Damien's Photo Grow: Malawi X Panama Edition

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damien50

damien50

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Thanks to the fine folks here I bought myself some Ace Seeds gear. Without further ado

4x4 tent
HLG 480h 42a
12 x Bridgelux EBb 3000k
3 gallon smart pots
Coco coir Botanicare
Pure blend pro/Liquid Karma/CaliMagic
DTW
FIM - Hopefully
SCROG
Monster Crop - Hopefully
6 x Malawi x Panama Fem

Just put these seeds in last night after charging the coco with 500ppm at 5.8ph. Controllers are set for 75-80f and 70-75% RH.

Never scrogged before, second time growing photos, and first time using LEDs.

Damiens photo grow malawi x panama edition
Damiens photo grow malawi x panama edition 2
 
testiclees

testiclees

230
63
Thanks to the fine folks here I bought myself some Ace Seeds gear. Without further ado

4x4 tent
HLG 480h 42a
12 x Bridgelux EBb 3000k
3 gallon smart pots
Coco coir Botanicare
Pure blend pro/Liquid Karma/CaliMagic
DTW
FIM - Hopefully
SCROG
Monster Crop - Hopefully
6 x Malawi x Panama Fem

Just put these seeds in last night after charging the coco with 500ppm at 5.8ph. Controllers are set for 75-80f and 70-75% RH.

Never scrogged before, second time growing photos, and first time using LEDs.

View attachment 860925 View attachment 860926
exciting. Do you go bean to bud in those 3 gals? I too grow under bridgelux with a few cree in the rig. How many watts are you pulling? And what is your lamp height?
3 12 19
 
damien50

damien50

420
143
Day 3
Coco coir - 580ppm/5.8 ph
Liquid Karma/Pure Blend Pro Hydro
77-80f Leaf Surface Temp
74-77% RH
14350lux/270 PPFD 3000k Average
12" Light Height

So I amended my journal format because I don't measure ambient temperature, though the strips are at 75f on average, rather I use an IR gun to adjust my controller to hit 77-80f on my leaves. My fan is strong and lowers leaf temps to 68f if I leave my controller at 80f rather than 82-86f.

I located a website to convert my lux output, 14350lx on average from leaf level, to umols hence the average 270 PPFD. Though measuring the light on the plants near the walls, they hit around 14700lx whereas the middle plants are around 14000lx. Either way I had my light way too dim before talking and researching what was discussed in that thread.

The last seed did germinate but it pushed the cotyledon out but the tap root was still in the seed so I covered it up and watered it. Otherwise everyone is growing fine since I adjusted the driver intensity and the color is looking fine so I know I didn't mess up yet.

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damien50

damien50

420
143
Day 4
Coco coir - 850ppm/5.8 ph
Liquid Karma/Pure Blend Pro Hydro/CaliMagic
77-80f Leaf Surface Temp
74-77% RH
15700lux/300 PPFD 3000k Average
12" Light Height

They were looking light this morning and I got to thinking about my water being 188 ppm initially so I figured increasing the ppm to 800 would work better. I tried low initial ppms on my first coco grow and they seemed under fed as well.

The one that germinated last I had to pull the tap root out of the shell. I watered it separately and I'm hoping it will grow. It had the membrane on the cotedylons which I removed.

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damien50

damien50

420
143
Day 7
Coco coir - 860ppm/5.9 ph
Liquid Karma/Pure Blend Pro Hydro
77-80f Leaf Surface Temp
70-75% RH
16700lux/300 PPFD 3000k Average
12" Light Height
18/6

The runt that was stuck inn it's seed is growing small and slowly because it's behind.

Watering everyone but the runt 5x a day with small shots and I tried to FIM four of them. Never done it before so I'll wait lol. I don't add aeration to my reservoir which I was hesitant to do but my ph has remained so stable I don't think I ever will again plus my irrigation has an anti siphon valve and a return line.

Not much to add but they are growing faster than my autos

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Jimster

Jimster

Supporter
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I am growing a Malawi strain...not sure if original or hybrid. The seeds were tiny...much smaller than most Sativa strains. They sprouted but seemed to stall shortly after popping. I had one that stayed at soil level for over 10 days and I thought it was dead until I removed it and saw a viable looking tap root. I put it in the "spare" bucket that is a catch all for unexpected orphans...gimpy seeds, rooting broken branches, extra clones etc. It finally started growing although at day 17, it is only sporting the first set of single lobed leaves. It's sisters (hopefully) were also very slow compared to some Indica and Sativa/Indica hybrids and are half the size of any of the seed started plants. I'm interested to see how yours come out compared to mine. My leaves aren't as narrow as I thought they should be, but they are still young.
Thinking back, in the early 80s there was a Jamaican strain that I believe was Malawi in origin. It was very psychedelic and sometimes could be scary. As I recall, the seeds in it were very small as well, barely larger than a pin head. I'm hoping that I have finally tracked this stuff down. It was almost like pure THC with no CBD/CBN...not relaxing, almost like tripping. We called it "Cartoon Dope" because it affected your vision and perception, making it easy to get lost in thoughts and paranoia.
Good luck and keep a good log, as you seem to be doing. I have considerable exp growing Sativas...feel free to ask anything and I'll be more than happy to help if possible. I don't have any experience using a lot of the newer stuff, having used the same method (somewhat minimalist) for 3 decades. FWIW, I put the seed directly into it's permanent 6 gallon bucket with Promix, wood ashes, composted manure, and 20-20-20 nutrients. I use 1000w mh bulbs for veg and a 1000w mh with extra red and a 1000w HPS bulb for flowering in a 12x8 space with 7' headroom. Take good notes!!
 
damien50

damien50

420
143
I am growing a Malawi strain...not sure if original or hybrid. The seeds were tiny...much smaller than most Sativa strains. They sprouted but seemed to stall shortly after popping. I had one that stayed at soil level for over 10 days and I thought it was dead until I removed it and saw a viable looking tap root. I put it in the "spare" bucket that is a catch all for unexpected orphans...gimpy seeds, rooting broken branches, extra clones etc. It finally started growing although at day 17, it is only sporting the first set of single lobed leaves. It's sisters (hopefully) were also very slow compared to some Indica and Sativa/Indica hybrids and are half the size of any of the seed started plants. I'm interested to see how yours come out compared to mine. My leaves aren't as narrow as I thought they should be, but they are still young.
Thinking back, in the early 80s there was a Jamaican strain that I believe was Malawi in origin. It was very psychedelic and sometimes could be scary. As I recall, the seeds in it were very small as well, barely larger than a pin head. I'm hoping that I have finally tracked this stuff down. It was almost like pure THC with no CBD/CBN...not relaxing, almost like tripping. We called it "Cartoon Dope" because it affected your vision and perception, making it easy to get lost in thoughts and paranoia.
Good luck and keep a good log, as you seem to be doing. I have considerable exp growing Sativas...feel free to ask anything and I'll be more than happy to help if possible. I don't have any experience using a lot of the newer stuff, having used the same method (somewhat minimalist) for 3 decades. FWIW, I put the seed directly into it's permanent 6 gallon bucket with Promix, wood ashes, composted manure, and 20-20-20 nutrients. I use 1000w mh bulbs for veg and a 1000w mh with extra red and a 1000w HPS bulb for flowering in a 12x8 space with 7' headroom. Take good notes!!

Thanks! This will be my first sativa grow and my first real attempt at photo periods. I grew out some bag seed in soil for my first grow and did pretty horribly. My wife has been urging me to start pheno hunting instead of growing autos combined with our dislike of indicas.

I'm hoping it goes well as I have never scrogged nor fimmed before. The hope is I can manage their heights by keeping consistent night/day temps to get stretching to a minimum. The seeds were quite small which surprised me but they seemed a bit vigorous compared to some of my other grows I had believed to have fast growth.

I'll gladly accept your help. Drop a link too your journal here and I'll keep up with it
 
damien50

damien50

420
143
Day 12
Coco coir - 860ppm/6.0 ph
Liquid Karma/Pure Blend Pro Hydro/CaliMagic
77-80f Leaf Surface Temp
70-75% RH
16700lux/300 PPFD 3000k Average
12" Light Height
18/6

Admittedly I didn't want to post because I swore had messed up the plants. I fimmed them around day 8 and didn't know to pull back the fan leaves lol.

After fimming them I have a lot of side shoots coming out and the stems are thickening up. Watering them five times a day. They might be getting hungry but I'll wait a bit because they seem to be growing slowly.
 
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Jimster

Jimster

Supporter
2,770
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Things are looking good. You can just cut the tops off of the plants, as you found out, but it stalls them and might affect the couple of big colas that you get, but it looks great. The leaves are wider than what I would expect from a Sativa, but I looked at mine and they are pretty much the same. The first few sets of leaves always grows in wider than the regular leaves, so I think we are both OK. I might snap a pic of my 2...the one is getting to be growing nicely, but the one that stalled is 1/3 the size of the larger, and is now getting crowded out of light as I threw a couple seeds in a "catch all" bucket that I put gimpy, slow, or questionable plants in, with 3 plants going in this one. I ran out of room and hate to kill any growing plants, but now I feel bad because it took me so much to get these going and I only have 2...both are unknown male or female.
Keep up the good work. Mine are starting to grow an inch or so a day so I need to concentrate on training them. Sativas are tall and I don't think that photoperiod manipulation or anything else for that matter will cause them to grow compact. I've tried for 30 years and the best I can get is a somewhat shorter plant that grew in bushy compared to the regular shape. The yield wasn't as good, though because the bushy leaves blocked a lot of the bud sites and I got a lot of smaller buds from it. Re-vegging them is the easiest way to get them to grow bushier, maybe combined with your methods it might work out. Despite training as much as I really could, they outgrew the level of my light, Since the bulb is vertical and gives off a lot of side light, the leaves curled downward to get as much light exposure as they could. They were really strange looking and also very sick looking due to the curled leaves, but they were OK because the leaves were seeking the light. It's a lousy picture, but the plants were about 6.5 ft in this picture, about 6" higher than the bulb. They look horrible, but all was well. Getting a plant to grow to a low level light is not difficult, but makes for a really strange looking plant when finished.
 
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damien50

damien50

420
143
Things are looking good. You can just cut the tops off of the plants, as you found out, but it stalls them and might affect the couple of big colas that you get, but it looks great. The leaves are wider than what I would expect from a Sativa, but I looked at mine and they are pretty much the same. The first few sets of leaves always grows in wider than the regular leaves, so I think we are both OK. I might snap a pic of my 2...the one is getting to be growing nicely, but the one that stalled is 1/3 the size of the larger, and is now getting crowded out of light as I threw a couple seeds in a "catch all" bucket that I put gimpy, slow, or questionable plants in, with 3 plants going in this one. I ran out of room and hate to kill any growing plants, but now I feel bad because it took me so much to get these going and I only have 2...both are unknown male or female.
Keep up the good work. Mine are starting to grow an inch or so a day so I need to concentrate on training them. Sativas are tall and I don't think that photoperiod manipulation or anything else for that matter will cause them to grow compact. I've tried for 30 years and the best I can get is a somewhat shorter plant that grew in bushy compared to the regular shape. The yield wasn't as good, though because the bushy leaves blocked a lot of the bud sites and I got a lot of smaller buds from it. Re-vegging them is the easiest way to get them to grow bushier, maybe combined with your methods it might work out. Despite training as much as I really could, they outgrew the level of my light, Since the bulb is vertical and gives off a lot of side light, the leaves curled downward to get as much light exposure as they could. They were really strange looking and also very sick looking due to the curled leaves, but they were OK because the leaves were seeking the light. It's a lousy picture, but the plants were about 6.5 ft in this picture, about 6" higher than the bulb. They look horrible, but all was well. Getting a plant to grow to a low level light is not difficult, but makes for a really strange looking plant when finished.

I'm going to be super cropping them into the net next week probably so I can start controlling the height while I fim them another one or two times. I've only done it with indicas so I'll be paying close attention to keeping them flat so they can fill the net better. The fimming seems to be causing branching which is nice. From the amount of leaves I've seen from Ace, I don't believe it will be a problem with light penetration thankfully
 
Jimster

Jimster

Supporter
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I'm going to be super cropping them into the net next week probably so I can start controlling the height while I fim them another one or two times. From the amount of leaves I've seen from Ace, I don't believe it will be a problem with light penetration thankfully
Sativa's don't suffer from light penetration issues too much because their lanky frames keeps a lot of space open, plus they grow tall and can support a lot of side growth. I grew some Black Diesel last run and it was great, but it was very short and shrubby, leaving most of the growth on the canopy. I could have increased the yield a little by partially harvesting the canopy and letting the bottom grow a little more, but that only helps a little. I might try some stretching techniques to encourage more side growth. I've never tried Super Cropping, although many techniques, like new strains of plants, are just renamed process. You say fimmed, I say pinched...same process with new or different name. Sativa's can be increased by the careful removal of some of the larger leaves that block light from getting inside. There usually aren't too many leaves to begin with that can cause problems under the main canopy, but keeping direct light on the bud sites is the best way to keep them larger and thicker. Sativa's lower leaf count makes it a lot easier...maybe that is why they seem to grow slower than others at startup from seed...the smaller leaves produce noticeably less energy resulting in slower growth, at least initially.
 
damien50

damien50

420
143
Day 14
Coco coir - 880ppm/6.0 ph
Liquid Karma/Pure Blend Pro Hydro/CaliMagic
77-884f Leaf Surface Temp
70-77% RH
16700lux/300 PPFD 3000k Average
12" Light Height
18/6

The training has paid off for most part. I've pony tailed a few of the main stems that didn't want to stay down. I did discover that these stems are much easier to break and I split every single stem lol.

They have gotten bushy and their heights have between lowered significantly. The amazing thing has been that on one of the broken stems, I almost completely broke but it recovered so quickly and continued to produce growth.

The runt is on its 3rd node relatively short and I'll be holding off on fimming it or training it for another week or so. I don't know if a 4 week veg is going to fill my net so two more weeks to go

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Jimster

Jimster

Supporter
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My runt is getting shaded by some of the other plants of the same age. I moved some things around so hopefully it will kick into gear, my other Malawi plant seems to be doing pretty well and is catching up to the Indicas, which are a different animal altogether. Total, I have 2 hybrids, a Jack Herer or two, some gc4s, and some Sativas that I've had for decades. This is my biggest variety and it is taking some thought to keep everyone sunny and happy!
 
Romeleo

Romeleo

92
33
Day 12
Coco coir - 860ppm/6.0 ph
Liquid Karma/Pure Blend Pro Hydro/CaliMagic
77-80f Leaf Surface Temp
70-75% RH
16700lux/300 PPFD 3000k Average
12" Light Height
18/6

Admittedly I didn't want to post because I swore had messed up the plants. I fimmed them around day 8 and didn't know to pull back the fan leaves lol.

After fimming them I have a lot of side shoots coming out and the stems are thickening up. Watering them five times a day. They might be getting hungry but I'll wait a bit because they seem to be growing slowly.
That's nice
It looks like something was munching on it pretty good
 
Romeleo

Romeleo

92
33
I accidentally cut the fan leaves fimming them
Oh haha that's a relief to know.plenty of leafs growing to not worry about those.looks good.what size gallon are you planning on finishing in.are you going to veg for long time.im doing mine for three months.first time growing
 
damien50

damien50

420
143
Oh haha that's a relief to know.plenty of leafs growing to not worry about those.looks good.what size gallon are you planning on finishing in.are you going to veg for long time.im doing mine for three months.first time growing

I'm possible going to veg for another two weeks or until I believe they will fill my scrog net. There's one that germmed late and I'm actively restricting their height so I don't know yet. They've grow A lot in just this week so I'm hoping they gain more since my training is producing A lot of colas and at some point I'll be wanting more height
 
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