Grandpa's growin' again

WGG, thanks for checking back in. We are starting down the backstretch now, things should get interesting.


P38, always kind words from you. We try to run a clean grow and give the plants what they need, when they need it. As you say mo simple, mo better. Appreciate the support bro.

Wharf, glad to see you back, I was worried there for a while. Your 30's are sizing up nicely. Best to you.

Voo Doom, Yes the scents of the fruits of our upcoming harvest are starting to hang in the air. It makes the wait more mysterious, imagining the tastes to come with the fall harvests.

Marapa, it's an honor to have you stop in and take a look. It's really humbling to show my grow pics taken with my cheap point and shoot, compared to the brilliant shots you post. I am glad you enjoyed the SAGE, I think it will be added to our permanent plant pallet. When I get a little time I will send you some links about GH construction. Feel free to PM for info.

I will post new pics in a couple of days showing the newer growth. It is getting hard to get one plant into one frame now that they are starting to finish. We are contemplating whether to cut the tops again or let them grow and tie them down and hope they don't outgrow the building. I will update soon, it is a long drive to the grow, so I usually post new pics every two weeks and not get too snap happy every time a new leaf grows in. This week I started the hash collection with all of the fan leaves collected from dropping leaves up to now and produced a small pile of kief, 4g.

Heavy harvests to all

PW

 

Today's work was spent preparing for the flowering season quickly approaching. All of the pots were top dressed with 1 oz of our meal mix and 1/2 oz of Neem cake. All plants were sprayed with spinosad at the beginning of flowering.

We have decided not to top the plants at this stage and only took a few cuttings from the tips this week. The large sativas are still growing 5-6"/week. The Vietnam and the Columbian are just showing pre flowers. Alaska Ice is turning into a huge plant and is starting to bulk up the flowers now. The early flowers of the first five plants transplanted are stretching and fox-tailing, starting to begin their flowering stage once again. SAGE looks like it will be an early finisher along with the Big Band.

Today we moved a large male Big Sur Holy Weed X Blueberry outside of the grow area. Many branch tips loaded with male flowers were collected and hopefully much pollen can be saved from this plant. We will backcross to all the BSHW females and chuck a few random selections also.

PW

 

More shots from this week.

The Vietnam and Columbian plants have become very branched from all the topping we have been doing to keep the plants small enough to fit in the house. If these colas fill out to any good length, we will have hundreds of tips to split at harvest. We are hoping to use training to keep the colas growing instead of topping this time.

We have removed a lot of the tips from the male BSHW and wiill try to collect pollen from this plant. I think I will also clone this male before hashing it up, just in case something fails the first time collecting. Most of the leaves have been removed from the male flowers and they are in water in a bucket and jar with aluminum foil under it to catch the pollen grains. Hoping for a large collection from this plant.

PW

 

Thanks for the rep WR, The Proto is one of my favorites and has worked trouble free for 35 years now, I wish I would have bought one sooner, it's a real classic. Just before I left for my OR vacation my glass spoon rolled off the tool box and broke into two pieces. I guess I am just too old school, but I think I will stick to the old collection of "lamp fitting" chamber pipes, my proto, several corncobs, and a few hand carved burl pipes made by me,and not replace the glass unless someone gifts one to me. Just keep it clean and I'm happy, whatever the piece is made from.

Load that bowl

PW

 

ImKushed, thanks for the tip on the glass fusion. It is too late for my piece as the bowl was broken in more than one place so I threw it away. I saved the stem for future projects when feeling creative.

Voo Doom, I normally use a watercolor brush for an applicator. I select single small branch buds to pollinate and try not to spread too much around. It is easy to touch a flower and a yellow cloud of pollen flies everywhere. I have some pollen stuck to the top of a coffee can plastic lid I used to dry the male flowers on. I will take this lid and rub a few small buds onto the lid to try and get a few crosses, the rest will be selected and touched with the pollen tipped brush.

I have friends who put a branch into a bag with male flowers and shake it around to distribute the pollen, but I like to be a little more gentle when pollinating, so mostly use the brush technique, or a little dab on my finger.

PW

 

We have dried and collected the pollen from the Big Sur Holy Weed and an old Mexican landrace plant. Several of the plants were crossed with these pollens. We will do the same again in two weeks to be sure to cross at a time when the stigmas are receptive to the pollen.

My most anticipated cross will be the BSHW X BB backcross. Also interesting will be the results of the SAGE and BSHW/BB cross. Both plants share the same grandparent and have good potential to recreate the old school seeds.

Not a lot to report in the GH this week. The plants are still growing vertically, but slowing down a bit now that flowering is starting. Some of the sativas have reached the top of the building now and were lowered with the addition of another net trellis above the first to steady some of the longer branches.

We watered with a diluted comfrey syrup. The plants still look good going into flower and have not lost many leaves or started to yellow. All plants were sprayed with lavender tea and silicon and will be repeated weekly unless another outbreak of mites require another round of spinosad. I have noticed the pure sativa plants from the tropical regions are not affected by the mites like the multi-bred hybrids, and have shown good resistance qualities.

This year we have too many plants for the space we are growing, but wanted to try several new varieties to increase our plant pallet. When things are worked out well and we are comfortable with our cultural practices we will downsize this grow to about 12 plants, to provide more room for expansion sideways.

I am still a firm believer in leaving the plant alone and not stripping off leaves prematurely. No leaves are removed until they are spent, and no longer providing carbohydrates. A few small branches are removed in the lower trunk area to allow for better air circulation and the plants were topped as needed to keep them short enough to fit into the room and to bush up the taller plants. All other leaves were allowed to completely yellow before removal.

We have set the stage for this harvest and will wait patiently for the end of flowering and will not be adding anything to the soil unless it is needed in later flowering. Just good observation and the required water should get us to harvest now. It is looking like mid Oct for most plants and even up into Nov for some of the sativas. I don't count days, only look at the trichs for determining ripeness. Most of the plants were flowering by the first of Aug. We will grow till they are done, whenever that happens.

Best of harvest to all

PW

 

Pics continued from last post.

 

WGG, Thanks for taking time to stop, I know it has been hectic at your house lately. When I was in OR, my wife called and said she was standing on the porch watching 100 ft flames dancing on the ridge. She didn't have to leave, but it was a close one. Glad to hear you and yours are OK. It makes putting that evacuation kit together soon, a reality. Your plants are looking great, nothing compares like the full sun.

PW

 

P38, always a kind word from you. We are still struggling to figure this operation out, but are slowly coping with each problem as it is recognized. We hope to iron out the final kinks this grow, pick a few good varieties and really try to set the benchmark for our room next year.

Marihemp, it's good to see you stop in. I'm happy you got things straightened out and you have your grow in progress. I'm not much of a storyteller, but we will try to present some interesting facts about our growing attempts.

Mrsmichigan, We are happy to have you check our grow. Thanks for the interest. You know they say "size doesn't matter, its the end result", I'm sure you will enjoy your homegrown as much as we do our own. The nylon trellis is installed at 7' to give the longer branches more support.

Some of the sativa got so tall we added another trellis at 9 1/2 - 10' to give the tips another layer of support near the top. It is not our intention to weave the plants through the nets in a horizontal fashion like a scrog, but to spread out the limbs and open up the center more.. The nets are 5x15 each and are resting on a clothesline-like line, run end to end on the endwalls.

It's good to have a couple of ladies on this thread to give some balance, this is not a men only club, ladies always welcome.

Bubbles420. it's good to see you again. If a greenhouse gets too hot or has to use a lot of shading, it can cause the plants to stretch more than usual. My grows routinely get to 100F for weeks on end and this year many days peaking at 125F. The purple flower below was grown in 100+ for at least four weeks, and the flowers in this year's crop will finish in temps up to 125F. I will enjoy my buds more than the rocks sold at the dispensary, and I would never smoke buds treated with carcinogenic chemicals like gravity and other PGR products, just to get a rock hard bud. I think mine will smoke just fine.

I have just returned from the grow site and will post another update soon.
Best of harvest to all


PW

 

This visit to the grow was quite surprising. The plants above the trellis netting keep getting spread apart and the top of the room is starting to fill with branch tips and colas. A few of the plants have reached the top of the building and have to be pulled over to keep them off the roof.

All plants are in some stage of flowering at this time. The Big Band is pretty beat up by the mites, but is trying really hard to push some nice colas. Some branches have filled out more than 12" with solid colas in about three weeks. We are really looking forward to taking these colas off these plants in another month or so.

The grow is still going without too many problems this year, a few mites are still present an were treated with lavender spray again this week, if they persist I will have to use the spinosad again before the plants finish flowering. The tall sativas are losing a lot of their original fan leaves now that flowering is in full swing. They are just starting to form florets in the nodes and some will go their advised 14 weeks into flowering, it looks like at this time. It's hard to believe we are only half way finished with some of these plants after 3 months of growing. Most of the early flowering varieties have been flowering for three to four weeks now.

I will post again with another series of pics from this week next.

Best of growing

PW