Growing this outside in organic compost/soil. I’m looking to main line it along with an AC/DC plant in the next box over. I’ve heard these do fantastic outside.
Any tips would be appreciated. This is my first time growing.
I have a great green thumb. I’m just afraid of screwing this up.
Thanks a bunch.
21 Likes
You’re in the right place!! Welcome 
2 Likes
Welcome Buddah1978,
The most common mistake for new growers is over doing things. They tend to over water, over feed, over react. You’ll do best by doing less. Marijuana will grow out of a crack in the sidewalk without any help from man. Keep it simple.
10 Likes
7 Likes
Welcome to OG @FreeAtLast!! It’s good to see you. I’m running Dutch Passion’s Durban outdoors this year also. 
Last year I had some problems with mold, as it gets pretty damp here in OK in the fall. The Durban supposedly has great mold resistance, and it finishes fast.
They can get big when grown outdoors. At some point I’ll do a log, probably in a couple of weeks when I get them planted outside. I’m looking forward to seeing how they do.
Good luck with yours man.
12 Likes
welcome !
we used to grow DP for years gorilla-style. it grows without much drama and can get huge! the buds can grow fat and dense,what can lead to mold problems…depends on your Climate/AutumnWeather.
DurbanPoison is a good yielder and will finish quite early…good luck!!
1 Like
Welcome aboard, @Buddah1978! Are you growing out a clone or is it from seed? I’ve been looking for a good Durban Poison…
BTW - we LOVE pictures!!
3 Likes
I grew some large Durbans in 2018 outdoors which finished in mid-late November. The whole-plant wet weights were all 14-19lbs. We used no support systems. The branches became heavy, split, and continued to grow. An impromtu shelter near the end of the season using construction poly helped them finish.
My tips from that experience would be:
-Provide support for branches; a wire cage trellise
-Plan to have a means to cover the plant if excess moisture presents challenge in late flower
-Prune an open vase structure and keep her hollowed out
I could walk into and stand inside the plant and move my arms freely; lots of space, every inch along every stalk ought to be visible to direct sun light. This sunlight exposure along the stalk helps ripening tremendously; a constant 120 second exposure to sea-level concentrations of UV-B radiation will sterilize the stalk of all fungal/bacterial pathogens; while the infrared from direct sun exposure warms the stalks/stems throughout the day, and allows for sap flow in the final colder weeks of ripening when ambient air temperatures would otherwise halt or significantly slow photosynthesis. A large plant with shaded stalks will struggle with sap flow in cooling weather.
With larger plants, a lot can be gained by staged harvests. Removing the tops from around a large bush, and giving the next layer of canopy another week to ten days to finish up, and repeating this process 3-5 times can provide several different quality grades of smoke from the same plant. It is often that the 2nd or 3rd harvest in this manor has a superior ripeness, and depending on weather outdoors, the final harvest can often become the “headstash” of the cultivator.
With several photoperiod genetics, great results can come from late sowings in smaller containers. Sowing in June or early July for outdoors growth, and finishing the cycle in a ~5-10 gallon pot can provide a modest yield from a vigorous genetic. A plant started earlier would become larger and demand more root space for adequate flowering performance, and thus additional support/pruning culture. But late sown seed can make for some nice 3-4’ tall shrubs that’ll ripen at a faster daily rate than a larger plant could; that is to say, that a later sowing may initiate floral stages from a delayed timeline, but recoup that time from delay of onset in the speediness of ripening provided by a smaller form in latter days.
Up here at the 49th this technique is particularly helpful, because a black container which attracts heat is able to more thoroughly and significantly warm the entirety of the root ball; a 7gallon plastic pot at the 49th receives enough sunlight to warm the root ball to its core, without being hot enough on the sides to cause root damage. A larger pot up here leaves the core cooler, and the limited sun exposure is never able to warm it adequately in each day-length cycle to leverage the available photons in these waning days of flower. As well, the same size pot moved further south may attract too much heat and the outter root system near the pot walls may become damaged; in such case a larger container, often wrapped in burlap or white poly or colored tan provides a healthy temperature balance. These examples are merely for your consideration. The underlying principles are that: 1. container size affects final plant size, and that this can be leveraged for more manageable cropping of late-flowering plants, and 2. container size and heat retention ability are factors which influence growth rates in critical ripening days through flower, each unique to latitude and site sun exposure.
As well, to improve your ripening time with all plants, exposure to morning sun trumps exposure to evening sun. If you have a Durban on one side of the house see the sunrise, and the same Durban on the other side of the house sees the sunset, they will ripen about 2-3 weeks apart, where the Sunrise Durban ripens sooner. Exclude morning sun and expose to evening sun for delayed ripening, or exclude evening sun and expose to morning sun for expedited ripening. However the fastest ripening comes from exposure to both morning and evening wavelengths.
A final tip if you are going for size outdoors: try to watch your local VPD levels. Indoors cultivators have equipment to tune this quite consistently. Coastal growers with higher ambient %RH see larger yields because vegetative growth is accelerated throughout the summer months due to its superior VPD ratio. Cultivators in arid climates with similar site conditions experience smaller compact plants at the same latitude. Depending on your location and aims, an outdoor misting system on a timer can provide a huge gain in vegetative growth throughout the summer months.
For small scale, I recommend a 55gal drum with a sub-pump, contractor hose, and wand with Fogg-It misting nozzles; a filtered solution can be applied as foliar to several large home plants quite easily.
For larger outdoor operations, simply using overhead sprinklers which are timed to come on intermittently throughout the day can provide both the humidity benefits of improve growth rates, as well as the benefits of washed leaf surfaces and stem strengthening and heat stress control.
In a greenhouse setting, an overhead irrigation system with misters installed laterally along raised beds can be an affordable option to supplement humidity, while allowing for foliar solution to be injected into the system.
If you seek to further accelerate the flowering timeline outdoors, foliar applications in late vegetative growth of specific plant hormones can evoke the early or speedy transition into flower which begets earlier harvests. I’ve had great success in using young coconut water diluted 50:50 with plain water to deliver both manganese (increases flower set; number of calyxes/pollen sacs) and cytokinin as a flowering initiator. As well, ethylene applications from yellow-banana FFJ will speed ripening if applied throughout late vegetative through the first weeks of flowering, or will help to force a vegetative plant to exhibit its sexual organs under long day-lengths. Gibberellic acid applications in low doses, derived from spinach or fern-frond FPJs, will hasten the transition of all plant phases. Auxins and nitrates will delay flowering onset, by as much as 3+ weeks depending on cultivar and climate conditions.
It was once the case that a 5-week streak of rains was beaten by incidental over-application of nitrates; a neighbour who is a blueberry farmer plugged some Durbans into his blueberry rows, which were topdressed with nitrate fertilizers. The plant was forced to grow excessive vegetative growth, which delayed flowering onset substantially. However, because of the timing of the rains that year, this proved advantageous: while my crop and all others I heard of that year experienced these 5 weeks of rain during their mid-late flower, my lucky neighbour’s plants were still growing vegetatively and did not begin setting flower until the end of the rains; when everyone in the neighbourhood had lost 75%+ of their crop in flower, his plants had only begun to flower, and ripened in the cold dry sunny weeks which followed. A total spot of luck, but it demonstrated to me the important interactions between plant, climate, and culture and their consequent outcomes.
Best wishes to your Durban season!
-Dr. Zinko
20 Likes
Welcome to OG! 
2 Likes
Welcome to OG. I think I need to tag along and watch.
ps need photos to watch
4 Likes