Olderfart's Dive Down the Living Soil Rabbit Hole

[Olderfart]

Here they are as of today, a day late for the Sunday update, but hey, who cares?

The "drobe" in its current state:

SSSC Auto Ellephant front left, Mephisto 24C, front right, Dinamed Auto CBD Kush rear left and seedlings, and Mephisto Fugue State rear right. The CBD Kush seedlings were planted in case the runt in the multipot needed replacement, but the runt suddenly exploded, so she will finish. I may see what I can do by leaving the seedlings in their yogurt containers. Kinda like a solo cup but not. Jury is out.

Miss SSSC Auto Ellephant at Day 45:

Miss Auto Ellephant continues to fill out. The buds go pretty much all the way down, she is going to produce if she stays healthy.

Miss Dinamed Auto CBD Kush at Day 45:

There are three plants, rear left has always been the healthiest, and is packing on the bud in a big way for her size. It looks as though she is running out of food, but maybe dealing with a bit of lockout, I am not sure. In any case, since there is a much younger girl (the former runt to the rear right) doing fine, the big girl is just going to have to weather it out. The sad looking thing in the front is somehow going to produce a bit of bud, but she has been sick or buggered from the get go. Dunno about what, but virus is my suspicion. Either that or something I did early on buggered her up.

The two seedlings in yogurt containers are both showing signs of the same leaf distortions:

This is odd since I sterilized the mix they are planted in. Whatever. I may just grow them out in the yogurt containers to see what they do. The Auto CBD Kush plants have been a bit of a shit show.

Mrs. Mephisto 24 Carat at Day 38:

There are two plants in the pot, two slightly different phenos, one a bit earlier and larger, the other smaller and a bit later. Both growing well. The two bags on branches are one branch of each pheno for pollenation. They have both been injected with pollen from a syringe twice today, and will get a few more applications soon. This was my first attempt with the bag isolation approach, and I do not like how much condensation happens on the inside of the window for light. Thinking cap is on about alternatives for getting branches pollenated inside the growdrobe.

Miss Mephisto Fugue State also at Day 38:

This girl developed issues over the last couple days. She has been canoed and curled and started developing signs of calcium issues, I think lockout due to too much nitrogen for this strain. Also, for some reason, this pot has run a fair bit drier than any of the others, so it is possible that the leaf curling might have been exacerbated by that. At any rate, she looked headed for serious trouble this morning, and I figured the problem was calcium lockout, so she got a damn good flushing with tap water to see if I could dial back the nutes a notch. The jury will be out for a few days. In the meantime, her water is turned off for now.

Miss 24C pollen plant is gone. Here is what's left :

The photos show my setup for collecting pollen. The bottom photo shows what is inside the big jar, namely a smaller jar with metal coffee filter mounted in the ring, male flowers tweezered from the pollen plant sitting in the coffee filter mesh, and fresh silica gel in the bottom of the big jar. The collected flowers get bone dry in the larger drier jar, and with a bit of agitation, the pollen from the dried flowers drops through the screen into the bottom of the small jar. On this run, I might have collected about a half cc or more of pure pollen to load the syringe with, and I will get another batch from the flowers before I am done. This system works better than grinding the flowers the way I did last year, the pollen comes out absolutely pure with no plant debris.

I have already done two pollen applications with the syringe in the photo. I just open it and put it in the drying jar until next time to keep the pollen left in it dry.

Miss Fugue State pollen plant will follow sometime soon, no pics today. She is a whole lot less responsive to the CS, but I think I will get enough pollen to make least a few seeds.

That will do for now peeps, thanks for checking in.

 

[DCLXVI]

Neat setup! I like the pollen collector you've concocted.

 

[Olderfart]

Neat setup! I like the pollen collector you've concocted.

Thanks for the feedback. I like this setup and think it will remain my standard. I was quite surprised at the amount of pollen it produced given the seemingly small number of mature male flowers I plucked. And unlike last year, I retrieved pure pollen, not a mix of pollen and debris. And it is easier, no grinding involved. All good.

 

[Olderfart]

Weekly Sunday update back on track.

The 'drobe as of this morning:

SSSC Auto Ellephant front left, 2 Mephisto 24 Carat front right, Dinamed Auto CBD Kush rear left, and Mephisto Fugue State more or less out of sight rear right.

First up, Dinamed Auto CBD Kush:

Rear left plant is the largest at Day 44, front center plant same age but had issues from the beginning, rear right is the runt that has pulled up its skirts, younger than the other two by a week or so, can't recall.

Next up, Mephisto Fugue State at Day 44:

This girl has been canoeing for ages, and keeps doing it no matter how far down I dial the PPFD. I flushed her a while ago to deal with what I think is calcium lockout from excess nitrogen, and that seemed to help the new growth. Regardless, this girl is not really happy with the soil mix, next round the nitrogen needs to be dialled down a notch. For this grow, she is going to have to ride it out. One branch has been pollenated, and pistils suggest a few seeds, but not as much success as with the 24C. The Fugue State pollen plant was slower and produced a lot less male flowers and pollen, so the jury will be out on seeds from this girl.

Next up, the Mephisto 24 Carat:

Two plants, the slightly large pheno to the rear, the smaller and slightly later to the front. Both happy and filling out nicely. One branch of each pheno has been pollenated. Curled brown pistils suggest that there will be lots of seeds. Sadly, including some extras on other branches due to a couple minor pollenation "events", but no biggie for me, and I keep learning.

And finally, the SSSC Auto Ellephant. She used to be the queen of the grow, but arguably, the pair of 24C's are catching up:

She is still doing well, showing minor signs of nitrogen excess and hints of possible calcium lockout, but she keeps filling out nicely. She should produce well if the colas fatten up ok.

That's all she wrote peeps, thanks for checking in.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

looking good!

 

[Olderfart]

Here she was at the last update ~6 days ago:

The stunted sickie in the front got cut today. The largest girl in the back left will follow soon, the younger one to the right a week or two after that.

Here is what is left of the runt:

Might be a bit more bud than I thought, but not by much, and a lot of it is larfy. This girl has been sad from the beginning, almost pulled and replaced, but not quite. The aroma, OTOH, is remarkable. All spice and little fuel or skunk, just like the last indoor grow of this strain, but more of a stinker to put it mildly. Seriously sticky as well. It is all destined for pressing for tincture or salve, so larfy or not, it should do the job nicely.

The younger plant in the first photo was also almost pulled and replaced, but she exploded just before I was ready to pull her. She had been so badly stalled that I thought she might just croak but suddenly after doing not a damn thing for more than a week, she all of a sudden exploded. Go figure. She might actually produce almost as much as her older sister. She'll do a lot better than the runt I just chopped though.

Happy growing peeps.

 

[olbobcat]

My last 24 carat got me. it would not turn amber at all and I let it go 88 days, still no amber. Chopped it and full of mold. I threw it all away. I had huge buds and probably about 5oz. I love it. I guess next time I am going to cut it early. Now Anvil never has a problem.

 

[Olderfart]

My last 24 carat got me. it would not turn amber at all and I let it go 88 days, still no amber. Chopped it and full of mold. I threw it all away. I had huge buds and probably about 5oz. I love it. I guess next time I am going to cut it early. Now Anvil never has a problem.

Wow, that must have been a disappointment. The 24C that I grew two winters ago sure looked like a mold candidate, the colas were dense and tight. I was growing in winter so I could keep the RH down, and used lots of fans and escaped ok.

The two 24C's I have going now have really different structure, much taller and more open than the first two. Which is pretty bizarre given that all seeds came direct from Mephisto in one sealed envelope. Go figure. I did not expect that going to soil in a large pot would do that, but it seems that it did.

Anvil sounds interesting. Do you use this stuff for sleep?

 

[olbobcat]

Wow, that must have been a disappointment. The 24C that I grew two winters ago sure looked like a mold candidate, the colas were dense and tight. I was growing in winter so I could keep the RH down, and used lots of fans and escaped ok.

The two 24C's I have going now have really different structure, much taller and more open than the first two. Which is pretty bizarre given that all seeds came direct from Mephisto in one sealed envelope. Go figure. I did not expect that going to soil in a large pot would do that, but it seems that it did.

Anvil sounds interesting. Do you use this stuff for sleep?

I think they had a packing problem because I had one plant that was tall and was definitely a Sativa plant and then a normal one. I had grown 4 out of the pack already that were normal. The problem is the buds are dense and they start growing together as well because of the short nodes and they are huge. So I have grown it twice b4 and lost one bud before but everything else was okay. I think if I would have picked it at 72 days things might have been different. The anvil is good for sleep as well and it did not even get mold when I grew it outside. I should be growing it now in the winter for better controls. I got some Atlas seeds Fog Dog free from Multiverse seeds. Atlas is more geared toward largescale from what I read and these are 80 percent Indica and not supposed to get mold. I am running these as an alternate.

 

[Olderfart]

I think they had a packing problem because I had one plant that was tall and was definitely a Sativa plant and then a normal one. I had grown 4 out of the pack already that were normal. The problem is the buds are dense and they start growing together as well because of the short nodes and they are huge. So I have grown it twice b4 and lost one bud before but everything else was okay. I think if I would have picked it at 72 days things might have been different. The anvil is good for sleep as well and it did not even get mold when I grew it outside. I should be growing it now in the winter for better controls. I got some Atlas seeds Fog Dog free from Multiverse seeds. Atlas is more geared toward largescale from what I read and these are 80 percent Indica and not supposed to get mold. I am running these as an alternate.

I like the growth form of the two I have going now better than the previous two, but I am concerned that the effects may be different too, which would be a damn shame as I need the knockout stone for sleep, and so far those original two are the best I have had ever. Fingers are crossed. OTOH, if the stone is the same, I am going to get a serious harvest from the current two. And they have a lot of fattening up to go yet. I'll post an update with pics later this morning.

Is your anvil a photo?