I wanted to share a learning experience I had today with my clones.
So I went to check on them this morning, and the necklace I was wearing accidentally swung down weird and knocked one of the space cake clones out of it’s peat pod. Maybe you can see what I did wrong.
So I was of the “scrape the stem” school of thought where exposing the inner stem supposedly give the roots more are to grow from instead of just the bottom.
That’s what was supposed to happen.
What actually happened was that the mosinture caused the scraped part to shrivel up and fall off. The roots were actually growing above where where I scraped. So lesson learned. Enough complicating things. I’m cutting, dipping and dropping in the medium. Easy peasy.
On another note the space cake is a joy to clone. It will grow roots despite you lol. Here she is being a doll.
It seems the Space Cake is bound only by her growers ability. When fed the correct amount of water and nutrients, she rewards you with vigorous, lush growth and a natural defence against pests, even when surrounded by bug infested plants.
But enough of me.
Yeah I have the same experience, so now I just scrape a line down the skin, and not the whole of the stem. It’s the same as with the roots are supposed to start coming from node points, they don’t often do that either. Sometimes they will root higher up above where the rooting hormone isn’t. They are a law unto themselves lol.
They do have a mind of their own don’t they? Haha!
I’m constantly trying to simplify my process. I guess I was thinking to hard. Now I just clip, dip and done.
So, I decided to experiment with major defoliation, or the “shwazz” technique that they preach over at 3alight. Basically these guys are doing major defoliating on day 1 flower, day 20-21 flower and (I think) day 40, and by doing this they say they regularly harvest 3+ pounds a light, and with some strains they’re hitting 4 pounds.
So what they do is pretty much pull off ant significant fan leaves when they defoliate. Here’s a link to the video that inspired me. I only had the balls to do half my garden, but also I need a basis of comparison. I have 4 clones the I did 2 and 2 so we’ll see if it changes anything and when/if they bounce back.
Thanks you for the follow mcbudz! I need all the help I can get.
In stalled the scrog. I like to use metal screens because I love bleeding from random scratches all over my arms and making my life more difficult than it needs to be.
I actually have a test tent running barbed wire now, and I can’t think of a single reason why I shouldn’t use it again.
So I’m on day 21 of the Space Cake s1 grow and everything for the most part is looking pretty good. All the growth that I took off on the first defoliation has completely grown back.
Day 20 is the second defoliation and now I just leave her alone.
This is exactly why I come here. I never would’ve thought of razor wire.
PM sent George
Well today is day 34, and despite my numerous fuck ups, things seem to be happening. Like, it’s not a total bust somehow. Which I see as a positive.
See, this whole grow started with two plants grown from dispensary bagseed; Space Cake, and Lavender Jones.
I couldn’t believe it. I had gotten busted in 2012 and had been waiting and wondering for years too see if I’d ever be able to grow again. I took each seed and placed them in sandwich bags that had been labeled with all the cannabinoid and terpene profile information, and planned to save them for when I was ready.
So I threw together a little grow station in my closet where I could germinated and start the seedlings; meanwhile, every two weeks after payday I would buy whatever equipment I needed as the grow went on. Well anyone who’s grown weed will tell you that there’s nothing cheap about it, and eventually my plants started to suffer from my lack of preparation, skill or moolah. The only thing I didn’t do to these poor plants is over-feed them. Here a list of everything put these plants through.
I immediately over fed them their first watering.
Heat stress (temps consistently above 85f +100f once or 2x)
Poor water retension/Poor soil drainage (drained too fast)
Inconsistent lighting (went indoors and outdoors)
Transplanted too soon/containers too big
Mg deficiency (was using RO without adding Cal/mag)
Micro nutrient deficiencies (didn’t use micro till late in veg)
Crappy soil mix(I misread a bag and just a rookie mistake)
Thrips
Leaf Hoppers
White Flies
Fungus Gnats
Leaf miners
AND WHATEVER THE HELL THESE ARE!
Lights too high
Inconsistent humidity
Inconsistent temperature
Root rot
Underwatering
Too much light in veg and not enough light in flower
Lights too low
And well…you get the picture.
The first two plants were completely fucked. They got the whole list, and it shows. The buds are small and airy with little trichome production or smell. They kinda stopped growing after a little while, leading me to believe the got some serious root rot going on. The only thing I can really do at this point is flush them and take what I get and make some BHO and some edibles I guess. Hopefully it won’t be as bad as all that.
But the reason I’m smiling. The reason I’m not completely gutted over it all, and the reason I’m running her again is because of the clones running with her. They received a significantly easier upbringing. When they were born the growroom was already set up and ready to go. They weren’t being moved from room to room under all different kinds of strength lights or any of that craziness. They almost look like completely different plants than their mothers.
The smell is unbelievable. She smells like Lemon Pledge and Pinesol. Chemmy honey suckle and wildflowers with a lemon head sweetness. Makes me wonder if it’s actually Space Cake because that isn’t in any of the descriptions. The all say earthiness, nutty and berries. So maybe the plant that hermied was NEXT to Space Cake.???
The world will never know…
Next up the pipe is a strain I got from a guy on strainly named
Pineapple Flo
(Pineapple Sorbert x Flo)
Pineapple Sorbet from Aficionado French Connection
= Heirloom Pineapple Thai x F3 In the Pines x (Zkittles x F11 Magnum Opus)
TGA Cheese Quake (Grape Cheese Danish cut)
(Cheese x Querkle)
Also from Strainly.
Space Cake (GSC (forum cut) x Snow Lotus) and Lavender Jones (Purple Urkel x Casey Jones).
Your first grow sounds not quite as bad as mine lol. I had all that, except the bugs, apart from fungus gnats, and they hermied as well lol. It only gets better, with each grow you learn more.
I don’t know what the black bug is, but it doesn’t look friendly to plants lol.
So I’ve been having a few issues with my little chicken wire “scrog.”
First off, it’s not even a scrog. It’s a metal trellis. I didn’t weave it through veg or any of that, so it’s immediately almost pointless.
Also, since there are all different aged plants in different size pots in my garden, I have to water sporadically and it’s hard to work around some plants to get to others…it just a headache.
And then the other day I looked and noticed some thrips and a few leaves of my Lavender Jones and that was the last straw. I need to be able to work around my plants, and lift them up, and move them and stuff. It’s not ideal by any means but I just have get through this grow (which more and more I just want to be over), and I can start better next time.
The difference between plants that had a hectic upbringing and the ones that were more stable is vast. So that’s promising.
Here’s a picture of the plants I got coming up next in my little slapped together veg tent. The light is a “300w” bluright (blurple/white) that the plants seem to love, and the strains are Space Cake, Lavender Jones, Cheese Quake, and Pineapple Flo (pineapple sherbert = Heirloom Pineapple Thai x F3 In the Pines x (Zkittles x F11 Magun Opus)
I’m really excited about this one as Flo is a legendary strain that I’ve always wanted to go, and she already reeking up the tent and they’re only barely 5 nodes tall.
They’re the ones with the big fat fan leaves.
on the plus side your grow seems to be coming on fine so 
Beans™