Good day, my OverGrow family. I haven’t done an update in a while. I was very busy the last 11 days with my seed giveaway. So let’s jump right in, shall we.
I am still waiting on my tall Durban to finish its cure to be able to say what weight I got from it. The bushy one gave me 48 grams of smoking material and about 7 grams hashable material. It has been stored in a mason jar for over a week now. When I open the jar to exchange gasses, it smells just like the live plant did, a nice mild orangy pine fragrance.
First update are my Sweet Tooth 4s. These are from the pack of seeds I purchased from @Baudelaire. I took these photos on 8-21 and started harvesting today. All the ST4s have been in Flowering for 61 days. There are good many trikes that have turned amber, so I am adjusting the Flowering time for them to 60 days in the Strain table in my database. This is where the number of Flowering days will come from for an automatic Harvest date estimate on the next entry.
First up, the all girl plants.
I see the tags didn’t make into the view. The one on the left is 82, the right is 83. I removed all the leaves throwing shade from 83 seventeen days ago. I did this because I’ve seen many YouTube videos claim a higher yield by doing this. I have the ability to do this, without worrying if I’ll get enough from my harvest. I also took all the shade leaves from one of the next ST4 clones eighteen days ago, when the stretch minimized, to see the effects on longer term bud growth. More on that in a few minutes…
Looking at the above photo, it doesn’t look as though removing those leaves improved the yield at all. Top buds were nearly identical when I did, and now 82 appears to have larger buds.
I’ll try to remember to get a comparison shot after trimming both. Something I notice immediately was that 82 (still had leaves) drank a LOT more than 83 from that point on, so I was pretty sure in the first few days there would be no improvement in buds size on the stripped plant.
Here is some bud porn from 82 and 83:
I didn’t have the lighting right for the frosty view. Most of these pics are taken with my iPad Mini. I like its photos better than my camera, lots of mega-pixels doesn’t guarantee a clear image at 100% size. The iPad images look much better at full image size. It doesn’t have a flash, so I am working under 3 led spot lights and 3 cfl bulbs in umbrella reflectors
Number 84 is the female I reversed. This was both a success and a failure.
After removing all the material that was growing female flowers and shade leaves, I had visible male buds all over the small, popcorn buds. The problem is that they were all micro sized flowers that made bananas that were 2-4mm long. They were too difficult to collect from. I got just enough to see on the bottom of 2 small containers, hopefully I can get a handful of seeds from the 2 clones in Veg when they go into Flowering next week. :fingerscrossed: If not, this was a trial that wasn’t necessary and it taught me a lot through. I have no doubt the next reversal will be more successful.
I had thought about letting 84 keep growing for 4-5 weeks to get seeds from it, but there is no way of knowing which seeds are all ST4 and which seeds are part @Kalgrae’s BC Mango, Diesel Nightnurse, green pheno(number 98), that has been raining pollen in the Maleroom for the last 4 days, so I’m killing it today along with 98 (more on that in a few minutes).
This brings us up to the 1st set of ST4 clones, 94 and 95.
Number 95 is the ST4 clone I removed the shade makers from. They looked a whole lot more the same size in every possible manner before the defoliating.
It is visible here as well as it had been on #84. So far, the one retaining it leaves, 94, is drinking almost twice as much as the one trimmed and the buds are already larger. I’ll really have to wait another month before seeing for certain, but right now, it seems, the Sweet Tooth #4 plants are NOT receptive to this treatment.
This is a good time to segue-way into 90 and 91, my LowRyder x LaDivas from @Reikox. I also removed the shade makers from both of them. I did this the same day I did the largest ST4, #83. They were on germ day 69, 18 days ago.
Here is the last shot I have of them before defoliating, it was 8 days previous.
Here is what they look like today:
These plants have responded very positively from this. Even what would normally be popcorn are much larger. This will be standard treatment for these plants in the future.
These girls have another 5 days to go to reach the point that #80 was at trichome wise. I only got 22 grams from 80. This weed was sooo good, I burned it up in just 2 weeks. I stand by my earlier estimates of 35-40 grams per plant with these two ladies.This weed was an excellent, smooth, pleasant tasting smoke that has just enough sativa influence to keep awake until the party’s over. 
These are going to be a frequent guest in my Veg chamber!
Since these will harvest in about 5 days, they has some pretty good bud porn for you as well:
I’m going to break here for a while. When I come back, the first plants in discussion will be about numbers 96 & 97, @Kalgrae’s (BC Mango x BC Night Nurse) x Diesel Moonshine, green phenotype.
More later, friends.
C50