This FattyTerps guy is a lucky dude
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Well I didnāt wanna @ you haha. Anyway, yeah, lemme know when you get there.
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Can we see these in one of your other threads?
I only have one active thread right now. But yes?
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I know these posts are 2 weeks old, but I just wanna share some cool stuff that I have been noticing after a solid 6 months of growing equatorial hybrids and datalogging. I have had a few theories on equatorial hybrids and finally have some data to back up my anecdotal evidence. First, lets establish some baseline info.
The equator is @ 12/12 all the time. This nearly constant variable leads me to believe that the light cycle plays a minor role in regulating flower hormones when compared to plants from other regions. It just makes sense from an evolutionary standpointā¦ In an area with a constant 12/12 light cycle, environmental parameters will play a much more significant role in plant hormonal regulation than we usually see!
First, we have to take a look at the climate at the equator. First variable is temperature. We see a maximum day/night temperature deviation of around 7 degrees in the equator. This means that temperature variance may not play a significant role in pushing our plants towards senescence. It also means that these plants may not be well adapted enough to deal with stressors created with larger day/night temp differentials. My conclusion based on this info and data collected: Keep your rooms at around 85F daytime, 78F night time. No CO2 needed for these temps.
PPFD at the equator is also stupid high, so light levels of up to 1400umol/m2/sec are okay without CO2 enrichment.
RH% should be kept at a point where VPD = 1.3-1.4 form my experience This would be 85F, 65-68% RH. This doesnt closely match our equatorial climate, but I sure as hell will not be exposing these plants to 80% avg. RH%.
Now these are all essentially constants and these parameters shouldnāt be messed with IMO. You can possibly get away with lowering RH by 5% towards the tail end of flower to simulate the dry season that they experience in the equator, but you donāt necessarily have toā¦
The big two variables that I have been playing with have been media water content (VWC%) and electrical Conductivity (EC). I have noticed that these haze/thai/whatever crosses seem to respond extremely well to drought stress. That means extreme drydowns, followed by feeding without runoff. This essentially creates a highly variable VWC% curve where maximum saturation reaches 46% and minimum saturation reaches 26%. This is a 20% dryback, which dramatically exceeds āindustry standardā drybacks of 10-12%.
The extreme variation in VWC combined with watering without runoff leads to a large spike in nutrients in the media, leading to extremely high osmotic stress in the root zone. This is drought stress, likely the same drought stress that our plantās ancestors would experience during the dry periods in their native regions. These two small and usually ignored variables seem to be responsible for so many hormonal triggers in our plants.
With high drought stress I have found:
Plants are not sensitive to nutrient ratios, input EC, nitrogen content, etc. They can take a wide range of NPKCaMg ratios without issue. I run jacks 3-2-1 at 1.5x strength and have no issues with the supposed issues that plague sativas.
Plants will grow shorter with tighter node spacing and will be dramatically healthier compared to their well watered (Over watered) counterparts. Over watering will promote vegetative hormonal production during flowering resulting in a stretchy mess of plants. Never over water these sativas or you will have a bad time. Never āflushā the media.
Plants will finish faster, will stack dramatically more dense buds, and trichome production will be nearly double that of over-watered plants.
Pheno variation does not seem to play a role in the health of the plants when pushing them through drought stress for flower hormonal production. Their root zones seem to adapt extremely well and nearly every pheno (I have grown 800+ this year) responds well to this āblanketā irrigation method. I think I have had 2 or 3 plants that showed issues. They were all Dragonsoul F2 phenos.
^^Here we can see a plot of Genius Thai x Dragon Energy being pushed through progressively more extreme drought stress. This zone of plants is incredibly healthy and seems to actively regulate its root zone EC based on my feed inputs. This makes sense because we know that the root zone modulates its pH/EC through cation exchange in order to maintain its ādesiredā parameters. This is a graph of a healthy plot. Now lets look at one that isnt so healthyā¦
This zone contains the same number of Genius Thai x Dragon Energy plants as the other one, but the root zones were much less developed during transplant. This resulted in low initial transpiration and relatively wet media compared to the other plants. I simply cannot build media EC or promote larger drydowns without stressing them out. The root zone has already adapted to wet conditions, so pushing towards drought stress now (Week 6) would cause tons of issues.
The first zone with high EC and 20% VWC drydowns is going to double the yield of the weaker zone. It also has better terpene development, better vigor, tighter node structure, longer bud stacks, etc.
I wish I had a graph of my old haze runs, but those are way back in the library and this example works best. I think this is why sativas/sour/whatever seem to hard to run for most people. They have been conditioned to āflushā their media at any sight of a deficiency because of ālockoutā which doesnt seem to exist in these more exotic cultivars. That example of the hydroponic guy watering the crap out of his plants and having to top/train them because of stretch is a great example of someone pushing the plants in the wrong direction. He basically pushed them towards vegetative hormone production and grew floppy spaghetti plants with huge internodal spacing. Ive done this before and it is not a fun time!
Sorry for the wall of text. Its just some stuff that I have been noticing. It even works for OG/chem hybrids as well.
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Just a thoughtā¦since this post has less to do overall with Doc Dās gear, this might be better off in its own thread. I would expect it to get more exposure that way and might have more folks who can add perspective & evidence who otherwise might not see it in the Doc D thread.
EDIT: Cleaned up some verbiage I wasnāt happy with.
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Excellent post.
If you move this to a new thread Please tag me.
I would like to keep up with your studies.
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This may sound dumb butā¦ Ive been driven out of other forums for providing data/honest opinions on genetics that I ran. After those experiences I just donāt really do forums anymore. People are very emotional and develop attachments to breeders/plants/methods/etc and unbiased ātruthā/honest opinions/data just leads to problems.
Doc D is an amazing guy and has IMO the best breeding stock/projects in the community right now, so I still visit this thread to share info. My side-by-side comparisons have mostly been performed with his seed stock, so Iām fine with just leaving it here for the time being. If you all can use it to improve your grows or reinforce your methods, that is awesome!
I think the ultimate test of these methods will be with the Lemon Thai F3ās. Iām really excited to see if these plants can actually be tamed indoors with drought stress combined with HST/LST!
Also I said 6 months of equatorialsā¦ But looking at the calendar its been 14 months. Holy shit! Time flew by.
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Totally understandably, I disagree that you sound dumb, far from it.
Thanks for the share.
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And here I thought the purpose of forums was to post information and have rational discussions about itā¦not post and assume everything about oneās post/comments is correct then get angry/hurt because people disagree with oneās statements or provide evidence/observations from an opposing viewpoint. 
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It all comes down to where you want to focus your limited time and energy. I have decided to focus on furthering myself as a grower, pheno hunting, and performing small scale R&D. Going back and forth on the internet just isnāt a great use of ones time.
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But what about if youāre growing in a basically āwater onlyā soil mix? It sounds to me like youāre growing in a medium that requires constant āfeedingsā or whatever you wanna call them. But if youāre growing in something like Cootās mix, where all of the nutrients etc that a plant will need are already there in the soil and youāre typically just watering them with, uh, water, would things like VWC% and EC even matter? Or rather, what would the differences be between growing in something like coco, where you have to feed constantly, and growing in a āwater onlyā-type soil mix?
I also reconsidered the āstarting at 12/12ā thing after I posted it. I have a bad habit of talking shit haha and saying stuff before Iāve thought about it. Obviously, something that originated near the equator will be growing at or around 12/12 all the time.
Good post, anyway. Very interesting. And good to see you around, too. Every now and then, Iāll find your rundowns on this thread and re-read them, just because they get me stoked about all the Doc D gear I have. Got a couple Mexican Melons in flower now that Iām reeeaalllyyyyy excited about.
Edit: also, would the wet/dry cycle thing that you referenced be advisable in an organic grow situation?
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Hey I hope it didnāt seem like I was directing my response at you in a negative way! Usually Iāll scroll through and someone will bring up interesting topics. Then Ill just piggyback off of it andā¦ 20 mins later we have a big wall of text that goes way deeper than I originally intended.
I probably should have included some background info with my post. I grow in 100% coco with 1.3 gallon 7" x 7" pots, auto irrigation with drippers and jacks 321. Id recommend everyone stay away from these small pot sizes unless you can really get in there to water often and have some sort of system to monitor EC/VWC%. I only do it because I have so many plants, and really try to limit the amount of media/water/nutrients that I use. I also screw upā¦ A lot.
The same thing can basically be achieved with salt inputs and larger pots, watering every other day. My dad runs hazes really well in 7-10 gallon pots, jacks 321, watering to wick M/W/F. Watering to wick meaning he lets runoff collect in saucers. The plants sit in it and reabsorb over time. Its crazy but it works well.
For organics, I would think that the time-release nature of the media would feed the plants as they need it. Assuming your mix/amendments are correct and biological activity is high, Id think that you could just eliminate the EC variable completely. Like, just donāt even think about it. I would just allow for large (but not to wilt) drydowns on hazes/thais during their stretch period, then reduce drybacks ever so slightly during bud-set. On OG/Chem you can keep them a bit more moist as they are more sensitive to extreme drydowns and we donāt need to control their stretch as much. But as always, the plants will always tell you what they need.
One last thingā¦ We can all figure out how to do things, but I love digging deeper and figuring out the why. The goal of my posts is to discuss the possible mechanisms behind our successful grow methods. If your grow is going well (All of the grows here look excellent!), donāt change anything! Instead, just use these pieces of info as small clues that may explain what is going on in your root zone. The more we ask āWhy is this happening?ā, the better we get at reading the plants and adjusting how we care for them.
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Nah, dude, not at all.
Yeah, thatās why I even responded to your post. I mean, Iām not gonna change the way I do anything haha, but I like talking about growing. And a lot of times, you can learn something from somebody who doesnāt necessarily grow the same way you do.
Iāve been obsessed the last few days with saying,āItās all a learning experienceā¦ Itās a journeyā¦ā haha. I donāt know why. I mean, Iām joking around, but it really is all a learning experience.
Itās a journeyā¦ haha!
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Yes! Thats a great way to put it. We are just starting to scratch the surface with understanding these plants. There is always more to learn and improve upon.
On another noteā¦ I think Iām finally comfortable with saying that the Dragon Energy male is my favorite breeder male that I have ever hunted. I have been waiting to sing its praises until my keepers were run through a production cycle. Im currently on week 6 with Dragon Temple, Genius Thai x Dragon Energy, and Black Energy. The smells, my god the smells.
Iām going to do a full write up on my experience with this male when dry/cure is done and I can ensure that bud quality is as high as I remember. But at this point, I do think that I will be loading up with 50 or so seeds of each DE cross that doc releases later this year.
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nice to hear, there were a couple of cool sounding crosses from the DE male, lotsa juxtaposed narrow leaf stuff, the MDS, a5s1, colombian etc. The dragonsoul x DE i was interested in as an oddball bx, and the chem d sounded like a gas fire, but in the end i think i jumped on the DE f2, some of those others cleared off the shelves quick. Interested to hear more AB, peace all be well.
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Did Doc say heās got more DE crosses in the works? Iām looking forward to seeing what comes from the Lemon Thai project, but that DE male looks like heās proving to be a reliable stud.
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I realize this comment wasnāt directed at me, but he only mentioned the Lemon Thai stuff and some new AfPak crosses coming up in the latest email. Iām not clear on if the Lemon Thai seeds are gonna be bx-type plants, only bred amongst themselves, or if heās crossing them to a separate male/males.
On another note, can anybody please explain why my autocorrect always changes the word āmaleā into the word āmakeā? Haha! āMaleā is a word, gawddamnit. I know what Iām typing haha.
Anyway, there were a few DE crosses listed in the last email, the Black Energy and a couple others. And I didnāt expect to see them available this month. I donāt think he mentioned them in the previous email, Juneās, anyway. So maybe thereāll be some DE crosses available every month, that Doc just doesnāt feel is worth mentioning when he addresses the upcoming stuff. I dunno. Obviously haha.
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Right on, Iām curious about what heās going to have available in the Lemon Thaiās for sure, pretty sure he mentioned crosses. Iān thinking a Genius Thai x Lemon Thai would be intriguing, I suspect he might hit it to Temple and some of other favorite moms too!
Iāve got a pack of Dragon Temple and Mexican Melon in my bean box. Iāve been keeping an eye on your Mexican Melons (haha).
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