stay alive-- organic medical grow

Golden cobra (tangie x moie's grape kush) with some mild slug damage:

Alpine OG (Tahoe OG x moxie's OG)

you can see this is a 3 cotyledon mutant. initially I thought this might mean the start was non viable. it turned out to be a survival advantage in the cold, because the non mutant og died during a heavy rain and its much larger than the golden cobra..

 

yeah there are herbs growing in the other beds, what you see right around the plants is some cut lemon balm and sage as a mulch. The plots also got some kelp worm casting and neem aerated tea that I made for my indoor plants yesterday. It bubbles 4-6 hours for the indoor plants, and then all night before being watered around the edges of the plots. The dredges from the tea are used to top dress. I will be planting some clover as a ground cover and marigolds as a pest deterrent at the edges of the plots with my seedlings once theyre more established.

 

totally happy to answer any questions I can. yes I'm planning to give the indoor plants the same top dress when they get repotted under the new lights. In the meantime I'm thinking about giving them a dry nettle top dressing in their current 1gal pots.


cornbread, lemon cherry, root beer, maple leaf afghan


lemon cherry #2, root beer #2, maple leaf afghan #2

last night they got some diluted aloe watered through a malted barley and worm casting top dressing. The lemon cherries and afghans are doing very well. The front row root beer is also looking great. Cornbread is still wack. If its female I'll flower it, but definitely won't clone and its unlikely that I'd grow any seeds from this female. If its male, its getting culled right away and turned into tincture. root beer #2 in the center of the back row is getting slightly rootbound, but still looking healthy. it should move past this quickly when I repot. rootbound plants get their root balls broken up gently and are lowered into a new pot with the overgown portions of root spread out into fresh dirt. Plants that get this treatment usually take a few days more to establish, but then explode with new growth.

 

I'll definitely try to take some photos during transplant. I can generally tell when a plant is rootbound because it dries out very fast after watering and its leaves will continue to droop well after its dark period is over. As it gets more rootbound, new growth will continue but the droopiness in old growth gets more and more exaggerated, and in extreme cases old fan leaves can get a dark discoloration in the center. this will all go away after a repot (discolored fan leaves won't recover, but once they die off new growth will be completely fine), and breaking up the bound together roots helps the plant recover and put out fresh roots faster. I do this by gently poking my finger into the center of the root ball, and then gently spreading the roots apart in half or into three sections. its okay to rip and break up some of the roots as long as they all remain connected upwards to the stalk. Breaking up the lower roots helps give the plant a nice wide root structure, making it easier for the roots to reach out in all directions. This will only be necessary if the roots form a totally solid mass and the plant has been showing signs of stress before transplant. plants with very small/immature root systems will usually lift away from the soil in the original pot, and benefit from having their roots spread apart but not broken up. it's not necessary because plants with a less established root system tend to have all the roots growing straight downward and they will be easy to spread without too much disturbance.

 

I think a raw tincture is one of the best ways to use cannabis medicinally. I drink a smoothie with tincture every day to help with the digestive effects of a connective tissue disorder. I make it with frozen peaches and blueberries, a banana, greens, acacia fiber, raw honey, pineapple juice, and marijuana tincture. That's the basic recipe, sometimes I add chia seeds, cold green tea, or whatever other fresh fruit is available. mangos and papaya work great.
I don't have a specific recipe for tincture, but its best to use everclear or the highest proof alcohol possible to get the best extraction of essential oils. use only as much alcohol as is necessary for your leaf material to float freely in. my latest batch of tincture was 1/4 of one strain, an 1/8 of another, and as many fresh fan leaves as my plants could spare. I put it all in a mason jar that I then filled with everclear. Let the tincture steep for a minimum of 5 days before use. If its a batch that has a very high ratio of leaf/bud to alcohol, you can use it after 4 days but I recommend letting it steep with occasional shaking for at least a full week before use. You just want to be sure that the effect of the weed outweighs the effect of the alcohol to the point that you can use it in small quantities where the alcohol has no effect. I always use as much fresh material as possible. You can use buds and any leaves, and I see no reason that even stalks and branches wouldn't be appropriate. I plan to use whole plant materials for tincture/oil at my next harvest.

 

As soon as my plants are large enough to supply adequate fan leaves, I'll switch from tincture to juicing fresh leaves.

 

yeah, so a total of 3/4 ounce of bud and some more fresh leaves. Not sure if I have the right thread in mind, but I think the main difference compared to the tincture recipe on that thread is that mine is raw, and that recipe is decarbed (heat activated) to activate more of the psychoactive cannabinoid components. I use it raw for digestive health in small amounts, and raw for high dose pain relief without trippyness.

 

I've had my medical card for baseline chronic pain since I was 18 so I have a decent amount of experience with different strains available from dispensaries. In my experience indicas based on afghan and hindu are best for pain relief. I think its best to look for plants that haven't been bred/crossed too many times. look for something that is still close to an afghan or kush plant, or something crossed with a landrace. one of the best strains I have used for pain relief is called afghani bullfighter IBL, it comes from san diego where bullfighting is a big deal because of the proximity to mexico. the strain was supposedly developed by a retired bullfighter as an inbred landrace variety (wild cannabis selected and bred within a pure gene pool) for pain relief from old sports injuries. this strain tends to have around %18 thc and %8 cbd, which seems to be close to an ideal ratio for pain relief. Some western hybrid indicas, white widow in particular, have had all the medicinal traits bred out in favor of a high thc percentage and intense psycho activity, and are pretty much useless as medicine.

Thai and african/jamaican sativas are very good for digestive health. there are some heirloom sativas that contain high cbd, and those can be god for pain relief as well but are very uncommon. Most western sativas like trainwreck, intense hazes, and jack herer seem to have almost no medicinal benefit at all, as they can increase heart rate and muscle tension and are the most likely strains to cause paranoia.

 

Like I said earlier in the thread, I think the most medicinal varieties are the ones that are closest to natural and landrace strains. these varieties have a much broader cannabinoid profile, no trace cannabinoids or terpenes have been bred out in favor of high thc. the effect is much more gentle, and is felt beneficially throughout the body instead of just in the form of a harsh and psychoactive head buzz.

Although this might seem somewhat contradictory, I actually think that some modern polyhybrids can also have a better medicinal effect than basic highly bred strains and normal western hybrids. It seems like combining multiple refined hybrids that have some landrace in their genetics can yield plants that have a more interesting terpene profilke as well as more trace cannabinoids like cbg's and cbn. a good example of this would be OG kushxLambsbread x girlscout cookies.
the lambsbread and the durban in the girl scout cookies are both african sativas, which are very good for digestion. the congolese bantu drink cannabis sativa tea starting from infancy to prevent parasite and other jungle digestive maladies. girl scout cookies usually has little medical value other than a good high, but adding OG Kush and jamaican heirloom sativa give it a less specifically psychoactive effect and a decent cbg percentage.

 

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outdoor update:
the alpine og is looking great, no bug damage, and no frost damage from a few 38 degree nights last week. its definitely established and getting ready to blow up with new growth. the golden cobra however has been culled. In addition to the damage in the last photo of it, an entire half of the plant got totally perforated with bug damage. I have never seen bug damage to any cannabis seedlings, and I don't see bug damage on any other type of seedling in the garden. so golden cobra obviously has some specific susceptibility to pests, and is definitely an indoor plant. It was a 7th seed in a pack of 6 anyway, so I'm not at all worried about pulling it. all of its undamaged leaves went straight to the next batch of tincture.

once the indoor plants are sexed clones will be taken from all of them, and 2 female clones will move outdoors when rooted. at least one of the female mothers is going to move outdoor immediately after it shows pistil and have its clones flowered indoor on the next cycle.

 

just got my Real Seed Co. order from seedsman:

malana cream himalayan charas plant, manipuri thai/laos/shan ganja, kumaoni himalayan charas plant. comparing these kumaoni seeds to the ones I have already, I can confirm the first order is genuine.

And an order from greenline organics seed bank:

the guava hashplant, dank sinatra, and wolfpack freebie are from greenline, the buddha's hand, prayer tower, and solo stash are from the vault uk. based on reports of guava hashplants growth characteristics, it could be a great candidate for landrace hybrid crosses to tame leafy or sparse landrace phenos with medicinal traits worth preserving. the goal for the offspring would be to increase the calyx to leaf ratio and add branching potential to make the plant suitable for indoor growth while maintaining the landrace medical benefits.