This is my grow diary for the hopefully interesting and unique BaOx x Willy G Lebanese cross, which as far as I know has not been grown yet.
Lefty was kind enough to send some of his experimental seeds my way and I’m very excited to check this F1 out. I’ve been looking for a very low THC (<1%) replacement for the Dinafem Dinamed CBD which is out of stock everywhere (stupidly I did not keep cuttings!).
These will ultimately be grown in a recirculating hydroponic flood and drain table, but so far they are just babies.
I’ll post updates in here as we go.
Update 1
4 seeds made it
11 seeds were sown in rockwool cubes and kept under a thermostatically controlled heat mat at 25C and unfortunately I had really bad success with germination. Wonder if the thermostat was knocked off for a bit at the wrong time and killed off a bunch of them right as they were cracking open. No idea.
Four plants popped and unfortunately 1/4 is severely messed up on the stalk (curled around itself) and probably won’t make it the whole way. I will hang onto it anyway in case it’s the only female though!
Anyway, this could turn in to a very long grow if only one of them is female. Then I’ll have to take cuttings and wait for those to propagate in order to get 2+ plants to fill the 2x4. Agh!
hope 2 or more turn out to be females.
Into the bubble bath they go
All 4 rockwool cubes are loaded with roots now – exactly what ya want to see before moving on to the next step! They should explode with roots once in the bubble tub.
I mixed up a 36L solution of pH balanced Flora series at an EC of 1.5 (real EC is more like 1.1 – my tap water has a lot of minerals in it and averages 0.2-0.3EC) and packed the kiddos into their temporary bubble bath home. They’ll spend a few weeks in here – just long enough in order to sex them, and to grow out their roots long enough to reach the bottom of the large grow bags they’ll ultimately be grown out to maturity in.
Following this one for sure! Excited to see what comes of it, big fan of the dinamed cbd gear but have been thwarted by it being out of stock so much. Very curious to see what comes of this project. Will be pulling up a beach chair and soaking it all in!
So that table the blue bin is sitting on is actually a hydroponic flood table. That’s where they will eventually be grown out in.
But the roots first have to be long enough to reach down to the bottom of the grow bags they’ll be grown to full maturity in. The grow bags will be filled with clay pebbles.
Otherwise the nutrient solution will not reach the roots of the plants when the table floods with fluid. This table only floods a few inches deep (see pic).
So this blue bin here will be their home for probably a few weeks only. Once their roots are about 10-12" long they should be ready to transplant into big grow bags with clay pebbles.
It seems as though the EC was in fact a bit high for them. A couple of leaves on each plant experienced some nutrient burn and I diluted the solution approximately 33% by adding some pH down and water.
The solution level was also too high, so the roots were not very happy for a little while there (rockwool cubes were way too soggy). Reduced height of solution by a few inches and they seem ok now.
We’ve got some good root growth now and the plants have put on a couple more leaf nodes. Won’t be that much longer in the bin now, unless they run into more issues that slow things down.
The algae is pretty intense right now because of how soaked the cubes were. There’s a bit on a few of the roots which should die off as soon as the water level drops a bit more and kills it off by reducing the humidity level around it.
The plants were looking great and the roots long enough to move them into grow bags and the flood table, so I went about prepping the table with a fresh reservoir of 54L nutrient solution at EC 2.2 and pH 5.9
It’s been awhile since I did a run in this table so I had to run a few tests and reconfigure the pump automation/timing to make sure it all works ok still.
I wound up having only these massive grow bags on hand. Thought I had more of the medium sized ones! So there’s a real mix of grow bag sizes between these 4. Should be interesting!
Disaster strikes!!
Much to my horror, the plants all looked horrible the next morning when I went to check on them. They were all flopped over and limp, on the brink of death…
I had accidentally set flood table cycle at the wrong time!!! So, what happened is that the lights came on at full power while I was still asleep, and the table remained unflooded for a whole 3 hours. All while the Machine Sun was beating down on them full blast. They were essentially drying out on the desert floor for 3 hours.
Thankfully they are now bouncing back from that, but they lost a lot of their beautiful big fan leaves as a result. They’re in recovery now and should start seeing some nice growth again soon. Sorry lil guys, won’t happen again.
Those roots are looking great! I’ve had some problems with transplanting recently as well. I’m growing an Ethiopian sativa that seems very sensitive to their root space.
Lebanese grow prolific root systems. Some of the biggest rooting plants I’ve seen.
One thing I’ve considered is that plants with bigger root systems don’t like strong nutrients. Certainly for some Lebanese I’ve grown, the large surface area of their roots might contribute because of their efficiency of taking up nutrients. I don’t know if that will be the same when mixed with the BaOx, but it seems like you might have found the same result.
Early sexing time and they have been bouncing back nicely from the abuse they suffered.
I left a few of the large crispy fan leafs from before on but might clip those off if they get too shaded. For now they seem ok.
The EC was a liiiiittle bit high as evidenced by very slight tip signs, but it has since been diluted down with additions of pH balanced water every day and sits comfortably back at 2.2 right now.
I’m going to wait another week to see for plants #2 and #3, which are probably at least one male, maybe both are, but it’s not 100% in my eyes just yet. Whadda ya think?
#3 looks like it could go either way; waiting a week or so…
#2 looks like a male to me, but will wait to confirm…
Wondering if there’s any sense in sticking a male outside to gather some pollen from, to have some F2 seeds. Or if those would simply be way too genetically unstable to do much with.
Looks like 3 males to me too, but there’s no harm in waiting a bit to be sure.
Males outside could pollinate your neighbors crops at a good distance, if that’s something you care about. Some people let the male pods develop a bit then cut the branches and put them in a glass of water to collect pollen when the pods open, away from the females. Or grow them in a separate sealed box under low light.
Looking good, you could always use the pollen for F2’s or you could save some to pollinate a Type 1 THC strain to create 1:1 CBD/THC ratio offspring. If you end up with a female and enjoy the effects, then you have some pollen to play with.
Moisture is your enemy.
I dry mine out in a gasketed ammo box with some desiccant, then vacuum sealed.
It has been used successfully a year+ later. I don’t know what the longest time might be but I have some samples tucked away to play with.
It’s been two weeks since the past update and the plants are growing nice. I’ve been maintaining the reservoir at ~ pH 5.9 and EC 2.0-2.4 and doing res changes every two weeks. Might need to up the EC a bit next fill this weekend, they are showing early signs of perhaps a potassium deficiency. But every day the EC is dropping and the pH is going up – a good sign that the plants are eating what they’re given
I’ve devised a bit of a strategy since I believe there is only the one female, more than likely.
Going to try and train it SCROG style, all one plant! We’ll see how it goes. First time trying.
Put together a quick support screen
Going to Scrog the way where you train the branches out on the screen’s surface, as a support for promoting vertical flower sites to grow (not just using the screen as a training guide and light duty support). So, def need it to be relatively solid. Here’s my solution!
Ordinarily (eg: outdoors, etc.) I don’t top plants. But when growing under fixed artificial LED lights, it sometimes makes sense. Especially when you’re trying something as wonky as this
So the plants have been topped and the one which most seems like a female was moved to the centre and low stress training the branches outward along the screen has begun. It’s gonna be a long-ish veg!
Another week goes by and more training
Still not 100% convinced on the gender of one of the other plants, so they’re still in there enjoying the machine gun before their probable death… unless I manage to throw together a spot outside for them or sumfin’ (time has been an issue lately though!)
Here’s how the training is looking after another week of growth and moving the ties that hold the branches to the net, each day. Some good growth being put on every day now.
hope 2 or more turn out to be females.
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