Outdoor 3 x Early Top Tao (Photo, Reg) - Maria's Early Spring Games

[Exotic Flower]

3 x Early Top Tao (Photo, Reg)
- Maria's Early Spring Games​

Over here in this thread, I mentioned my latest seed order coming through, and my plans for the coming spring. In the order were a few freebies from Seed City, one of them the surprise freebie 3 x Early Top Tao.

The three seeds look fairly good. A little bit light, not too dark. But not having seen this strain before, don't know if that's just how the seeds from this strain are. I'm very confident they'll pop though. Have seen much lighter / weaker seeds sprout and grow many times.

So did a bit of research on Seed Finder:

Top Tao Seeds - Early Top Tao
Early Top Tao has twice succeeded in competitions of Cannabiscup in the outdoor category. After many years of selection of the fastest maturing plants, the fixed strain Top Tao labeled "Early" - early ripening.
It is a plant extremely resistant to mold, pests, disease and the cold autumn of the Central European climate. It produces an amazing number of branches when you cut the central bud.
The stem and branches are very strong and resistant to wind storms! Huge leaves create a large surface for the absorption of sunlight.
This plant will certainly mature in the gardens of Central and Northern Europe.
The incredible amount of resin and the fruitand flower fragrance cause energizing, sometimes psychedelic high.
Genetics: Early Tao x Oldschool Bohemia

Height: 2 - 2,5 m
Genetics: Indica / Sativa
Cannabinoid: medium and more
Harvest: August / September
Flowering time indoor: 6-7 weeks

User-Generated Strain-Profile

Known Phenotypes: » new » none up to now (homogenous??)

For this strain we got input by 1 user(s). Here a short overview:

Harvest Time Outdoor: Middle of September +/- 1 Week in CmShα climates.
Strength / Lasting Effect: The weed affects middle-high to high.
Yield / Quantity Outdoor: The crop of this strain is high.
General Impression Outdoor: is all together a quite good strain.
Votings of our users: Early Top Tao gets 7.00 of 10 possible Points in the average!​

Which all looks pretty darn awesome to me!! That review is from climate zone CmShα,
"warm temperate, micro- to mesotherm and semi-humid climates (maritime),"
which is pretty much the same as me here.

So, dropped the three seeds just about an hour ago:

I'll sow them into individual small pots once they germ, maybe 0.4L or 1.0L pots.
Once they get a little size over maybe 3-4 weeks, re-pot when needed,
and see where I can put them outside.
From the description above, almost def top them (at least once, maybe twice if big enough).

They are reg photo plants, so I figure that 4 weeks vege,
then outside will be about late March, so 12/12 hr light cycle.
They are short flowering, so even if they take 60 days,
that is still just end of May, and daylight is just 13/11 hr or so.

In the meantime, some cool photos of my lemon mint pot, four plants from seed, LSTed and topped once each, which was out on the balcony for a month over winter with nobody but mother Gaia to look after them.

This isn't the best shot of them, actually. Much fatter and wider than this pic shows, almost 3' across!

Love and hugs,
MJS

 

[G.Leave]

Excellent start to the grow!! Good luck!! Please tag me if I drift off, and of course if I can help and you need it tag me.

 

[Exotic Flower]

About 18 hrs after the water drop in shot glass,
not cracking yet, but moved to the wet tissue method in the same shot glass.
(Not that I have 100 seeds and need an entire plate...)
Then maybe just 6 hrs later, two have cracked and the other I'm sure very soon.
Hopefully the photo below should be clear enough to see two little white root tips:

Have prepped up 4 pots which I guess are only about 0.8L ( = ... 1/4 gal).
(Only need 3 pots, but I just happen to have 4, so some herbs for the 4th one.)
Using a local cheapo premix bag which is part coco, part peat, and part the casings from mushroom farms.
Has a pH of 5.7-6.5, and NPK of about 1.7-0.7-0.7 or something like that, which is about perfect.
I added a little more perlite and vermiculite, so it's fairly airy and light.

Put the in the TDS meter, but was up around 700+ ppm,
and it has some re-used soil from last outdoor grow with more nutes in it,
so gently flushed the pots down some more with tap water (TDS 80 ppm),
and then left it when it got to TDS 250 ppm or so.
Then left them to nicely soak up that water for at least 6 hrs.

The seeds will be in the pots either tonight or tomorrow morning.

 

[Exotic Flower]

Less than 36 hrs after dropping, all three have popped, and the roots are growing nicely:

So, planted them into their new homes, these three little pots, each about 0.75 L = 0.25 Gal or so.

I know that looks like a lot of perlite and vermiculite, but it's not that much really.
It just tends to float up to the surface when I was doing the light flushing to bring the TDS down yesterday.

They have been there since last nice.
They're sitting in the window, so have a bit of sun and warmth.
About 20C, just right!
Maybe they'll be above ground by Monday!
Here's hoping................

 

[Exotic Flower]

First one popped it's head out from the soil this morning.
The other two should be following soon.
I hope all three by Monday.
Photos later...............

 

[Exotic Flower]

Early Top Tao (Photo, Reg) - Day 0

48 hrs in soil, +24 hrs in water, all three above the soil surface:

 

[Exotic Flower]

Early Top Tao (Photo, Reg) - Day 1

The next morning, which I'm going to call day 1.

They are now sitting in the window, which will get direct sun from maybe 9am to 4pm or so.
The weather here has been very sunny and dry for this area. Really low rainfall, which is a bit of a worry.
But the sunshine time is to my advantage, haha!!!!

 

[Exotic Flower]

Now that all three are safely above the soil line, I feel safe.
Last year's grow main disaster was just germinating,
still don't know what the heck went wrong.
Maybe I'm just getting back some of my old skills. Hope so.

Now the wait for the seedling period, always hard.
Tiny little leaves on a tiny thin stem, not much happening above.
But letting them get their roots developed down below.

Then, the big vegetative growth spurt kick in. Oh yeah!!!!!

Very happy to have been able to get these off to a nice start.
Let's see a possible growing time frame for a pre-summer harvest....

She's supposed to mature on 8 wks = 56 days of flowering.
Let's say two months = 60+ days to be safe.
If she can vege from now through March and April,
then flower for May and June!
Oh my, 9+ wks of vege, could be a very big plant.
But, I think she'll flip to flowering as soon as she goes outside.
So, if I just vege to end of March, then flower April to May,
can harvest at end of May or start of June.
Still with 5+ weeks of vege, which is usually plenty.

Strain data says she'll grow over 140.
If I can just get one to grow well all the way through,
could get a couple of 100 g / up to 1/2 lb.

Hmmm..... dreaming....

 

[orrganic]

Count me in, sounds like a great strain. The seed finder research was interesting! The prefect strain for some outdoor experimentation.

 

[Exotic Flower]

@912GreenSkell -- question for you! Or anyone else.... @Habitual ?

Thinking about after a month or so, putting them outside. Which option best:
1. Putting them straight into the local soil only.
2. Putting them in a hole filled with potting mix, surrounded by local soil.
3. Putting them in a *sleeved hole with potting mix, surrounded by local soil.
4. Putting them in a buried pot filled with potting mix only.

* Sleeved - I dig the whole, put in a a plastic pot with the bottom cut out.
That way the local soil won't straight away leak into my good soil,
but the roots can grow down into the local soil.

I think [HASHTAG]#1[/HASHTAG] would be the worst option, lazy but poor soil.
[HASHTAG]#4[/HASHTAG] would ensure quality soil, but then have pot size restriction.
[HASHTAG]#2[/HASHTAG] and [HASHTAG]#3[/HASHTAG] allow some good soil plus unrestricted size.
But think that [HASHTAG]#3[/HASHTAG] will allow the best of both worlds.

What do you think?
I recall you having some pots with holes so the roots could grow out
when you transplanted them. I think this is a good idea. Hence [HASHTAG]#3[/HASHTAG].