Grampas growing his hybrid F1s

This week we harvested half of the tips from the Tora Bora F1 and the remaining buds from the Strawberry Haze F1.  One more cutting on the indica hybrids and we will finish the harvest of all the early strains.
 

 
We still wait patiently on the sativa strains to finish.  The Viet Nam Black is close to harvest and is growing some fantastic multi-branched colas.  Some of the colas have put on so much weight this week, the branches are starting to break off from the weight, even with support.
 

 
Jack  Herrer, Alaskan Ice and Columbian Gold are still putting out lots of new stigmas so we will wait another week or two to start the cutting on these late season plants.
 

 
Bountiful harvest to all
 
PW










 

 

CW, thanks for the interest and compliments.  Not too many looking at this grow, glad to have your company.  Now that everyone is finishing their harvest, it is time for us to start cutting our sativa plants.  Thursday is going to have a low of 0 degrees F.  Our GH will only hold temps about 20 degrees above the ambient outside temperatures, so we are scrambling to work up the harvest before Thursday night.  The three of us have been pruning for over 110 man-hours to get the crop harvested before freeze.  Today might be the last of the harvesting.
 
 
 

 
The larger colas on these plants grew to arm sized and the largest is almost as big as my leg, so don't tell me to rip the leaves to get larger flowers, it just is not necessary. These plants were grown with 3 cups of organic feed meals/cuft and two EWC teas, once in veg and once in flower.  Next year I will not use any teas after  inoculating the soil in spring.  I firmly believe the necessary amendments for good growth can be added at the beginning of the grow and to the working compost.  The teas were not necessary this year.  I have stunted my plants with teas more than it has helped and will not use them unless the plant is asking for additional nutrients on future grows.  Read the plant, not the seed package for better growth.
 
 
 

 
I apologize for the lousy pictures this time, breathing all this vapor from pruning, makes me a little unsteady for snapping pics.  Now it is time to leave and finish up the last of the pruning.
 
 
Bountiful harvests to all
 
PW

 

WGG, thanks for stopping by. Haven't seen you in a while, did you get rained out on the wet side and move back to the lake and EC?  Not much going on here, too cold for outside so getting the soil recharged for this spring.  It took us a couple of years to transition to the organic soils, but we are consistently getting 10+ each run in our converted shed.  Have been growing a few girls from the flowering cuttings during the winter under a 6 bulb t5 for a little change from outside.  It needs to warm up soon, I have 11 three gallon girls under one light and it is getting pretty crowded in there, need that 14 hr day to arrive soon so I can move out for some room to grow.
 
I got really sick after harvest and stopped updating this winter.   I will write up a summary of the grow soon, to finish up last year's grow.  We are working on a plant I call Devil's Thumb.  This  year we will plant the F2's and start searching for keepers.  Most of the breeding has been done with 100% sativa plants crossed with an old rare strain called Big Sur Holy Weed (AKA Trip) from the early 70's.  The Viet Nam Black X Thai crosses have really produced some really nice hybrids with extreme branching and thousands of bud sites produced on 12' plants inside the shed.  We are reducing the long bloom  on the sativa's creating these hybrids, some of the pure landrace were taking 17-20 weeks to finish, so we have reduced this flower period by 3-4 weeks with the first breeding.  We hope to get some sativa plants to finish by mid Oct outside at 40N latitude with these new hybrids and more breeding.
 
Best of growing
 
PW

 

I will post a few of the hybrids from the 2014 season grow in this thread since I didn't start a new thread for this year.  We have filled the greenhouse again with the F1's from our breeding project and planted a few outside in soil and a few more in pots.  The media in the containers is the same soils used in several previous grows and was re-amended with the meal mix at planting time.  An alfalfa tea was used one month after transplant and a kelp tea was used once when flowering   started.  Pro tec silica was used a couple of times a month when watering.  No other fertilizer or "bloom boosters" (whatever that is... LOL) were used for growing this crop.
 
The crop was treated with spinosad  twice a month and the plants stayed insect free on most plants.  Two plants that were more susceptible to mites were treated more frequently and control was achieved by flowering time.  All plants were topped frequently until the phyllotaxy of the leaf arrangement changed from alternate to opposite, then left alone to finish flowering.
 


 
All but the two indica leaning hybrids have reached heights of 8-12' and have now stopped stretching and are starting to size up the flowers nicely.  Four out of twelve in the greenhouse look like they will finish in two to three more weeks,  The sativa phenotypes have started flowering better now that the day-length is getting lower than 12 hours, but they will have another six to eight weeks to finish.  I hope they will finish by the first week in Dec, because we cannot keep the temps high enough to keep from freezing after that time.
 



 
A few plants in the back yard and in the rear of the barnyard are still growing well, even after a day of snow and sleet last week.   Nighttime temperatures are running from 32-50F at night.  I am crossing my fingers for another month of Indian Summer to get enough time to finish the outdoor plants and am building a temporary shelter for the outside plants.  The colder temperatures are generating some interesting colors on some buds outside.
 

 
Heavy harvests to all
 
PW

 

With winter rapidly approaching it is time to start the harvesting of the early girls.  The night temperatures are between 30-40F now so the tops from the ripe varieties were taken this week.  The cold nights are causing the older fan leaves to golden up as the plant starts senescence. 
 


 
 
The later flowering sativa varieties were starting to hit the roof, but as the colas size up and get heavier they are starting to LST on their own from the weight of the flowers.  I can't wait to see the results after 6-8 more weeks flowering on these late season plants.
 

 
I can only encourage people to make their own seed stock.  The results may be surprising.
 
Bountiful harvests to all
 
PW

 

Pre harvest shots of the hybrids:
 

 
A few outside enjoying their new cover.  These plants were grown with only alfalfa, horse and goat manure and two manure teas for the whole cycle.  The left corner is a sativa hybrid from the breeding and the two on the right are Jack Herer sativas.  Both varieties are in week 8 of flower and have 6-7 weeks to go.
 

 
 
Bountiful harvests to all
 
PW

 

Thanks for stopping in TJ.  I don't get many visitors because I don't link my grows to my signature and my plants don't have catchy seed bank names, everyone but me would call them bagseeds.   You are welcome to come down anytime if you want to see them in real life.  I was hoping you would call in Oct for a look just before harvest.  If you want info on greenhouse construction or suppliers let me know and I may be able to help with any questions.
 
PW

 

 
Yes, it's amazing to see the hoops that people jump through to grow weed.  I can only laugh when I see those batteries of 6-10 quarts of diluted ferts sitting on growers shelves at $25/ bottle and they are so weak you have to use them  almost every watering.  These plants were grown for 7 months in the final pots for less than $15/plant using only a couple of handfuls of the meal mix fertilizer and 1/2 bag of EWC. 
 

 
CO,thanks for the visit, no god, just an old man who knows how to grow plants and  refuses to shop at blackmarket or commercial shops for unknown MJ.  I am in a legal state and we just share the crop between the three growers and give a lot to friends.  Some is converted to tinctures for a dying friend.  Cash cropping is decades removed from our lives.  The goal is to never run out, and we have reached that goal.
 
PW