Phenotype Hunt - The search for the next, new and best!

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als_weed

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I just recently started a new project: grow out 4 strains from my recent cross of Slapz to several moms.

Here are some of the moms:

Prmi001if


Phenotype hunt   the search for the next new and best 2


Lil time lapse:

Phenotype hunt   the search for the next new and best 3


Ph002 edited edited



Phenotype hunt   the search for the next new and best 5



Phenotype hunt   the search for the next new and best 6


Phenotype hunt   the search for the next new and best 7


Man I gotta figure out how to resize pix here.

Anyways, here's where we are right now. We will clone and grow these out, while keeping the original moms in cups.

The clones will be grown out using my syntho/biotic aeroponic technique.

Here's a preview of flowering in the bloom room:

Ig0001 edited


So we are all caught up! I promise to learn how to post better here.

Thanks for your attention, and as always, don't hesitate to ask questions.

-al
 
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als_weed

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Seedlings Day 16 - Time for Mini Skirts!

The seedlings have grown to 8 sets of leaves. It's time for their first skirt trim.

I skirt trim for several reasons. First is exposing the side branches to maximum light and transpiration. The side branches are what we will be harvesting from these plants.

Second is to avoid pests and litter. The leaves we are taking are normally the first target for problems, and first to die off and make a mess.

Here's Before:
PH007


The first trim takes out the first set of single bladed leaves and then the next two sets leaves. Leave the cotyledons on, they are still helpful.

PH008



16 days old and Ready to rock! It's almost tea time!


Here's a group shot of the girls showing a little leg.

PH009


Thanks for your attention, and as always, your questions are welcome.

-al
 
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als_weed

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Blast from the Past

It’s been quite a while since I’ve done live growalongs. I started with doing seed runs for seed vendors and ended up doing fun challenges.

One of my most interesting, was to see how much finished weight you could get with just one 1K HPS. The idea was to do every trick in, and out of the book. I steal Tech from grape growers and anywhere else that will help all the time, and tried out many of them in this series.

This was from 10 years ago. I used the always capable 1k Hortilux on a light mover with a couple feet of travel. The plant was Galactic Grape, a big grapey plant with a sparkle from some alien tech genes. Today I would rate it a D+.

The adventure included crazy trellising, super extended foliar feeding, Pistol whip pruning tech, and some early work on partial digested nutes.

The pix are old and ugly, but you get the idea.

Here’s a near done shot. All the big fan leaves are on for extended foliar feeding. After the plant stops active uptake of nutes in its lifecycle, You can force feed it with foliar sprays all the way to the end.

GG001


Here's a 2-liter shot. The Real Thing!

GG002



And the chop:

GG003


We ended up with just over 3 pounds of mediocre bud. I repeated the experiment, but only improved by a couple oz.

The biggest harvest was not weed, but practical knowledge gathered by the experiment itself, and just as importantly, the wisdom that bubbled up with the interaction of the community. This is the reason I’m back. I’m hoping that this is the place for it.

What I also learned from those old adventures is that its ok to fail. And it will happen. Syntho/Biotic Aeroponics can literally crater in hours. But hey, it’s a long, long ways from Dixie cups and Miracle Grow daze.

Just remember, this is supposed to be fun!

Thank you for your attention, and letting me ramble down memory lane.

-al
 
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als_weed

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Seedlings Day 21

I have removed another 2 sets of bottom leaves and you can see now that the bottom branches have greatly benefited.

Here is a Gran Dawgy Purps Contestant:
Ph010


Pure Michigan's Turn:
PH011


And lovely Lava Cake:
PH012


We will continue to remove bottom leaves as they grow. This gives them an hourglass profile for now, that will eventually turn into a cone of perfectly snippable side branches.

Here's a group shot:
PH013


The pruning we are doing now is setting up every girl to be a productive mother plant. If their clone sister proves to be a star in the bloom room, you will literally be able to pop her in a 5 gallon, and fill up cloners in a couple weeks.

Some plants are showing a slight bit of tip burn. This is a critical clue that the roots have reached the confining edges of the cup, and its time for their first full saturation watering. We need to flush out any waste and calm down the biota before we add our own. If this were a hot mix problem, the burn would be apparent from the start, and the remedy would to flush asap.

Till now they have been lightly perimeter watered. This lets the roots develop without getting washed out. Now is the time for a full saturation watering. We are still using only RO(reverse osmosis) water. We want to water to the point it streams out the drain holes.

This takes a little heat out of the soil mix, and gives them a good flush. We will be supplimenting them soon enough, but for now they will coast on the nutes from the mix.

As always, your questions and comments are welcome, and thank you for your attention.

-al


 
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als_weed

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Time to Brew!

I try to give seedlings 3 successive flushes and 28 days before supplementing with any nutrition. It's getting close, so the time to prepare their food has arrived!


Recipe Number 1: als Dirt Plant Delight Tea

Disclaimer first: I have refined this recipe over 20 years. This what I use, your mileage may vary. It will most definitely if you alter ingredients or dosage levels. You can flat kill things. Less is better until you are familiar its use.


Into a 5 gallon bucket of reverse osmosis water, with a large vigorous airstone add:

1 tspn Great White
1 tblspn Ancient Forest
2 tblspn Worm Castings
3 tblspn Peruvian Seabird Guano
2 cubes compressed alfala
4 tspn Molasses

Here's a pic:
PH014

The goals of this mix: To maximize the number of beneficial and commensalistic bacteria and fungi, provide organic based macro and micro nutrients, and allow the use of smaller containers by reducing salt content.

Brew for a minimum of 48 hours. We are letting our little friends multiply and break the food down. Don't strain it, just make sure it is vigorously stirred before pouring. Those particulates help sustain and reinvigorate the soil.

Dosage: % Tea/ RO water
Seedlings - 10%
Young Plants - 25%
Moms - 50%

Use every third watering.

I love teas. I will share more recipes as we get through the process. You can even flower with this recipe - just substitute the PSG with a nice Jamaican bat guano and a tspn of Epson Salts.

As always, your questions and comments are welcome.

-al
 
A

als_weed

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Seedlings day 28

I have continued to 'skirt trim' the girls and our 'cone of shoots' continues to develop.

Profile Shot:
PH015


Some of the plants have started to lighten up, a clue that they are ready for some Nitrogen. So today, they get their first taste of tea. At 10% tea / 90 % RO water, the plants were saturation watered. I'll give them a couple days and then hit them up again with poop soup. I will slowly increase to ratio of Tea/RO water until they match up with the older plants at 50%.

I will also begin supplementing with foliar feeding in the next few days. Another recipe coming soon!

Here's a Group Shot:
PH016


As always, thank you for your attention, and your comments and questions are always welcome.

-al
 
GoblinSmasher

GoblinSmasher

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Awesome plants and posting style, very neat to read and view. Cool project!

I am just curious about choosing to germinate on paper? Read it was a risky way of germinating because of chenicals in paper, possible injury to taproot when moving etc.

Will be tagging along to see how it turns out :)
 
A

als_weed

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I germ on plain white napkins. I squeeze them out until the water stops running out. They normally pop within 2 days. As for problems with recycled paper chemicals, the trace amount of acids from bleaching is actually helpful in keeping harmful bacteria and fungi at bay. Too much water or too much time will just rot your seeds.

If you are dealing with older seeds, the shotglass method is preferred, since it may take a week to germ. Additionally, adding peroxide or bleach(super low concentrations), scratching the endothelium, and germing on agar are all things to investigate. I have germed 30 year old seeds several times with over a 60% success rate using these methods.

The key to limiting damage while transferring is to do it early. A quarter inch of taproot is the time to hit the dirt. When they lose their helmet or the taproot is fuzzy, your chances diminish. If they are this old, its best to just carefully lay them out in shallow depressions in the media and lightly cover them. The plant will grow a little sideways at first, but at least it will survive.

Thank you for your interest.

-al
 
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als_weed

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Foliar Spray

The seedlings are now old enough for a little boost - foliar spray.

At this stage in their development, the growth tip has put out at least a dozen rounds of shoots, and the cuticle is tough enough to handle some oils. The plants are lightening from explosive growth and tea limited nutrition, so some extra food through direct absorption is in order.

Disclaimer First: This is what I use. Your mileage may vary. You can harm your plants if made, used, or dosed incorrectly.

als Super Feed N Kill Foliar Spray Recipe

Into 1 Gallon of Reverse Osmosis Water add:

30 ml Plant Therapy Concentrate(peppermint oil)

30 ml Heavy 16 Foliar mix

5 ml Heavy 16 Fire

5 ml Super Thrive

Spray lightly. You do not need to drench the plants. Spray no more than every 3 days, you can damage the cuticle with a higher frequency. Spray the bottoms of the leaves first, and then lightly mist over the tops. Keep your fans and modern lights on. Do not spray just before any lights out period.

Looks like this:
PH017


I used to have a more complicated recipe, but this one is the result of many years of paring and testing. It will feed your plants raw sugars, micronutrients, Cal/Mag/Sulphur, the Vitamin B spectrum, and strengthen the cuticle and cell walls. All the while protecting against mites and powdery mildew.


The plant therapy concentrate is for the peppermint oil. It desiccates Spider mites and other critters, while altering the surface pH of the leaves to prevent mildew, and finally softening the cuticle to allow easier absorption of minerals and nutrients.

I have tried several commercial and home brews, and I was surprised how well the Heavy 16 mix duplicated the results of the best more complicated mixes. It obviously has some form of molasses brew in it that I have found universally effective.

The Fire adds MG/Cal/S complex.

The Super Thrive adds more kelp, vitamins, and minerals.

I use this spray pretty much everywhere. From seedlings to, in some cases, up to a week from harvest. You have to stay tuned to find out more secrets! This one is pretty significant. I'd say it's worth an easy 10% yield increase overall - for just pennies and a few minutes effort. Your plants will visibly love it.

Thank you for your attention, and as always, your comments and questions are welcome.

-al

 
A

als_weed

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Seedlings Day 35

The seedlings are getting close to harvest. Remember we have 2 objectives with these plants: Generate side branches for cloning, and keep everyone alive while those branches grow roots, veg out, and bloom out. They are going to be some ugly, pissed off girls by the end of this.

Here are some of the plants getting trained to great moms:

PH019


The shoots are close to ready. They have gotten 3 doses of tea and foliar sprays. We have to wait until everyone has at least 3 quality branches to harvest before we are ready to go the cloner.

My old method was to grow out the seedlings just long enough to lop off the top, to then clone and bloom out. This is a couple weeks faster than what we are doing here, but has several problems.

First is that the top growth tip has all the wrong hormones for growing roots and can stall out and rot. Since it is the only one of its kind, it's then out of the running.

Second is having 3 side shoots to make clones gives you better odds, with better hormones, of getting all participants in the run together. The method here is head to head competition, and spreading the plants over different runs doesn't give us the information we need to make the best decisions. This also leaves us with extra copies that allows us flexibility to replace the mom, or double down with more copies ready to make even more clones.

And finally, we are preparing these plants to be clone mothers. The old method left plants unprepared for fast branch production. More columnar plants like Pure Michigan need this training to produce any usable shoots quickly. This can save you weeks of time.

These ugly moms will be ready to transform into lush clone producers within a month of transplant, if their clone daughter blooms into a winner.

A group shot of our girls already looking a touch raggedy:

PH020


As always, your comments and questions are welcome.

-al
 
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als_weed

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-al's Mail Bag

Occasionally I will repost questions asked in other forums or mail that seem relevant.

Looks off the charts nice. What consderations are giving for potency via mom plants.
-m



Potency is first. Of course secondary considerations of vigor, terps, etc matter, but why bother otherwise right?

So the issue of rapid phenotyping is time. It would be great to hold all these seedlings for another year and run them again to see if any fully matured into something better. But practically we can't.

A plants bloom room performance changes as the mom ages.

There is certainly plenty of controversy in this subject. My personal experience has been that buzz and flavors CAN intensify up to a couple years old. It plateaus for 5 to 8 years, and then starts to trail off.

Young plants tend to get better potency not worse. I have had young plants change their flavor for worse, but not power. Old plants will fade and it can be quite dramatic and traumatic!

After all we are forcing an organism to live for a decade or longer that started with a full lifecycle of 9 months. One of the reasons you need to breed your best when you get a chance, and keep your clone mother generations to a minimum.

Mom selection as early as possible can lose a potential late bloomer. My process to select the best contestant is to use a panel of experienced judges for the smoke test. Lab results come second. We test everything here in Michigan, but everyone knows that the rap sheet doesn't tell the whole story.

The crappy ugly duckling weed story does happen. But if you start with Swans and the best genetics possible, your odds are better.

Thank you for your interest.

-al

 
A

als_weed

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I normally don't play with commercial style strains. I recently came across a decent one: Tropicanna Bananna.


TPBN001o


Love those 2 liter shots!

It has a fruity pleasant aroma/flavor and a warm relaxing buzz. A good starter strain for growers and smokers alike. It’s super vigorous and doesn’t mind a little torture, to up the density of its large buds.

-al
 
A

als_weed

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Seedlings Day 42

We are almost ready to go the cloner, but they need a little Nitrogen boost before we snip them. 2 Tablespoons of worm castings to the rescue!

The great thing about earthworm poo is that it won't burn even the youngest of plants. You can just dump it on the dirt and add water.

Here's a pic of the girls getting their "spoonful of sugar"

PH021


So close to snip time. Next time we make aero tea!

As always, your questions and comments are welcome.

-al
 
A

als_weed

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Tea Time - part deux!

The seedlings will soon be cuttings going to the cloner, so we need to prepare the tea that we will need soon.

Here's the ingredients:

PH022


Disclaimer First: This is what I use. Your mileage may vary. You can harm your plants if made, used, or dosed incorrectly.

Tea Recipe 2: als Awesome Aero Tea

Into a 5 gallon bucket of reverse osmosis water, with a large vigorous airstone add:

1 tspn Great White
1 tblspn Ancient Forest
4 tblspn Worm Castings
4 tspn Molasses

When you brew the teas together, you can see the difference in them. Here's a pic of Dirt(bottom) and Aero(top) tea together after 2 days brew:

PH023


So What Does This Do?

Aero Tea is the result of many years of development to create living systems in aeroponic environments. Aeroponics have always before required a sterile system.

I found that the dreaded brown and pink slimes will attack roots and cuttings eventually, even if you are growing in bleach water. The solution is to have your own biological army to defend and assist your plants.

That sounds great until you consider we are working with spray lines or nozzles that will instaclog. And when that happens, you have hours to fix the problem before your plants die. So high particulates and living goo must be avoided.

This recipe maximizes the number and strains of beneficials, while keeping food and particulate levels low. It makes your root zone a hostile place for interlopers, and boosts your plants with commensalent organisms along with micro and macro nutrients.

How Do You Use It?

First give it a good stir, then strain with a regular tea strainer into a quart cup.

For cuttings in aerocloners: 1 tsp/5 gallons

For vegging rooted plants in aerocloners: 1 tblspn/5 gallons

For bloom in aero machines: 2 Cups/40 gallons

Apply no more than once per week. Excessive application will affect your Nitrogen balance and screw up your plants.

Plants just love getting the bio available partially digested nutes from the tea. They respond with more intense, complex aromas and flavors, along with greater vigor and overall health.

This is how you get organic results with synthetic base nutes, while also protecting and boosting your plants.

As always, your comments and questions are welcome.

-al
 
A

als_weed

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-al's Mail Bag

Occasionally I will repost questions asked in other forums or mail that seem relevant.

Tea Questions - Answers Here!

So you just feed plants the tea only? -m

No the tea is designed to be used with base synthetic nutes. You can use any brand, just reduce the concentration slightly until you are familiar with the tea effects. For me the tea changes the base res ppm by less than 10 and is negligible.

Do I really need a big air stone? -k

Yes it's critical. The stone forces Oxygen into solution. This helps the beneficial aerobic bacteria we are growing, and poisons the harmful anaerobic varieties. A tiny air stone doesn't have the surface area to keep the bucket bubbling vigorously.

How long is it good for? -b

I make fresh tea once a week. It's best at 48 hrs and begins to degrade after that.

Do I need Ancient Forest? -k

Any high quality humus will work. We are looking for wild type beneficial bacteria and fungi spores.

What's with the molasses, and do I need a specific brand? -b

Molasses does several things here. It feeds the critters we are brewing, the sugar metabolites provide critical krebs cycle building blocks for your plants, and has many vitamins and minerals in it.

Molasses is the main ingredient in many expensive bottled products. It's used in many finishing products and foliar sprays.

Even the cheapest supermarket molasses has awesome stuff in it:

PH024


The best choice is the least processed. Sulfured Black Strap molasses is the gold standard. But any will do, and I used the cheap stuff to show that here.

Did you really grow in bleach water? -m

Yes we called it Zone or pool sticks, basically Chlorine. It was required to control pathogens in sterile systems. And it certainly did not enhance flavors!

Thank you all for your interest, and feel free to add your questions or comments to the thread, as I'm sometimes slow with mail right now.

-al
 
Rebeccalovato777

Rebeccalovato777

382
93
I just recently started a new project: grow out 4 strains from my recent cross of Slapz to several moms.

Here are some of the moms:

View attachment 1258763

View attachment 1258764

Lil time lapse:

View attachment 1258765

View attachment 1258766


View attachment 1258767


View attachment 1258768

View attachment 1258769

Man I gotta figure out how to resize pix here.

Anyways, here's where we are right now. We will clone and grow these out, while keeping the original moms in cups.

The clones will be grown out using my syntho/biotic aeroponic technique.

Here's a preview of flowering in the bloom room:

View attachment 1258770

So we are all caught up! I promise to learn how to post better here.

Thanks for your attention, and as always, don't hesitate to ask questions.

-al
Wow looks amazing đź‘Ź
 
A

als_weed

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Even More Tea Questions

Every time I used teas my roots brown and looked sick. Show us your roots! -b

Sure. I went around took these today to show what they look like at different ages. Roots can get a slight tinge from tea, but should never be slimy. As they age, you will see some coloration in late bloom as exposed roots in the air eventually decline.

Here you go:

PH025


PH026


PH027


Do you have to deep clean after using all the bios? -m

I only use bleach on the first cloner the cuttings go in. All the other cloners with rooted plants just get sprayed out. Hose out the sludge and replace the blown out pucks.

Thank you for your interest

-al
 
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als_weed

56
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It's Finally Cloner Time!

Before we can stuff the cloner with our carefully cultivated shoots, it needs to be set up with the nutes to root.

Here's what you need:

PH028


Disclaimer First: This is what I use. Your mileage may vary. You can harm your plants if made, used, or dosed incorrectly.

als Rootin Tootin Cloner Setup Sauce

In 8 gallons Reverse Osmosis Water

20 ml A (heavy Nitrogen)

20 ml B (heavy Phosphorus)

10 ml SuperThrive

1 tspn Rooting Agent

2 tspn Aero Tea

This works out for me to about 225 ppm and a pH of 6.0.

You can use any brand of nutes you like. Just keep the ppm under 250. If you increase the nutes any higher, you will slow root development. Why grow roots if you insist on force feeding them?

I use this specific rooting gel because it has B1 in addition to the rooting hormone. This bubbles up in the res, so it tells you when it needs to be refreshed. Don't dip cuttings in the gel, just add a tspn to the res. Cuts way down the amount you go through and it just rinses off when you dip them anyways.

As always, your questions and comments are welcome.

-al
 

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