Hecno's on going organics

[Waira]

Hec' mate, you are such a magical man-slut! Simply amazing... They are all little beauties, that two-headed girl could be a total boosh soon! More fantastic work from Mr. nb' too of course-
It got me thinking about this article I found a while back about how to tweak nutes and conditions to help increase the ratio of ladies, maybe you've seen it already or something similar... Here's the bottom line of it:

1. Level of nitrogen and potassium of the seedbed: A heightening of the standard level of nitrogen makes for more female cannabis plants originating from the weed seeds. A lowering of the nitrogen level shows more male cannabis plants. A heightening of the level of potassium tends to show more male marijuana plants, while a lowering of the potassium level shows more female marijuana plants. A combination of a higher nitrogen level for the period of a week or two and a lowering of the potassium level is recommended.
2. Humidity and moistness of the seedbed: a higher humidity makes for an increase in the number of female cannabis plants from weed seed, a lowering for an increase in male cannabis plants. The same is valid for the moistness of the seedbed.
3. Level of temperatures: lower temperatures make for a larger number of femalemarijuana plants, higher temperatures for more male marijuana plants.
4. Colour of light: more blue light makes for female cannabis plants from seed, more red light makes for more male cannabis plants.
5. Hours of daylight: few hours of daylight (e.g. 14 hours) makes for more femaleindividuals, a long day (e.g. 18 hours) makes for more male cannabis plants.

Now let me just make a few adjustments here to this. You can do whatever you want to your cannabis plants in seedling stage and early vegetative stage of growth and it will not effect your final male to female ratios. The time when things should be near perfect is in or around the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth.
This is the CRITICAL TIME for getting those female ratios up and up. I realized this clearly when noticing how some cannabis plants hermed because of problems that occurred around this period of the cannabis plants development. If the problems occurred before this time - no herms. So for this reason I surmised that this is when the crucial gender selection is made by the marijuana plant.
Now I believe that the genders are set in the weed seed however the environment has a massive impact on how this is expressed in the final phenotypic expression of the cannabis plants gender. There are probably many genes that govern this, however lets get into how to up these female ratios.
The Italian Society of Agricultural Genetics agrees the sexual differentiation of cannabis is strongly influenced by environmental factors such as temperature and photoperiod. Anomalies also occur in floral development like the presence of reproductive structures of the opposite sex, or the development of bisexual inflorescences (monoecious phenotype).
At the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth make sure that your marijuana plants are free from stress. No pests attacks, no fungi attacks, no mold, no irregular photoperiod, not underwatered, not overwatered, not pruned or topped, a cannabis friendly soil mix, not recently transplanted, no small pots. If have these basic growing conditions under control then we can move onto the real forces of female production from standard weed seeds.
N:K and nutrients. What this simply boils down to is that you have the right nutrients present in the right ratios. A nutrient formulation that has roughly equal parts N, P and K is great but if the P levels go up or the N levels go down you are starting to look at a flowering type food for cannabis. If you do this then your odds of producing mostly females is greatly decreased. Make sure that you get those N, P and K levels to almost run from higher to lower amounts from N to P and K.
I have noticed that equal portions of N to P an K can help with the female ratios but the higher N is certainly more helpful. So around the 3rd of 4th week of growth make sure that the ratios are good and that P or K has not gone above the N and P or else more males will occur. Obviously this means to avoid overfeeding your cannabis plants around this time too.
Never let your medium dry out completely around the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative marijuana growth. If you make sure to water occasionally, but not to overwater your cannabis plants, you will get those female ratios on the up and up. Overwatering or drying out of the medium will only produce more males. For consistent results in getting more females keeps those mediums moist.
Humidity. Now this is the tricky one. High humidity levels only promote fungi and mold development and lowering humidity levels is the way to cure most of this rot but by keeping those humidity levels up in or around the 70 rH factor will help to produce more females. If you have a low humidity grow room then you should get to hold of a humidifier. Now high humidity levels like 70rH cause the medium to dry out a lot quicker so you got to keep this under control too. Keep those mediums moist and those rH levesl at 70. This will help to improve those female to male ratios. Again, getting them on the up and up.
If you run the 24/0 photoperiod then do not allow those temps to go anywhere above 85F unless you have an equatorial strain. 75F is the best but going a little lower is not a problem for helping those female ratios. If you can get in at around 65F then those females are going to be popping up all over the place. The problem with this is that some growers like to use the 18/6 photoperiod and when the lights are off the temps drop from around 65F to 50F and even less. Try not to be below 55F because this has the adverse effect on the plants producing more males than females. Again between 65F and 75F is where you want to be during the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth, the preference being 70F.
Invest in a MH Light for vegetative growth. Dump the HPS bulb for flowering later. I have noticed that HPS lighting during vegetative growth simply sends those males to female ratios all over the place. With MH lamps the females are everywhere. Invest in some MH HID lights. It makes all the difference in getting those females to show more often. This is worth repeating! MH Bulbs produce more females under optimal conditions especially if they are present during the 3rd and 4th week of vegetative growth. Surprising enough you can start seedlings under HPS and it will not have an effect on those female ratios. Again the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth is what is important here.
No stress during the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth. That is all there is to it. If you got your garden growing in optimal conditions without marijuana plant stress then the impressive 90% to 95% females start to emerge from standard cannabis seed packs. I find that topping is best done at the second to third week of vegetative growth but that this is a little stressful and can lead to those female ratios dropping again. Avoid topping or pruning if you are looking to up the female count.

>>> Granted this is for photo's, most all of it applies to auto's as well I believe... Your ratio's have been spot on with this time and again, so I reject any "coincidence" factor behind it! Your soil must be tuned perfectly,... The COB's are 3500K right? Not as blue as 4000K, but seems plenty blue enough.... T is there, especially the warmer dark period? Do they sleep in the eve's?
This will be a fun test to see how much of the C99 comes through, you'll know well having grown the parent... Double check your seed stash, you should have the C99a parent too!
How's the perfume on those Dragon Ladies? I think I found the pics of them grown by the breeder,....:smoking:

 

[hecno]

Great read @Waira and no I have not read anything about soil and females , but I was just talking to my son about it last night that maybe it is the soil .doing the job I am definitely going to look into it more . and yes the cobs are 3500 , at this stage the only thing I have changed , in the last 3 grows is Co2 , which I then increased the the temps a bit , also the soil holds moisture well . At the stage they are now I have only watered them about 4 times , but in saying that the a soil is not water logged at all . I keep a eye on the worms in the soil bins as I was building it and found they can tell you a lot about soil moisture and what they like . I may be wrong here but I think the organic content has a part to play in it as well , I would say mine is high , but before I use the soil it is at least 3 months old , and when I do water the soil it is to feed the microbes . so I am strongly thinking the soil is the big player here . I have to see in time how often this happens , or is it just luck . had to do it .

 

[hecno]

 

[robbio]

Hec' mate, you are such a magical man-slut! Simply amazing... They are all little beauties, that two-headed girl could be a total boosh soon! More fantastic work from Mr. nb' too of course-
It got me thinking about this article I found a while back about how to tweak nutes and conditions to help increase the ratio of ladies, maybe you've seen it already or something similar... Here's the bottom line of it:

1. Level of nitrogen and potassium of the seedbed: A heightening of the standard level of nitrogen makes for more female cannabis plants originating from the weed seeds. A lowering of the nitrogen level shows more male cannabis plants. A heightening of the level of potassium tends to show more male marijuana plants, while a lowering of the potassium level shows more female marijuana plants. A combination of a higher nitrogen level for the period of a week or two and a lowering of the potassium level is recommended.
2. Humidity and moistness of the seedbed: a higher humidity makes for an increase in the number of female cannabis plants from weed seed, a lowering for an increase in male cannabis plants. The same is valid for the moistness of the seedbed.
3. Level of temperatures: lower temperatures make for a larger number of femalemarijuana plants, higher temperatures for more male marijuana plants.
4. Colour of light: more blue light makes for female cannabis plants from seed, more red light makes for more male cannabis plants.
5. Hours of daylight: few hours of daylight (e.g. 14 hours) makes for more femaleindividuals, a long day (e.g. 18 hours) makes for more male cannabis plants.

Now let me just make a few adjustments here to this. You can do whatever you want to your cannabis plants in seedling stage and early vegetative stage of growth and it will not effect your final male to female ratios. The time when things should be near perfect is in or around the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth.
This is the CRITICAL TIME for getting those female ratios up and up. I realized this clearly when noticing how some cannabis plants hermed because of problems that occurred around this period of the cannabis plants development. If the problems occurred before this time - no herms. So for this reason I surmised that this is when the crucial gender selection is made by the marijuana plant.
Now I believe that the genders are set in the weed seed however the environment has a massive impact on how this is expressed in the final phenotypic expression of the cannabis plants gender. There are probably many genes that govern this, however lets get into how to up these female ratios.
The Italian Society of Agricultural Genetics agrees the sexual differentiation of cannabis is strongly influenced by environmental factors such as temperature and photoperiod. Anomalies also occur in floral development like the presence of reproductive structures of the opposite sex, or the development of bisexual inflorescences (monoecious phenotype).
At the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth make sure that your marijuana plants are free from stress. No pests attacks, no fungi attacks, no mold, no irregular photoperiod, not underwatered, not overwatered, not pruned or topped, a cannabis friendly soil mix, not recently transplanted, no small pots. If have these basic growing conditions under control then we can move onto the real forces of female production from standard weed seeds.
N:K and nutrients. What this simply boils down to is that you have the right nutrients present in the right ratios. A nutrient formulation that has roughly equal parts N, P and K is great but if the P levels go up or the N levels go down you are starting to look at a flowering type food for cannabis. If you do this then your odds of producing mostly females is greatly decreased. Make sure that you get those N, P and K levels to almost run from higher to lower amounts from N to P and K.
I have noticed that equal portions of N to P an K can help with the female ratios but the higher N is certainly more helpful. So around the 3rd of 4th week of growth make sure that the ratios are good and that P or K has not gone above the N and P or else more males will occur. Obviously this means to avoid overfeeding your cannabis plants around this time too.
Never let your medium dry out completely around the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative marijuana growth. If you make sure to water occasionally, but not to overwater your cannabis plants, you will get those female ratios on the up and up. Overwatering or drying out of the medium will only produce more males. For consistent results in getting more females keeps those mediums moist.
Humidity. Now this is the tricky one. High humidity levels only promote fungi and mold development and lowering humidity levels is the way to cure most of this rot but by keeping those humidity levels up in or around the 70 rH factor will help to produce more females. If you have a low humidity grow room then you should get to hold of a humidifier. Now high humidity levels like 70rH cause the medium to dry out a lot quicker so you got to keep this under control too. Keep those mediums moist and those rH levesl at 70. This will help to improve those female to male ratios. Again, getting them on the up and up.
If you run the 24/0 photoperiod then do not allow those temps to go anywhere above 85F unless you have an equatorial strain. 75F is the best but going a little lower is not a problem for helping those female ratios. If you can get in at around 65F then those females are going to be popping up all over the place. The problem with this is that some growers like to use the 18/6 photoperiod and when the lights are off the temps drop from around 65F to 50F and even less. Try not to be below 55F because this has the adverse effect on the plants producing more males than females. Again between 65F and 75F is where you want to be during the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth, the preference being 70F.
Invest in a MH Light for vegetative growth. Dump the HPS bulb for flowering later. I have noticed that HPS lighting during vegetative growth simply sends those males to female ratios all over the place. With MH lamps the females are everywhere. Invest in some MH HID lights. It makes all the difference in getting those females to show more often. This is worth repeating! MH Bulbs produce more females under optimal conditions especially if they are present during the 3rd and 4th week of vegetative growth. Surprising enough you can start seedlings under HPS and it will not have an effect on those female ratios. Again the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth is what is important here.
No stress during the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth. That is all there is to it. If you got your garden growing in optimal conditions without marijuana plant stress then the impressive 90% to 95% females start to emerge from standard cannabis seed packs. I find that topping is best done at the second to third week of vegetative growth but that this is a little stressful and can lead to those female ratios dropping again. Avoid topping or pruning if you are looking to up the female count.

>>> Granted this is for photo's, most all of it applies to auto's as well I believe... Your ratio's have been spot on with this time and again, so I reject any "coincidence" factor behind it! Your soil must be tuned perfectly,... The COB's are 3500K right? Not as blue as 4000K, but seems plenty blue enough.... T is there, especially the warmer dark period? Do they sleep in the eve's?
This will be a fun test to see how much of the C99 comes through, you'll know well having grown the parent... Double check your seed stash, you should have the C99a parent too!
How's the perfume on those Dragon Ladies? I think I found the pics of them grown by the breeder,....:smoking:

A lot to think about.Thanks for sharing.Peace please

 

[trailanimal]

Just call me the Chic Magnet Day 21 and showing early stages of sex , I may be wrong but I could have 6 females as they are all showing Pistils . and they are just feeding off the soil so far , What I am noticing is how chunky they are , one is acting like it is topped , which I have not done to it . This is going to be a very interesting grow .
View attachment 1062685 View attachment 1062686 View attachment 1062687 View attachment 1062688 View attachment 1062689 View attachment 1062690 View attachment 1062691 View attachment 1062692
The lights are 30 inch above , Room temp 25 c av , humidity 55 % av . 20/4 light cycle .
View attachment 1062693

chunkOdelic!, looking like Sumo Amazons

 

[tobe]

Just call me the Chic Magnet Day 21 and showing early stages of sex , I may be wrong but I could have 6 females as they are all showing Pistils . and they are just feeding off the soil so far , What I am noticing is how chunky they are , one is acting like it is topped , which I have not done to it . This is going to be a very interesting grow . [emoji106]
View attachment 1062685 View attachment 1062686 View attachment 1062687 View attachment 1062688 View attachment 1062689 View attachment 1062690 View attachment 1062691 View attachment 1062692
The lights are 30 inch above , Room temp 25 c av , humidity 55 % av . 20/4 light cycle .
View attachment 1062693

Hi my friend
Looks like the next high yielder in your hands, beautiful plants.

Have a nice day
cu tobe

 

[hecno]

I ended up with 5 female 1 male .I'll be back later today ,
Stability of the growing environment is essential to increase the female to male ratio. From the moment the seeds are germinated, a growing environment with as few fluctuations as possible is ideal. Stress is the enemy when trying to get females.

This is true of all the essential requirements for plant growth. Maintain stable temperatures and humidity. Make sure the photoperiod begins and finishes at the same time every day. Be sure there is no light pollution interrupting plants during the night cycle. Be sure the nutrient mixes are exact every watering. Spikes up or down in nutrient mixes can cause stress, increasing the chance of males.

Light I run at 20 / 4
GIVE SEEDLINGS LESS HOURS OF LIGHT
In the rush to get buds in the jar sooner, it is always tempting to expose plants to 24hrs of light during the vegetation cycle. The plants may grow larger sooner, but this increases the risks of males developing.

Young plants exposed to an 18-6 day-night photoperiod increases the chance of females. The chance increases further when the day length is reduced to 16 hours. To maximize the possibility, reduce the day period to 14.5 hours of light.

Shorter day length does slow growth during vegetation, but the likelihood of females increases to 70–100%. With expensive primo seeds, it is better to allow an extra week of vegetation to get the best value. Some patience during vegetation is preferred to throwing half the crop away later on.

The other downside of 24hr light exposure during vegetation is poor root development and interrupted gas exchange in the rhizosphere. Root development occurs predominantly at night, and necessary oxygen exchange occurs more efficiently at this time too. Healthy roots mean healthy plants.
Light that is in the blue spectrum during vegetation promotes female development. Fluorescent lights should be white or blue spectrum for infant plants. Refrain from using the purple/red-tinted fluorescents, which are better for flowering.

Metal halide lamps are ideal for the vegetation phase of cannabis. They are blue biased in their spectrum and imitate summer light effectively, which is the natural vegetation period of cannabis. When the 12-12 switch is made to promote flowering, switch to a high pressure sodium light. These a red biased in their spectrum and imitate the red-shifted light of autumn.
INCREASE NITROGEN
Cannabis plants consume lots of nitrogen during the vegetation phase. Increasing nitrogen (N) slightly and reducing potassium (K) can increase the likelihood of females. A potassium-rich nutrient blend will boost the chances of males during the early development phase.-- I am thinking potassium is coming into play as I have always thought my soil was bit low in my soil .
Humidity
High and stable humidity levels from germination right on through to vegetation increases female development. Similarly, consistent and stable watering routines maintain ideal moisture in the grow medium. Stable moisture exposure in the air and medium promotes females.

Young plants: When plants are young, make sure they maintain a high humidity of at least 70–80% RH. This is easily done with a humidity dome during the infant stage. Make sure the growing medium does not dry out too much. There is a fine line between maintaining a healthy wet-dry cycle and overdrying. The stress of a too-dry medium will encourage male development.

Pubescent plants: Maintain humidity at 70% RH. Use a hygrometer religiously to ensure ideal moisture content of the growing medium. Maintaining correct humidity is made easier with a humidifier/dehumidifier unit always at work in the grow space. Continue to monitor the moisture content of the grow medium. Overwatering and overdrying are stress vectors that can encourage males.

 

[trailanimal]

Thanks for info Hec! I've got 6 reg seeds sprouting. They are getting 15 hrs of direct high grade photons from sun and autocob, and then less light. No more "dark" time for about 3 months, all light now. This is the only constant they will get from their environment. Temp and humidity will be all over the place in the 24 hr cycle. I'm looking for males, so we'll see how I do.

 

[hecno]

The harem is doing great @nbbeerguy I'm calling this week 1 in flower , I'll use weeks instead of the actual date from now on , I am always forgetting dates . They are bloody robust buggers , solid as . This first one is the double header . It splits from the stem . I did not do it .

The rest . The last 3 days they all have really taken off .

All together .

Now for the outdoor girl . I am very happy with them , main reason being they have had bugger all good direct sun , cloudy and rain more days than full sun , this time last year for the month of May we had no rain . This month we have had around 10 days of full sun , maybe , as it is they only get around 5 to 6 hours a day . So not bad I recon .

@trailanimal I going to take a bit more notice of this Female - soil thing . When I make soil it is not to a recipe , just what I can find , it is basically the same inputs , I keep thinking potassium , it is the one thing I know I was low on all the time ,

 

[hecno]

Playing with dirt again . I went around to Mr Turkeys place for some dirt , but this time a very old , on going nest , I dug down and found black gold .

This would have to be microbe city , This nest would be at least 8 years old as they just add to them each year , This lot will be mixed with another pile from a nest from a different spot , I will be adding inputs and it will be used on the next grow , so it will have plenty of time to work its magic . I tend to like my soil aged . so this will be 3 months old before I use it . Back to Eden in its purest from . I also have the veg garden on the go .

Also I was given a ornamental Fig that needed some love . It is 8 years old . First photo is how I got it .

Now I have to go to work , one of the Bar managers rung up sick . -- Bugger -- Have a good weekend guys .