Oranje's Adventures in Vegging

[oranje]

@Kalgrae

Too many plants…oh no, that’s an awful position to be in. Specially since they’re all healthy again.

Rather than cull it, can you move one outside in the surrounding area and let it finish out guerrilla style? Maybe pollinate her and throw out? Man I don’t know, but looking great.

Yeah, first world weed problems, I know. I feel bad killing off viable plants, especially ones in good health, but allow me to explain my current growing philosophy…

I have 3-ish strain categories I’m looking to fill:

• The Creativity and Focus strain. Probably sativa-dominant. Would be good if it puts a smile on my face, extra points if it doesn’t keep me up at night.
• The Knock-Out. Probably pure indica. Sleepytime pain relief, anti-inflammatory a plus.
• Difficulty: Expert. Psychedelic brain-scramble. Can involve some mellow but no lethargy.

The little Wreckage shown above (who is named Octavia, not Lazarus, sorry @Fuel ) is the current winner for “Difficulty: Expert.” Easy and forgiving to grow, tasty to smoke, and makes the world weird enough to keep me amused. Great way to end the day.

… bringing it back to The Cull, I’ll probably keep the Lumpy Space Princess pheno of Space Candy around for a bit, though she’s got a shorter high than Wreckage and Sahara-level cotton mouth. Other Space Candy pheno is easier to grow and looks like damn fine bud, but the high is content-free chatty smiles. It’s dinner party weed. Might be more appealing to the occasional smoker Anyway, that one will probably get the axe, but if there’s room in the corner of my flower tent…

Anyway, here’s the state of the plants:

Repotted the larger Apollo 11 (center) into a 5-gallon bucket, still bushy as a beast.

The Chemdawg x Sunshine Daydream (back-center) is now in an 8-gallon pot. In addition to being rootbound, I overestimated the nutrient content of its soil. Should recover just fine with 8x the space and some light soil amendments, but not looking so hot now I’ll spend a few weeks making it wider instead of taller, and then onto 12/12 she goes.

Happy Mutant Blueberry will be repotted tomorrow (maybe 3 gallon, maybe 5 gallon). Her sisters are the giant-leafed monsters in the group shot, which will be subjected to longer-term training before flowering. Despite having 50% more branches, she’s the beanpole of the three.

End of the clone wars. Like I said, I’m searching for a certain something to keep in my collection, so I don’t flower anything unless I’ve got a clone in veg. In a week, I’ll take the cap off of their happy little domes, and a week after that, off comes the dome – if they stand up, they’re good to go. Otherwise, back under the dome and try again next week.

Hopefully my next update will be showing the new-and-somewhat-improved veg tent!

[Kalgrae]

@oranje

The Creativity and Focus strain.

Like your timecube post, check this out. Good for creativity, focus not so much.

Cameron's World

[Viva_Mexico]

@Kalgrae

http://www.cameronsworld.net/

wtf! I fell like I was tripping back in the nineties again!! all that was missing was the dial up internet tone before seeing that website.

[oranje]

Are you seeing that dank-ass basil?

Next round of flowering is going to be interesting. I’m still training/pruning the Chemdawg x Sunshine Daydream (back center), but the transplant from 1 gallon to 8 gallon has led to a growth spurt I can barely keep up with Oops. The big Apollo 11 (dead center) has had its lower branches pruned, but it’s getting wider rather than taller, so not sure how I’d train that… but I have a sneaking suspicion she’ll need some stakes.

Happy Mutant Blueberry doesn’t get a closeup today because it looks awkward after training. I’ll probably give her another week to get acclimated to her new pot, and then the 12/12 fun begins.

[Kalgrae]

Thing is… they all look so happy. There are some nice green hues in there. When those ladies all start showing autumn leaves, you’re in for a treat. Cheers

[oranje]

And so we conclude this tale of the Little Flower Tent That Vegged, and our life-long friends have a tearful goodbye. Here’s the parting shot of the four going to flower – Chemdawg x Sunshine Daydream, Happy Mutant Blueberry, and a pair of Apollo 11.

They went nuts. Everything did. In the past 10 days, we changed seasons in this neck of the woods, and even though the tent is now on the chilly side (72ºf day, 64ºf night), that came with a humidity bump which put everything in a sweet spot. Vigorous, healthy growth. I swear that the ChemDxSSDD repaired its pre-repotting leaf damage… Anyway, I’m in good shape for flowering those girls – hope Weed Gods keep smiling upon me

The whorled phyllotaxy Blueberry no longer suffers from post-training awkwardness, but she did turn out exactly as I’d hoped:

… and last but not least, the original veg tent is back (in pog form). After my summer of awful vegging, I decided it was time to ditch my improvised cheap LED + T5 setup, and I decided to give @Baudelaire’s SolStrips a whirl. In the end, he hooked me up with a complete, pre-assembled kit – 6 strips in all, 5k temperature, and dimmable power supply.

My initial impression was “OH MY GOD I’M BLIND WHY DID I PLUG THEM IN WHEN THEY’RE FACING UP.” Things were much better after I hung them up and turned down the current a bit… it’s shocking how cool they run, considering how much light they put out. Every so often, the future ends up being pretty neat.

Ahem.

As always, the thousand-word picture:

I’ve got a veg tent of growing, happy plants It’s only been a week, so I don’t have a sense of stuff like internodal distance under 5k, but the girls look happy, and I’m happy, too.

[Blowingupjake]

Wow! @oranje is killing it in here!
Very happy and well managed plants. Very impressive.

Stay hazed
Jake

[RickSanchez]

Nice even canopy with all the different strains. I always have pots on top of pots to try to even things up. I’m excited to see where this goes from here… Starting a new thread for flowering?

[oranje]

@RickSanchez

Starting a new thread for flowering?

Yep, hopefully will start to move more towards perpetual flower – that’s the goal, so I’ll start my forever-in-flower thread soon. I’m still getting the hang of growing without liquid nutrients (y’know, except for teas and other homemade concoctions), but hopefully they’ll stay healthy well into flower. Don’t curse me with compliments, @Blowingupjake

[Baudelaire]

@oranje

OH MY GOD I’M BLIND WHY DID I PLUG THEM IN WHEN THEY’RE FACING UP."

LOL - I need to add warning labels. I keep a pair of UV blocking safety glasses around at all times working with these lights.

The plants look great. The 5000K spectrum is perfect for vegging, the spectrum and lumen output keeps things squat and bushy. A few other growers have mentioned how it seems to even out the canopy even among different strains. How hard are you running them?

[oranje]

@Baudelaire

LOL - I need to add warning labels. I keep a pair of UV blocking safety glasses around at all times working with these lights.

No permanent damage, and I knew they were going to be bright… I was more surprised by just how bright they were, as pictures do not do them justice.

@Baudelaire

How hard are you running them?

I don’t have precise power consumption measurements, but my ballpark guess is that I’m running them around 60% (so ~120 watts) right now at about 18 inches above the canopy. I’ll probably leave things like this for another week and tweak if need be, but everything in there seems quite happy for the moment.

[oranje]

Just a quick update over here, as the rest of the year’s excitement will probably go down in my flowering fiesta thread…

My babies are growing a lot I’m very pleased with the #solstrip fixtures so far, and can’t imagine that opinion is going to change. Internodal distance with 5000K is great, and everything is lush and happy. Praise be to the weed gods.

I’ve also set up a shade garden below the canopy – not to say it’s entirely shady, the light penetration is great. Just not quite the intensity of the top.

Apologies for the condition of my Escargot Begonia – it did not respond well to the arrival of New England winter, but is quickly recovering.

As you can see, the tent is full, so this thread will probably hibernate until I have room to veg something new. Next in the queue: Bingo Pajama (Queen Kudra Kush x Appalachia) from Bodhi, General’s Daughter (G13 x Cinderella99) from #fleurdumal, and Black Lights (Black Domina x NL#1) from Coastal Seed Company. So many great strains, so little space

[oranje]

… forking this off from my flower thread …

@Scissor-Hanz

No deformities [on my Blueberry], but it does have very light green leaves rather than the dark blue-green I remember from the Blueberry strain I had 15 years ago.

Mine very much has the deep blue-green leaves – like “that’s got to be a deficiency” blue/green leaves. But your old one didn’t have little leaf quirks? I could have sworn I read that this was a Common Thing™ with Blueberry, but I guess not I guess each breeder has their own variation, and DJS opted to go with the Odd Mutation variant?

It’s a bit unsettling, isn’t it? Not all leaves are quirky, and I see no sign that it stems from deficiencies, pest, or disease: only the Blueberry do it, all Blueberry do it, and they’ve done this both while soil-fed and bottle-fed. But they’re happy and healthy, so I’ll let them do their thing.

Anyway, your Blueberry look obscenely chunky and delicious – I can imagine why it’s your favorite of the moment. If mine turns out anything remotely close to that, I’ll be a happy camper indeed

[legalcanada]

maybe its just hungrier than your other strains. my northern lights needs ~20% more feed than the others.

i was deleafing today and one of the plants just stunk like blueberry i haven’t smelled it in a while but lol i don’t have a blueberry in flower i wonder which one it was

it was the green crack

[Scissor-Hanz]

@oranje

It’s a bit unsettling, isn’t it? Not all leaves are quirky, and I see no sign that it stems from deficiencies, pest, or disease: only the Blueberry do it,

Thanks for the great info @oranje
I have 3 different Blueberry mother plants right now (DutchPassion) I don’t get that bleaching/mosaic pattern on any of them. I’ve done it to other genetics tho. I think I will have a grow-off with some of DJShorts Blueberry next time I make a seed order.

[oranje]

Dear Internet Diary,

I’m now in the “hacking back my plants because I have no space in the flower tent” phase of vegging Still prefer that to “everything is dying and I don’t know why.” Anyway. Canopy looks almost the same as last time around, just much taller. I’m about 10 inches away from the LEDs at this point and getting what’s probably a bit of light burn – then again, they’re 2-foot plants in 1-gallon soil pots, so potbound nutrient problems are surely on the horizon.

Blueberry continues to be weird, but still seems happy. The one below has more variegation than straight deformities, and also seems to be the branchiest of the three. Think this might be the keeper of the bunch.

In other news, all of the pre-flowering clones I took died I used a new organic seedling/cutting mix, and its water-holding capacity was way too high for my usual cloning method. The Apollo 11 clones failed fast, and I think the post-12/12 clones I took (using my usual cutting soil mix) have rooted. I really wish the ChemD x Sunshine Daydream clone took, however. That plant appears to be . Hopefully I can keep it happy through flower and re-veg…

[Muleskinner]

FWIW, I have found Blueberry or even half-BB strains to like very low nutes - they burn easily. They are the most sensitive to fertilizer of any strain I’ve grown and I always give them less. The HuckleberryX GSC I just grew was similar, they started burning in veg so I cut back on fertilizer in the flowering mix.

[legalcanada]

thanks that’s good to know, i’ll keep an eye for that. i have been feeding my solo cup plants at the same strength as my flowering plants tho and haven’t seen any burn yet (10g maxi/gallon - probably around 2EC or over)

[Baudelaire]

@oranje

It’s a bit unsettling, isn’t it? Not all leaves are quirky, and I see no sign that it stems from deficiencies, pest, or disease: only the Blueberry do it, all Blueberry do it, and they’ve done this both while soil-fed and bottle-fed. But they’re happy and healthy, so I’ll let them do their thing

That is almost a verification trait of Blueberry. I grew DJ’s original BB release in '94, a second generation release I have now, and several BB crosses over the years. Leaf variegation (white splotches) and deformation showed up in all of them. I’d be skeptical of crosses that never showed them. It’s a problem with Blueberry, a sign of inbreeding depression and homozygous genetic profile. Which is probably the reason BB shines more often in crosses than as a pure strain.

-b420

[anon3416974]

@Baudelaire

That is almost a verification trait of Blueberry. I grew DJ’s original BB release in '94, a second generation release I have now, and several BB crosses over the years. Leaf variegation (white splotches) and deformation showed up in all of them. I’d be skeptical of crosses that never showed them. It’s a problem with Blueberry, a sign of inbreeding depression and homozygous genetic profile. Which is probably the reason BB shines more often in crosses than as a pure strain.

-b420

Sorry may be off topic but @Baudelaire from all the strains i have grown of yours the only difference I noticed so far was in the Janis which I believe has some of the DJ Shorts Blueberry in her Pedigree, All the rest were so uniform they could have been clones .

Also please may I ask how do you pronounce her name Janis with a Jay or Janis with a Y as in Yanis (gGreek) or Janis with the Jay UK spelling of a Ladies Name Jannis ? @Baudelaire