LONG OVERDUE UPDATE......again.......as always.
Had some ups and downs in the past couple of weeks. First and foremost, and overall the biggest down (I'm a bad news first kind of guy) I discovered every living soil gardener's nightmare in my garden a little over a week ago, and because of that the past two weeks or so have been kind of hectic. Plant growth had been much slower than I was used to seeing, and things were taking way longer to flower than I expected, and I could not figure out why. Things showed a mag deficiency..... but there was plenty of langbenite in my mix. Slurry tests came back in a proper range, so it wasn't a PH or lockout issue.... At this point I was completely stumped, frustrated and confused. Since I was not someone who traded bugs.... er.... clones... with anybody I knew it wasn't mites, and inspection with a 60x loupe confirmed. Then it came to me.... Root aphids. Sure enough, further inspection showed those little fuckers munching on my root hairs and robbing my plants of its energy. Generally root munching insects are easy to tackle, but root aphids are different. Some say they are worse than russett mites (Though I'm not sure I would entirely agree). Where most insects have a 3 or 4 stage lifecycle, root aphids are different and actually have a 17 stage life cycle, making them a battle and a half on all fronts, from suckers on the root system, to flyers laying eggs on the leaf/soil surface.
It all made so much sense now, but I knew that if I ever wanted to actually defeat them I had to act fast.
So far, I have given them all 2 heavy root drenches of Pyrethrins (3 ml/gallon) and introduced a few million predatory nematodes to the root system 2 days after the last treatment. Already plants seem to be improving and getting down to ripening. Thank gawd.
The White Widow x Headlights Kush F1 FV plants are vegging out into total monsters in the flower room. They were just switched to 12/12 today, and not a second too soon. even after heavy pruning, tying down, and aggressive defoliation, plants are right at about 5 feet tall underneath the scrog nets.... about 2 feet taller than I am generally comfortable with flowering out. Because of that I switched bulbs from the HPS to the MH's for the next 10-14 days, and began pushing a silica rich diet on the girls. Hopefully this will keep the stretch out to a minimum. Defoliated EVERY fan leaf except for the top node 5 days ago, and already things went from being scarcely bare to being superfluously full. Going to be stripping back down to the top node once more in a few days, then letting them do their thing. This method is called "schwazzing" and while it IS stressful to your ladies, it certainly does reward the grower with huuuuge dense colas. Set up a scrog net, time it properly, fill your net completely, and feed a kelp and carb heavy diet when you defoliate and bammmmmm you can pull some wicked yields. There you go, I just saved you all 500 dollars on that silly 3 pounds a light book. :smoking:
I'll update you guys with some pictures once the plants really engage into flower!
The Mazar x Headlights Kush is universally doing pretty well for themselves, growing nice and tall with great cola development. Root Aphids slowed her down quite a bit, and I'm pretty sure I accidently dusted the shit out of the best plant and seeded it completely, sooooo uhhhhhh if anybody needs a few thousand free F1's just let a guy know.
Kind of really displeased with myself for letting that happen, and ruining my chance to have any real good inclination of how the plant actually does, grows and smokes, but it will be what it will be. Maybe this one was just not meant to be....
Anywhooooo, letting this one just kind of run its course. Would have loved to have had some afghanica/haze hybridization to smoke on, but a few thousand seeds and a bunch of hash wont be the worst I guess..... Who would I be to complain?!
Those three monsters on the left are all the Mazar x Haze. In love with how these ladies grew. Sad I blew it this round, but ready to sort through all of the garbage to find more keepers. I see tons of potential with this strain. Each plant is 3-5 ft tall in 3 gallon pots. Imagine her in 5's or tens? Yeesh.
The tallest one has the haziest flowers, but still has rather dense placement of its flowers, meaning it likely wont be whispy garbage, but it is the middle plant that really has caught my eye. Tall, branchy, great production, good stank and resin production, tight flowers. I've got an eye on her. (Pic was taken 7-10 days ago, but not much has changed really other than a bit of swelling and maturation.
Eight of the 32 selected blulight females have already come down, and most of the others are really not far behind. While this strain was likely the most sativa dominant of the bunch, she was the first to mature (anywhere between 65-80 days depending on phenotype). She has not been the outright most productive strain I have grown to date by any means, as flowers are either not growing into donks but rather knuckly little towers, orrrrr if they are growing into donkey dicks they are either not really branching much or are very fluffy. This girl needs a little genetic selection done to reel in her best traits and stabilize her, but luckily we have lots of specimens to chose from and nothing but time. Some of the flowers this strain produces is outrageous. Smaller than most that I've grown, sure.... but the quality is outrageous. Incredibly resinous with seriously special aromas. Smells heavily of berries and hot musky gym socks.
Northbound Train (Fantasmo Express x HLK) is finally nearing the finish line herself. While it feels like it took forever, all 16 will be coming down in the next 5-14 days. She was the first to start flowering so overall plant structure is short and squat, but damn does this lady pack a lot of flowers into a tight little package. Root aphids really beat up on these girls, causing them to lose a lot of foliage over the past 3 weeks, and really slowing their development. Cant wait to try the F2's to see if they don't finish up a bit earlier. Only time will tell!
Starting to smell piney and lemony. The Ghost Train Haze shines heavy with this little one!
Here's one from last week....
And here she is today.... She will be the first to get the chop in 5 days or so.
And here's one of her other sisters from this morning as well. 10-14 days on this fine lady.
Thanks for tuning in guys! I'll be back with more pictures soon.
Cheers!
for the awesome looking ladies you've got going. We do have a photo section on the forum. For how it comes down to Autos and Photos we love them all with no discrimination as in the end it comes down to the plant we all love.
