I don’t really like doing grow diaries, so I am starting this one at the end. That’s right, the grow is done. And it was an easy one. The image above is harvest day for plant # 1 which was the grow’s early achiever. Below you can see the runt plant #2 near harvest. I know that runt is very unkind, but it was consistently 2 weeks behind throughout the whole grow and . . . it was a larfy SOB.
So there you have it. 2 plants and 2 different phenos. The final dry weight was 169g or 6 oz for #1 and 163g or 5.8 oz for #2. A very equal haul despite the completely different plant structures. If you like the math of this, it is 301 gram/metre and 0.5 grams per watt of LED. So a decent result but no cigar. That said, this grow went so well, I thought that it might be worthwhile to document it – both for myself and for anyone else that may be interested. So here we are.
I must admit that this was only my 2nd attempt at a Sativa grow. Since I don’t have a suitable grow season for an outdoor monster, I am limited to an indoor tent, so size matters. My last grow was an Ace Malawi sharing the tent with a Dr Grinspoon from Barney’s – both feminized - that ended with mixed results. The Malawi finished well but the Dr G turned into a rogue monster plant and stalled in mid flower hell. After 191 days of growth and I finally gave up.
After that, I gave the tent a rest so I could hit the forum again to read more grow reports about Sativas and what can be done to keep them manageable in a tent. Start them small in Solos. Don’t use a big pot for their final home. 12/12 from seed. Top them at least once. Reduce the light cycle in late flower to 10/14. So that’s basically what I did.
The details:
2 x Ace Zamadelica Feminized
5 gallon cloth pots filled with only 3 gal of mix of CannaCoco with 25% perlite
4 x 4 x 8 Gorilla Tent
LED: 1 x antique Mars Epistar 160 (280w) HQ burple as a central light
LED: 4 x SolStik (80w) LED strips mounted as 2 x 4 ft tiltable pairs as wing lights
I used the wet paper towel in a dark warmish spot to germinate and both seeds popped easily. I put them in rapid rooters and stuck those in Solo cups. I kept the cups damp each day using 5.8 ish pH’d filtered city water. I started a low dose of cal/mag on day 4 and 2 days later I added light nutes to the mix (CanaCoco A + B, Remo’s VeloKelp + cal/mag) to an ec of 0.25 (or so).
Well, it became a test of wills after a while. The plant won the battle and I ended up with a huge amount of bud with tiny immature trichs. It does make very good bubble hash but with a crazy low return.
Here is the Dr G at 179 Days. The plant got so big - despite supercropping - that it hit my ceiling and folded back down. After I harvested its tentmate, I swiveled my lights vertically to see if that would do it. It was just far too big for the space. This is looking in my tent door.
13 days later at Day 42, the achiever on the right is stretching. Fast. It almost tripled its height in 2 weeks. And you can easily see its structure – a number of thick woody stalks with very little side branching - it was about 34” here. The runt on the left is now on a 6” booster seat to bring it closer to the light. It is starting to blow up with side branching. Defoling lightly didn’t even make a dent but at least it did improve airflow.
Here is a photo at Day 49 where you can easily see the size difference, the booster seat – and my wing lights in action. The humidifier is still working here to combat Canada’s furnace season and the dry air that that means. My ambient humidity is often in the teens. I killed it when I was in full flower to reduce any risk of bud rot or mildew.
Wow the doc G went all swamp thing…sure didn’t come out like the wispy, popcorn pheno in the pics for the seeds all those years ago…naughty Sativa vine, was just liking the tent too much, like why mature, it’s nice in here…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8l3ntDR_lI&ab_channel=TheBeatles-Topic
Not a pearl bud to be found. Just strange foxtailed bud-stalks with teeny calyxes covered in small trichomes. 711 grams of it - so a massive haul. The high is very nice - especially the bubble hash. Spikier than the Malawi but in the same genre.
By Day 57, the runt was now stretching as well. It still had the 6” booster here but colas were popping up nicely. They were thinner than the achiever’s colas which were plumping up on their sturdy stalks. I quit the cal/mag finally when they started real flower and about 2 weeks in I started using a PK supplement - Day 56 by my calendar. I used some Remo’s AstroFlower that I had laying around. This took the ec up to 1.0 or so from the pre-PK level at around 0.8 - 0.9.
Looking in the tent door on Day 77. The booster seat on the runt is now gone since it had one ‘hero’ cola that shot up even higher than the achiever. I think it was trying to prove something. The final height was 37” or just shy of one metre.
I quit the PK supplement after about 2 weeks of use – so around Day 68. Two days later, I flushed the salts with 5 liters of nuted water to each plant. After this, I reduced the daily feed to ec 0.5 – 0.6. And at Day 75, I reduced the lighting to 11/13.
Day 87 cola on the achiever. The pistils are darkening, the buds are growing firm and the leaves are fading. All good. The runt was 10 days behind . . .
Day 89. I finally had to start adding some string to support the cola stalks. ec 0.4
In this photo, you can see the colour difference between the 2 plants. Interesting. Other differences included the structure, which I previously mentioned, as well as the leaves and the smell. The achiever had wide and the runt had narrow. And the runt had a slight gassy addition to the fruity aroma of the achiever.
Day 100. This is an achiever cola and she is looking ready. The trichs have been milky for more than a week but no amber. I had reduced the lighting to 10/14 on Day 96 for encouragement but I am coming to the conclusion that it is time.
I started flushing and chopped it on Day 103. I cut the fans but hung the rest for what turned out to be an easy dry trim.
The runt kept maturing for another 2 weeks before I flushed and finally chopped it at Day 116. This one wasn’t such an easy trim. The side branches had a lot of small colas and a lot of larf. It took more than 8 hours spread over 2 days.
Since I harvested the achiever Plant #1 on January 30, it has now been curing a month and a half. Personally, I usually shoot for 3 months but it is all personal preference.
Smoke Report: Ace Zamaldelica Feminized
The achiever. Sweet over ripened fruit smell when you open the jar. Others have said mango/carrot and since I am really bad at articulating smells, I will just have to agree. Smooth smoke in my small pipe. I will call it fruity but really no distinctive flavour . . . but also nothing offensive. Initially it’s an up with a bit of heart race – kind of like ‘70s pot. The high is a bit of a creeper after that and it comes on over 10 minutes. Smooth, racy, energetic lift. Sweet tension - mostly in the upper body but some leg hair ‘crawl’ (although that might just be me since I have stenosis).Very good ‘doing something’ social pot.
The runt. What a difference! The nose on this starts with a muted fruit smell identical to the achiever that quickly turns to a sweet fuelly smell. As for the high? I can’t tell now because I am still buzzing from the achiever sampling . . . but . . . it might be mellower . . .
Overall, this is NOT a trip weed as some would hope. But in effect, it is very, very reminiscent of the Mexican/Jamaican brick that was available back in the 70s. I like it. I might just try a wake and bake with it tomorrow . . .
