Qrazy Train & Cotton Candy

Just started out a new perpetual setup and these pics are of the first two I'm running thru until I can get mother off with her first set of clones. The first one's of the Cotton Candy from Delicious Seeds. She was placed in the bloom room early to compensate for being a nearly 10 week strain and has been flowering for about 4 days. The second is a very bushy Qrazy Train female from TGA Subcool that's been under 12/12 just 5 days. Both plants are about 2 mos. old and are targeted for finishing the last day of June. Sure I can manage some emergency drying of a small amount for the 4th's fireworks.

The system is F&D hydro with pea gravel medium and Eco-Grow old school nutes. PH 6.4-6.7. Nothing fancy. I've used Eco for years, and with a technique I follow using Earth Juice Bio that contains molases at the end, have long fooled folks who thought the cured results was organic soil grown.

 

Some pics of my clone setup:



These 8 QT clones are 12 days old.


All plants have similar root development. The yellowish tint is due to lighting effect and roots are healthy and all white.


A 3" PC fan vents out the back that only runs during last 2 weeks as the plants mini-veg to finish out the month window. The hood is from a 150w HPS Security style light that works well enough.

 

Haven't worked with either of these strains before, but had a similar grow a few years ago with the same 1000w HPS in the same area and 8 plants with 1 month of veg, and saw about 12 zips or more per month. Shootin' for a lb+ this time around.

 

Sorry, I was away on another project and haven't kept up with this thread. Had some micro trace element problems with Mg def but have that solved. Am now just over 2 weeks into blooming the 8 QT clones in the above pics. Don't have a working camera now so no pics of them for now. Have noticed they are somewhat nute sensitive as some reviews state. And they don't like too much heat in the bloom room. Picked up a used 10,000 btu A/C to keep things running cool here approaching the real heat of summer. Have to admit it's a little puzzling how you read so much online in the reviews about how dang good the QT is supposed to be, yet most rave on in the forums about other TGA strains and few seem to mention QT. One grower commented he didn't like the structure of the plants in how they flowered. But didn't get more specific than that. But I personally don't see anything that unusual about them. I finally selected a fast growing bushy querkle-dominant pheno mother that seems to be a keeper. Even in veg her stems and leaves are as sticky as any other strain I've grown that comes close. Have decided to go an extra 5-7 days with 'em since I've been reading many insist it's better if you go a little past the listed 8 weeks. Should have some more recent pics up soon. I'm in the Seattle area, BTW.

 

Borowed a friend's cam and just took these. Just over 2 weeks of 12/12 and already getting thick with budsites proportionately to other QT pics I've seen from Ocanabis and others, the traits I was shooting for are coming thru as hoped. The cotton candy was just a freebie from the Tude and I only ran her as a novelty plant. These are the same QT clones in the above pics I posted about 2 months ago.









Edit: BTW, I switched nutes back to Botanicare Pure Blend Grow/Bloom, and also giving their Liquid Karma a trial run. Read on an Orchid Club forum that it also contains enough Calcium and Magnesium. So don't need their Cal-Mag. I use tap water, but found earlier that this QT seems to run into Mg def issues easily.

 

Forgot to mention that the bloom area is split in two to accomodate 2 months, harvesting just 8 of 16 total in a 54" sq space with an 8 wk strain. To fit in the additional 5-odd days I'm now going with till I crop I'll just make an adjustment to 12/12 the last week of the month in the veg unit to give 'em the needed head start.

 

Some more shots of the rest of my small perpetual grow.


This is my veg unit. Had some issues early on with mamma that created a 1 month gap, that's also reflected in why I only have 4 here that were just transferred in one tub that include 2 emergency clones in back from a trainwreck QT pheno before I dumped her.



Along with (3) 42 watt CFLs, I flip on (2) 100 watt MH after about a 10 days transition between the tiny 13 watt CFL in the clone unit to the much brighter veg box.


A shot of my clone unit with a new set (day 2) of Querkle-dom QT clones. They had been stashed as an insurance policy just over a month ago in the crisper bin in my frig, rolled in a damp towel and bagged. Which is why they look a little strange. The taller one on the right is from a single I thought I'd need and I'd been 'hand cloning' on the side for just over a week, and it was almost rooted. already


Here's mama up close and personal. Note the early branch development near the top along with the close internode spacing of this Querkle-dom beauty.


A broader shot of my CFL powered parent unit with mamma.

 

Appreciate you tuning in an' kickin' back for the ride. Been hearing some harsh things on a thread or two on RIU of late seemingly out of the blue railin' on Sub for much of what you're a little disapointed with. Too many males, hermies, unstable stuff you can't seriously breed with, have to pop 20- preferably 30 beans to find a decent keeper, he breeds in a 5x5 room and everything TGA caries comes from one or two crosses- so there's little diversity in his gear, he just plain sucks and soon will be revealed as the next Arjan, and on and on. Lol! If it weren't for so many others who have little such problems and know how independent reviews have bestowed their blessings upon TGA and Sub. I do believe he can be a bit edgy at inappropriate times, but he certainly knows what he's doing otherwise. And as one poster said that I think fits it best, 'These are folks who've held long pent up emotions toward Sub for one reason or another. And seeing the opportunity with the door open to jump on the Sub bashing wagon.'- or words to that effect.

Out of 10 QT seeds I had 6 fem and the rest males. One was slow to develop and I only kept two of the remaining 5. Then just got rid of the trainwreck pheno, leaving mamma. In fact what are considered true hermies tend show more male flowers earlier on in flowering, rather than later. There's a range inbetween how many male flowers appear that makes a significant difference in whether it's a real concern or a perfectly fine female that just produces a few single nanners in a few or more buds late in flowering. These usually appear too late for any seeds to develop enough before harvest to be noticable.

Thanx for the info and yeah, send me a pic of the book of dank 2.0. I'm all about that!
I'll keep up with maybe some better quality pics as budding procedes along. Believe it or not, so far they don't reek nearly as much as you'd expect. I have 2 good ozone generators (Big Blue Air Ball, size of a softball, runs on 12V, $150 ea.) set up in my DIY exhaust plenum but haven't needed to turn 'em on at all.

Edit: Unreal! A friend just called my wife and said she knows a dispensary about 20 miles from here who's got the QT right now. We're gonna' be getting a $40 delivery tomorrow from her. Too high! -And I'll certainly be issuing a smoke report.

 

Here's the whole Tamale. Clone unit on the left made from an old stack stereo system cab. I just removed the the magnetic-latch glass door and made a few other mods.
Then there's the veg unit in the corner with plenty of ventilation to spare with that whisper quiet Dayton 55 cfm axial fan pulling off any heat before it can think of it.
Then around the corner sits mamma, and to the right is the closet door to the bloom area. Simple, cheap, productive was the idea. We're gonna' be moving to eastern Wa. before too much longer, plans are for a year and a half- tops, so this was intended to be a temporary solution for the time being.

 

Just took these with another friend's Canon Power Shot ELPH 100 HS. An improvement, but still can't really get a closer shot on a bud without losing focus.








Edit: Yeah, I'm bored. And honestly we're going nuts waiting till our QT delivery shows up later this AM, we hope.

 

W/closet door open, blooming in progress. Above the shelf is the sealed exhaust plenum at the ceiling. Front splits to create removable panels for access to the 100 cfm axial fan and twin Air Ball's.









Edit: I used to work at a cabinet shop that did commercial and ran their trick new IMA Banding machine, and later built boxes too. The two-sided veneered stuff is some scrap furniture grade Windsor Mohagany I had a fellow stoner friend at work cut up for me who worked their programable super accurate saws. Fits were tight and I needed little sealant to finish the job. Looks pro, but a lot of it is the result of luck and having access to that sort of thing.

Edit II: The 100 cfm axial isn't quite cuttin' tha' mustard. Daytime temps at the plant tops runs just a little too high over 80 deg. Even with the 10,000 btu A/C, not enough of that cool air passively enters the bloom enclosure. Will soon be replacing it with a Dayton 273 cfm squirell cage blower, which was part of my original plans anyway. The axial fan was lying around and it works well enough temporarily to get things off the ground.

 

Aaaaghhhh!!! All this waiting for nothing! She was told it all sold out in less than 24 hrs.-? I'm going to go sulk around for awhile. Now we have to go thru our old guy who's stingy and can be hard to get a hold of. Gahhh!!!

I suppose it helps curb the frustration a little at times like this to know it won't be long now and we won't have to deal with this sort of thing ever again.

 

Thanks, I do spend a lot of time trying to dial in a new strain early on. Yer' killin' me. I haven't had a chance yet to try it yet, and at night I'm begining to have reoccuring nightmares where my plants are laughing at me while I'm running around desperately seeking the elusive QT in smokable form. . Yeah, I hear when it's around it's more often $15/g, likely to being a little rare. Perhaps an unintended benefit of picking this strain as it turns out. My wife is elgible to pick up her green card once we can find room to cover the $200 price. Then as you say, we can avoid dealing with ordering the seeds we want online. Earlier this year a disp. down south in Tacoma had Vortex for $10/bean, though it was only a short run that ran dry in less than 2 weeks. But TGA stuff shows up at others locally more often of late.
In my early days I made the mistake of trying to gain some respect from a dealer by telling him I was growing. It worked at first in the short term, but then got ugly. But it still tugs at me a little with the temptation to get some decent respectful results out of some of these folks by letting on. A tiny bit of pseudo respect in the short term is hardly worth years and years of disrespect on a deeper level.
In the mid 90's my wife and I lived in Newberg, and we'd like to drive out thru McMinville to Lincoln City often to take in tokes and spectacular views of the ocean beaches along a short loop we'd drive down US 101. I loved living in the Willamette Valley and would do it again.

Edit: Dude, I'd do anything for an Arctic Circle burger. They closed down the only one left in Wa years ago that was north of here about 15 miles in Mountlake Terrace.

 

Have been eyeballin' the Vortex again of late. Almost went with it when I chose the QT. The only things that's made me hold off is the reported yield being a little on the light side and it's thin 'viney' stems that need a lot of support as it ripens. Apart from that, I'm all about the Sativa charged, Energizer Bunny, wake-n-quake, daytime-sunshine-ROAD TRIP!, "Get 'er done!" kinda' high the Vortex is known for. And the other day I read some posts from those who claim a decent enough yield if you hunt for the right pheno and grow her out right. Plan on running both for a little variety on our daily menu.

 

Lol! Looks like this all worked out for the better after all. Now we have the $ to pick up some really nice golden-tinted Haze cross we've had before. But we hadn't heard from that connection in awhile till he called a friend earlier. He's got a runner on his way over with Haze in hand as I type.

 

Just three words: Hazed, blazed & amazed!