Thanks!
I used an iPhone SE2 and the camera app Obscura which has a great focus control. The hardest part was seeing the screen clearly in the sunlight so I could see the in-focus visualization.
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DGR: Gender prediction looking at pre-flowers at apical prune, June 15
Looks like I have two female and three male DGR plants and one of each of both the females and males are expressing the red-stem traits.
I performed a structural prune at the apical tip of all five of the DGR plants about 15 days ago when these plants moved outside. I started germination on the plants about 8 weeks ago.
I wasn’t expecting to see pre-flowers at this pruned spot since this node is right near the top – but I suspect that as the plants have now made two apical tip branches that are growing separately above the pruned spot the plant considers this node older than it appears to be considering how physically close to the top it is.
Here’s a series of pictures of the pre-flowers at this prune spot. Several also have a second picture one node below the pruned spot.
DGR-1
Male (probably), red-stemmed
One node down.
DGR-2
Female
One node down.
DGR-3
Male, partially red-stemmed
DGR-4
Male (probably), partially red-stemmed
One node down.
DGR-5
Female, red-stemmed
One node down. Love the way the sunlight highlights this red stem.
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Those are some fantastic photos and beautiful red stems!
I’ve never noticed flowers at the topped node before. Maybe I just never really looked.
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I’ve never really looked before either and was surprised to see the pre-flowers. At this stage I usually just look for them between 2-3 nodes down from the top.
Because we sometimes get big thunderstorms with gusty strong winds I normally do structural pruning relatively early to encourage the girls to get bushier rather than tall. Another issue with plants over 6.5 feet tall is they are harder to temporarily move under the front porch roof where they are more protected.
I have five of my mixed gender DGR plants growing outside. Three are in 30 gallon bags and two more are in 1-gallon growers pots. I’m definitely going to end up removing the males in the 30-gallon bags and moving DGRs females from the smaller pots into 30-gallon bags.
Am thinking about my propagation patterns for mixed gender plants in the future and I’d like to avoid moving them into the 30-gallon bags until I’m sure they are female. This is what I came up with.
- One week before I put them outside I do a tiny structural prune at the apical tip. They are typically about 12" tall at this point and are quickly outgrowing seedling heaven.
- When moving mixed-gender seedlings outside transplant them into into 2-gallon plastic growers pots.
- Am now expecting gender-identifiable pre-flowers to be visible under magnification two weeks after moving outside at both the pruned aypical tip and one node down.
- Transplant females into 30-gallon bags and save best looking males for propagation.
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My predictions turned out correct!
There were two females and here’s what they look like at the end of August.
DGR2
Stems are mostly red, some candy-striping, and some green. The form is a gentle bushy plant with many thin smaller leaves.
Flowers are small and will probably need at least another month.
DGR5
DGR5 has very deep red stems. It was damaged in a surprise thunderstorm when I didn’t roll it under the porch quick enough and now has splints, duct tape, a ad hoc tensegrity rope support structure and I also repurposed some old golf clubs. Part of the result is that it’s become wider than it would naturally.
The DGR5 flowers are smaller and even less mature than the DGR2
Here are the 3 male plants in order of when they made their sex completely clear.
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DGR3: male, middle of July
Very robust and fast growing. It started to become completely obvious it was a male very early. It has a bunch of red and green candy-striping.
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DGR1: male, end of July
Had dark red stems and a form similar to DGR2 but taller.
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DGR4: male early August
Large and wide with a beautiful form. Lots of red and green candy-striping and some red stems.
Cloning for strain development.
I was able to make clones of the DGR1 and DGR3 males and the DGR2 and DGR5 females.
Planning to make all four crosses.
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Most of the summer has been incredibly wet. All of the auto-flowers got Botrytis badly in late June and had to be removed.
Two other plants (Pai Gow FAST and Black Jack FAST) had buds maturing and thick by the middle of August and Botrytis has been a problem there too. I have managed to keep it under control but it has taken daily detailed inspection. I topped both of them yesterday and we’ve started trimming. These buds have about 5% amber tricomes. Will leave the lower sections for a while and see if I can manage the Botrytis effectively for another week or two so we have somewhat more mature buds to trim.
First impression of Pai Gow from spouse who smokes a great deal to manage chronic pain.:
Pai Gow first impression. Terpines! Even uncured it’s a new flavor. Nice!! Cheerful feel.
Pai Gow FAST topped August 28
The Pai Gow buds are impressively thick and sticky – which is both wonderful and a great micro-climate for Botrytis!
Black Jack FAST topped August 28
Before topping the branches formed a clear V-shape – am guessing some of the Jack Herer genetics contributed to this.
These buds are also large and sticky. There are more and larger sugar leaves pointing upright compared to the Pai Gow.
Another comment from spouse who smokes a bunch to manage chronic pain.
Black Jack: first impression. Wow, that’s strong, I like it.
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I really do love the early harvest of the fast varieties.
Sorry to hear budrot has been an issue. I had to chop my SAD Fast a little earlier than planned last year due to the same combination of issues (wet summer, dense buds early).
Everything looking good, especially those DGRs. That DGR5 especially with the contrast of dark stalks/stems and vibrant green foliage.
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It’s easier to find Botrytis when the weather is nice!
Having topped the Pai Gow FAST 4 days ago and with the great weather I’ve been able to catch Botrytis much earlier.
Here’s part of a bud with Botrytis I was able to remove before it had spread further.
The trimmed bud!
I was able to notice and remove this bud from a Bruce Banger FAST plant that probably still needs at least another 3 weeks for the buds to approach maturity. There wasn’t any visible damage to sugar leaves yet which is what I catch with quicker scanning.
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Some fun photos of the developing flowers and buds on the two DGR girls (Droopy Getato Red-stem) on Sep 5.
DGR2
While many of the stems are red the leaves are all skinny and green and the flower has no red or purple coloring in the pistils.
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Top
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Side
DGR5
The stems are a bit darker red. The leaves around the flower bud have reddish-purple frills near the bases and the flower includes some reddish-purple pistils in the mix.
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Top
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Side
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DGR Clones for Making Seeds
Some healthy looking female clones of the DGR5 (left) and DGR2 (right) girls.
They have been up in seedling heaven with a flowering DGR3 male clone. I brought them out to use a harder water spray to dislodge little white rounded egg-shaped creatures gathered together in spots on the stems (maybe scale).
I rubbed the white bits off the DGR3 male clone in seedling heaven with my fingers and then sprayed the stems with an insecticidal soap. He can’t come outside for a harder spraying.
What is this bug?
I was able to get a nice closeup photo of the little white egg shaped things – and they have legs – I thought they were in different places when I looked, legs would help with that!
Maybe whitefly nymphs or Aphids? There don’t appear to be any on the underside of the leaves – where I’ve often seen aphids before. They hang out on the main and leaf stems. Ahhh now I see some under the leaves. Pretty sure they are aphids.
I also have female clones gathered around some DGR1 male clones outside as far downwind as I could put them.
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The crown on the Bruce Banger FAST is really quite wide for a 30 gallon fabric pot. I think these buds might be ready to harvest at the end of September. It’s been about 20 weeks since germination. FYI: that’s the DGR5 female in the back to the right.
Have been picking off more and more yellow leaves from the girls as the plants extract energy for the flowers. On the Bruce Banger FAST girl occasionally there are more orange leaves that I pick off. Not sure what makes the difference in color. They only appear near the top buds. It’s not an indicator of Botrytis.
Here’s a shot of the DGR5 female. It does have a tendency to spread out but this girl is particularly wide because of all the supports I added after a storm injury (including reusing old golf clubs). I don’t expect these flowers to get close to maturity until the middle of October. Will probably need to roll her under the front porch when the hurricanes come through.
Those are more DGR2 and DGR5 female clones in small brown fabric bags on the left.
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Sifting Pollen
About a week ago I collected flowering branches from the three male DGR3 clones and put the flowers in a large flat ceramic baking pan someplace safe to dry.
I cut a disc the same size as a small mason jar lid out of some 200x200 threads per inch stainless steel mesh and taped two mason jar rings together with electrical tape.
In the picture below the dried flowers are in the top mason jar and the sifted pollen is in the even smaller mason at the bottom. Am sure some pollen is still mixed in with the flowers but this worked great for collecting just the pollen in the smaller jar.
I put the sifted jar of pollen in the freezer. NOTE: I first put it in the freezer without the top. After 20m I put the top on. Wanted to start the cold storage with less moisture in the little mason jar.
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I dig your sifter! Also beautiful plants take it you got your aphids under control.
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Am working on the aphids. Right now I’m reluctant to use the hard water spray to dislodge them because they are actively being pollinated. Since these plants are only for seeds I’ll use some neem mixed with a bit of liquid soap.
Spring Peeper/Little Tree Frog Visit
Look who was hanging out on a DGR5 leaf yesterday morning – a spring peeper which I learned is also a little tree frog.
Beautiful golden eyes!
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It’s September 24 and everything is already cut and trimmed except for the two DGR girls. I would have let some of the other girls we’ve already trimmed go longer but with all the wet weather Botrytis has been a problem.
DGR2
DGR2 is the only girl not on the deck (deck girls sit on rolling platforms so they can hide under front porch with roof when weather gets scary) – which means she’s weathered the full force of some pretty strong thunderstorms this summer with minimal bracing. I’m quite impressed at how both bendy and strong the branches are. I’ve seen gusts repeatedly bend these branches over almost 60 degrees in a storm and none of the branches have broken.
The bendy-strength of DGR2 contrasts with one of the SSG’s (Super Serious x Gelato) I named Tall Girl. Tall Girl was 8 feet tall in the beginning of August when a sudden gust front broke the central stem right off at about four feet. Looking closer at the broken top half of the main stem I could see it was hollow in the center. It was also quite stiff. I’ve seen this kind of stiffness on many of the commercial strains I’ve grown. The DGR stems in general are skinnier, solid, strong and bendy. I have about 20 seeds from trimming Tall Girl. The pollination must have come from some of the DGR3 male clones before I took better precautions. Now I’m curious what a Tall Girl cross with DGR3 might be like.
SSG: Tall Girl (short segue from earlier in August)
NOTE: earlier in this journal Tall Girl was identified as SSG-1. She went outside on June 1 and was 18" tall at which point I pruned the apical tip to make two leaders. By June 12 Tall Girl was 33" tall!
It was hard on the crowded deck to move plants around and for me to back up far enough to actually get a picture of how big Tall Girl was. Here’s a photo from August 1 when Tall Girl was 8 feet tal!
And a couple of pictures from August 29. Even a severely truncated Tall Girl is still a large plant.
Tall Girls flowers were lovely!
Back to today and DGR2
The DGR2 branches, fan leaf stems, and smaller fan leaf stems sprouting out of the buds are red stemmed.
I’ve recently been finding small amounts of Botrytis on DGR2 – I think there’s some in the picture above near the center of the cola on the right side (near the curved leaf stem). I’ve also been surprised at how slowly the Botrytis has spread on DGR2.
Here are some DGR2 branches I cut today that had some buds with Botrtis I was able to cut away and save. I only threw out about 4-5 smaller branches where the buds were small and the Botrytis was too extensive to save the branch. These have gone through the first outside trimming and Botrytis check. We use the magnifying glasses and bright lights inside for closer Botrytis inspection and trimming.
The DGR2 buds are small (might be part of why Botrytis spreads more slowly) and they have a lovely sweet floral spell.
DGR5
DGR5 has not had any Botrytis and it’s buds still have a ways to go to reach maturity. It has a particularly wide form – part of the reason: a very fast moving summer storm split the two center apical growth leads which I repaired with duct tape, tensegrity-style rope bracing and old golf clubs for support.
Many of the DGR5 colas have dark purple, almost black flowers which is both quite striking and makes inspecting for Botrytis harder. Will be interesting to see what they look like when the trichomes get frosty.
The edges of the DGR5 leaves close to the buds have large spiky and somewhat curled pointy bits. I haven’t seen this on other plants. So far the DGR5 flowers don’t have a strong scent.
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I have four female clones each of the DGR2 and DGR5. I also grew three clones of the male DGR1 and DGR3 plants.
Phenotype variation I noticed among the originals.
DGR Females
DGR2f: mostly red-stemmed; grew into a gently bushy medium-sized girl, smaller flower buds mature by the beginning of October; branches very resistant to breaking, the only stationary plant, no option to roll under front porch to protect from storms.
DGR5f: very red stemmed; larger branches deep burgundy red; flower buds still maturing as of 10/8; many flowers are deep purple almost black; form is larger and more randomly formed than DGR2f; branches resistant to breaking.
Both plants finally started getting Botrytis in the last 3-4 weeks but there is a striking difference from the Botrytis infections on all the other girls.
DGR Males
DGR3m was the easiest to determine gender early. I could predict was very likely to be male by June 15, see: 2023 Grow Journal and more ... - #23 by andstephen. It’s male flowers started seriously multiplying and maturing in force by the second week of July when I cloned it and cut it down. Some of the stems were red, some candy-striped, and some green. Before cutting it down it grew very vigorously.
DGR3m from 07-09
This is just before I cloned and cut DGR3m down. It grew very quickly and had a nice structure. It was just about this time that I noticed that some of the male flowers were starting to open.
DGR1m: while I also predicted this plant would be male June 15 it took longer for well-formed male flowers to appear. I didn’t cut this plant down until the end of July. The plant had a form quite similar to DGR2f though it was about 30% taller.
DGR1m from 07-29
Just before the flowers started opening.
Collecting Pollen
I’ve been able to collect about 1 g of DGR3 pollen and so far about 0.4 g of DGR1 pollen. See ad hoc pollen sifter: 2023 Grow Journal and more ... - #33 by andstephen
Botrytis on the DGR girls
- First appeared much later. Of course the buds matured much later also.
- Spread to nearby buds was much slower. Buds were also maturing when weather had gotten colder.
- On DGR5f with very dark flowers/buds Botrytis is harder to visually detect by color changes, need to look very carefully for small to tiny leaves that have curled.
Growing seeds on the DGR2 and DGR5 clones
I’ve created the following crosses using clones of the males and females:
- DGR2f x DGR3m
- DGR2f x DGR1m
- DGR5f x DGR3m
- DGR5f x DGR1m
DGR2 female x DGR3m
DGR5 female x DGR3m
DGR2 female x DGR1m
DGR5 female x DGR1m
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Coolness. Those little dudes are LOUD. When I was a kid, we had one get into the house. Not so bad, except he began singing as soon as the lights were out. Of course it was completely silent when it knew we were looking for it.
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