Breeding for whorls

[Sativied]

Although it seems to work so far, I'm not entirely happy.

No, not working very well...

Plants were too light, too pale. I cleaned the setup with bleach before transplanting and I suspect some foam build up in corners and edges (where the rafts lean on, they don't actually float) because it smelled too "bleachy". Weird I hadn't noticed it during the transplanting, but I used bleach occasionally before I had a chiller so figured I refresh.

Turns out my wall mounted ppm meter (for the flower setup) is a little off, so I was giving 310 instead of the 350 I wanted. Fixed that, plants improved a little, but the next day the nutrient solution started to smell (36 hours after a refresh). The contents of the bottles, even with holes in them, does not refresh fast enough, it stagnates nears the net cup. Noticed the roots get beige/brownish exactly around that water surface line. I didn't notice it sooner because of that bleach smell being dominant...

Refreshed the nute solution last night after flushing with a little bit of bleach, and flushing with water. Added cannazym, which I happen to have for the small DWC preveg boxes. Still smells fresh, and the stains near the top of the roots are gone, but... they aren't as nicely white anymore either:

The main problem is that I won't be able to address it better until tomorrow....

I trimmed the bottom of all those bottles so the water can move more freely again. While I'm sure that was the main issue (roots where sparkly white on the parts that stuck out underneath the bottom being in more moving water) I'm getting a much stronger air pump + more stones tomorrow.

Hopefully I can save at least 18 before sexing and 9 female after. Else I'm going to start over... with F1, or maybe even new parents. I have one as backup in soil. The other seedlings I decided not to keep as backup cause that would mean I'd possibly use one that I selected out of the running early on already.

They actually look a little lighter than they are because of the light reflecting back from the bottom but as you can see, they aren't going very well. Things have been going so smooth and easy with the tubes that I forgot how cranky I get when my plants aren't healthy. :depressed:

 

[caveman4.20]

Hang in there....they'll grow for you

 

[Canappa]

I know the feeling, you not the only one having problems bro, My girls are experiencing the same root problems, I am still working on it, think the water temps are too high, Bought a water chiller on craigslist and it didnt work! Sending good vibes your way;)

 

[Sativied]

Thanks guys.

Light just went on, they look 'ok'. At least not worse. Roots smell less 'fishy' than yesterday.

I ordered a 500liter p/h air pump for a pond instead of the aquarium 'toys' I got, supposedly fairly silent, this one (velda silenta pro)

The plants in the corner where the venturi blows to are doing obviously better. Not really that surprised but was hoping I could get away with the stuff I already have.

'Nother problem is that it's not as easy to clean as my tubes. With the tubes I can stop the pump for the sprayers and flush and clean the rez separately. In any case, it's not working out with the bottles since those cause the stagnating water and I'd have to create an excessive amount of flow/movement to fix that. Which means the whole setup idea isn't good for my purposes and I probably won't be doing this again.

Bought a water chiller on craigslist and it didnt work!

I relied too much on the chiller for this setup, temps around 66, hasn't even reach 68 yet. I expected some usual drooping/overwater signs if it turned out the aeration wasn't good enough since it's pretty 'chill'.

The thing with these bacteria and slime and fungi is that they tend to attack weak plants, seedlings or stressed older plants while healthy ones are much more resistant. Getting or them healthy enough to defend themselves while already under attack at an early stage is obviously tough. Normally when they're a little older you can try a few things to see what works best, even cut off bad roots to encourage new ones to grow (similar to topping) but since mine are still so young I'm a little worried. Good luck man, positive vibes back at you!

 

[Sativied]

Ok, got the new pump, I like it. Indeed very silent, yet stronger. Now when I lift a plant from a site several sites next to one with an air stone I see plenty of bubbles and movement. So, should do the trick especially combined with the others (120L +400L + water pump with venturi + water pump waterfall from chiller). I think the main issue was really those bottles causing spots with stagnated water.

That was the good news sort of. The bad news is that the plants didn't improve over the past day waiting for the pump. Some leaves going bad. Roots look the same, at least not worse. Currently refreshing again to get a clean start, and then hopefully things will improve fast.

 

[Sativied]

I'm going to start thinking about which I'm going to pop next. P, IH, Late Night or CHxCH. I'm starting to lean towards the latter. Male of CHxCH is the quad, and both him and the female had a sister that was tri-whorled.

Both the good and the bad go fast on hydro so I won't have to wait long... things haven't improved since I added the pump. Well, mechanically it has and while the roots grew nice white tips, the bad parts above it got slimy on some of the ones with longer roots.

There ARE a few that are not much affected and at least one that compared to the rest is exceptional healthy (white roots and green leaves). So to prevent this from becoming a complete waste of time, I'm going to try and salvage the best ones, put them back in the small DWC boxes and try to nurse some back to healthy. In the meantime I'm going to figure out what I'm going to do next.

No point in trying this again since the roots will still get entangled too fast without the bottles. Not sure what I'm going to do next. I miss my tubes :) But can't remove plants from those, don't feel like interconnecting 40DWC buckets, no coco anymore for me (coco= instant gnats in my case for some reason). I need a modular NFT system...

 

[Canappa]

Good to see things changing for the better. I changed a few things to help me, first I quit spraying the plants I want them too feed through the roots. Second, I raised the ppm to 800 and added 3ml of bleach to the 30gal rez. I also but the pump on a timer so the roots can air out a bit . Its been two days and I notice a big difference. Maybe this can help ? Peace bro..

 

[Sativied]

Hey Cannapa, I just noticed the post in your thread, glad to hear things are going better. I wish I could say the same. They get worse so fast and so young that even though the setup improved with the new pump it's too late, the affected roots are dead, I could pull some off very very easily.

Also, I just went to the basement and heard the new air pump... I live in an apartment building and with all the anti-grower propaganda neighbors are eager to snitch... So I can't use it. It seems silent when I'm with it in the same room, hung it on a rubber and put it on foam and it didn't seem noisy but it resonates a low sound through concrete. I'm going to need my other air pump for the small DWC boxes, so I'm done with this test setup and will dismantle soon.

At this point the only positive thing I can think of is this one:

Not in perfect shape, but considering how bad the rest is... Plus it's a sparkly one with seemingly sativa-dom leaves so far.

Salvaged 5 so far...

 

[geologic]

That may be The One...

 

[Sativied]

That may be The One...

The One who's grandchildren will survive in a reed field next year? That'd be a nice outcome. One of the reasons I want to stick to selecting on hydroponics is to end up with a strain that's suitable for hydroponics, which would happen over time sort of automatically by picking the best ones. Maybe this one will speed that up. I labelled it AAO, meaning against all odds.

I got 12 in the small DWC boxes, and 9 more in small hempy bottles. A couple of them are not doing optimal but I think I have enough left to do a proper selection. The ones with the best roots are in DWC, the others in hempy (with some cannazym to 'eat' the dead roots, trimmed most though).

They actually looked better yesterday... plants perked up, some new growth, even new white tips on the bad roots, and others spawned enough new roots to survive. But like I said, can't use the pump, can't use the bottles...

Here's AAO:

See post #108 above for same plant less than 2 days ago. Notice how nicely the taco-ed leaves relaxed and how nicely that 3rd set of leaves developed. Also loving the slender sativa leaves.

Here's another one, from a plant with still green cotyledons and some amber (and hair, and specks of dirt, and some nute spill salt build up....)

I'd really like to put the 6 best ones in my tubes, but then roots will get entangled... in any case, the rest is going in DWC buckets. Did that the initial seed run with the quad male earlier this year too and transplanting from small DWC to hempy worked very well.

This one, another sativa-dom but potentially a bushy one as it has branches already, actually greened up over night while it had few healthy roots left:

Will post a group shot soon.

 

[Sativied]

Finally starting to relax a little... knowing that I have enough plants to at least do a grow.

Now what I need is a bit of luck to even out that bad luck. For example, these two so far look a lot like mom (P6) and a lot like each other:

Fixing the color balance made them a little limegreen, they're in reality completely healthy and although I trimmed a couple of small roots they where pretty much not unaffected by the root issues. I hope they're a boy and a girl, still 8 wekers, still frosty, big fat buds, bushy enough to crop, and smell the same :)

The one I posted earlier, still doing good. Small deformed part of leave but that's not uncommon with some root stress.

One on soil, I had some bacteria stuff left over from organic grows, figured I try it on one, doing better than the ones in hempy, which is annoying :)

I got 3 more in the tubes and 6 more in small dwc that will definitely make it. There's another very healthy one (with it's original roots) but it has fat overlapping indica leaves so not suitable for F3 parent. I'll transplant it into a small bottle before switching to 12/12 in case it's a female.

Still not sure about the faith of the ones in hempy. Also don't know yet how I'm going to keep the roots in the tubes apart... maybe try out trimming (similar to canopy control but for roots) or try keeping the males alive without flowers, or just rip the roots apart and use a lot of enzym and see what happens... actually see/experience what I'm actually trying to prevent before solving it.

Anyway, about half will probably be male, if I'm not confident enough about the ones in hempy in a few days I'm going to pop some CHxCH and look for whorlers again and add a few of those like I did with the Late Night last round (1 cola).

 

[Sativied]

Soil...

Following is one in hempy. Not a fair comparison by any means, the one in soil was healthier and had more roots when transplanted, ones in hempy are the ones with worst roots, some trimmed. I like hempy cause I can use the nutrient solution from my tubes rez and add a little nutes to raise the ppm and then give it to the hempy plants.

Next 'was' the worst one I moved to the small DWC to nurse it back to health:

Will save the ones in tubes for later, they are going great though.

So... back on track. I got plenty of plants to select from (20+ of the F2) and since I already selected out some of the ones I didn't consider candidates for F3, I'm pretty happy with the outcome so far.

The 6 in DWC are going in hempy buckets too. Not sure how large yet cause I will probably remove a few more before flowering (indica dom for example, or sativa dom but not branchy).

P6 mom from last round:

Now in post #111 notice the difference of the leaves of AAO and the two look-a-likes. The leaflets/blades/fingers of AAO are more sativa dom and start out very narrow and slowly become just a little wider. The two look-a-likes (and several others) have the same leaflets as the P6 mom had initially. More clearly in post #111, you can see how the leaflets start out a little wider. Would be nice to stabilize that trait for the next gen.

Some of the F2 look like they might start whorling like some in the F1 did, it won't surprise me if some branches will after topping or LST as the F1 experiments showed.

I did pop 15 CHxCH to continue the search for strong whorlers. If I don't have enough 'plant' by the time I switch to 12/12 I will drop a few of those in 1 liter bottles to fill the space efficiently... got to keep those jars filled as well :)

 

[Sativied]

Click for larger version, amber trichs... one smells like haze :D

 

[geologic]

Amazing,
that young;
*and* the amber--
*and* the smell...

 

[Sativied]

I really need to have them tested someday in a lab to see what's actually in it. Just curious.

Speaking of lab tests... I found a way to select females to go in the tubes, a gender test at "testlabamsterdam" ('the' test lab for mj around here). They test for male, female gender, and herma... Extremely curious how they do that (the hermie test) and how reliable it is. I got 6 in tubes, 6 in DWC, of those 12 I'm going to have 10 tested, of which hopefully 6 (for the tubes) will be female. I will contact them tomorrow to see how fast they can do it, if it takes too long I might as well put a clone on 12/12 or just wait for maturity. If it's a matter of days...

What if they find a female that is tested negative for hermie, and I reverse it to self it and pollinate another female with it and have the offspring tested for hermi trait... = end of 'the' discussion?

 

[Sativied]

Find the golden angle :)

Might just be a fluke, perhaps grown towards the light, but it's very similar to how the strong whorlers in the previous round started. First one leaf grows at an angle (in this case the newest leaf above the center) with second still fairly at the normal angle (in this case a little off). Next node or the one after would be tri-whorled if it develops like the strong F1 whorlers (seemingly cause it leaves enough room, basically at B in the following pic)

Anyway, not really counting on it, cause it happened with new leaves on regular too. Difference is with the whorling they stay at the angle. Would be nice though, cause its the AAO white roots one.

Branching out nicely:

The rest is now white too and the ones in hempy while still a little paler will make it too.

 

[geologic]

No whorlers-from-the-cotyledons--
tricots, quadcots???

 

[Sativied]

Indeed, no tricots and no quadcots, only dicots. All my whorlers started out as dicots so I have little hopes of finding one in my crosses but would be great. Closest thing to a quadcot I found was about a month ago... that twin. I was about to go into happy-dance mode and then noticed there were not only 4 cotyledons but also 2 stems :)

If these F2 have some nice phenos I'm going to make F3 of these regardless of any whorling, and if those turn out good I might as well go to F5 or F6. Need an IBL for proper breeding, and can backcross other traits into it if it's lacking something.

 

[Sativied]

8 days later:

Going so fast it could be a male.

Roots all good again:

 

[Sativied]

Ok, here's the remaining F2 selection, just woke up:

Two more behind the one in the tubes in the middle. The one in hempy on the left is a little weak still, had only 1 healthy little root popping out of the side of the rockwool cube (after trimming the bad ones at the bottom), wanted to see if it would make it, I'm sure it will. Others in hempy are finally catching up, obviously took a while to regrow roots.

The one next to it in soil is a freak, started out malformed, now seems normal. Same batch of seed but not in the selection (wasn't in the dwc either). Looks good now:

6 more:

These will go in hempy too soon.

I contacted the test lab and still had no reply, which is disappointing. I'm going to top the ones in the tubes soon and will switch to flowering schedule shortly after so not much time left. Maybe I'll get luck and have 3 males in one tube and 3 females in the other :)

Once sexed I will transplant the females to larger hempy buckets. Males (probably 2) will stay in the smaller ones.

Edit: one more, the other one in soil. Uses quite a bit of water, drowning it every day. Bottle is roughly 750-800ml, 1.5 x party cup.