Random thoughts and Genetics

This is my first journal here. It is called "Random thoughts and Genetics" for lots of reasons. Mostly because that is what it is. Every day of growing brings new things. Whether it is something that went wrong or a new surprise. I am still learning after all these years. I mostly grow new genetics every grow. Which explains the genetics part. There will be a few old strains that I really like thrown in along the way. I normally do not do the mother plant and clone thing. That has changed so I figured now was a good time to start a journal. Cloning day was yesterday.

I have 2 plants that I really want to keep. They are of The New from HSO. Great looking plants so far. From what I have heard the end product keeps up with the hype. That is the main reason for the cloning thing now. If they are what they say, then I want to have a mother plant. I at least want to run it one more time. I also plan on trying to self it for more seeds. All this depends on it the end product is worth while. Since I was taking clones I went ahead and took some from Super Lemon Haze, Goldenberry, and Key Lime Kush also. You just never know where you will find greatness. Most of these clones will not be needed. This way I will have clones of the strains I want to look at. Everything rides on how the original plants and how they come out. I would like a hybrid of The New x Super Lemon Haze if I find worthy candidates.

I really could have called this journal Rambling thoughts and Genetics LMAO. I tend to do that sometimes. Over time there will all kinds of things coming up. Follow along if you dare. (Before anyone says anything, there is a top that goes over the clones)

Now for a little more about whats going on. I have taken clones before. This is the first time I have did it this early on. Most of the time it is a after thought and they are already in flower. Most of them survived. Not having to regenerate and root the clones at the same time. I am fairly confident that they will root. Because of that I am expecting something to go wrong lol. I took more clones then I needed so I know I will have enough to fill the 4 x 4 tent. The plan was to have at least one clone of a few plants left over. I have found a few truly great plants. Some I have been able to regenerate other I haven't. I hope to have a growing clone if I find great plants. Either way I think I am going to want more of The New to grow in the future. I hope to self the best plant for seeds. That has been the plan before. I have a few seeds to show for it but nothing like I want. Someday I will get it right.

As a grower. I have grown off and on since the late 1980's Mostly off till disability came into play. I mostly grow from seed. I plan to grow as many strains as I can before I die. I have been averaging around 20 new strains a year for the last 5 years or so. There was a time I thought I could grow most of them. Those times are over for sure LMAO. I can, grow what I can to find the strains I personally like the most. Those I grow again. I have a few favorites that I rotate in with new strains. I grow more for the love of growing then I do for any other reason. Finally getting to see all the strains I followed through the years has been fun. I smoke a shit ton of weed to keep my mind off my back problems. That gives a even bigger reason to grow. I don't climb mountains so I don't care what is on the other side. What that next strain has to offer is to much for me to resist.

Hey bro I found you

Clones seem to be doing ok. I worked with what I had to take off the plants anyway. Some have woody stems some don't. Of course all the clones with woody stems are standing up straight lol. The rest are working their way to doing it. The tops of the clones are pointed towards the light so all looks good. Today is day 4. I opened a couple of the vents to let some fresh air in. We will see how this works for a bit.

I will be starting to work towards a remodel of my grow room. Right now I have a 5'x 5' tent. I am going to be swapping it out for a 4'x 8' tent. The 5 x 5 will replace the old 4 x 4 tent. I will gain a couple plants in each tent without changing my power bill. Things should be a bit more efficient this way. I plan to try and use my 1000 watt HPS in the 4 x 8 tent. I am going to use a light mover for what ever light I use. I am not sure of what tent temps will be yet. If I could run the air cooled fixture I know the 1000 watt would work. I just can't picture in my head how I will run the hose's. If I had the right size springs I could use them to hold the hose's up and let them move also. I have other hoods to choose from what ever way I choose to do it. The problem that arises is I already have plant vegging. I need to tear down and build right back up to house the plants. This is the first time I have tried to change things up right in the middle of the grow season. I do most my work during the winter.

I will be running mothers and other projects during the summer when humidity is up. Normally I would shut down totally. Now I have the space to do projects. I need to start looking for special plants. I kind of know where the best chances of finding one are. The thing is they can show up anywhere. Any of the genetics I grow these days has the potential of it. Last year I found a incredible plant in a pack of Strawberry Lemonade from Barnes Farm. I tried to regenerate it but failed. In the future I hope to be able to have a clone just in case. I can't clone every plant so I am sure I will still miss one or 2. I will be better off after I find one or 2 special plants. Till then I will work on my seed making so I have seeds of the strains I really like. Once special shows up I will decide what to do next. I have trouble with preconceived ideas of what I want to do with strains. Just because I have a great strain doesn't mean I will get a great plant. They don't come in every pack no matter what genetics you are running. Sometimes you just get really good and not special. I will know special when I see it.

Dankman_420 said:

Hey bro I found you

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Great. 420mag changed my last post where I left hints of how to find me. Not only did they change my post. They shut down my thread so I couldn't call them out in the open. Fucking bastards! I won't be back to 420 at all anymore. Glad you found me. You are one of the people I didn't want to loose track of.

I'll be hanging out here. Keep up the projects Jack. They are a good read my friend.
Have you been doing anything in the woods or water lately. I've got some venison in the freezer already. Hopefully it will be a good ice fishing season too

I went on my last open water fishing trip. Nothing like being waders waste deep at 4 degree's LOL. I had to bust out a section of ice just to have a place to land fish. Only caught one. It was a really fluffy Brook trout. I only drew a doe tag so hunting was over quick. I have a month or so to go through all my ice fishing stuff. Should be long now.

I spend yesterday moving shit I don't need to make room for just the stuff I do need. This will help me consolidate stuff. Most of the stuff I don't use much. Thing is, most of it can be stored in the shed and not be in the way.

I will now have all my veg and small flower tents in the same place. This will be the only room where males and reversed plants will be. There shouldn't be any flowering plants any where near the pollen. The new big tent is about ready to go up. The plan is to swap everything around next Friday. Some of these plants are going to have some stretch. I may be pushing the height limits with the light mover between the light and the top of the tent. All these plants are mostly bushes so I am hoping it is not going to be bad. Here is a look at the 5 x 5 tent that will be swapped out. (or not). Can't get photos to upload for some reason.

Well suffice it to say they are doing good. I have a few Golden Berry that concern me about stretch. Between it and Super Lemon Haze I am sure something is going to be difficult. I might have to bend cola's over on a couple. I also changed my plan about light for the 4 x 8 tent. I have did well with both the 600 and a 1000 watt lights in my 4 x 4. The 1000 watt light did it with cooler surrounding temps. That and air cooled fixtures help. I won't have either of these in the new place. I think I will try the 600 watt HPS light to start with. As of yet I have not had temps over 85 degrees. Most of the time temps are in the high 70's to low 80's. I can get up to 90 degrees without effecting the plants to much. I think the 1000 watt light would be pushing those temps to the limits. In the heart of winter it may work. On the bright side. The 1000 will do wonderfully in the 5 x 5 that replaces my 4 x 4. It and a 1000 watt air cooled fixture work perfectly together. In the end I will be running the same power as last year with added plants

Sounds like a good plan. Especially having a separate room all together for the pollen

Well I got the picture I wanted to show yesterday to upload. I have 4 strains going.

The New, Humboldt
Super Lemon Haze. Greenhouse
Golden Berry, DNA
Key Lime Kush, Katsu

Things have been touch and go here and there. Everything seems to be doing ok as of now. If I was ready, tent wise. I would have put these in flower now. With the 5 x 5 tent. There is room on the outside for tall plants. I have had some grow up past the light before. I am not going to have that kind of wiggle room with the 4 x 8 tent. Starting to wonder where stretch is going to take me.

The clones are looking kind of ugly right now. Leaves are curling up and starting to yellow some. I still think everything is ok. I hope lol. They are all reacting to the light so my guess is things are going ok. I may want to try a different way of cloning in the future. The way I do it now doesn't give you much chance to check for roots.

I have been using a 50/50 mix of perlite and vermiculite in 2" pots and Clonex jell. For the most part I take them to 2 weeks then dump out the pot to see if roots formed. Perfect science LMAO. Most clones will root in 2 weeks. By the time 2 weeks is up they are really ugly so it doesn't matter by then anyway. Still I need to improve on this style of cloning someday.

After the changes I am making. I am going to need more clones then I had planned for it. That cuts down on what I will have to try and reverse. I don't know for sure there is going to be anything worth it as of now. I will fill the tent first and then go from there. It is not like I need more seeds. I just want to make them LOL.

I found something new on a plant yesterday. Nothing special, Just a weird looking leaf. I have seen a lot of cool things from plants. This is just another one of them.

It is on one of my Monty Python plants. This is getting to be pretty frosty.

Kinda looks like it's braided

That is what I thought. Very cool, but only a leaf LMAO. I love it when plants get so many trichomes that the curl.

Yep I still suck at cloning LOL. Not totally, but bad enough. I don't know how people do this and end up with healthy clones. Mine are looking pretty ragged. They do have roots. Or most do anyway. Only 2 out of the 21 didn't root. I really would have liked to have left them a few more days. They were looking so bad I figured it was now or never. The first clone I tried had lots of roots so I set up and potted all them. Some only had a few roots just poking out. I took way more than I needed so I should have all I need. One thing for sure. They are better off now then they were before. I am still keeping everything moist. I even added a humidifier to the tent so they don't dry out while the roots take. I don't have a big enough cover to keep them in a humid environment. As long as the leaves do not dry up most should take root.

Near the end, before I re-potted. I started spraying the plants with a light nutrient solution. I wonder if I had started sooner I may have got more time? I know you are not supposed to feed clones so they make roots instead of grow. At some point in time the clone is going to use up all the nutrients in its leaves. What then? I also noticed that the woody clones didn't do as well as the softer ones. I will adjust that where I can in the future.

I like everything about the new tent. It will be even better when I get 2 HPS bulbs in LOL. I thought I had a back up HPS bulb but I will have to wait till a replacement gets here today. Other than that, things are great. I am glad I went with the 2 600's instead of the 1 1000. This way I have flexibility with plant height. I can raise and lower lights independently from one another. The weirdest part. With the differences in tent shape. Even though I used up more footage for the tent. It seems like I have more room to move around. Mostly because what was once wasted space can now be used. What is even better, I can sit in a chair and stare at my plants while watering.

Nice setup

Thanks. I'm liking it. Lighting is all the same now. The HPS bulbs showed up. I have already raised one light up for stretch. Not something I had planned to begin with but it is going to save me over time. This will make it so much easier to give all plants the best light they can get. I can move plants or lights to adapt to what is happening stretch wise.

I am finding seeds in my ugly crop. As bad as they got I did manage to get some decent bud so far. They had a rough life with the iron lock out. That and the thrips. Once I knew what they were I didn't want to spray budding plants. Looks like I will be smoking some bug shit this year LMAO. I know what they look like now. I can see them on the paper I trim buds on. I am throwing all trim out this run and should have the thrip problem solved soon. They are gone in all the other tents.

Now back to the seeds LMAO. I noticed a few male flowers show up on the 2 California Diesel. I almost expect them these days. I got them trimmed off as soon as I found them. I didn't see any more show up. All the other plants looked clean. I may have missed a few as there are more seeds then I expected. The California Diesels are a pretty good plants so I don't see this as to big of a deal as long as I don't find too many. One Grim Glue has a bunch so far. Mostly on the lower buds. Might have to grow these some day LOL.

Last but not least. Lots of clones look to be taking hold. I really should have let them root in the Perlite/Vermiculite mix a few more days. If I had did that I probably would have lost a couple of them. This worked I think. At least they are finding some food. I am basing this mostly on the fact that only some of the plants have continued to get worse. Most have just kind of stalled. They are not drying up. They are kind of in a holding pattern till more roots form. Timing for this clone run was way off. They should be rooted and about ready to re-pot right now. Next run will be from seed again so I hope I can plan it better. One thing that helps out. I will know a lot more about the mothers by the time these plants get rooted good. I will know what plants I want to try and reverse. I also want to do this early enough so I can spread some of what feminized pollen I get out. I am confident in The New genetics. Most plants should be good if not great. I decided the most important plants are the Super Lemon Haze. Both plants cloned well. I will be reversing the one with the most lemon or both of them. There are 2 phenotype. One should hold good lemon. If I know for sure which SLH I want. then I will reverse the tall The New. It has a more open structure for light. If any or all the reversed plants put out pollen I will spread it. Key Lime Kush x Super Lemon Haze is one I want to make. I would be happy with with The New x Super Lemon Haze too. Like I mentioned I don't know for sure what I will do. The mothers will point me in the right direction.

Stress level has dropped to normal levels here. Clones look to be doing ok and I cured my problems with the mothers which went into flower. All the mothers needed was a little food. This was the first time I have had a problem like it before. Usually you first see signs of nitrogen deficiencies on the lower leaves. This time it happened to the top of the plants. All the roots went straight to the bottom and used up all the nutrients in it. Because of this the only thing that was lacking nuits was the growing tops. At least I think that was the problem. It is solved what ever it was. After I add nutrients the bad spots got better. That is all that matters.

There was a time when I thought I was going to lose the clones and the 2 big The New mothers. That is what gave me the clue it might just be nutrients that was the problem. The only plants affected were the largest plants from The New and Golden Berry. With everything happy for the moment so am I.

Like I mentioned before. I suck at cloning. You can't tell by these clones though. They may be ugly but they are taking root and starting to perk up. There are a couple that were nothing more than soggy stems when I put them in soil. I can see new green forming in the leaves of even the ugliest clones. It look like they will be plants too. That means I will have plenty of clones to flower and reverse. I just need to figure out which ones to reverse. I am still leaning towards just doing both Super Lemon Haze so I get some good lemon genetics in seed form. Super Lemon Haze has done well since it came out. Most reports are good. it may be as good as anything to pollinate some other clones. The plan is to have the reversed clones putting out pollen by the time the others are in flower. This way I can spread pollen to other plants without having to have clones in with the same plants. I do plan to have at least 2 different strains in the tent with the reversed plants. I want at least one hybrid and I can't be sure my timing will be right with the reversal. I just don't know if it will be Key Lime Kush or The New. Here is a look at the clones. There are also 2 Jack 47 auto's next to them. Now that I have a veg tent I wanted to try a couple of auto's