I would like to share some photos of my recent/current experience growing out some seeds obtained from Colorado Sativa. The strain is snowhigh Zacatecas/Michoacan. Seems to me, using the nomenclature I am used to, the plants I am growing are an F2 version of the snowhigh F1 original. I will be making what I will call an F3 generation. Point being, produce, preserve and share seeds. I will follow to the best I can, the Freakers Ball protocol albeit I am not currently a member of that group. I just like their protocol and maybe someday I will get to be a freak, who knows.
A bit about me.
I am looking at the later half of my 7th decade on this mortal coil. I am a native of the Missouri Ozarks, having spent considerable time on both coasts, mi esposa and I have been back to the Ozarks since 1998. My first cannabis sprout was in 1972…an abject failure…due primarily to deer and rabbits. Later attempts were much more successful. But that said, I have not grown outdoors or any long flowering sativia since the late 70’s and have not grown much until about 5 years ago. I am not a botanist but I am a biologist (of the micro variety).
For the past 5 years I have been trying to refine my indoor growing skills. To that end, I am making progress. I have managed to develop some technique in growing some decent flowers, learning to reveg, clone, collect and work with pollen, reverse females and otherwise have fun with this lovely plant.
My favorite part of the hobby has been to grow very small plants and make interesting crosses. I will post some pictures in a bit. Mostly of my current grow but I may throw in some older pictures for fun since this thread is multipurpose…to introduce my grow, and to some extent myself.
My wife and I do not smoke anything, occasionally vape, just about always using tinctures and salves for our medicinal needs. I miss the pathway of lung to blood stream to brain but no more inhalation for me.
When we first decided to grow again we were very enamored with the latest cookie or dream or grandaddy whatever. Not to say those are bad plants, but we longed for that old time religion. What happened to the incense, sandlewood, frankencense (sic) ? Long story short, we are looking for the old time landrace/heirloom experience. So to snowhigh we go.
For now, I grow in coco and perlite with mycorhizomal fungi and beneficial bacteria added. I also use small airpots and General Hydroponic nutrients. I think switching to soil may have some benefits and I think I will look into it later. Now I focus on small plants and making crosses that seem fun. But as I move to a more preservationists approach larger pots and plants will be the thing. I aim for a pH of 6.3 and I have noticed landrace variety do NOT like heavy feeding . I had a brief problem with that but now that I practically starve the sativa they love it. As you may notice I used rapid rooters. Also something I will change. For fresh hybrid seeds, rapid rooters are fine. Less vigorous or older seeds…not so much.
As you can tell from the pictures some of the plants have very narrow leaves and some slightly wider. Bottom left is an F4 DJ Short Blueberry female dwarf for leaf width reference. She is along for the ride. The picture is one week in 11/13. The zativa plants are 5 weeks old. Short veg to help with height management. When growing for seed preservation larger or more plants will be necessary.
I believe I have as many as 5 males and 2 females here. Sequential germination may be necessary.
Please enjoy the photos and feel free to educate me. I have been known to make some boneheaded mistakes so save me from myself or just help me fine tune. I am grateful for this community.
Top picture is a wider leaf pheno from the grow. Bottom picture is the narrow leaf expression. Both plants are male it appears. I plan to pool all pollen and pollinate any and all females (and that blueberry, why not?).
I am not too surprised by phenotypic variation in an F2 grow. Just thought these were pretty cool.
Thank you for being here @DainIronFoot and for starting this journal.
May all be well with your soul and may all seeds you sow thrive beyond what you can currently imagine.
If you wish to start growing in organic soil, I’d say go all the way from the get go, it’s cheapest. You don’t need any fancy nutrients or powders, kitchenscraps and tree leaves will do. More info in my grow journals.
Wonderful! Thank you for the background too.
There’s a Colorado Sativas thread here, and I know they’d love to hear about your experiences growing!
CS seeds are almost entirely f2 generation, so you’re spot on with your analysis.
I’ll follow along here too: I bless this grow with the headiest of Heady Bear vibes!
Heart felt thanks to all commenting and following. Grateful for the kind words and encouragement and tips!
Turns out my early read was wrong. Narrow leaf above is a girl. Which is fine by me. So now I have three confirmed females and one likely male. A couple of lanky rascals look male so I think I should hopefully have adequate pollen and mix of pheno.
Is there some way I can link to the CS thread mentioned? I am kind of a Luddite.
Thanks for sharing your grow with us. Speaking as fellow geezer it is always nice to see someone who still holds onto and works with the strains of yore. Best of luck on the grow!
As we discussed before, most are definitely F2. Except perhaps the AG, the Panama and the Oaxacan might be P1 or P2. The Canabiogen Sinaloa/Destroyer would be F1 if the parents were IBL which I think they might be? Perhaps someone else would know better than I.
Prices are very reasonable. For a good cause it seems. I find F2 to generally mean a lot of variation but that is kind of fun.
Great looking plants just a fyi I’d used general hydro for years and switched to plant prod dry fertilizer. Probably one of the smarter moves I’ve done in a while.
I was a die hard 13 jug person till I seen the price difference and plant performance using plant prod.
Thanks for the tip. I find I use very little in the way of nutrients with landrace compared to the complex modern polyhybrids I was chasing. Quite a difference so far. I will look up plant prod dry fertilizer.
I’m by no means affiliated with that company but they seem to have there shit together. Check out there mj line tailors strictly to weed . Great stability no falling flat like general hydro does if you have left over.
What a difference a few days makes.
So much for my vision. Turns out we have one male and 7 females. One of course is our dwarf f4 djshort blueberry in bottom left included for comparison.
It seems there are three phenotypes at least.
In the back we have two lanky stretching girls. I thought they were males…nope.
We have a very narrow leaved female (looks downright tropical) and three somewhat wider leaf girls.
Our male (very pleased with him self) is somewhat more wide leaf but no where near the width of our blueberry.
I still feel pretty good about the sativa nature of our efforts. I really like the skinny leafed female. I haven’t grown anything with leaves that thin since I was a kid in the 70’s and grew weed behind the barn.
stretchhhhhh…well for some anyway. Time to harvest pollen. In this pic, the male has dumped his pollen and I have chopped him. Bottom left is our comparison djshort blueberry which is reported as 70/30 indica dominant. The rest of the plants vary in height but the leaf morphology is pretty narrow in most now. Plan is to collect seeds from this open pollination. I am not sure my current system will support a run for large numbers of seeds for a coop. I may have to make adjustments.
Currently using 315w CMH. 11/13. So far so good. I think I will up the nutrition slightly.
Just about 3 weeks flower in this picture.
I bless this grow with the headiest of Heady Bear vibes!
