Hazy daze of summer

Despite big mechanical and meteorological challenges in the past week, the plants look great. In fact I was planning to spray a couple days ago with a foliar application, but the leaves just looked so nice on their own that I chose not to fuck with it. What I really love about this stage of growth--just starting to flower, but because of the super-short veg period, also just starting the mature vegetation--is the diversity of leaves among these haze hybrids. Some are starting to get the classic sativa thread leaves. Others, like SAGE, still have much more balanced foilage shape. I'm not taking time for individual plant pics yet; maybe starting next week...

Edit: these pics are actually from this morning, aka Day 21 after flip. Not 14. I should ban myself from trying to post or edit photos while not yet caffeinated...

 

Poss, since you're already in bigthink/BF territory, whilst I have to wait to deal with some grinding practical details of work, home, car maintenance, and so haven't loaded the vape whip yet, I'll offer some more tidbits that I've found interesting down this line of thinking.

A few years ago I finished (though hardly absorbed more than about 20%) of a book called Panarchy, ed. by CS Holling and Lance Gunderson, prominent ecologists. You can use that search term to find some distillation of their thinking. Here's one quote to noodle on:

"The development of the panarchy framework evolved out of experiences where “expert” attempts to manage regional ecosystems often resulted in considerable degradation of those ecosystems (Gunderson and Holling, 2002). Regional management efforts are generally linear in nature, targeting the maintenance of certain variables – forest growth rates, river clarity, fish harvest rates, etc. [I would add as examples closer to grow-home: soil pH, nute ppm, dried bud yield]

It was noted that focusing on managing a single variable, usually one of economic interest, generally resulted in other variables in the system changing, sometimes abruptly, and eventually degrading the entire ecosystem. It was also noted that the changes triggered by attempting to sustain a particular variable were changes that occurred so slowly (over decades or more), that they often went unnoticed until they in turn triggered an abrupt change (e.g. the forest became infested, the river became polluted, or the fish stock collapsed)."

This is from a pretty good summary website.

Here is their now iconic, confusing, but ultimately (to me) interesting graphic of the curve that ecological and social-ecological systems (like a cannabis grow, where it's ecology and human management interacting) always seem to follow, whether they are individual plants, entire grows, or even business organizations trying to put out product.

 

Thanks engneer. Wish I felt more useful weighing in with your situation, but I've only sorta been there--no kids, 7 years rather than 23. And can't say anything much more than you try to make the best out of whichever path you choose, best for you and those you love. So good luck with it..

 

BP, I'm glad to hear your view on the double pot. Yeah that's exactly what I was headed towards with "ring of fire," but without understanding the soil chem or plant uptake processes well enough to know how exactly to make the second (or further) rings as tasty as possible...so thanks for the thought on root tip pref for calcium.

SLH and Sage are indeed interesting...both were the early runts in this grow, but I've already learned that those early runts can turn out special...I hope to show you more about those two in weeks to come

 

Thanks, DG...yeah, there we go again, this amazingly tough plant that makes the world's best flowers....how can everyone in the world not be about growing them?

you know speaking as a former sound guy and general audio and electrical geek, so of course take this with a shaker of salt, but I think any time you can invest and talent you can import in getting your electrical and environmental controls (switches, fans, lights, thermometers, etc) set up so they are completely easy to use and clear to you is well worth it...well I know you know this, you said yourself you'd worry about going away from the gro much due to fire worries, and so I'm preaching to the choir. Anyhoo thanks again and who knows, the wierd photoperiod maybe just tricked em into flowering faster

 

Just a note for the record that cloning has been a special challenge this run, due to the really fast flip really with no veg period. So all the cuts have been taken at least two weeks after flowering, and the last three strains just got cut after about 24 days post flip. Tell you what, though, it's a specially good feeling to me to see a bunch of health cuts in the cloner and newly rooted clones...maybe it's early bloom porn fatigue as we move into outdoor harvest season--nah, no way. It's just the joy that spring brings, rebirth, and that miracle that lets us produce the same rebirth only in the fall, or winter, whenever...

Mekond High cuts, with that wierd albino dark period showing in the new growth


Cloner loaded up


Mekong High, potted up

 

Here's the group, or what I can get of them in the frame. I haven't measured carefully, but roughly the stretch over 4 weeks has ranged from 300% to 700% Sure am glad I flipped them so small, and I sure do hope they are about to settle down and fill in..



Here's a little more of the canopy. In the lower left of both pics, right by the super, you'll see Yoda. he is checking out the yellowing on the lowest fan leaves of the Utopia Haze.



I am pretty concerned about it, and was all ready to add some..something. org nutes. Yoda said nah, something about how a being that grows that fast, over an inch a day for the past week, has to give up something to do that, has to leave behind its fan base. I understood that to mean "LITFA" and so I shall, for awhile, at least...

The variety of leaves in this group is great, and I especially love the tiny emergent sativa leaves...I've always been a fan of this threadleaf look, maybe from seeing lots of Japanese maples. Whatever, here are a couple thumbs of two very different tops on these plants: Mekong Haze and Royal Haze, the ones that I tied down most aggressively

 

Thanks Mickey. Being a newcomer to growing sativas, this run is really interesting to me. I have only guesses as to what to expect from week to week, making it all more exciting to open that curtain every day.

DG, congrats on your cloning success...I figured you were savvy on the dangers of funky electrical connections. Household extension cords and adapters are usually pretty reliable long as you haven't cut or otherwise abused them in the past and you don't overload them. I'm just a fan of trying to keep them as simple and clearly organized as possible...it's not that critical, but in the days I was doing live sound I got used to putting in the extra time up front to keep electrical spaghetti madness from happening...

I will do an update on the Utopia Haze in a couple of days...I think the problem is a bit more serious but we'll see....

BP, good to have you in here. As I mentioned to Downgirl things took a turn for the worse for Utopia Haze while I was out checking the outdoor grow last week. But I've given it a little epsom as you say and will give a full update in a few days after I see whether there have been any changes.

Thanks man, I am indeed feeling good about this grow. I think they are about maxed out on height and spread and right where I had hoped they would end up--but of course many weeks to go.

 

Me too, although the real high percentage sativas in the bunch are showing it with their long fluffy blooms, so right now at less than halfway through it's hard for me to imagine real nuggetry except perhaps with the SAGE, which clearly has a lot more indica in it than the others. Thanks for stopping by, I know you got a lot going on trying to get your enterprise up and running out there. And catching fish

DG, appreciate the compliment, but in reality things look very bad for UH. I got back from four days away at the outdoor grow, and all the plants were happy, except UH...which had dried up and fallen over onto the plant behind it. I watered and watched but the next morning, still no recovery. My theory: I had put UH in the smallest pot (1 gal smarty outer ring, 1/2 inner ring). I think when I took its lowers off for clones it sent even more energy into growth at the main stem apex...so it shot up like 10" in 7 days. And I think it just outran its small soil supply, and then also dried up from my having the dripper too tight while I was away.

So last night I put it into a third ring pot, a size 5 smarty with a pretty hot blooming mix. And I'm turning it over to Yoda and hoping he can work some Jedi-fu on it....So far some of the lower small fans around the buds have come back, but way up that skinny main stem things still look real grim as you can see



I hope The Force is with you all...