Summary:
This journal will cover a stress-test of an as-yet unreleased varietal from Copa Genetics. I also intend to self the most vigorous female plant.
Plan:
I’m going to germinate 12 seeds of MB using my sterile paper-towel method, and then grow the seedlings inside a sterile high dome humidity tray. Initially the seeds will go into root plugs.
From first true leaves on I’ll be fertigating with Jack’s 321 & Hydroguard. Initial EC will be 400 (combined), but I will increase by 100 microsiemens per week until I reach 1000, and at that point I’ll step up 200 microsiemens per week until I’m satisfied that I’m overdoing it. From there I’ll back off.
I plan to stress the plants in multiple ways; small containers, high EC, lots of light, 20 deg (f) temperature differentials, no Si or fulvic, and high stress training (topping). I will not introduce light leaks, nor will I give them excessively high temperatures. Fertigations will be frequent and thorough to ensure the EC numbers are reliable.
I’ll be culling all males/stragglers as they present themselves.
Grow Space:
For vegetative growth my 36”x36” vegetative tent will do. I have an HLG 100 V2 4k, but I’m thinking about putting in something more powerful.
The flowering tent is lit by an HLG 600R. I have a 27 gallon tote for a reservoir, and a self-draining tray setup that currently works with 3 pots but could be adapted to a cover many small containers. I’ve got various watering halos and drip heads. I am probably going to use Pro-Cal #300 containers.
Goal:
Copa hasn’t asked me to baby these plants, and I won’t be doing him any favors if I don’t push these plants in some reasonable ways (light leaks being an example of an unreasonable stressor IMO). But I would not be growing this if I didn’t want to see it succeed. To that end I’m going to self the most vigorous mom so I can play around with growing this again regardless of how this test turns out.
Let’s Goooooooooo!
Updated 6/12/2022
Things went pretty well with the testers until the transition to 12/12, because at that point I started to notice indeterminable and clearly intersex flowers. After consulting with the breeder, I cut down all the testers.
I pretty quickly placed two Icy Grape F3 plants into the tent. I let them adjust to the light and elevated EC for a brief period before transitioning them to 12/12. In hindsight I wish I performed much more training. Both plants would eventually have branches falling over. I would also come to regret not pruning away enough flower sites. One of the two plants produced a couple male flowers, and even though pollen was released I didn’t find any seeds.
I placed 12 seeds into a shot glass with a dash of hydrogen peroxide and let that sit for 10 minutes. Then I diluted it with filtered water. The glass is sitting in a warm cupboard until morning when I’ll transfer the seeds to paper towel in a ziplock bag.
10/12 seeds have exposed radicles. The 5 earliest seeds are rooting well, and I planted the additional 5 seeds at a shallower depth in the rooters.
I always slit the rooters lengthwise with a razor blade to make planting/inspection easy.
I hope to see sprouts soon.
10/12 are standing up, and the remaining two are just about to break through. By the end of the week I’m going to start automated fertigation.
I built a 16-port manifold for the seedlings. I might add another 8-port head; already have the parts on hand.
Plants 1-6 & 8 are showing true leaves. I mixed up the first batch of solution (~10gal tap @ 300 microsiemens plus 3g/2g/1g Jack’s, 10ml pH down, 500 microsiemens 6.0 pH) and hand watered those particular plants. I gave the other plants plain water.Â
I modified the manifold to add 8 ports for 24 total. Cleaned out the reservoir tank with bleach and brush before a couple good rinses. Lastly I put the new 400gph pump in place.
Hopefully by tomorrow every seedlings shows serrated leaves. I’m starting to open up the vents. Ambient relative humidity in the larger tent is 37%, so I can’t exactly let the tender plants fend for themselves.
I transplanted all 12 plugs to coco/perlite-filled solo cups. I watered them in with the previously described solution. I also loosely capped them with a clear cup.
I plumbed the veg tent tray to drain to the bucket in the flowering tent; I’m pretty concerned it won’t work (line climbs), and I might need to punch a custom hole in the tent side. I also need to lift the cups out of the tray, and I didn’t make time to solve that, though I have a fix planned. Family first.
To be honest, I may have REALLY screwed over these tender plants, because they’re sitting in the drain tray in standing runoff and the tray had older runoff precipitate all over it. Ugh, I just need to fix it tonight before it kills these plants.
Knocked out lifting the cups and the drain issue. The cups are all getting wet, so I can iron out the balance issues when I have time and resources (valves).
All the MBF1 seedlings are in fully saturated medium, so that’s working out. I’m a tiny bit concerned about MBF1_04, but the other plants look okay. I really should make domes fit tighter. I placed half the seedlings under a loose humidity dome, so we’ll see.
HLG 100V2 4k was at 40” and now at 34”
None of the plants are thriving in the low-humidity environment. I might need to revert back to hand watering under a dome for a bit.
Today I mixed a new batch of solution (~10gal tap @ 300 microsiemens plus 6g/4g/2g Jack’s, 10ml pH down, 600 microsiemens 5.8 pH). It’s really cold and dry here right now, so that’s a struggle. Working on it.
The light is hanging at 28”
