Juniper's Gentleman's Farm Fall 2014

[juniper]

Let's crack some beans...
(Trainwreck x Pandora's Box)
Maybe "Box of (t)Rain", referencing my favorite Dead song?

Either way, here's to finding a nice female.

I don't think I'll be running the Delbert Walker again. Unfortunately, it is a bit
too Afghani-dominant for my preference. It grows slower than the Osage, and
it doesn't have enough internodal spacing. It's a nice cut, it's just not the right
one for me to keep around as a mother.

Here's the replacement, for the run after next:

Banana Kush. I am unsure if this is Orgnkid's cut or any other specific clone.
The label says "(OG kush x Banana) 56-63 days". It has thinner leaves, thinner than
Prayer Tower, and much better spacing. I think this will suit my needs better.

Apollo 13 @ 20 days:

25-29 days until harvest.

Prayer Tower @ 16 days:

Looks good so far!

 

[juniper]

Osage Orange.

Responding fairly well to training, though it too grows
too dense and leafy for my liking.

Clones n' moms.

Banana Kush is the lanky girl on the back right.

Albert Walker BX1 ("Delbert Walker").

Freshly stripped.
I had to lop off a lot of branches to make it behave.
It grows very "gnarled" and dense.
It just doesn't have the structure for my growing style.

The whole tent.

I continue to flush and monitor the pH of runoff.

Rockwool cubes have proven to be slightly alkaline.
No worse than perlite, though.
I'll soak them in 5.5 pH solution overnight next time.
The bag recommends soaking half an hour.

The roots seem to really love the rockwool cubes so far.
They look like water roots in DWC. Big, shiny, snow white.
I may try a pure rockwool bucket next round.

 

[juniper]

Limited space necessitates tough decisions.
The Osage Orange mother was tossed in favor of the (Pandora's Box x Trainwreck) seedlings
that will soon be here. There just wasn't space for them

Which brings me to my next point. All seeds have cracked. Tails just starting to show.
Paper towel method. Between two plates on top of my HPS hood.
They'll be going into 100% rockwool mini-cubes.
Then, I'll go about trying to select a female outta the 3.

 

[juniper]

All three seedlings are above ground:

Nice n' healthy so far.
They will be referenced by color of toothpick, for now.


I've seen a few spots of powdery mildew on some lower leaves, mostly in the vegetative tent.
Honestly though my temps are perfect for it. 62-75 most days. I increased ventilation, trimmed
affected leaves, defoliated a few more. Stripped remaining lowest material.

There's a few other factors at hand: All the flushing of the veg. plants means more watering, meaning
the surface of the media is now always wet. In addition, RH is higher because temperatures are lower
in the winter and I'm not venting outside air.

I'm currently under the impression that mildew spores are ubiquitous and the disease is brought on
by shoddy environmental control. Perhaps I'm wrong. But either way, if the problem persists or gets
worse, I'll buy Eagle 20 the next day. That should eliminate the problem entirely.
We'll see, for now.

Here's some flowering updates:

Apollo 13 @ 24 days:


Prayer Tower @ 20 days:

Doesn't really want to stretch much more. But it is stacking floral clusters nicely.
I noticed a little powdery mildew on a couple interior leaves so I thinned it a bit
more to let in light and air.

It's a pretty plant with interesting genetics, but unless the product is amazing and
it yields well, I can't see myself keeping the cut around. It's tiny for an 8 week veg.
It has many of the same issues as the Osage Orange: Overly "leafy", minimal stretch,
excessively compact growth.

 

[juniper]

I just realized I made a careless mistake:

In the flower tent, I had the active ventilation on the 600 HPS timer. So, there was only 11.5 hours of active ventilation, meaning that for 12.5 hours the plants in flower were transpiring into a mostly sealed square meter tent with only a circulation fan running 1.25 hours after the light period ends and 5.25 hours before the light period begins. In addition, I usually water right before the dark period, meaning a wet media surface, exacerbating the problem.

The active ventilation is now on the veg. tent timer, which runs 18 hours/day.

Now, the active & passive ventilation will operate when the light is on, plus 2.25 hours after dark period, and 4.5 hours before the light period begins.
This should eliminate the stagnant night time conditions that favor powdery mildew in the flower tent.

 

[juniper]

We'll call this veg. stage day 1.

All have shed their shells and are reaching for the light. Rockwool mini-cubes are
fantastic stand-alone media for hand watering, at least in small containers.
Some perlite & LECA on top to minimize unsightly algae.

Apollo 13 @ 25 days.

Familiar super sweet floral scent developing.
24 more days if I'm adhering to the 49 day schedule. 21 if I get antsy.

I was looking at the rockwool mini-cubes that I top-dressed in the buckets and the
roots clearly love them. More evidence that rockwool/perlite is the way to go.
Vermiculite would also be ideal. Hempy and all the other old heads were right
all along.

100% perlite delivers great results, but requires diligent watering, defeating
the purpose of the hempy bucket, which is simplicity and low-maintenance.

 

[juniper]

I used 20 grams of frosty Osage Orange flowers:

I gave it a quick dry in the oven @225F for 30 minutes to purge residual water.
The super dry product was finely crumbled (We'll come back to this part).

I performed 2 washes. The first was a 45 second "rinse", the 2nd was a 2 minute "soak".
A third wash would have produced inferior oil w/ excess vegetable waxes, non-active lipids, and chlorophyll.

The 2nd wash had a larger yield, stronger flavor and was slightly darker though of very similar quality.
I ended up combining the 1st and 2nd wash as they were so close.
Yielded 2g. 10% yield. I expected returns of 7-15%.

Here's the final product:

The darker inclusions is the older hash in the OilSlick; the new product is transparent glassy amber.
Over the next few days the product will turn into a flaky, waxy butter, which is much easier to dab with.

Onto the taste: It had a familiar, not unpleasant, but not hashy taste. I figured out that it's literally
"toasted weed" flavor. This ain't Lucky Strikes, do not quick-dry your product to remove all water before
using solvents. Don't crumble it either. Finely break it down, but don't crumble. It'll come out darker.

Next run, I'm going for straw-yellow glassy hash. I believe QWISO can match BHO if the technique
is on point. Every mistake an opportunity to improve.

 

[juniper]

Prayer Tower mom:

Banana Kush mom

Apollo 13 mom

Pandora's Box x Trainwreck seedlings (day 4).


Prayer Tower @ 24 days:

I still found a few spots of powdery mildew in the interior, it looks like the increased
airflow is working, but I defoliated almost every leaf with an accessible petiole right
after the picture, and I thinned a couple more interior branches.

The plant is quickly bulking up. Next week will be interesting.

Apollo 13 @ 28 days:

No mildew to be found. I thinned some leaves to be certain. This plant seems a few days
slower than the last run. Maybe it's a root-space issue. Maybe it's because I'm running 11.5/12.5
from the beginning instead of 12/12. Either way, it's swelling fast and is almost un-manageably
huge (in a good way). Harvest is 3 weeks out. 8oz is looking very possible.

 

[canadaseed]

I like your grow style really awesome stuff... you're a natural!

 

[juniper]

Thanks friend!

I snagged this today at my favorite dispensary; it's replacing the Prayer Tower mother.

Meet (Lemon G x Space Queen). Calling it "Ripple". Like the GD song.
There's at least 2 cuts of Lemon G. And a half dozen origin stories.
Based on what I've observed, the cut floating around the Colorado scene
is probably the Ohio fluffy sativa Lemon G crossed to the Space Queen.

Big floppy thin-feeling leaves. Reeks, for a clone.

I can't help but feel a twinge of sadness whenever I toss a cut out. But,
the Prayer Tower cutting I have is honestly better suited for small plant
SOG-style growing. Same for the Osage Orange.

 

[juniper]

Didn't mean to include the picture of my new chillum in the above post.

Prayer Tower @ 26 days


Found some more powdery mildew inside the A13 plant, in more hidden areas. In the future,
more diligence in defoliation and thinning is necessary. It really surprises you how fast this
can spread if conditions are right and you have dense plants.

Now that there's more ventilation, almost every leaf w/ a petiole has been stripped, and lower
wispy growth has been thinned, I shouldn't see any new powdery mildew. I'm hoping those spots
inside the plant I initially missed were spreading them to other leaves.

It doesn't seem to be getting worse, but it's not getting better as fast as I'd like.
I'd rather not buy Eagle 20 but if I have to I have to.

Anyone else know of any decent fungicides?

 

[juniper]

Pandora's Box x Trainwreck seedlings doing well.

Blue Toothpick Plant has purple leaf undersides. It is considerably darker in person.
Other than that, the 3 are looking fairly homogeneous thus far. I haven't seen any
mold in the veg. tent in several days.

The current plan w/ these is, in about a week's time, transplant each seedling into it's
own polystyrene cup, let it root a couple days, and put them in the flower tent to reveal
their sex. After a week or so, we'll know who's what, and males will be discarded.

Should there be more than one female, I only really have space for one, so I'll have to
take a chance and do my best to ascertain the best female without fully flowering her.
Then, I'll re-veg.

Apollo 13 @ 34 days:

Finishing on schedule. Mold mostly abated, but I occasionally find a spot or two.

Prayer Tower @ 30 days:

The flowers get bigger every day. I still find spots of mold regularly; bit of a magnet
for it. Chunky ass buds in development, though.

 

[juniper]

Apollo 13 @ 37 days:

We're starting to notice about 20% of the pistils have gone orange.
Done at 45 days, still planning for 49. Classic example of an
over-vegged plant. Still seeing random patches of mold, but it's
not problematic.

The pistils are no longer erect, but curled down.

Prayer Tower @ 33 days:

Swelling rapidly. This plant has been stripped of every leaf I
could snip off. Mold is mostly under control. I don't like it, but it
isn't hurting the flowers and the severity doesn't warrant the Eagle 20
just yet. Thinking she'll be done right at 56 days.

Here's the (Pandora's Box x Trainwreck) plants.

They were transplanted to a mix of Light Warrior and some LECA/perlite/rockwool
I had laying around. I wanted a semi-soilless media I wouldn't need to fuss w/
watering everyday.

The plan is to veg. another week, then place into the flower room to sex. About a week
later, when they're showing sex, cull males, pull any females back to the veg. room. to
re-initiate the veg. cycle.

Here's my very negative experience with Light Warrior: It's expensive, and it dropped my
pH to the upper 3's. I had to run about 20 gallons of 7.5 pH tap through 1.5 gallons
of Light Warrior just to bring runoff to 6.5. And, again, they claim it's good to use out of the
bag. I kept what I'd flushed, and tossed the rest out. I'm not sure what I was expecting,
but it wasn't unwashed, unbuffered peat mixed with perlite at $20/cu. ft.

I can't seem to get a good media. Rockwool's amazing but expensive and minimally reusable.
I'm going back to perlite/vermiculite classic hempy's from here on out.
#3 perlite & vermiculite @ 80/20. Why'd I ever stray?
Grass/greener/otherside situation.

 

[juniper]

A13 @ 39 days:

Starting at 41 days, I'll start giving half strength nutrient solution. Using 1/2 tsp./gallon of MaxiBloom
brings my pH to about 6 without any silica. So, EC of about 600. She's drinking less and swelling slowly.
The house smells a little like Apollo...gonna replace the carbon filter next round.
10 more days!

Prayer Tower @ 35 days:

Pistils are no longer standing straight out, curling slightly.
Not very "loud" or distinctive in odor, yet.

Next round is going to be Banana Kush and Ripple (Lemon G x Space Queen).
I'm going to get 4 black plastic buckets to replace the white ones. Less algae in the
drainage bucket. 4 parts chunky perlite, 1 part vermiculite.
Same ol' Maxi/Silica nutrient regimen.

I'm thinking about procuring some potassium bicarbonate to prevent PM outbreaks.

 

[juniper]

(Pandora's Box x Trainwreck) plants:


Now that these are a couple weeks old, I'm going to go
ahead and place these in the flower tent. Hopefully they
show quickly!

 

[juniper]

Just got a fellow farmer's sticker:


I was also given some seeds through
the person who had the stickers:

I was told it was a Stardawg cross. I love Denver.

 

[Timmyahcomeon]

Great job juniper! One thing I would go after that pm now before it gets ahold of everything. Eagle 20 would be a last resort for me, I use green cure and caps bennies every week for preventative measures I've lost everything to pm from bringing in clones from dispensaries, best of luck brah

 

[juniper]

PM spores are in the air, they're on clones, on you,on me. Everyone will
be "infected" eventually, but it only proliferates if conditions favor it. Of
course, certain varieties are more susceptible...!

I think of it as Nature's way of telling you that you have too much plant
material too close together and that your ventilation game isn't on point.

PM hasn't really been a problem for me, more of a nuisance, really. Active
ventilation has moved onto a 24/7 cycle so that should slow it to a crawl.

I just bought some KHCO3, same active ingredient in Green Cure. I'll
treat vegetative plants with it before they are moved into flower. Many
people have recommended it to me so far, would you be so kind as to
tell me about your experience?

 

[juniper]

Apollo 13 @ 42 days:

Week to go!

Prayer Tower @ 38 days:

2-3 weeks left!

This upcoming run of Osage Orange and Delbert Walker
will be considerably less crowded.

 

[juniper]

I broke down and ordered Eagle 20; should be here next week. I intend to spray every veg. plant once w/ a solution
of 2ml Eagle 20 per gallon of RO water. I am fortunate that my issue with PM has been very mild so far, but I'd like
to avoid a half-measure and just eradicate it.

My A13 cut displays low resistance to the fungus, but it doesn't get too
severe because of the lanky structure. The Prayer Tower has both low resistance and dense structure.

Plus, my mother plants are infected, so a PM outbreak is just a missed defoliation away.
Now that my ventilation is better and the next run will be less crowded, I can prevent PM
from ever gaining a foothold in the first place.

It was also $40/pint shipped from Amazon. At 0.5 mL per liter, this is roughly a lifetime supply, assuming
it's that shelf stable. So for $40 to never have PM again, I'd say pretty darn worth it.

This hobby is very humbling. Just when you think you got it licked...