Stars Align 2020

Lithium

Lithium

Lithium•Iron•Boron
Wasn't sure I'd be able to get a grow going this year due to children and pandemic and other circumstances. Looks like it might be possible, after all. Baby #2 with my current wife is on the way so this grow will be a priority. :D

Started some seeds, 3x Violet Cookies from the homie NocturnalG. I'm looking for 1-2 females for this run. Will throw them under 12/12 as soon as all the other clones are ready to flip. This seed pop was five years in the making. ;)
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Here's a couple clones.

A little over a year ago, I adopted a new regimen and got rockwool cloning down pat. Modified Kyle Kushman recipe. He uses expensive additives that I don't but just about everything else is the same.

I fill a 5gallon bucket with 2-3 gallons of tap water and 2 tablespoons clonex solution (a mild nutrient) per gallon. pH this out to 4.5. Soak rockwool cubes for a couple hours. Give them a good shake when you take them out to remove excess water. Then I use dip n grow rooting hormone. Low concentration--I probably use a 7.5ml for 50ish clones. Dip for 10-15 seconds and insert next to premade hole for better contact. Overnight the rockwool will raise 1 ph to 5.5--perfect for our application.
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After 48 hours or so, the stem should thicken considerably and be almost impossible to pull from the rockwool without destroying the cube. From here 5-10 days until roots, with clones taken from stronger meristems rooting quicker. I get 100% success with no discoloration or delayed growth, they really take off when I put them into coco. I have more cuts to cube up, but I need to calibrate my meter and the 4.0ph calibration fluid isn't getting here until Sunday (6/7/20)
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Glad you got it going.

Just wondering if you introduce this lady to people as 'your current wife', and if you have bruises to prove it, harrrrrrr.
 
nannymouse said:
Glad you got it going.

Just wondering if you introduce this lady to people as 'your current wife', and if you have bruises to prove it, harrrrrrr.
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Yikes. :22_yikes:


So...that came out wrong. My second kid with my current relationship, I have another child (an adult now) from a previous...collision, let's say.

I've only been married once and I did a poor job articulating a situation that was more complex than I had divulged.
 
I just had to laugh, i could describe my family in about the same way. Actually, i contained myself above, as there were many more questions that i could have delved into. Every family and every relationship is unique, no judgmentals. The phrasing just struck me funny. Sorta hijacked the thread. If you want, we can delete stuff! I've been in a doinky mood, allergies, allergy meds, the world...you know.
 
Thanks, folks...Nanny--no need to delete anything. I'm a family man now. Currently teaching my daughter how to grow!! Very exciting.


Got just about everything in hand now. 3-4 strains still in the wind, might wait until the following round to grab them, though.


NocturnalG's Violet cookies are looking good, growing fast.

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I got the rest of my cuts in cubes yesterday, let them plump back up overnight in the dome before pics today. All the yellow ones came from one dude, the green ones they bookend all came from another. Different "styles" of husbandry, I suppose. Hoping to get 1 from each of the yellow plants to root. They're depressed.

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Should be a good show. Glad all the seeds popped and came up. I hope there are 2 or more females for you. I am excited to see how they turn out.
 
Thanks Noc n mtnJohn.

Everything is still up in the air as we're positive they'll spring an inspection on us at any moment. They're kinda assholes, they do none of the repairs they're supposed to but make absolute certain we haven't done anything they can charge us for. To an extreme degree...but I won't get into that.


These are the first few clones I took. Initial emergence of root tips at 8 days, more at 9, and then this growth at 10.
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Here you can see where the stem growth completely ripped open the rockwool
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Kinda wish I had more to show you, but I started this journal pretty much from day 1. I normally use journals to figure out how long i've been flowering because I don't write anything down. I've had the worst stewardship of my garden since i moved to this house years ago. Lost so many strains, got (and passed!) so many pests/maladies, and limited so many harvests just from being lazy. Looking to replicate my very last run, which was perfect, and keep up doing it the right way.
 
Witchking said:
Lithium-

Just curious, I notice you leave the sleeves on the RW cubes, do you ever a problem with mold growing on them? I always cut the sleeves off because mine always get mold on them. Just wondering how you are avoiding that?
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Yes, the paper molds. Like clockwork. It's a design flaw grodan really hasn't worked out yet. It's beyond me why they still come like this, honestly. Something as sensitive and prone to contamination as the cloning process should have a more sanitary medium.

It only gets bad, for me, when I handle the cubes too much (like, for taking pics!) or the cuts take over 2 weeks to root--which hasn't happened in a long while.

The only benefit is I can label the cubes themselves. Taking 50 clones when you're only going to keep 12 can really waste small label stakes.

And I use them for seeds for that same reason, but they don't mold at all, I think because I use only water with no nutrients for seedlings.
 
Huh. There are as many methods of cloning as there are growers! Whatever works!

I use Oasis cubes. Can't label 'em, so I just draw a map of the clone tray, showing what's what. It helps that I can usually tell them apart by their forms. But with ten+ cultivars in the grow, that gets more difficult.
 
180 said:
Huh. There are as many methods of cloning as there are growers! Whatever works!

I use Oasis cubes. Can't label 'em, so I just draw a map of the clone tray, showing what's what. It helps that I can usually tell them apart by their forms. But with ten+ cultivars in the grow, that gets more difficult.
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I tried oasis cubes but they dry out much quicker in my setup than rockwool. I'm going to ditch the enclosed rw as soon as these are gone and go with unwrapped versions.

crotch sniffer said:
Congrats on getting going again. What's up with this Violet Cookies cultivar ? Sounds delicious.
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It's a gorgeous cross done by Nocturnal G. His thread is here--->https://www.thecannacabana.com/forums/showthread.php?35420-Tent-Time...I have 3 strains from him, hoping for a real grapey, purple example from them. I posted in the wish list thread for 6 years looking for a grape strain and never got one. I did get maybe the worst strain I've ever grown with "grape" in the name, though. ;)

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Jeez, this tray looks like shit. I was keeping my moms in here and they all fell over eventually and got coco everywhere. I'd get so exhausted watching my son and catching up with my daughter that I'd forget this room for several days at a time.

Got all the babies transplanted, the seeds might have been a tad early but the coco was fluffed and flushed with boiling hot water so it's quite sterile and they'll take off as soon as the roots establish even a little bit.

Got a round of super tasty cuts here. I got some yielders, heavy hitters and bag appealers, but other than that I erred on the side of flavor.


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Ok, so after a hectic month involving a mini vacation, several birthdays and family events, I'm just about ready to flip.

Have a nice selection and a few others waiting.

Pictured: Mac 1, Kush Mints, 2 phenos of NocturnalG's Violet Cookies (one is a female for sure), Now n Later, WiFi 3, WiFi mints, GMO, Loompa's Headband, GG4, got my Lemon Tree back, SFV OG kush, an unnamed strain that tastes like Dr Pepper, Zkittlez, and a nice Ghost Train Haze bred by he-who-must-not-be-named.

Also have a cut of Runtz and a Thugpug cut of one of his "breath" strains, but I'm waiting on a friend to finish both of these, not only for the ornamental nature of IG hyped strains, but also because I've never really enjoyed any product from the Breath lines, they're too woody and seem to lack potency from all the phenos I've tried.


These should be flipped in a bout a week.


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Lookin good so far. Thats a hell of a selection of strains to start things off. Looking forward to seeing how the Kush Mints, WiFi Mints, violet cookies and LHB turn out.
 
Sounds like lots of good varieties in there. I hope they turn out like your last run and you find some keepers. I have gotten some good hash from the Zkittles and it's crosses at the shops around here. I am not sure if I have smoked buds of it or know what is in it. That strain that tastes like dr. pepper sounds interesting. Took me years to figure out it has more pepper mint to the taste than actually peppers. 23 flavors though, with no relation to MJ's number.
 
guerilla1277 said:
Lookin good so far. Thats a hell of a selection of strains to start things off. Looking forward to seeing how the Kush Mints, WiFi Mints, violet cookies and LHB turn out.
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The LHB won't be run this round, I think. I'm just trying to get her strong enough to take a substantial apical clone, from the top, to lock in those epigenetics. I just can't get around to flowering her out...I got this cut forever ago and I still haven't flipped the lights on her. It's like those dreams where you never finish whatever you were trying so hard to do...



NocturnalG said:
Sounds like lots of good varieties in there. I hope they turn out like your last run and you find some keepers. I have gotten some good hash from the Zkittles and it's crosses at the shops around here. I am not sure if I have smoked buds of it or know what is in it. That strain that tastes like dr. pepper sounds interesting. Took me years to figure out it has more pepper mint to the taste than actually peppers. 23 flavors though, with no relation to MJ's number.
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I don't think most of these are particularly strong. I have to compete with names nowadays, not quality, so the rat race has taken a different direction. Plus, just about every strain "tests in the 30s" (?!) so there's a lot of documentation that says everything is much stronger than it really is.

The zkittlez looked dudded but the stems are super strong and she has a strong root mass and vigor so I guess she's just ugly--which is on par with what I've heard. I'll get her to you if she's worthwhile. : )

The mac is just a lost cause. Seems very recessive. The ghost train haze is super vigorous and she produces very fat buds, I love moderate sativas (like the golden pineapple I sent to like 50 islanders, lol) so this is my jam. I might even cross her to another sat I like for personal smoke--then I can call her something different and people won't know I'm growing RD strains, lol.

Now N Later is comprised of two tasty but otherwise unspectacular plants. Kush mints has a good name in the community, so that should be ok. Growth is not apical dom per se, but the side branches aren't close to matching the main tip.

When I have this many strains, I generally veg them all out at once, and the big vigorous ones get 5 gallon pots and the slower ones get 3. The Violet Cookies are in 3 gallons pot because they were from seed and a little behind, time wise, but are very vigorous. Oddly the one SURE female, despite being nearly a foot tall, had almost no root mass. Like 2-3 tap roots and some fish bones. I've never seen a plant grow so well from such an insubstantial root mass. She wasn't standing well on her own due to lack of 'anchor' so I had to bury her a little in the coco.


edit: Oh shit! Biggest news yet. My new OXO garlic press is coming tomorrow, free on warranty as my last one cracked right in half after 6 years of nearly daily use. I've been hand mincing for the past two weeks. HAND MINCING. So yeah...just thought I'd share that.
 
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Lol, I hate garlic presses, prefer mincing, but my wife has no patience with it and uses the press.

The pheno of Ghost Train that the local dispensary has is waaay too speedy for moi. I wanna do jumping jacks when I smoke dat.
 
180 said:
Lol, I hate garlic presses, prefer mincing, but my wife has no patience with it and uses the press.

The pheno of Ghost Train that the local dispensary has is waaay too speedy for moi. I wanna do jumping jacks when I smoke dat.
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The press saves time!! I peel a few heads of garlic at once by shaking them in two metal bowls squeezed together, then pop a few in the press for a recipe.

With a lil kid running around (and another on the way), every second counts!!



Hmm...I wonder how this cut will come out. The pics the guy sent me had lanky plants with baseball sized buds all over it.
 
On second thought, it might have been Facewreck (another TW cross) that made me hyper... can't remember.
 
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