which does mean something), and I got one legendary strain, the Original Sour Diesel. That was the reasoning behind my choices. I read all kinds of journals and threads about peoples favorite strains before choosing, selecting strains which suited my taste.

 

Hi Joe, thanks for stopping by. The fungus gnat adults don't do anything but stick to your buds and die. But the larva that come from the eggs they lay in the soil...that's a different story. The larva eat at the roots of your plant. They hinder growth more than you would have without them. They can reduce your yield substantially if unchecked.

So I don't want any infestations starting early on me. It never occured to me that the DWC wouldn't have gnats but that makes perfect sense, a nice advantage I never considered.

I'll put up a couple of update pics today (we're in different time zones by the way). Nothing really new except a bit of extra growth. I think I have a Chocolope pic to add.

 

You mainly wanna target the ones in the soil. The adults will take of themselves after that. There's a couple good products I've heard of and since you're living in the states with access to 'em all it should be fairly easy for you.

Azamax, Gnat Off, Go gnat I've all heard work well. And if you want a more natural way of killing the ones in the soil then you can use a layer a sand over your soil to lock the adults from getting in and the larvae from getting out, cedar chips I've heard work too. Of course you don't want to water through these mediums, make a hole or water through the side. They'll die off like this. I've heard of doing neem soaks in the soil but can't speak myself on the effectiveness of it.

Yeah some people say screw it and smoke the little bastards, but I'd rather have some bug free sparkling buds myself. Update next~

 

Update day 6 out of soil.

Nothing new to report, Just a couple of pics of some added growth on the second leave set. I watered the soil because it was totally dry up top and about 2 inches down I barely felt moisture.

Some statistics
runoff ppm: average of 650. All the runoffs varied by about 100-200.
runoff ph: 6.5
ph of water going in: 6.35 (a mistake of a bit too much ph down)

This stage of life is the slowest for sure. Pretty soon they should kick into gear. Here are the Chocolope pics, along with the other stronger growers:

Chocolope #2 - Not much to say about her at this point, it's a bit larger and more uniform than #1 which is kind of leaning at an angle and bit smaller


ECSD #3 - A surprising new challenger for the alpha position. It's growing the second set of leaves faster than all the others, looks nice


Jedi Kush, been solid from the start. God I hope she turns out female


Confidential Cheese, also gunning for top position. It's second set of leaves are smaller, but the first set is the largest of the group.


And my SLH #2, which is quickly become one of my favorites. In the beginning I considered her lanky, but I think she's expressing the most Sativa like characteristics of all my seedlings. I hope it's the super hazy pheno of SLH, that's the one I've heard is most potent. And I'm interested more in potency than yield.


And finally a nice little group picture.


On a quick sidenote, I'm considering getting rid of some weaker plants, female or not. I just don't think I'll be able to keep this many plants at the size I plan to grow them. Yes, some ECSD's and the Jedi Might turn out male, but I can't guarantee how many. If I get just two females out of my total 5 regular seeds, I'll still have 8 plants. Which I think is a lot for my size room.

So I'm considering getting rid of the weakest SLH, and one of the weakest ECSD's. Yeah it'd suck to kill off a possible female ECSD, but I still think with three others that there would be one more female in there..it's a tough choice.

I didn't expect to have 100% germination like I did to be honest. And now I have to deal with the consequences. I'm gonna keep thinking about it.

 

Update day 7 out of soil

I just want to add some pics to compare the growth in my strongest plants. They all seemed to like that watering yesterday. Temperatures have been pretty steady at 24-28C and humidity between 41-55%

SLH #2 my favorite


I think she's developing the new growth faster than the others. She's going to grow up to be a beautiful sativa


Jedi Kush, really a nice looking seedling


Don't those look like mini trichomes? haha, she's already frosty jk


ECSD #3, my strongest diesel thus far


lookin' good


Confidential Cheese


As you can see the cheese isn't growing the next set as fast as the others, even though it has some of the biggest leaves so far


Chocolope #1


She's pretty much the same as my chocolope #2, maybe a bit smaller actually. But neither of them are doing as well as the others above. Although they are still doing great


Hope you enjoy the macros, took me some time to trim, label and upload them

EDIT: I just walked back in to check on them and that Confidential Cheese has changed considerably throughout the day. Also, an ECSD that was a bit behind was put like 2 inches under the LED and now it's leaves are ALL PERKED up looking super healthy, a big change. I noticed all of my plants leaves were tilted upward looking really happy. I hope they keep this up