Yeah, you have two great strains there. The Black Widow I grew, while weird as hell, was an incredible plant. It was a single feminized seed from Female Seeds, not from Mr. Nice, but I gather that the vigor of my plant is a characteristic of the original strain. And the potency was there in spades. All the stems were covered in trichs. The only real shortcoming was the taste of the smoke, which was slightly unpleasant. Apparently, the strain demonstrates a lot of variability, which seems to be a hallmark of Mr. Nice strains. They don't like their cannabis plants to be completely domesticated. Hopefully, we can help the time pass quickly.
I've watched some auto runs. Remember LIsmoker? The problem is the clock is always running. If the plant stalls out for whatever reason... but what you are showing there is just beyond comprehension. That makes a solo cup yield look bountiful. My Black Widow "buds" looked something like that but there were thousands of them, so it worked out. I have a few autos, freebies. I've never gotten a freebie that I wanted to grow. It's always an indica or an auto or, mostly it seems, an indica auto. Here is my junk pile, the seeds I never wanted but got anyway: Reserve Privada OG Kush fem Reserve Privada Kandy Kush fem Emerald Triangle Bubba 76 fem DinaFem Original Amnesia auto Short Stuff Onyx auto fem Short Stuff Him. Blue Diesel auto fem DNA LA Woman fem Royal Queen Royal Dwarf auto fem x 2 DNA Sour Cream fem The Sour Cream is a sativa dominant hybrid, at least. I wouldn't have picked it, but I could see growing it, I suppose. Except I never will because there are too many strains that actually are on my list that I'll never get to, so it makes no sense to grow stuff that's not on the list. The cost of the bean is not a real factor in this calculation. How could it be? I'm not going to burn electricity for 4 months because I got a ten or twenty dollar bean for free. I know a lot of people love the OG Kush, but that's a clone only strain, is it not? Yet Attitude has OG Kush seeds from five different breeders. It certainly is civilized of them to share those imaginary parent plants with one another.
Well, that's exactly what happened. Things went wrong when they were small and there was no stopping them, they just went ahead and flowered. The yield was pretty ridiculous, even considering how badly I screwed up. When I was uploading the pictures I stumbled across my black diesel harvest pic; another plant I screwed up in a similar manner, but that was still about twice as big as these ones. I did an auto run just to use up some free seeds. I like to have some variety in my smoke, and I had gotten a couple of auto indicas, so I went and bought some autos the breeders claimed were of a more sativa-dominant lineage. Then I over-watered, and then I got impatient and decided they could do with a feeding, and then I was screwed because I had decided I didn't need drainage holes this time around. The result was that half of my plants died. Oh well, you live and you learn, and then you get cocky and reality smacks you down.
I just discovered a treasure trove of information about getting the most out of sativa dominant plants that i'd love to share but unfortunately it is on another forum and I can't seem to work out what the rules are to cross linking to other forums or quoting snippets from them. Your black widow was an amazing sativa dominant plant, I actually found those threads mentioned above while searching around for plants like your one. Managed to find some that could have been twins!
The key to my growing technique, such as it is, is massive runoff. I would not know how to proceed without drainage. I know organic people feed for no runoff, but that's a whole other ballgame. You don't have to get cocky. Reality will smack you down anyway. If it's topical and not transparent commercial promotion then no one will take offense. Indeed, she was something special. ICMag? I saw a couple over there the other day that looked just like my Black Widow. And the primary phenotype of Dr. Grinspoon looks just like that. I've never seen a Grinspoon that didn't look like that, not that I've seen that many. Not many people grow it.
There's my Dr. Grinspoon. You can see that I've got green shit growing on my coco again. Algae? Green shit. It's the Cal-Mag Plus, I guess. I guess it's time to break out the perlite. ---
[quote name='"Alatar"'] The key to my growing technique, such as it is, is massive runoff. I would not know how to proceed without drainage.[/quote] This is probably the first thing I learned from you, Al, in my journey growing my own smoke. I won't sway from this practice one bit. If lilJ is lurking about he can attest to that.
[quote name='"Alatar"'] There's my Dr. Grinspoon. You can see that I've got green shit growing on my coco again. Algae? Green shit. It's the Cal-Mag Plus, I guess. I guess it's time to break out the perlite. ---[/quote] Al, something to think about instead of perlite, napa brand oil dry part #8822. 100% diatomite! Translation, readily available silica to your plants, while still maintaining the properties of perlite.
Yes, but I have perlite. And I'm just looking to cast the algae into darkness. It's a slippery slope, you know. One minute you are mixing in a little diatomaceous earth. Next thing you know, you're in your driveway, trying to combine coco, lime, kelp meal and worm castings in a garbage can. You're hunched over, rolling the garbage can up and down your driveway with one hand while you try to keep the garbage can lid in place with the other. And then it starts to rain. I'm just sayin'.
Babypool and shovel work great but I like your thinking with the garbage can. We keep saying we are going to rent a cement mixer in the spring for outside.
Haha! I think I'll just stick with the CNS17 for now. I did see a motor driven soil mixer in a youtube video once upon a time. It looked something like a cement mixer.
My little jungle canopy. I raised the light an inch today, but I also snapped about half a dozen tops. The Utopia Haze plant that tajkes up the foreground, the middle ground and most of the background in this photo is determined to immolate herself. You can see the Super Lemon Haze peeking out from the back on the left. She's standing on a pile of books. I fed the Utopia Haze today, as I now do everyday. She can't quite manage 2 days between waterings in her ~5 gallon pot anymore. We've have some developments in the veg shaft. The C99 seedlings are seedlings no longer and the Dr. Grinspoon is about there as well. I had given them their first taste of CNS17 Grow two days ago. They seem to have liked it. The other veg shaft occupants have had a rougher time of it in recent days. Here they are before their setback. And here they are moments later... The Durban Poison was going to get pruned back no matter what. But the SLH clone got shafted when the Utopia Haze consumed her spot in the flower stall. I may end up tossing them both, but for now I've just made them (temporarily) more manageable. ----
Thanks, Homer. I scraped the algae infested coco off the top. It will come back, I'm sure. It's an annoyance more than a real threat. Covering the coco surface with perlite, or anything else that blocks the light, will do the trick. I may delay until I've transplanted, though. The surface perlite flies everywhere during a transplant. At the moment, I'm much more concerned about the hurricane that is coming this way, but there isn't much I can do about that.
[quote name='"Alatar"'] At the moment, I'm much more concerned about the hurricane that is coming this way, but there isn't much I can do about that.[/quote] Be safe their brotha!
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLQ_U3ejaHc&feature=player_detailpage]Borderlands Theme -Ain't No Rest For The Wicked- Lyrics - YouTube[/ame]