@JoeCrowe smallest ruler I have lol. Little ikea tape measure in centimeters :-/
3 Likes
lol! Well, if I take a piece of paper and put it beside the largest pistil hair and estimate it at 300 microns, your trichomes should be around 100 microns in diameter. The secret is there are both larger, and smaller trichome caps on the calyx, with the larger ones being on the mid vein of the calyx.
4 Likes
Hey I’ll take it I’ll take it. I’ll probably end up keeping whatever I collect in the bags just for learning but I’ll expect the quality on the 90ish range like you said 
2 Likes
Goofy ass grow this turned into lol. Bubble bags came in so once this plant crosses the finish line I’m gonna go for a full harvest into fresh frozen hash. If that goes decently well, I’m gonna pull the trigger on a rosin press and try to make some solventless vape carts.
7 Likes
Overgrown tent lol. But damn does this plant smell fantastic. Sweet gas has been joining the hazy pine smells and I’m getting very excited to try making some extracts from this thing! We’re at around day 95 I think…
5 Likes
Took her down yesterday, bucked and big leafed straight into some bags, heat sealed and tossed in the freezer.
There was a good mix of well developed colas and completely immature larf as I expected to find with how the tent grew out of control. I want to run this again, but I will take a much more aggressive approach to training and maybe even top an extra time or two.
In the meantime, the remaining stalks were trimmed down and tossed back into the pot to feed the soil life. I may also take a few cups of soil out as it’s been a while since I’ve had it tested, but for now I’m happy to let everything sit idle while the old massive stalk breaks down and loosens. I may also toss some cover seeds in there for fun.
Next on the to do list: pick the next strain to grow and do the ice water extraction!
4 Likes
Decision has been made. Also pulled a few cups of soil and shipped them plus some of my water off to Logan Labs. Curious to see where things are as I’ve been slacking on testing 
3 Likes
Alright…. Starting the clock on this Sour Crack. Supposed to be one of if not the fastest plant in Mephisto’s catalogue. This is day 1.
I’m running this round without the bottomless pot method so we’ll see how that affects things. My biggest concern is with how many bugs I’ve got in the soil, that the seedling may get munched before it has time to establish. That was the original reason I started doing the bottomless pot to begin with: I could start the plant in a bit less active soil, let it get some leaves started, and then ‘transplant’ with zero shock. 
Soil test should be back by the middle of this week so I’ll be deep diving into the numbers to create a strategy for mineral and fertilizer applications for this and future rounds. The last test was over two years ago and the main issues were excess potassium and sodium and deficient calcium on the saturated paste, and an excess of magnesium on the Mehlich 3 and an overall elevated pH. At the time, a large amount of gypsum was applied, and a few large flushes of water were used to push excess cations out of the soil. A single application of elemental sulfur was also made, though the amount was quite conservative at only a few grams. There was also a one time application of trace minerals made from their respective salts. Since then, there have been at least one or two times when the reservoir drained due to my misunderstanding of blumats and poor setup, so there have been plenty of chances for water to move through the soil. More to come later this week!
2 Likes
Microbes will slowly change the sulfur into sulfates that bond to the calcium. It takes a while because the microbe population in the soil shifts to sulfate producing types. Couple grams probably won’t have much of an effect. Depending on soil conditions, of course.
A “trust the process 
“ type of moment you have in living soil. There’s a pile of decaying plants for them to chew on but they wanted some fresh-fresh. I sprinkled a tiny bit of nutritional yeast around the base and misted it. They look like springtails to me, and some links said “use yeast to breed springtails” so maybe they’ll like that better than to eat Miss Sour Crack.
2 Likes
The soil test came back:
And saturated paste:
A rough draft of what I can add to bring things a touch closer to ideal:
And a rough estimate of how that would affect the levels:
I’m not entirely sure how nitrogen is treated on the soil test or how to estimate conversion from %N to nitrate or ammonium, but N is in flux anyways and I have a good amount of headroom to add nitrogen into the soil.
Overall I’m very pleased with the improvement of the soil chemistry. Now I’m going to give myself some time to consider the amendments and the strategy for applying them. What I have on hand is a mix of either very soluble/available or something that will require time to release, so I don’t want to just spike the solubles all at once. Will likely be making changes, or using the solubles slowly over time in multiple applications. I see a lot of room for improvement in bringing the micronutrients up, now that the base saturation chemistry is mostly in check. Getting a touch more magnesium into the soil should also provide a nice improvement 
2 Likes
Mineral salts were dissolved into around 8oz of hot water and stirred until totally mixed. That was used to hydrate some hardwood fuel pellets, to which 2 tbsp of worm castings was added, along with some alfalfa meal and mosquito bits to help begin the breakdown of the high carbon wood.
I’ve done this in the past and it seems to have worked well so I’ll continue. The idea is the wood absorbs the mineral water, and when the bacteria and fungi start multiplying, there’s plenty of carbon and minerals everywhere they go. I wish I knew the mineral content of the wood pellets and the mosquito bits so I could really geek out but alas… 
The organic amendments and Montana grow type stuff was sprinkled over the soil, then mulched with the mineral wood. The really soluble stuff like the multi-mino and organics alive powders I’m going to apply in the first couple of fertilizations for the Sour Crack.
2 Likes
She got off to a slow start, but in the last four days or so has seemed to sink her teeth into the soil. I think my having to leave the week she germinated was the cause as I couldn’t fill up the humidifier. All good though! Tons of activity in the hardwood mulch layer that has all the mineral salts in it. Worms doing the heavy lifting as usual 
3 Likes
Unfortunately was out of town again for four days so the humidity took a dive for a day or two. Poor plant 
She has preflowers though, and the tent already has a sour/skunky odor when I unzip. Stem rub confirms as well. She’s definitely going to flower faster than the haze from last round (which is sitting in my freezer as some bubble hash). Once the weather breaks or a cold front is expected I’m gonna order some fallacis mites and rove beetles to get a little balance to these springtails. Right now it’s just too hot to risk expensive bugs dying in the mail…
3 Likes
Springtails hate it when the soil dries out. I had a few of them over in the living soils, but there are only a handful left now. If they are in huge numbers, I’ve seen them eat a seedlings cotyledons.
3 Likes
Yeah it’s always when the soil dries or the humidity drops or both… aka when I leave town, that they decide to start snacking. I don’t mind a little damage but I feel like I’m leaving nutrient cycling on the table by not having other bugs snack on them 
Did some leaf tucking- this is a very squat plant!
2 Likes
Ready for this girl to start stretching, right now she’s just a big ball of leaves I tried spreading the structure a bit but without the second pot I don’t have good places to attach my clips.
3 Likes
