These are the trace minerals only very minute quantities are needed I wouldn’t worry about these IMO save your money! Let nature do her thang! Lol
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I think you’re probably right about the trace minerals.
I talked to a buddy on FB’s probiotic soil alliance group and he suggested mixing in some biochar when I add the clay soil. I’ve never needed biochar before, but it’s a perfect fix for most nutrient excesses in the short term (the plants and microbiology will sort out the long term fixes). I’ll be adding it a 7%, by volume, rate to the soil before the next cycle.
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I recently sign up as a member over there at PFA there seems to be a lot of good information in there File Tab, biochar would also be a great addition to a soil Mix I’v been dabbling in some homemade stuff and would like to compare it with some commercially made stuff for some grows . When buying it make sure it’s "charged " or you now how to charge it with a bacterial load before using otherwise I’v heard it can have a negative impact on some crops. There’s definitely some good looking grows over there using their techniques!
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15 posts were merged into an existing topic: Biochar! Charcol for the garden
I suppose we collect the pollen and try again once we find more seed?
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@cannacrab
LOL, no, we still have the 7 healthy females in the grow shed just chugging away.
I did hit the light timer in the shed and accidentally turn it to “on” instead of “auto” for the timer mode.
I reset it to auto again about a week ago, which means the girls will be a little bigger and about a week behind the males. I will be collecting pollen from the males to store in the fridge for a bit, but I’ll also be carrying the males out to the shed to shake each one all over the girls.
My order for rapid rooter plugs (plus tray and dome) arrived yesterday, so I took cuttings again today. Two of each to increase the odds.
The girls are all doing well too. Over the next week I’ll start shaving their ankles (cleaning up all the lower branches and stuff that isn’t getting any/enough light to fully develop, but only in the bottom 1/4 of the plant.)
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Excellent! I was a little upset there for a second. The girls look really lush. Really excited to find out what variations we find in the F2’s. I wonder if they will lose their uniformity like you have now.
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I checked all the females today and they are all showing pistils. The males pollen sacks are about half mature and the clones are alive-ish. Okay, the clones are kind of bent over, but the stems are all still feel firm. We’ll know in another week if the clones make it.
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They always do that, just give them some LITFA and they will be alright!
HAHA!
Cheers!
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High humidity, low light and lots of LITFA!
(Many are bent over, but all of them are still firm, more litfa!)
And the males are all looking healthy and uniform.
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Looking like some beautiful sunshiney ladies! 
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When I usually look at floral clusters I think of the heady smoke I’ll soon be enjoying, but with these I’m almost counting the number of ovules in my head to reassure myself that I’ll produce enough seeds. 
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@cannacrab asked a great question in PM that I’d like to answer here, because it is applicable!
Assuming that you want healthy viable seeds AND the highest possible flower potency, just make sure your plants are as healthy as possible. Check that they have all the macro and micro nutrients they need, that they’re properly watered, heat & humidity levels are in a healthy range, light intensity is increased, and apply lots of LITFA.
Depending on how you want to prioritize seed viability versus potency there are some manipulations you can do, but it really requires that you want to prioritize one over the other.
For the best possible seed viability you should make sure that you continue to treat the plant’s nutrients needs as if it was in vegetative stage, including making sure moderately high nitrogen levels are available during flowering. Also, once you’ve pollinated the flowers you should increase the hours of light back to 16 hours a day. Seed maturation proceeds regardless of light cycle, so adding more light actually increases the amount of stored food in the seeds which correlates with increased seed viability.
For the best possible potency in situations where pollination has occurred, like a plant that has hermied, you should make sure that you treat the plant’s nutrients needs as you normally would for a plant in flower. Make sure it has a slight decrease in nitrogen, and a slight increase in potassium (K), calcium & magnesium. Also, if possible, increase the amount of UV-A/B to induce secondary metabolites that act as a UV protectant.
As a bonus here are some photos of the male pollen sack clusters in regular light, so everyone can get a better look at their stacking, sizes and internodal variations.
These start at the 9 o’clock 
position in the closet and move clockwise.
9-o’clock tells me it has a stretched internodal structure with a looser floral cluster density.
12-o’clock has a shorter internodal structure with much denser floral clusters
3-o’clock has a medium internodal structure with moderate density floral clusters
6-o’clock has a longer internodal structure with denser floral clusters
I like that we’re seeing a good diversity of variation between such a small number of males. It tells me that with just these four males, we will be able to maintain as high a degree as possible for the genetic variability possible in the F3 generation.
(Take a good long hit off some dank cannabis, because I want you to follow the link below for a deep dive into advanced genetics!) 
I will start doing stem rubs on all the males soon to see if the terpene profiles are strongly linked to the internodal spacing and floral cluster density. Understanding the strength of each characteristics’ allelic linkages will help us better select for the best possible combinations of these 3 characteristics, we hope.
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I never thought males could look so gorgeous!
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Holy shit balls! T-Rex is lost in the jungle now!! Rawr! 
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RAWRRRRR!!! 
Rex roams ferociously through the old growth forest, ever vigilant for the gnome menace. He is a stalwart defender of the Canna-bliss Forest. 
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How do we take advantage of this knowledge? By careful observation and documentation of results to make our own linkage maps?
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That’s exactly right!
A real world example of this was my experience back in 2013 trying to tease a CBD only phenotype out of Cannatonic seeds. One other person had reported on an obscure forum that the purple phenotype was a 1:1 CBD/THC variant. They had also reported that none of the green phenotypes had a noticeable amount of CBD.
The fact that both the purple coloring and high CBD always segregated together would allow me to know I had a CBD phenotype long before I could smoke it. I had planted 6 fem seeds and had gotten 1 purple tinged leaf plant. It would be the only phenotype that I took clones from and upon smoking the dried flowers it was apparent that I had found a phenotype that was at least 2:1 CBD:THC. I had to smoke 3 grams of it to get even the slightest buzz and even the buzz was probably caused by oxygen deprivation after sucking down three grams of weed in about 5 minutes.
The fact that the reported phenotype was only 1:1 at F1, and my phenotype was a 2:1 (maybe 4:1), also told me that there was at least another allele responsible for CBD levels. I also knew that other strains had been reported at approximately 2:1, 4:1 & 16:1. Keeping in mind that drug type cannabis genetics are almost identical in their number of alleles, and identical in what those alleles do, I knew that you couldn’t get those kinds of variation without multiple alleles being co-dominant.
On another topic! The males started bursting pollen sacks this morning. I’ll move them in with the girls shortly.
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