Let's try this again. For many reasons, I never make it to the end of the grow with the journal. I always finish the grows, but not the journal.
A few months ago, my mother-in-law moved in with us. Contrary to the sitcom narrative, this was a welcome development. She's a very nice woman who helps around the house and her presence really improves my wife's (and my own) mental health. She's suffering from serious arthritis--she's going to have hip-replacement surgery in about a month. As a licensed caregiver, I'm making it a point to help her with the pain. When she got here I had some heavy, stoney buds that really helped. After a few gummies, she was able to walk up and down the stairs with no pain for the first time in many months. The problem is that they leaver her zonked out. This grow is dedicated to producing medicine that relieves her pain and hopefully producing an uplifting effect at the same time.
Lavender Jack: (vintage Jack Herrer x Wookie 15): Wookie 15 is (Big Buddy’s Lavender x Appalachia) the lavender and grapefruit pheno. The breeder is Bodhi, acquired via Speakeasy.
I have high hopes (no pun intended) for these plants. I started 4, 3 germinated and are growing well. My clone game has been off lately, but I'll try to clone all 3. If these do well I'll run the rest of the pack in hopes of finding a breeding specimen.
These plants are already looking interesting. The extreme serrations are unexpected. I'm thinking that they come from the Appalachia side of the wookie in the cross, but I'll have to wait from them to grow out some more before I can better assess what I'm seeing.
I may move some Royal Blackberry Limetta into the grow challenge as well, but I'm still waiting to see how those develop.
The setup:
4x4 veg with a Mars Hydro ts3000--SIP style setup for watering--organic (defined as no synthetic inputs) nutrients--modified soil medium (base soil is Organic Mechanics, amended and reused, depending on which storage container I grab the soil from during up potting, the soil is 2 - 4 years old and has been in more-or-less continuous use).
5x5 flower--HLG 550 V2 Eco--depending on the size of the plants and the space available in my flower tent I'll use a 7 or a 10 gallon Rain Science grow bag.
My biggest recurring challenge is spider mites. I took in a "clean" clone of Dr. Grinspoon (one of my all-time favorites, I couldn't refuse) in from a friend about 2 years ago and have been battling the little fucks ever since. I've introduced multiple rounds of persimilis, californicus, and another predator mite that I can't remember, as well as beneficial nematodes. The predators knock the population back to non-detectable levels, but a month or two later, they always come back. I run a perpetual grow, usually harvesting a plant about every 2 weeks, so I always have bud well into flower, which limits my options. Any advice on how to wipe out the bad guys completely would be appreciated.
Lavender Jack #3 looking a little stressed out, but doing ok. Topped once and up-potted so far. I'm hoping to see this plant bounce back and start to take off soon. The mites seem to be knocked back below a detectable level and after a couple prolonged power outages in the past week, my fingers are crossed that the worst of the stresses are behind this plant.
Lavender Jack #2 is looking great. So good, in fact, that I moved it (early) into flower to fill a space where I pulled out an under-performing plant.
LJ #4 is struggling a bit more. I'm still trying to diagnose the problem there.
In the past week my Lavender Jacks decided they were happy and things are looking good at the moment. The humidity dropped pretty low, mid 50s% range, so I gave the plants a plain-water mist a couple times per day. It looks like that was have been much appreciated by the plants. It could be something else, but I'm sticking with the easiest explanation until I have evidence of something else. Now it's a matter of keeping this train on the tracks.
Lavender Jack 3, the main plant I'm working for the challenge. I'm debating when to start spreading it out. At the moment, my plan is to let the branches get a few inches longer to make room for plenty of bud sites.
This is Lavender Jack 2, the one that I moved early because of an opening in the flowering space. It's looking happy and just getting into the stretch. Because I flowered this early I'm not expecting a big yield, but it's going to be fire.
I prune a few leaves every morning for my smoothie and even #3 which is still in veg, already has a strong, sweet-lemon flavor. I'm not picking up any lavender, but that's going to be a lighter flavor even at peak, so I'm still expecting to find it.
LJ 3 is looking good. The past 7-10 days have been productive ones in the veg tent. The only change I've made in caring for the plants has been misting them with plain tap (yeah, yeah, I know all the reasons that's a no-no, but it works for me) water several times throughout the day on an irregular basis. The weather (outdoors) flipped dramatically to cooler temperatures today, so that hasn't had an impact on the plants in the basement yet, but probably will in a couple days. Whether it's the misting, maturation of some microbes that are making nutrients bio-available, or an indication that I've once again knocked the mites and thrips back below an economic threshold, the result is the same. Plants are looking healthy and vigorous at the moment. Feeling good about the grow, hoping that I'm not jinxing myself. Things can go south in a hurry.
As ready as I'm going to get! Lavender Jack #4 could use another week, but here we go. Flip tomorrow. The color on this one is interesting. I popped 3 beans for my this go (my first test run) with this cultivar and 2 of the 3 (the one I flipped early and this one) are showing this vibrant, light green. I was concerned that it needs more nitrogen, or something else, but it's been a strong plant and this may be its natural expression. The third of the 3 is sporting a more standard, dark green. You can see the edge of that LJ in the top right corner. That difference had me concerned, but if I do anything more to try to correct it, I'm going to cause other problems. The darker green pheno is also expressing a fatter leaf, which may indicate that the color difference is genetic. So--ride or die. Let's see what happens.
Bad news/good news
LJ 3--the plant I intended to follow through the challenge had been indicating it's a male for a few days, but I had to wait until the evidence was unmistakable. It now is.
The bad news is that it's a male, so no flower coming from this one.
The good news is better than the bad news is bad. LJ 3 is showing some resin, good vigor, and has an amazing smell. So this guy's going to become a pollen donor. LJ 2 is already flowering and looking good and I flipped LJ 4 into flower on 10/5, so I'll follow that one through the challenge.
For lovers of the long-flowering varieties: I have a breeding project that's getting close to yielding what I expect to be some fantastic smoke. This plant is at 110 days in flower and I'm guessing it has around 4 weeks left. It better be some otherworldly smoke. The genetics are (Thai x Pakistani) x (Romulan x Grape God). I'm hoping to get the effect from the Thai x Paki and the flavor from the Rom x GG. The structure looks like the mother with the trichome coverage more like the father. Some of the buds look like they may mature into the fatter and more dense type from the father. If this gets close to what I'm hoping for, I'll be looking to shorten the flower time a bit more and see where that gets me.
We're still rocking and rolling with Lavender Jack. Here's my back up plant. She went into flower about a week into October, so she's just getting going, but she looks great!
Here's some bud porn from the Lavender Jack I flipped early. This plant weathered some serious stress in the grow, so the fact that she looks this good has me excited for the rest of the line.
For those of who who were checking out my long-flowering creation, here it is at 17 weeks into flower. It should be ready to pull in a couple weeks. I'm expecting some otherworldly effects from this one.
She's looking good. I think I'm going to hit a few of the bottom buds with some pollen from an extremely smelly O' Lucky Day from the Heart and Soil Project. O' Lucky Day is his Taste the Rainbow F2 and has the best zkittles terps I've ever smelled, a very nice happy high, but has the crappy growth structure common to zkittlez. He put a zkittlez and his Peruvian punch together to create the F1 of Taste the Rainbow. This will be my first cross with either of these plants, so I can't be sure how they'll pass along their traits, but they seem like a great match. I hope to see the the Lavender Jack improve the structure and yield of the O'LD with the O'LD adding some of the unreal, brightness to the already big terps of the LJ. Could be next level.
Plants are looking really good right now. Not much to update other than all is going pretty well. Here's my LJ for the grow off:
Here's her sister almost ready for harvest:
Here's my long-flowering breeding project at 19 weeks, pretty close to harvest time:
She's looking great! The fade may be coming in a little early, but this is one of the fastest plants in my library. If it matures on the same schedule as its sisters, it should be ready for harvest in about 2 weeks. I don't have many plants in the library that finish under 10 weeks, most of what I work with tends to go about 12. Picture is from a couple days ago.
Just a little more bud love for everyone following. This is turning out to be a beautiful plant. I can't wait to see if the end product matches the grow. This one is maturing quickly and looks like it's on pace for a true 8 week finish, possibly even a little under.
This is such a beautiful plant, I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to chop it. Only about a week to go and it'll be decision day.
