I’ve started these on 12/12 since about 2 days ago. The 3 larger ones are RSC pheno lebanese (still crossed with black/blue). They mostly have a very dense structure, and require defoliation. One has much narrower leaves (as seen below). They’re recovering a bit – I think I have understood that they want to be fed infrequently. They seem to like 2x/day floods much better. I will cross these with the larger, stretchier blue hemp pheno if I find any that I want to keep. The nutrient sensitive one might get mulched for being too difficult to work with.
The one in the lower left I’m fairly certain is Leb27 x black/blue. You can’t see it, but on the bottom there’s 3 leaves (trifolate), which is what I found in the Leb27 it was crossed to. Should be very interesting to watch… would not surprise me too much if that went intersex though due to the weirdness.
Here’s the black leb clones really starting to shoot off. Happy with these so far. The one in the left picture I really like so far. It’s very branchy and has a really great structure and node spacing. It’s also nearly impossible to clone due to the fact that it has produced some pistils under 24/0 lighting. It’s not flowering, but I think that the plant hormones have switched it to a difficult state to clone. But it’s a great time to make the Black Leb backcross, since I only have black/blue pollen for this run. So I’ll know all of the seeds from these plants are BX1s.
Here’s the rest. Youngsters that I’ll use to fill some spots from plants I kill and give to @8k_feet to fill holes in his grow. Everybody is looking much happier this week. Most of these last plants will get scrapped this week if I don’t have room from removing something else.
These are all pollinated now, so plenty of black leb bx seeds are on the way. Bud sites are coming in nicely. Both are branching very nicely. I’m eager to see what comes of them.
The ficus! I defoliated more today and even lopped off some mid-canopy branches. Super weird buds are filling in like their mom. Not sure these are going to produce anything worth keeping, but we’ll see. Richer smells coming early on these, more like tobacco or coffee than fruit or citrus.
Nothing much to say here. The Leb27 pheno is starting to bud a little bit. I’ll probably pollinate her in about a week. Pretty sure I can confirm another one of these youngsters as a female as well. Last one still undetermined.
Hey @lefthandseeds, thanks for the updates my brotha!! I hope you’ve been receiving my positive Lebanese vibes I’ve been doing a ton more research and reading up on the history of Cannabis in Lebanon and plant growth/phenos, hash making, watching videos, as well as visualizing the growth of your plants exploding into flower, all while chanting “Lebanese, Lefthandseeds, Lebanese, Lefthandseeds!!” Got such a nice ring to it.
Things are looking really good! considering the issues you’ve encountered thus far. Killin it like a champ! Lefthand, Lefthand (crowd cheering )
Really like the description of the rsc phenos (the ficus!!) and the rich smell of tobacco and coffee you described have me craving some real-deal Lebanese Hashish!!!
I’m gonna throw a chunk in the hookah, light it with a burning stick of cedar from the mountains of Lebanon, then hop on my camel with his bulletproof hump and ride through the Bekaa Valley yelling @lefthandseeds at the top of my lungs!! In my head for now of course, but I may have to add that one to the bucket list
The Black Leb look like they’ll turn out some nice seeds!! Looking forward to the bx, hopefully I can convince you I Leba-neeed them like I did to @DougDawson
Busy weekend, and not much work in the garden. I went out on a hike yesterday with my wife, and we shared a joint of the Black & Blue Lebanese (#3 from last grow). It’s my ideal hiking cannabis – it’s gentle and awake, helped me appreciate the surroundings. Wildflowers were in bloom between about 6,500 and 8,000ft. And I took some pictures along the way. Found a really cool cactus and summited about 8,500 still well below the tree line. Snow is still too low for a lot of hikes in these parts. After a few hours, the high gradually faded away without leaving any tiredness.
Earlier in the week, I smoked a little more than I usually do (dry herb vaporizer). I also had a little more caffeine than usual earlier in the day. The smoke set my mind racing with all kinds of crazy ideas. At some point, I had to talk myself down from a panic. Two pretty different experiences… methinks it has a pretty high ceiling that can go into tinfoil hat mode. Don’t underestimate her!
I need to do some res work tomorrow, so I’ll get some plant pics up soon! Hope you all had a great weekend.
Our lake, Trinidad Lake State Park rose around 10 feet since last night. We had record rains and storms all night. Been a while since we had a good wet spring.
Sounds like you have some fire on your hands with the B&B. Enjoy the spring. It was really nice today. Just windy. peace
As promised, here’s some close ups of the buds forming. The squattier ones have wild clusters of bud, and I attempted to take a side shot of one of the branches. It’s hard to see, but the node spacing between bud sites is miniscule. They’re also very nutrient sensitive, while the pure Black Leb clones are wanting more. So far I’m pretty happy with the balance I’m keeping here… I seem to be growing them a little better every time. Next time, I think I’ll use even more P amendment and let the EC ride up a touch higher.
The vertical shot with the wider node spacing and smaller buds is a Leb27 pheno. I call her Q-tip because the buds look like little Qtip heads. She’s also exhibiting more classic P deficiency signs on lower leaves, despite me amending about twice as much as the normal 321 formula. But generally doing much better than the last time when I grew pure Leb27.
One of the Black Leb clones is starting to turn colors a bit on a few leaves. I like both the phenos I have going right now. They’re very nice.
I’m about to do a reservoir change today. It seems like probably a good time time to switch from amending 9-58-8 to 0-52-34 (MKP).
Awesome bro, thanks for the updates and pics. The one from the weekend was a nice change of scenery. That hike sounded nice, need to take the wife out for a nice one myself.
Those are some pretty crazy clusters of buds and petioles on what looks like the rsc pheno pic.
Well this is a classic look. Previous grows, my plants were so P deficient that it didn’t even look like it. But check this out! Now that I’m amending to double the amount of phos in the 321 formula, I’m up to “normal” signs of P deficiencies.
Here’s some more pictures from around the tent. Fungus gnats are a continuing pestilence on my life. I’ve been using 3mL of microbe lift bmc in the reservoir to no avail. Yellow stickies are down all over the place.
The RSC phenos are looking crazy with insane bud clusters. Some leaves are starting to turn really nice colors on the Black Lebs. Leb27 pheno (the one with P def) looks very similar to the mom, but still doing much better this time. No nanners or intersex yet, but I’m sure I’ll get at least a few.
I’m currently using Southern Ag 5-11-26, which is similar to other 5-11-26 formulas like Jacks, peters, etc. I think megacrop has a 5-11-26 too though. It’s probably the most standard hydroponic nutrient formula.
But starting in flower, I’ve been adding 0.5g of fertilome 9-58-8 and switching at mid-flower to the end with 0.5g 0-52-34 MKP added to the formula.
I think if I had more uniformity, I could just boost the EC on some of them to help. But because of how things worked out, I am balancing out a lot of phenos in a lot of different stages. So I’m only topping out around 1.9 EC right now. They’ll still do alright, but there’s always room to improve.
Jack’s is actually the oddball in the industry with their 5-12-26 formula. I think they also have a little more magnesium in the bag. But 11 vs 12 is pretty much inconsequential for these. They need a LOT more than any other plants I’ve ever grown. That said, I think Jack’s formula is slightly better than other brands for that reason… 11 is just a little scant.
I’d like to see something like a 5-18-26 formula. I think it would work better pretty much universally for cannabis without any detrimental effects. It would also be slightly more acidic, which is nice if you add a little silica anyway.
Here’s this weeks updates. The Black Lebs clones are well seeded with some Black Leb BX seeds. You can see they’re starting to take more coloration. I think they have about 2 weeks left, so we should start to see a lot of color action on these pretty soon. They smell nice, piney more toward a pineapple than a pine tree, maybe some herbal, tart smells. Great line from Geneseeds.
The RSC leaning phenos continue to blow my mind. The quad-top is so bizarre! The other one is just developing a totally packed top cola with really fat side colas.
One of the youngest plants pictured is taking a shining toward the Black Lebanese side of things, while her other sister of similar age is toward Blue Hemp. They’re all drinking hard right now, and this week really sucked up a lot of water. They still seem happy flooding 2x per day in the hydroton. I think these plants really prefer dryness in their roots, and I doubt I’ll go back to feeding them more than that – or have to increase it by the end of flowering.
Last point of note is that I’ve started mixing my own nutrient solution from scratch, and am off the 321. After having been an experimenter and student of nutrients for a couple years, I’ve spent the last year or so calculating scratch formulas and am finally ready to make the leap. That’s all about that for now, but if all my plants are dead next week, it’s because I messed up.
Hey Lefthand, fantastic photos of the plants! The day after you posted that update I started the Panama Haze x Lebanese They’re off to a great start
Can’t wait to see the colour on those, and are the rsc leaner phenos quad top on the lowers as well?
I hope you were joking when you said about them dying lol, my heart dropped I’m sure whether you dialed in a super solid custom @lefthandseeds proprietary formula, or just winged it, it’ll be all good.
I’ve been doing a ton more research and reading up on the history of Cannabis in Lebanon and plant growth/phenos, hash making, watching videos, as well as visualizing the growth of your plants exploding into flower, all while chanting “Lebanese, Lefthandseeds, Lebanese, Lefthandseeds!!” Got such a nice ring to it.
considering the issues you’ve encountered thus far. Killin it like a champ! Lefthand, Lefthand (crowd cheering 
)
I’m sure whether you dialed in a super solid custom