That's interesting. Kind of fooling the plant, huh. I ordered non-fem'ed seeds, so I'll probably be running into some males. I may have to flower a male separately and collect some pollen. I'm excited to start this Ganesh strain. The breeder claims it's from early 1980's landrace genetics. I still don't know what to do with the Red Dragon. It looks like it might be a fairly substantial 'showing' of bananas. I need to decide whether to commit to daily pruning, termination, or banishing her to the downstairs closet with my old 150 HPS and letting her do her thing down there. I don't know for sure if it was from a fem'ed seed, but nevertheless I blame sh!ty clones. I also came across someone complaining about Big Buddha Cheese having a predisposition for doing the same thing. Hopefully not.
If I were you, I would cut that Red Dragon down and throw it the the hell out of your area. If it is putting out male organs as well, then the smoe will not be all the good, more than likely. I wouldn't fuck with any pollen at all if I were you, you get some of that crap in your area, or house, and you will be paying for awhile. Unless you can maintain very well sealed and separate areas, it just seems like you are asking for a ton of trouble
I had to shop down an absolute outdoor monster a week ago due to the same phenomenon. And last night had to pull about 4 small plants out of my SCROG that were the same strain that was showing transgender tendencies. Should really effect my yield, as I was using them to fill in some gaps in the Ice coverage. Sucks to hear about that man
Do you mostly blame genetics, Goldenglow1? I consider myself to be a fairly knowledgeable gardener. My plants look healthy as sin. No obvious stressing comes to mind. I'm just kind of pissed that this is the 2nd time in a row this has happened to me, albeit with different strains. I stuck it out last grow because I was about 2 weeks from harvest when the bananas came, but I'm less than half way there now. I didn't work today (f@ck again on that issue) so I might take my time and pull her out and give her a complete look over and see what I'm dealing with.
Yeah, I blame the genes, but in the same breath acknowledge all the variables involved. It is my personal belief that there are way too many people out there messing with strains that have to clue what they are doing. I hear lots of people talking about strains they develop, yet they dont even know the basics of how to grow. Obviously there are those who know what they are doing. That has been my experience up here in MT, lots of people with a shitpile of different strains, and very few of them can tell me where they came from, or even specifics in terms of phenotype or whatever. I managed to find a decent caregiver that had a stable strain (Ice), who was connected to a larger co-op that seemed to focus on a few strains they knew really well, and didnt cave into the inexperienced temptation of having a ton of different strains available. More than likely, I am going to bite the bullet and order seeds from a top notch company, and quit dealing with all the idiots out there nowadays. Where did you genes come from? BTW, my caregiver did say that the strain that hermied on me was not stable, and they had pulled it out of their production line. The only reason I have this strain going is my caregiver disappeared for about 4 months, and did so right when he was supposed to provide me clones of Ice for my next grow. Earlier in the year, he had given me an outdoor plnt of this "Jedi" strain which is the transgender strain. Anyway, I am going to completely eliminate this strain from my inventory, which brings me back to one strain, Ice.
Glodenglow1 You hit that nail on the head. If you accept that the wolf is the genetic base of the domesticated dog and then if you consider the huge variety of breeds and then translate that over to cannabis for a minute. You can't cross a Pug with a Chihuahua and ever get back to the wolf. Not in a single lifetime anyway. How many times can you use the 5 main strains found in ovr 90% of the seed companies offerings and get anything new? Then consider the unholy alliance between the 'nutrient' companies and their pin-point marketing for this strain or that - "Well you know that Bubba-Hubba is magnesium hungry so you'll need Bubba-Hubba Mag Goo to get maximum results!" Can you say 'Kushie Kush'? BTW - re: Advanced Nutrients's Wet Betty. This concoction is soluble potash (K20) @ 3% - like 10 of their other products. What is making ol' Betty wet and sloppy is the addition of yucca extract. F*cking yucca extract. Ya just gotta love it! LD
I agree with both you completely on the genetics part. I bought these clones from my dispensary, so I am not 100% sure of the whereabouts. But, I wouldn't be surprised if they are worn down genetics from over cloning and the what-not. Not to mention that even people growing from seed with these strains are having the same issues. I think even some of the big 'reputable' seed companies put out shit. I ordered my next strain from the net for the first time since I was in college about 10 years ago. I mean besides getting lucky and finding some old hippie with the super dank heirloom strain, I don't know how else to get good genes. It is a gamble with seeds, but I searched the web and found a lot of instances where people were intentionally trying to stress their strains to get hermie's and it took them way longer than with other genetics. The strain I ordered is said to be landrace genetics from the early 1980's. No more clones for me!! I am probably also gonna steer clear of fem'ed.
Stankie I actually ordered seeds one time from Neville's 'The Seed Bank Catalog' (still have the copy) and I/we ordered the Haze x Northern Lights strain. This would have been in the fall of 1988. We were so paranoid about getting seeds through the mail in spite of the promised 'stealth packaging' that we had them sent to some associates in Mexico and then I drove down there to pick them up. Weird times. The strain that I grow now/exclusively originally came from seeds thru the Hash Cowboys in Laguna Beach in the winter of 1970. In early 1971 I had to report to the US Army to begin their 'Germany Hash Tour' (i.e. $.85 per gram for Afghani Black, Syrian Chokin' Red, Moroccan Paper Dynamite because it was so thin), Lebanese Red Brick and those prices were for buying a few grams. By the time you got up to a kilo of hash in Europe at that time the price dropped down to $.35 - $.50 per gram). In the late 1970's I/we started growing in South Orange County (where all the homes of Mission Viejo, Lake Forest are today) and I used some of the various seed strains that I had received as a kid. The seeds were kept separate in the planting and because we had no friggin' idea of what we were doing, especially as it relates to males and females, we ended up with a sh*t-load of seeds. I kept all the various seed collections and labeled them. In the mid-80's when we bought some of the Dutch light systems I mentioned on another thread, I now had enough information to figure out breeding on some level. It was from that work that I ended up with the strain that I grow today. The mother seed was germinated in 1985 and probably because it hasn't been screwed with is a major reason that I can get a healthy garden up and running when other strains have been nothing but a PITA. LD
I wish there were more people like you in the area down where I live Lumper! I'm sure there are, but it's hard to find them at random/luck. Especially with the gold rush mentality of the MM scene. I have some outdoor seeds I saved from a very nice strain I had about a year ago. It smoked nice with a good mix of stoned and highness. It is always a gamble, not knowing the source, but I may crack a few in the near future and see what the rolling the genetic dice gives me. I'm hoping I can trust Mandala Seeds and their claims of genetics with the strain I ordered. From what I've seen on sites similar to this one they are a good breeder with good genetics. The only susceptibility I have heard of is bud mold in humid conditions. Other than that most people are apparently surprised with the vigor that their strains exhibit. When I grew in college it was an ordeal getting the seeds also. Fake ID, mail box at Mail Boxes Etc, driving borrowed cars... It's kinda funny looking back at how paranoid we were Much easier now that I am legal. Credit card used, shipped to my house.
Went collecting humus and decomposing forest litter today. Here is what I collected: This is almost equivalent to peat moss. It is decomposed grass/forest liter from the meadows that surround a pristine high mountain lake that is snow melt/glacially fed. The lake shore is half surrounded by a nice boggy type of spongy soil that is very dark when wet. This matter washes into the lake bed and is easily accessed when the water level isn't full. I collected 2 full grocery sacks, each from a slightly different location. I collected it from the lake bed because this material is 'lose'. The material that would be actually dug up from the meadow has way too many roots to have any use for me. I am going to let it dry in this box until I decide whether or not to 'sterilize' the creepies in it. Here is a clay like substance. I think it is made mostly of very very fine particles that washed out from the bog and collected in one particular area. I squeezed all the water out of it, but I think it will fluff more once dry. Here is my box of forest litter. I collected 2 full grocery bags of this as well. I added some of this to my thermal compost pile in the back yard as well. This was collected by locating large trees in forested areas, and digging about their bases. After scraping off the loose, recently fallen needles, I dug down till I hit the rocky/sandy sub-soil. I collected from about 10 different still standing trees and some fallen, very decomposed trees. Here is a close-up. I am going to propagate the local microbes in this manner described here. I am planning on mixing the humus matter with my next soil mix for my upcoming grow from seed. Do you think I should 'sterilize" the humus? Like bake it in my oven or something? I collected some this spring and it had a few leaches and other creepy things in it, but that was from the meadow area. What I was thinking on doing was sterilizing it, then I would re-apply the microbial life with my extracts. Opinions? I also collected a few gallons of water from the lake and watered my plants with a gallon between the 3 of them. I also dumped a whole gallon on my backyard compost pile.
Thanks AG! I love the depth of knowledge and years of experience in the organics section that we can use to further ourselves
Stankie To your first question about doing something weird to the humus, I would offer this advice and it's short - "F*ck No!" HTH To your 2nd question, water of this purity and quality will do nothing but enhance the health of your soil. Using it to make BIM/FPE is another good use as well as brewing up an AACT. The mineral levels of high-mountain lakes is over the charts. It has to do with how they were formed (the lakes) in the Glacier period. The glacial 'dust' is what defines these waters. Look at 'glacial milk' for a better explanation if you're interested. HTH LD
Can I collect a bunch now and keep it for future use, or will it turn anaerobic? Would I just store it in gallon jugs with the lid on? The 4x4 road was covered in snow this morning and they will close the road in probably less than 2 weeks because it is starting to snow up there. After that I'll need snowshoes, some way to break through sub-alpine ice, and a lot of extra calories to make it up there to collect water.
Stankie When we had our organic farm, in the late summer/early autumn, we would collect up the thermal compost and EWC and bale it up with untreated burlap. Once it was baled, I would apply some kind of kelp tea (however you get there) to provide food for the microbes. I would repeat that every month or so. One thing to consider/ponder is this - untreated burlap is plant material. That's a good thing. What is the 'challenging' part of this is that eventually the microbes will begin to digest the burlap - don't count on moving a large bale of compost/EWC any great distance. LOL LD
Interesting to think about . . . . hmmmm. What about collecting and storing the water? Is that feasible?
I also collect water from the Mt. Hood National Forest. I add an airstone and let it run about 1 day per week to keep it straight and online. Sometimes I'll add a tablespoon of glacial rock dust but nothing really scheduled. Something like that. I'm not all that structured actually. It's the 'old hippy' paradigm deal coming out here, i.e. limit your investment (time) and expect great things' - just because. LOL LD