:: update::
Ah well, disaster hath struck the operation. Over the last few days, botrytis reared its ugly head and has laid waste to yield potential. It started in the Samsquantch OGs, and quickly developed with an alacrity I've never before witnessed in a plant. Those suckers started rotting like they were designed to do it. For whatever reason, the Mephisto cultivars have proven very susceptible to it, as it quickly spread amongst the mango and sour stompers (and bear in mind they are in both tunnels, mixed in with the Ethos), which will be pretty much total losses. The Ethos remain near untouched however, which is surprising, as I've had ethos in the field before in the form of much bigger photo plants, and remember losing a fair amount (relative) to bud rot, but that is common up here come September, with wide swings in temp (95 during the day, 48 nighttime kinda swings, then morning dew to help push it along). To have this happen in July is shocking to me... They are covered, there's been near zero precipitation, and the temps have been stable and consistently hot, albeit often humid. One of the big reasons of doing autos this year was to sidestep those September conditions, but they happened anyway. At least in the case of a big photo, the plant (which often will have 60+ main colas for me outdoors), most of the plant will be perfectly fine and I'd typically loose at most 10% to rot... But with these autos, from what I've seen, once it's there, that plant is done for.
I suppose it's just as well. The year before last, I had told myself I would not longer bother with outdoors, to eliminate the stress of fall weather in the mountains here which can do everything from flatten entire rows out from winds and microbursts to simply rotting your plants just as they are starting to finish. Not to mention, for the last 9 years, I've lost my fall to trimming (I do it all myself, and that's usually averaged about 35 lb harvest, after losses). Last year, i took a hiatus add it was glorious, lol. But now, I'm reaffirmed and re-avowed to never again grow outdoors. The market price isn't worth it to me for outs anyway these days. The other takeaway here is that autos don't seem to be for me still. They are not controllable enough to my tastes, yield to little comparatively to what I've managed to achieve with photos, possibly lack the robustness of photos(?), and do not seem to present anything in terms of quality that I can't source the same or better from photos. Now, this is of course partly based from this experience, admittedly microscopic in sample size as it is (as well as past forays, even smaller), coupled with the results from others I know who grow autos which I've never been particularly impressed with (again, also small sample size..they are simply not popular in these parts). I'm sure there are those out there who rock the auto world and have developed the specific skill sets in order to do so, but I'm not seeing the point for me to change over at this point in my career. Something tells me I'll be out of the game entirely anyway within a year or two anyway unless the market changes in some drastic manner.
I'm not sure if those ethos, which still represent 65% of the field, will pull through to end of cycle, but I will endeavor to record those which do for posterity and inquiring minds.
Ah well, disaster hath struck the operation. Over the last few days, botrytis reared its ugly head and has laid waste to yield potential. It started in the Samsquantch OGs, and quickly developed with an alacrity I've never before witnessed in a plant. Those suckers started rotting like they were designed to do it. For whatever reason, the Mephisto cultivars have proven very susceptible to it, as it quickly spread amongst the mango and sour stompers (and bear in mind they are in both tunnels, mixed in with the Ethos), which will be pretty much total losses. The Ethos remain near untouched however, which is surprising, as I've had ethos in the field before in the form of much bigger photo plants, and remember losing a fair amount (relative) to bud rot, but that is common up here come September, with wide swings in temp (95 during the day, 48 nighttime kinda swings, then morning dew to help push it along). To have this happen in July is shocking to me... They are covered, there's been near zero precipitation, and the temps have been stable and consistently hot, albeit often humid. One of the big reasons of doing autos this year was to sidestep those September conditions, but they happened anyway. At least in the case of a big photo, the plant (which often will have 60+ main colas for me outdoors), most of the plant will be perfectly fine and I'd typically loose at most 10% to rot... But with these autos, from what I've seen, once it's there, that plant is done for.
I suppose it's just as well. The year before last, I had told myself I would not longer bother with outdoors, to eliminate the stress of fall weather in the mountains here which can do everything from flatten entire rows out from winds and microbursts to simply rotting your plants just as they are starting to finish. Not to mention, for the last 9 years, I've lost my fall to trimming (I do it all myself, and that's usually averaged about 35 lb harvest, after losses). Last year, i took a hiatus add it was glorious, lol. But now, I'm reaffirmed and re-avowed to never again grow outdoors. The market price isn't worth it to me for outs anyway these days. The other takeaway here is that autos don't seem to be for me still. They are not controllable enough to my tastes, yield to little comparatively to what I've managed to achieve with photos, possibly lack the robustness of photos(?), and do not seem to present anything in terms of quality that I can't source the same or better from photos. Now, this is of course partly based from this experience, admittedly microscopic in sample size as it is (as well as past forays, even smaller), coupled with the results from others I know who grow autos which I've never been particularly impressed with (again, also small sample size..they are simply not popular in these parts). I'm sure there are those out there who rock the auto world and have developed the specific skill sets in order to do so, but I'm not seeing the point for me to change over at this point in my career. Something tells me I'll be out of the game entirely anyway within a year or two anyway unless the market changes in some drastic manner.
I'm not sure if those ethos, which still represent 65% of the field, will pull through to end of cycle, but I will endeavor to record those which do for posterity and inquiring minds.
