'23 Outdoor madness! Snow Lotus Open Pollination and Indian Landrace.

[BackyardBoogie420]

Trying to live up to my namesake of a good backyard boogie this year. I am growing in central California in zone 9b, so the weather is usually really on my side. But I have 2 main limiting factors, the yard gets minimal direct sun all summer, and no plants over the fence. After having a Malawai cross over the fence until Thanksgiving, I don’t want to remind my neighbors what a comically large weed plant looks like again.

The game plan is pretty simple. Make a ton of seeds with minimal overhead, as well as try to sneak in an outdoor sativa crop. I already did a decent open pollination last year with Snow Lotus, with about half as many plants. I’m definitely not reinventing the wheel, but I want to have a larger updated stock to be able to share with others. The only other plant I am growing outside is a clone I put out in mid-April of my beloved Lav cut(wild lavender pheno from bodhis lemon wookie I’ve had over 3 years)so I can at least get some amazing fresh frozen hash, or possibly seed it out. It did do a bunch of wonky reveg stuff, which I expected. I cut it back a few weeks ago and cleaned it more up about a week ago, and is doing fine. The main reason I put it out was I can’t kill a clone of Lav and I was out of space inside. It’s done me too good too long to needlessly kill off lol

Had a few hundred Snow Lotus seeds from the original open pollination from Dec 2018 that were stored poorly(long story) and have about a low germination rate. But now I have a nice seed fridge and feel confident about making a larger stock. I put in around 3-400 seeds. I dropped them all in a 10x20 tray with amended promix on 6/23 and set them in my tent with just ambient light. I domed them with the top vents open until the seeds started popping, and misted/watered very lightly at least once a day, if not twice. I got about 150 strong seedlings and transplanted them yesterday(7/4) but I honestly should have done it a few days earlier.

My method of seeding out in the yard is all about quick,cheap, and easy. I lined up five 30 gallon fabric pots with a 4-5 year old mix of mostly promix/roots 707 against the fenceline in the corner of the yard that gets about 3-4 hours of good AM sun. Which is about as much as anything in the yard gets. I amended some Espoma Plant Tome and oyster shell into the pots and chopped it in. Normally I use Pride Lands, but I’m keeping it as cheap as possible for these.
It took a good 6 hours of watering in increments to get the pots fully saturated again. I like to use a Dramm breaker and hit all the pots back and forth for a few minutes, then wait a good 20-30 min before repeating until the pots are fully saturated. Another thing I feel like I should mention is I grabbed some aminal/deer netting and wrapped the whole section of plants with it using bamboo stakes and ground cover stakes to make a poodle-proof wall for a certain furry little friend of mine that likes to dig up seedlings. It is very cheap and simple, but I’ve had insanely good results keeping all sorts of critters and pets out with some simple and cheap animal netting.

Once the pots were ready, I dropped about 30ish plants per pot. I gently scoop out a handful of soil/seedlings from the 10x20 tray. Poke my finger in the soil and drop a seeding in. Then only gently backfill the soil, never pressing it down at all. The whole process of getting them into the soil only took about 10 minutes.

As far as my Lav plant, I did let it dry out way more than I normally would so I could move it more easily, but yesterday evening fully soaked it. Then this morning went out and did some LST with plant tape and bamboo stakes to fold it out and open it up. Normally I don’t do LST in favor or supercropping for smaller plants. But with larger outdoor plants, I really like to do both.

Finally are the Indian Landcare, more specifically Shilling/Arakku Valley. Got them from the homie @iceman, huge props and thanks to him! They had a lot more vigor as seedlings than most long-flowering sativa stuff I’m used to. So for now I’m keeping them in 1 gals for a while to try to stunt them a bit to try to stay under the fence. But I do have to really keep on top of watering them in the small pots. Luckily the weather out here stays really temperate all winter. I put out Alcapulco Gold plants all winter last year, and they didn’t mind at all, so I’m pretty confident. The Arakkus did have some troubles a few days ago when the triple digit bone dry heat hit outta nowhere, but I put them under a table for maximum shade to try to harden them off a little more. Looks like one may not make it, but the others seem to be turning around really well!

[Slammedsonoma420]

Good luck! Will be grabbing a seat and following along. Thanks for documenting your increase of Bs amazing genetics.

[Tejas]

Good luck and positive vibes @BackyardBoogie420 .

[Hemp]

Looking good.

[iceman]

Hey @BackyardBoogie420
Super awesome of you to document your work with the Snow Lotus and the Arakku Valley.
Thank you for the tag as well.
Those Arraku are quite hardy and should pick up well once the heat subsides over the next few days.
Looking great bro!

[Bayarealivingsoil]

Very nice projects. Will be in the corner taking notes. Grow on

[Elpolloloco]

@BackyardBoogie420

After having a Malawai cross over the fence until Thanksgiving, I don’t want to remind my neighbors what a comically large weed plant looks like again.

This made me chuckle

Sending you good vibes and thanks for documenting your seed increase / grows!

[BackyardBoogie420]

Thanks to everyone following along! Got a quick little update for the yard. Mostly just trying to survive the heat wave. Been clearing 100 a good bit, so I’m watering at least once a day, usually twice, but not too much any time, just keeping the soil wet. Also regular feedings/teas every 3rd day.
Recently added reinforcement to block out my little poodle homie. He got in there once and pulled a couple seedlings out to teach me a lesson. But lesson learned! I stuck some fencing I normally use to dry on top of the pots, and that makes the perfect poodle-proof barrier. One of the pots has a few less than the others, but I plan to retransplant some in a few days when its cooler to even it out.

The Lav clone stuck on the end has grown a couple feet in every direction. Not too shabby for 9 days. But I know this plant well. and heat doesn’t even phase her. I may end up taking a bunch of clones off her within the next week. Partially to have more backups, but also to try to keep her under that damn fence line. It’s not the biggest jumper post-flower, but I got her bigger than expected.

I’m almost at the point out here where if I toss clones out, theyll just jump right into flower, which is where I usually start doing a lot of the real work. I’ve got some extra clones of my favorite Neroli91 that I very well might toss out into 5-10 gal pots to get a little extra chem headstash and run it thru some more stress tests. The mom is in a 2 gal, and kicking out 15-25 chunky cuts every 2-3 weeks, so I’ve got a few to play with. The ability to make nice flowers outdoors is a big factor in keeper clones for me. Never know when you need a good clone bumper crop. But I’ve yet to have a Chem91 cross not do amazing outdoor, so my hopes are high.

Lastly, but definitely not least are the Arakkus. They are growing well, and only one has seemed to succumb to the dry heat. Some look a touch stressed, but some look surprisingly happy. At this point, the plan is to keep them as happy as possible until the weather is more reasonable.

[BackyardBoogie420]

Finally have some interesting things happening in the yard after almost 2 weeks of nothing worth noting. Last night right at dusk I did some defoliation of the small weak growth in the very middle of my big Lav bush. It was taught to me as clearing out the chest cavity. Really helps with airflow and helps the plant focus energy on the main tops. It’s growing with a vengeance post reveg, and I expect to start seeing preflower in a week or so.

I had a good number of casualties in the Snow Lotus seedlings as expected. Mostly from birds it seemed like. Also been in pain in the butt to keep them fully wet with all the heat. It’s been twice a day most days, and some days I have to spend a good 10 or 15 min just dumping on em to get the soil resaturated. If I was feeling better, I would have set my auto irrigation system back up and used some rain bird 360 bubble emitters to supplement watering, but a little hand watering won’t kill me. The strongest have survived and the best ones are a few inches tall. The ones getting more sun are definitely looking a little bigger, but the full shade ones aren’t bad.I also pulled a handful of seedlings out of one pot, and put them in a couple others with low numbers to kind of even them out.

Since I had the extra 30 pot open up, I transplanted a plant of my Neroli91 keeper that’s about 3 weeks from clone and was in a 2 gal. She had fantastic structure, and was originally intended as a backup just in case, but the original mom is doing great. So I figured no need to waste space in my mom area, and I also want to see how she does outdoors in lower light with a big pot. This clone likes to at least triple in flower in 7-10 gals indoors, so I’m excited to see what happens. I’ve personally had great luck in the past with chem91 crosses in low light grows. One year I was growing in a little town called La Honda in the Santa Cruz mountains, and no one told me August and September were the wettest months of the year out there. And despite the fog and tons of rain, my 91 cross didn’t miss a beat and got a good 12 feet and a few lbs of great bud.

And finally, the Akaar Valleys stuffed under the table are growing slowly, but still alive. Now that I’ve got them pretty tall, I just cut the top back a few nodes, and give them a top dressing since they are starting to look a little hungry. I learned from nerding out on sativa growers in podcasts, the long flowering landrace sativas don’t really wanna eat a whole lot compared to modern stuff. So instead of regular regimented feedings weekly or every 2 weeks like most plants, I just feed them as needed when they start looking hungry. I’m hoping to get away with at least another month in these 1 gals. But I may have to jump them up to 2-3s if they seem too root bound. Normally I’d never do things like rootbound plants in plastic pots or not train them and just hack the top off, or a lot of times, cut it in half. But it seems to be consistently effective with these really long flowering plants. Things like supercropping or LST just make them laugh at your pathetic attempts to control them.

[BackyardBoogie420]

The August stretch is here for sure. My Lav bush is growing a good few inches per day. I have been gradually pulling off lower and weak inner branches growing poorly, but besides that i’m just keeping it well fed and not messing with it. Same with the smaller Neroli91 next to it. Just 1 round of supercropping.

The Snow Lotus seeds are getting mixed results. The pots getting better sun have plants over a good foot tall and are growing great. The ones in the shade are a good bit behind, but either way, it’s more than enough plants to do a little open pollination.Since it’s really only the strongest survive this round, I’m excited to compare the seeds to my OP from last year. I followed the Tom Hill mindset and made sure to keep in everything, runts and all. So they were really babied all the way through.

Finally, the Akaaru Valleys are still struggling from the heat. Every time it cools a little for a few days, it jumps back into the mid 90s and they remind me how much they hate it. I plan to pot a few of them up soon, but I’m hoping for a few days of reasonable weather to not stress them out too much more.

[BackyardBoogie420]

Well, my outdoor plants have been living up to the madness as promised. As with just about any outdoor, there’s the original plan, and what ends up happening. First off, My big Lav bush got beat up real bad by my heeler chasing something and broke at least a 1/3 rd of the tops off. My fault for not having netting up. But poor little homie got caught up in it a few weeks ago, and no plants are worth having to untangle my dog again. Let him chase squirrels i say. Luckily what’s left is doing okay. I never expected big buds or anything, since it was just originally an overflow clone I didnt wanna kill and it’s not in a spot with great light.

As for the Snow Lotus seed project, the 30 gal pots with the best sunlight have grown insane amounts. I tracked a good 3-4 feet in 60 days from poppin the seeds. I already had a male almost make it over the fence before cutting it back. And there’s a few really choice females not far behind. I just went out and did a big leaf strip on everything, making sure to collect any males about to pop off and letting them dry out on some parchment to collect pollen later to brush on the ladies. I rarely use 1 male in seed making, so this round I’m picking just the best vs last year’s open pollination that was even the runty males.

I also took a couple lower clones from the best 3 females for possible mothers. I’ve been putting off finding a new SL keeper mom, and these are showing great potential. Luckily I’ve grown this strain for a good 4 years now, and I can usually pick great keepers based on structure and stem rub. The good ones will make my fingers smell for hours, even after washing them several times. So it’s not too tough to make some general selections.

The Akarru Valley sativas have finally been potted up to 3 gallon fabric pots from their 1 gallons. The peak of summer heat has passed, and the ones that could handle the heat have survived. They were looking a bit rough, but even after just a couple days in the 3s in the shade of the tree, they are perking up nicely. They look fully like vegging plants still, so I know they are miles from finishing. Which will buy me some time to get them as nice as possible in the meantime. Since this is my first time trying true sativas outdoors, I am very much learning as I go. The biggest adjustment I would make would be to not start the seeds until at least late June near the solstice or even July. So next year that will be the plan to try to avoid as much of that summer heat as possible.

Now for the curveball! Since I am doing a Neroli91 F2 project in my tent, and really needed some space, I pulled a couple males, any runty unsexed plants, as well as some indoor plants that weren’t happy outside to finish under the sun. There are a couple Katsu Sour Diesel IBLs, a Chem91 S1, and an overflow Lav x Neroli91 tester. They were showing a lot of stress indoors, but have really perked up after just a couple days outdoors. When in doubt, let nature do the work. Since they’re only in 5-7 gallon pots, I don’t expect huge yields or anything. But worse case it’s some extra hash material. In my mind, plants I don’t dig being made into hash is a wonderful thing. I have always been a huge hash fan, and years of running a decent sized little hash company always has me in the mindset of a hash maker when thinking about growing plants. Does Not need to be pretty, yield good, or anything. But how many trichs can I get off her?

[CocoaCoir]

I recognize those leaves anywhere on the right SL.

[BackyardBoogie420]

It’s been quite a while, but finally there’s some decent progress to report. Since my last update the weather has been wild and inconsistent. From pushing 100 to 65 and back for most of the time. Which would normally drive me nuts, but for the case of making seeds, I have been happy to see how everything handles the stress of it.

The Snow Lotus seeds have been through the ringer, but there are a handful of really nice females that beat the odds, and most importantly didn’t clear the fenceline! And a couple from them that did not show any heat stress, even in the worst times. So those will be the choice batches to line breed forward. There was one super stud that I hacked way back, and he still gave me several feet of pollen sacs. Everything was seeded out much later than is ideal, but they are all seeded out nicely so I’m not complaining. At this point, there are seeds starting to poke out, but are still looking white and soft. So I’m expecting at least a couple more weeks. Hopefully I can get them down by Thanksgiving since it’s already getting pretty cold in the evenings, and In past years the last week of Nov is about the last window before the winter rains and freezing nights come in.

As for the Lav and Neroli 91 little bushes, they didn’t get enough light as I expected so they stayed pretty small. Luckily the plan was for seeds and it was well seeded when I took it down a few weeks ago and I have what should be wonderful crosses with the Snow Lotus, as well as some great hash. All while not having anything in my tents in the garage get seeded at all. Which is the biggest win of all lol

There are also a few more overflow plants from inside that are mostly unseeded since they were put out after I pulled the male. There’s a Lav x Neroli91, Chem 91 S1s, and a Chem D S1 from CSI that seem to like life way more in the yard than under the big LED. Anything I toss out this late is expected to be a hashed out. But the plants take almost no maintenance so it’s all a win in my book.

Unfortunately, most of the Arakku Valley plants couldn’t handle the wild and inconsistent weather, and I’m down to just a couple that I potted into 30 gals as a hail mary attempt to get something out of them. The one is just starting to show pom poms, and from the looks of it will probably flower until Feb or March. So hopefully they can handle the cold better than the heat. Last winter I kept a few Acapulco Golds out all winter and they didn’t show any stress at all from it, so there is hope.

I should also mention I only plan to update this journal one or 2 more times before closing it out to focus on doing a Co-Op Seed Preservation run of Dreadbread x Wookie 7 from Bodhi, and I hope everyone will come by and check it out!