Hey guys, I’m planning to grow outdoor next summer around 47 degrees N. The climate usually changes from sunny and mild to cool and wet near the end of September. There is a lot of powdery mildew in the area and when it starts raining relative humidity can stay over 90% for weeks at a time.
Another problem is that by September 1st we are still getting 13.5 hours of daylight.
So I’m looking for advice on a PM resistant strain that initiates flower early and finishes fast. I might go with autoflowers, but I think photoperiod plants that can handle the conditions would be better. I think I’ll be growing in 7-15 gallon fabric containers with super soil if that matters. Quality and uniqueness get extra points!
I’ve heard blue magoo does well in the pnw, since that’s where it is from. Would look at some things from dynasty that have that in it. Also think they have a bx of it.
I live in Salinas and here we have PM year round with all the green houses and ag around here. I like Bodhi for outdoor. He Is from south of here and his Purple Wookie and Goji did great this year… I believe buying local genetics for outdoor in your area from trusted breeders is the way to go. Also growing from seed not clone helps in my opinion.
Edit: A trusted breeder tells you which of his strains would be best for outdoor and which are sensitive and need to be pampered indoors and actually has tested them.
I have grown a lot of weed up and down the west coast for 45 years now. I am just above the 45th parallel in Oregon now, in the Cascade foothills. I grow mostly in GH outdoors here. I start them under lights and move them outside when the rains end, usually in June, but sometimes earlier in April if I am doing a spring bloom (light dep triggered). I only grow regular non fem photos. Mostly landraces from my collection, but sometimes newer strains.
For an early bloom you can use early blooming strains, or you can use light dep to trigger early blooming. For PM I use refined Neem oil at a rate of 100:1, or 3.5 TB per gallon of water. It will kill any amount of PM within 2 days. You can also use H2O2 and sugar, a cup of each in a gallon of water. Both sprays will also kill those pesky mites.
For strains? I popped one really early blooming landrace Lebanese sativa pheno this year that started blooming in July and finished in early September before the rains came. I bred her with a more standard August blooming landrace Lebanese male. I have seeds if you are interested. I also have some clones from last year. Trades considered. I also have a late September harvest time ‘standard’ Lebanese cross that I made this year.
For newer strains I have grown here, White Widow finished pretty early by the end of September. Blue Dream was also pretty early finishing the first week of October. GDP and OG Kush finished later in mid October. GDP is also prone to PM. I grew the skunk/mendo purps/afghani version of Grape Ape this year and it finished in mid October. The same happened with a skunk/Durban cross that I grew. I will be working on more Durban Poison landraces next year. I love Durban, but the landraces are unstable with really really early June blooming and August to later blooming phenos. I have seeds from South Africa that I am working with. Also a local cut of Skunk/Durban from Holland that is skunk dominant in the high, and I am crossing with landrace Durban to get rid of the skunk.
You can also do what I have done many times here, and start your grow indoors and set them out in April in a GH and they will bloom right through the summer solstice. I did that a few years ago with White Widow, Blue Dream and a Ghost cut of OG. They all stayed in bloom through June when I harvested them, re-vegged and then they bloomed again in August. It is a way to get an early harvest and avoid September rains, or do double cropping on the same plants.
My old stomping grounds. My mom taught at Salinas High for many years. We/I lived in the Monterey Bay area from 1966 to 1986. I still have a lot of friends there.
“Back in Salinas, that’s where I’m from,
I guess I’m an Oakie, or a Mexican”
-Larry Hosford, Salinas
@BigSur do you ever have problems with intersex plants when you do light deprivation? I was thinking it might be possible to get plants to switch using light deprivation and then stop. Hoping they wouldn’t revert to veg state or show intersex traits.
The last two years I could have probably left plants out until November as long as they didn’t succumb to PM. (PM is everywhere here, but I’m not too concerned about it((my squash plants always die of it but not before I get to harvest more squash than I know what to do with)) If I the plants get it I think I will be able to deal with it))) …That’s unusual though. End of September would be a safer bet most years. I’m more concerned with the long daylight hours late into the summer.
I have never had plants change sex on me doing light dep or variation of any kind. The 3 clones I ran of WW, BD and OG all stayed female when: cloned to death, flowered early, re-vegged under sunlight, flowered again, and re-vegged again under MH HID light. All my landrace clones have stayed true to form as well, cloned, light dep and re-vegging.
The only herms I have had were growing in GH in Southern Oregon using heirloom strains from seed. They were females with late male flowers popping and it was spotty in September. Its genetic from fem’ing seeds. I have never had a male turn female on me, and I have grown a lot of males for breeding. I left my Grape Apes out here until last week, and they turned completely purple outside. I have clones of it so I chopped them this week.
As for long daylight hours, as long as my plants are in full flower, they have never re-vegged on me until I cut the flowers off. One strain did want to re-veg on me somewhat under lights that I was finishing a seed run on this year, and that was a Durban/skunk Holland cut. Only plant I have seen that happen with. That was under 12/12 MH and 20/4 T-8 floro combo, 4 hours no light. Durban is an odd and very unstable strain to work with though. This year I am going to try a light dep spring bloom on Colombian and Kerala ganja landraces, to see if I can get them to bloom in May and run through August.
UTGA Seeds Marionberry Kush. Locomotion looks killer in the Mendo Dope boys outdoor too. Marionberry is the only strain I’ve grown outdoors, and it was in the Midwest where the climate sucks for outdoor growing. Flavor, smell, and potency were on point, and I wasaveraging about a pound a plant off 5 footers. It wasnt as potent as when i grow it indoor, but the colors that came out were badass.
looks like they don’t have Marionberry Kush anymore. The TGA website says Pennywise and Hurkle are “super powdery mildew resistant” and maybe some more on the website if you read through them all.
it’s still there! I’m trying hard not to order - you can how easy it is to slip over the edge and become a strainaholic. Before you know it, you’ve got 60 pages of seeds in a “huge cache”.
Yeah, I have trouble not ordering a million beans too. Luckily I have a wife that keeps me in check. What do u need groceries and gas for, when you have tons of beans. Right? Lol. I have like 10 strains I’m sorting through at the moment, and about to pop 4 more. Canopy management is crazy, with such a diverse selection.
