summer 2011 - blackout tent needed

[Dunge]

Day 37 update

Had some unexpected growth forms and asked the farm:

Reveg was the reply, so darken the tent I did.
It is only hitting one variety, what I call BA, and not every plant, so I hope my efforts with additional black plastic will make the difference.
Everything else looks great.

BA got a slow start on flowering probably due to it's light sensitivity.
From clone, 9 plants.

AK48 from clone. Popped the original seed a year ago and she has been my best plant. Takes my abuse, produces well, and nice strong smoke.
7 plants.

Eldorado my dear sativa.
Takes forever to finish but what great potential for giant buds.
Started the original mother from seed one year ago.
Buds are so sticky that joints don't draw well but once it gets going..wow

GrapefruitBlueberry
Got three girls from six seeds.
All three look like keepers. And here I am trying to reduce line count.
Very happy to have these in my garden.

F13 A very dark and threatening apparition. Got one girl from 5 seeds, and this is her.
The breeder & I share excitement about this line.

CR
Bag seed from a friend.
Small but pretty. Never has gotten past the lime green look, but the flower structure is perfect and I may keep her going.

 

[Dunge]

Hermaphrodites found!

Four Eldorado plants at risk.
I posted the story to the infirmary:

 

[Dunge]

Day 44 update

With weeks yet to go I am:

excising bud rot (three cases of unknown cause, see picture)

chasing nanners on five plants and watching everyone for sexual confusion waiting for the arrival via USPS of Dutch Master Reverse. I have high hopes that this stuff works. Otherwise I may have a seed garden.

and don't forget the plants that re-veged in mid flower.

and my F13 seems to have arrested. Not noticing the development that I was viewing until this week.

So while there are parts of my garden that show strong promise still (like Grapefruit Blueberry from Chimera), there are enough problems that the success of this light deprivation experiment is at risk.

 

[kes5480]

I'm very intrested in this... how is it working out??

 

[Dunge]

7 week + 1 day update

All in all, things don't look to bad.
I am concerned about what seems to be a growth stall.
The plants look and smell healthy, but they are not thickening up like I had intended them to do. For the past few weeks, growth seems to have stopped.

This is a picture of my side by side AK48 girls. The one on the right is on super soil only. No difference that I can see.

These two AK48 bud shots were taken two days apart. I see no growth. (rule has 1cm grid)

I am taking action against the evening cold, which is getting into the high 30s F and may be making the pots so cold that it takes hours to get going in the morning. I plan to ventilate the blackout tent with greenhouse air rather than outside air in an attempt to reduce heat loss. I feel that I need ventilation or the prospect of moisture buildup inside the blackout is just too threatening for me to not act against.

 

[Dunge]

Harvest- 3 days short of 8 weeks

The weather in interior Alaska is cool and wet.
A photo record to identify any growth has been unable to see any over four days and my memory of them has had bud thickening arrested for two weeks.
There is a brown mold presence that is threatening yield faster than growth.
And all trichomes are cloudy.
I must chop and try to rescue as much of this grow as I can.
The big question is, can I cure this batch ahead of the mold?
Pics to follow.

 

[Dunge]

Harvest Pics

On the racks.

Four bud shots at time of harvest. I had not seen ANY growth in four days of photos, and I don't believe they have grown much in the last two weeks. Night time cold into the low 40s probably put a chill on the roots in that they are in pots.

And this is what was forcing me to hurry.

Two days into drying with three fans and the blackout tent up, the brown mold is at least not running wild. I am watching it carefully.

 

[Dunge]

Yield and smoke report

Eleven days from forced harvest (cold stunted with developing mold) all the flowers are well started on their cure. What I have smoked of it is strong.

This is an example of one of my Grapefruit Blueberry.
This was my biggest yielder at 62 g smoking product.

Next year I plan to be able to heat a bit to prevent nigh time lows below 50 F. (This is interior Alaska after all)
This will also allow me to get into the tent early May perhaps.

In all I got over a kilo of smokable flower. A third of it is from a plant I call BA that has plagued my growing experience. It was my first plant low these 14 months back.
It smells like grass and comprises one third of the harvest.
The remainder is good shit.
The new lines are great.
F13 is one stony girl let me tell you. Am going to enjoy watching this one cure and mature. Got so excited started the remaining five seeds in the pack.
The beat goes on.

 

[wiggles]

Eleven days from forced harvest (cold stunted with developing mold) all the flowers are well started on their cure. What I have smoked of it is strong.

This is an example of one of my Grapefruit Blueberry.
This was my biggest yielder at 62 g smoking product.

Next year I plan to be able to heat a bit to prevent nigh time lows below 50 F. (This is interior Alaska after all)
This will also allow me to get into the tent early May perhaps.

In all I got over a kilo of smokable flower. A third of it is from a plant I call BA that has plagued my growing experience. It was my first plant low these 14 months back.
It smells like grass and comprises one third of the harvest.
The remainder is good shit.
The new lines are great.
F13 is one stony girl let me tell you. Am going to enjoy watching this one cure and mature. Got so excited started the remaining five seeds in the pack.
The beat goes on.

unlucky mate, im not surprised this hapend with the strains you had tho. AK and some of the other strains you wer growing arent realy made for outdoor grows, keep the genetics fairly simple and dont rely on clones to give you a good time. from seed the plant can establish itself well and has no trouble growing quick and healthy. hopefuly it will go good next time, lovely lookin buds tho i gota say

 

[Dunge]

Wiggles: Thanks for the advise. I grew what I had.
My setup is not exactly outdoor and not greenhouse.
I think of it as covered/outdoor. The greenhouse shell is a wind screen to protect the blackout tent. I made some ventilation changes late in the season that I hope will improve results next summer. Have yet to come upon a heater solution to keep the root zone from chilling.
I can see from your outdoor pics that you bring some skills to this game. Keep us updated.

 

[wiggles]

well you made a bloody cool set up and those plants looked like they would have finished with some outstanding bud. i know what its like to have good plants rot and the only weapon against it is to go for strains you know wont mold, i have a few dutch voodoo and they are amazing producers and dont mold atall and have realy good structure. i also find that going to the spot every few days to do a dead leaf sesion helps with keeping out mold fungi. its good you got nice plants from the seed you used but next time use like 3 strains like moby dick and jamaican pearl and somthin else and just keep it simple. plus the two i mention yeild a very hefty amount. thank you very much im looking forward to chopin down my bushes. they all smell incredible and fingers crossed i wont get mold on ma blueberry....

 

[wiggles]

Also, do you not think you could have trigerd growth by repoting? big bushes in small pots dont mix, altho frost is a bitch so maybeh it wouldnt have made a difrence

 

[Dunge]

Good advise.

Larger pots would be more resistant to night time temperature fluctuations. If this was the cause of observed arrested growth then problem solved. I was growing in 3 gallon "super soil" pots with LST. Simply got lucky that the plants did not outgrow my tent. I am vastly inexperienced with super soil, but the promise of "water only" was very attractive. This entire theory is based on my understanding that root temps below 50F can stunt growth.

What I grow is limited by what I can get. I am cautious about seed purchases by mail. I threw EVERY plant I had into the tent. My efforts to revedg one of each variety is having limited success. Three of the seven are dead. The one I wish would die is doing the best. I will keep an eye out for the varieties you recommend. Are any of them available here on the farm?

Note to self: dutch voodoo, moby dick and jamaican pearl.

 

[wiggles]

frost

i realy hate frost to, altho as hard as it is to belive i started of 20 seedlings lat year in freezing conditions for a week, then it got realy warm and the wer stunted but stil would have been nice plants had they not been stolen! i dont buy ofline, and i dont have a very easy way of getin the seed i want. i usualy just buy of my local hydro stor, whos colection is limited to barneys far or greenhouse seed co. i recomend breeding, rather than reveging. go out find two strains you love the look of, the ones with the right CBD THC contents and the ones that you can realy bully and still have a great time with, usualy the newr strains like the ak cross breeds are the ones i would never go for, i understand why youd use um but did the same with my first grow and yes the plant look glamorus in vege and begining flower but the resistance to the elements just arent there. take the risk and get some seed ofline, or find out were your nearest seed provider is, who will probably order you in the specific strains you want, then build a seperate tent a good distance away, and every grow just pair up like 3 females and one mail and get a load of free seed for next year. you can then even start to think about a breeding experiment to cross the genetics of your favourd strains to get a personal strain that is exactly what you want.

i wouldnt recomend useing pots that size again for finishing plants, watering and soil quality come after root space, a plant has double the size of the plant in roots so rely you want a soft soil that lets roots push through, then after you dig that huge hole you can think about super soil and watering.

i also strongly recomend satori by mandala seeds if you can get hold of some seeds.

its curently freezing at night very mildly but my plants are coverd in thick layer of dead bracon and compost, the holes i put um in are all about 3 foot deep, the tire plant is in a hole i uesed last year for the same strain that is about 4 foot deep, i hae very loose soil so i know the roots have far exeeded the limit of the space i dug out for it, this is why the plants get so large, they stop growing when the roots start compeeting for a space to grow. i would recomend trying to dig a hole, adding perlite frit and gwano and monitering how much of a difrence it makes, i guarentee you will be happy with the result :)