SG's 2008 Outdoor Purps and White Russian Breeding

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Well, this will be my first complete journal from seed to harvest. It will also be my first attempt at making seeds as well as breeding. My goals will be:

1.) To grow some top quality smoke using minimal additives.

2.) To produce a fresh, viable seedstock of the White Russian strain.

3.) To cross the best specimens creating a WR x Purps F1

4.) To save WR pollen for another cross I have in mind.

Now let me show you what I will be using.

The seeds:

White Russian ( Serious Seeds ) English_seriousseeds

Purps ( BC Seedking )
Purps Marijuana Seeds




My soils:

Fox Farm Light warrior for seedlings
Fox Farm Ocean Forest and perlite at first transplant ( 3 to 1 mix )
FoxFarm Soil & Fertilizer Company


My Nutrients:

Fox Farms GrowBig for vegatative stage ( 6-4-4 + micro )
Fox Farms TigerBloom for flowering stage ( 2-8-4 + micro )
Grandma's Original Molasses for flowering stage

FoxFarm Soil & Fertilizer Company

Welcome to B&G Foods, Inc.




I will be starting the seeds indoors under normal 4' Cool white shop lights. After approximately 10-14 days I will transplant them into 2 gal. pots outside. One or two of the plants will be transplanted again into 8 gal. pots.I will be documenting every aspect of this grow in detail, and with lots of pictures. I will officially start the grow tomorrow when I begin the germination process.






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Time to germinate. Now unlike many growers, I avoid the paper towel method and prefer the soak-and-sow method. I took 1 cup for each strain and filled it with distilled water. I do not Ph my soaking water- never have, and I get great germ rates.




Since we are dealing with a lot less than a gallon of water here, I will dip a toothpick in SuperThrive and stir each glass of water before dropping the seeds in. Then I drop all seeds in the cups and cover with something. In this case I used some bowls since I was in the kitchen. You could also use books, CD cases, etc. I let them soak for 6 hours. It was a little chilly in the kitchen so I placed a heating pad under the glasses and turned it on low. Be careful with water and heating pads kids.



It has been six hours and it is now time to plant. I am using 16 oz. party cups to start them in as I normally do. The first thing I always do ( When dealing with more than one strain ) is mark the strain name on the cups before I put the dirt or seed in it. This makes sure there are no mistakes or mixups.



Now that I have the cup marked, I fill it most of the way up with the Light Warrior soil, which I think is the absolute best for seedlings. Nice and airy, and no nutes. Once the cup is filled, I use a pen or pencil to make a very shallow hole in the soil- about 1/4 inch or so. There is no need to put your seeds down deep.


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Once I have my little pit dug, I drop a seed in. I do not worry about which way the seed is pointing. They know what to do without me helping them. Then I lightly cover with dirt.




As I fill the cups, I use a dropper to moisten them. I am using the water they soaked in. It still has the trace amounts of SuperThrive in it which certainly won't hurt.




I just put a few dropper fulls of water on each one, and I make sure most of the water is used in the middle of the cup.



I just repeat this process until all the seeds are sown. Now it's time for a smoke break. Later on I will bring them in and put them in a dark place with the heating pad. Pics of that part will be put up in my next entry.








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It has been a little over two days since I began the germination process. So far nothing has broken the surface. I have watered just once since I planted my seeds due to cooler weather. The cups have remained moist but not soaked since Friday.

I keep my starter cups on a tray. It makes them much easier to move.



I also have been too busy to get the shop lights set up so for now the tray of starter cups is living in a closet shelf with a little space heater fan. Since nothing has sprouted yet it's no big deal. I will get the shop lights and area ready tonight just incase I see some baby plants in the morning.



So there isn't much to report today. I will keep an eye on the starter cups and hopefully have some sprouts in the next day or two. Check my Journal-Matic for today's grow details. It will update daily from now on.



Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!

I got my grow room set up for seedlings today. Just two standard 4' shop light fixtures. These seem to work very well so I have stuck with them. I pulled my starter cups out of closet B and used one of the cups to adjust my lights.



I usually set up the back row a little higher than the front row so I can see them very easily without having to move things around. I set the lights up so that when the seeds break the surface they are a about 3/4 of an inch from the lights. I will keep them at 1 inch or less.



I gave them another watering and placed them under the lights. I also moved the space heater fan into this area since it still gets cold at night, and the shop lights only raise the room temp. by about 7 deg. F. I will be vegging them for 10 days or so before transplanting and moving them outdoors.



So far a few of the plants have broken the surface, most of which are the White Russian. This is fine with me since they are much more expensive than the Purps. I also have many more Purps seeds as back-up. The current germ. breakdown is as follows:

BC Seedking Purps - 1/5 so far
Serious Seeds White Russian - 4/7 so far

Here are some close-ups of some of the ones that have popped:











So far so good. I am confident that I will get a good germ rate. If something does go terribly wrong, I will start some more and keep them indoors longer to help them catch up.

Thanks for stopping by and happy growing.




Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!

Just checked on the plants again. The last two cups that had not sprouted this morning have now done so. A 100% germ rate - Nice way to start the grow...

So I will be officially going into the grow with 5 Purps and 7 White Russian. I watered today, gave them ~10ml each again. I will leave them on 24/7 for now. I will let them all straighten out tonight and will post pics tomorrow.



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Hello again. With the germination phase out of the way we can now get on to the growing. Here are some shots of the new seedlings from this afternoon:










They are all looking fine. I gave them the same amount of water and raised the lights a half-inch today. I am trying to size up my grow space to decide if I want to keep them indoors longer than I had previously decided. 12 starter cups are no problem, but 12 2 gal pots will mean a full house and them some. My floorspace is 2'+ by 4.5' but I have to keep room for the heater and a fan. Either way I don't have to decide right now so I am not going to worry about it.

Shame



Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!

Time for today's report. The sprouts are growing well. I increased their water from 10ml to 12ml per plant. I will also raise the lights another 1/2 inch tonight. That's pretty much all there is to report today. As always you can check my Journal-Matic below for today's grow details.




Please do not post in my journal until it is complete.I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!

During today's water I gave each plant a once over to check for problems and to record the plant height. Right now the Purps are averaging .5 inches tall compared to the White Russian averaging over an inch.They are all working on their second set of leaves.

I am keeping the water amount the same for now - 12ml per plant. I had the grow space closed up most of yesterday which caused average temp. and humidity to spike. I now have the air flowing and it is now back to the mid-high 70's most of the time. I will also be switching them to 18/6 starting tomorrow. I want them to grow their rootballs faster so they fill up the cups in the next 6 days or so, which will make for a quick and painless transplant before I head out of town for the weekend.

In the next week I will be documenting my water prep. + Ph'ing technique, my veg. nute regiment, and transplanting. Be sure to check them out! Here are some pics from today:














Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PM only thanks!

I switched the light schedule from 24/7 to 18/6 today. In addition to increased rooting, it is my personal belief that giving the plants a dark period makes them happier and healthier. Some would agree, others would disagree. Also, I have set up my oscillating fan now that the sprouts have established themselves and are a firmly anchored. This is another area where opinions vary. Some folks have a fan blowing on their sprouts from the time they break the surface. I like to give them a few days to firm up.

I am dead tired, so I will take some pictures tomorrow and we can talk about staggered harvests and medical marijuana plant / product limits.



Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs thanks!

Welcome again!

Before I get to today's update and pics I would like to talk about how I will be staggering my harvests this year to make up for having to keep a male for breeding purposes. My current Medical Marijuana plant and product limits are the statewide baseline of 6 mature plants OR 12 immature plants AND 8 oz. ( 1 half-pound ) of finished product.

Right now I have maxed my immature plant limit. My plan is to keep a total of 5 females and 1 male, which will keep my mature plant limit maxed for the outdoor season.

The other thing you need to understand is the way I grow outdoors. The last couple of years I have force flowered my outdoor plants by keeping them about three feet tall or less and moving them indoors during the flowering stage. I have done this with plants from seed and with clones, which are obviously much more efficient and worthwhile.

The reasons I do this are numerous. By getting my smaller plants flowered and harvested in late July instead of mid-September I avoid the brunt of the things that can plague most outdoor growers; things like:

- Severe bug infestations

- Rain, storms , and cold snaps

- Bud rot and other mold issues

- Waiting 5-6 months from seed to harvest

- Theives (Plants are locked up inside at night - I sleep like a baby all the way to harvest time.)

Now this piece of mind comes at the cost of having to spend about 5 five minutes every day putting them out in the morning and five minutes bringing them in at night for a total of 10 minutes a day during the flowering stage. Personally, I do not mind doing this but I am sure some people must think I am nuts. And obviously if you are growing commercially you probably don't want to bother with doing this.

Now I will be force flowering again, except this time I will sex everything, and then put one of the female Purps plants back on a longer light schedule and do a second transplant into an eight gallon container. I will let it grow and flower out normally. This female will obviously get much bigger and will yield more. My harvest plan is as follows:

4 Females flowered early, harvesting late July - approx. yield: 8 oz.
1 Female flowering naturally, harvesting late September - approx. yield: 4 oz.
1 Male destroyed after collecting pollen

Now, because I will have gone through a good portion of the first harvest by the time the second comes in, I can get 12 ounces instead of 8 ounces from this grow and stay legal at the state level.

I know this is a bit of reading, but I wanted to let you know why I am doing the things I will be documenting in the coming months.

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And now on to today's update:

I increased their water again today because it is HOT. I also raised the lights another half-inch. Everything looks fine, a couple of the seedlings have some deformed leaves but they should grow out of it. As you can see in the first picture, the White Russian on the left are much further ahead than the Purps. The two light fixtures I am using are slightly different, so I switched them today and maybe the Purps will catch up. I had to turn the fan off for a couple of minutes when I shot the pics so the temp spike up to almost 88 F.Here are some pics from earlier:












Here is one of the deformed Purps. It isn't too bad though:






Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!

Quick update for today:

Raised the lights another half-inch. Standard water. Plants are growing strong. More pics coming tomorrow. The weather is back to normal and room temps are great!








Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!

Ok, today I am going to re-Ph my distilled water that has been sitting around for a few days. I have used a Ph Pen in the past, it crapped out and I have gotten used to using a test/correction kit. No calibration solution, and I know that my results are always accurate. I use the same brand of water every grow so I have it down pat. Pretty much every gallon is the same - 3 drops of the GH Ph down and I am at ~6.8 .I am not knocking pens, I will probably buy another one at some point.

I usually store 5 gallons of water in the garage at any given time. If the water is really cold when I bring it in, I usually pour about 1 cup of the water into a glass and microwave it till it is hot. Then I pour it back into the jug and shake it up. This evens out the entire gallon to a nice 68-70F or so.

Here is my test and correction kit. You can buy these sets for about 15-20 dollars at just about every hydro shop. They also sell bottles of the testing fluid ( small bottle ) for about 7 bucks.




Now since my water is at a good temp., I will skip warming it up. Now the first thing you will have to do is add any nutrients or additives to your water and shake or mix very well. I am not adding anything to the water today so I just fill up my vial about half way with the distilled water and add 3 drops of test solution. The color we are looking for here is a very, very light green color - almost a yellow-green.

The initial test is very acidic. Note the reddish tint. I will add Ph up.



I add 3 drops of Ph up and put the cap on and shake the jug for 5 seconds. I always put the caps back on the Ph up and down bottles before I do anything else! I have never spilled a bottle and I do not want to.




I repeat the first two steps and find that my water is now at the right Ph - 6.7 in this case. I allow my Ph to fluctuate by a tenth of a point either way, and I have not had any Ph issues that I can remember. There is a color key chart that comes with the kit that lets you match up the color and determine the Ph. After you use this kit for a week or so you know exactly what color the water should be without having to refer to it.

So here is a better comparison:


Very acidic water before we Ph'ed




And after adjusting to the proper Ph



Now I am ready to wake the plants up and give them some water.

Here is today's group shot:



The White Russian are still in the lead. I am going to pass on watering today. The soil is still moist on the surface on many of the cups and I found 1 gnat walking around on the soil surface in one of the Purps. I am just going to let the soil get bone dry before watering again.

Here are some close-ups:






And the deformed Purps we saw in a previous update:



All things considered, they are going pretty well. I think they are growing a bit slow, possibly from mild overwatering. I'll get things dried out. Thanks for stopping by again, I will be transplanting Thursday so stay tuned!

Shame



Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!

Today I gathered up some pots and washed them out. I Seem to have too many big pots and not enough 2-3 gal. ones. So tomorrow I will be transplanting into 9x 2 gal. and 3x 3gal. . I am going to try and use my psychic powers and pick 3 future females out of the WR to put in the 3 gal. pots. Can't wait to see how that works out...

Here is a nice shot of the different pots I use for stuff. The white ones are my indoor (only)1.6 gal., and the black ones are my 2 gal., 3 gal., and the big 8 gal. which I am going to put one of the Purps into later on. I will start filling them in the morning.



Today's update:

I am skipping the water for a second straight day to let them dry out for tomorrow's transplanting in the morning. Not much else to report. I have a big day ahead of me tomorrow between getting these potted and preparing to go out of town, so I will keep it short and sweet.

Tomorrow we get our hands dirty.

Shame




Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments via PMs only thanks!
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Today is the day. Time to Transplant!

The first thing I need to do is mix up some soil. I decided to use the rest of my light warrior to mix into the Ocean Forest instead of perlite, since It will be a while before I germ again and I hate using old soil for that. I did a 4 to 1 mix, the majority being Ocean Forest.




The I will pour a little perlite into the bottom of each pot. A little will spill out. I will normally cut some screen out and place it in the bottom of the pots, but I ran out and I am on a tight schedule today.



Next I will fill up the pot most of the way and then take an empty cup and
place it in the middle at planting depth. This will create a perfect fitting space for our seedlings.




Next, I pack down the soil around the cup very lightly. I pull the cup out leaving a cup-shaped hole in the middle.




I take a seedling, and place my fingers over the top, supporting the stem between my fingers. I pull the cup off leaving the seedling and its rootball upside down in my hand. This works much better when the starter cups are bone dry.



Then I put my other hand over the bottom and flip it into the hole we made earlier. You can see in this picture that it is a perfect fit and our seedling is very happy. If you are careful you can do this over and over with no problems. But sometimes the rootballs do come apart just as you get them into the hole. I had a few come apart during this transplant. It will be fine. I didn't pack the dirt down too tightly.



Then I just add a little more soil to top of each pot, and water with some Ph'ed distilled with SuperThrive in it to help with the light and transplant shock. One down, 11 more to go.



I did all the WR first, and put 2 toothpicks in each pot to mark them.




I am now done, and all the seedlings are in pretty good shape. I put them in a shady spot to adjust and recover for the next few days while I am out of town. My girlfriend will be watering them over the weekend for me.





I will be backlogging the next few days of my journal when I get home on Tuesday. Hope you are enjoying my journal so far. See you next week!

Shame




Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!
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Well, I am back from my trip. I am just going to give a quick summary for the last few days as there haven't been any dramatic changes.

The weather was pretty cool while I was away, Day time temps. running 69-74 and night time temps running 51-68. Humidity between 42-54% overall. My GF watered only once during this time, on Sunday she gave them 200ml each.

They have been in a very shady spot since I left, so growth has been a little slow. But they should be adjusted to the outdoors and to their new soil now and it's time to move them out into full-sun.

I will take some pictures and put up today's entry a little later today.


Shame


Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!

Ok, I am back with pics. I moved the pots into a sunnier location. They got about 10 hours of direct sunlight today. Some of the plants look a hair yellow, they were probably running out of Nitrogen around the time I transplanted. They now have new soil with plenty of nutrients. I will still do the first feeding of the season in the next week or so with a very light dose of Growbig.

They haven't been watered since Sunday, and I held off today as the soil is still moist due to cool temps. They survived my 4 day vacation. I am happy. Here are pics from today:



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Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!

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Another sunny but cool day. The plants are loving the sun and most seem to have recovered from the transplant. A couple ( that were the messy transplants where the rootballs fell apart ) are still noticeably smaller than the rest.

The pots are taking forever to dry out, they haven't been watered since Sunday and most are still wet just below the surface. I did not water again today.

That's it for today.

Shame




Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!
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Damn pots were still moist one inch below the surface when I checked today. It has been 5 days since they were watered. I think they may actually need some tomorrow if it continues to warm up.

Here are a couple of shots from today. This is one of the WR. Note the "wavy leaf" syndrom on the lowest set of leaves:








Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!

MY internet was going in and out last night so I wasn't able to post yesterday's update. This entry is for 4/25.

It is starting to get warm now. Today it was in the mid-eighties, The entire weekend it will be in the 90's. The pots still held quite a bit of moisture so I did not water for the 6th day in a row. There is some slight cupping of the leaves on some of the plants. If they are dry enough, I may give the first light dose of Growbig to get some micro nutes into the pots.

Pics coming later with my 4/26 entry.

Shame



Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!

It was very warm today, in the mid-nineties. Hotter tomorrow. The pots have finally dried out almost a full week after their last water. Tomorrow I will be watering and feeding for the first time.


They should be taking off here very soon. If the weather stays warm I could be topping and training the Purps in 3 weeks and sexing the grow in 4 or 5 weeks.













And that's today's entry.

Shame



Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!