The Lazarus Grow

[Hippiechik]

High guys! God I have missed this so much… I’m attempting to grow my old seeds, black mamba x Bogglegum crosses. I’ve held onto them for 15+ years, hoping they would eventually be grown.

I first attempted to soak a batch of seeds in water with h2o2 on Oct 24, and planted them directly into coir on Oct 31. As of Dec 1, they have not germinated. I have them in a spot where they are being gently heated from below, and I check them regularly.

My second batch of seeds went into a vial containing water and h2o2 on Nov 9. On Nov 29 I noticed a seed had split, and saw green tissue inside. However, a radicle was absent.

I added a tiny amount of table sugar and GA3 to water with a small amount of h2o2, and agitated it in a vial until everything was dissolved. Then I put the seeds in the vial and placed them under lights in an area that maintains a steady warm temperature:

To be continued-

[Hippiechik]

I just checked the seeds, and more have cracked open. I took fine tweezers and gently opened the rest to look inside. I’m noticing that they are green inside, which is imo a good sign, but that green tissue is only a cell or two thick and very delicate. Worse, it is adhering to the shell, and it tears easily.

The tip of my tweezers in the photo above are pointing to the radicle, which would normally be the “tail” that emerges and develops into the root.

The embryo is rather hidden, and would have to be carefully dissected out to properly do embryo rescue. I just don’t have the fine motor skills to do that kind of precision work, though.

I really think I’m on the right track with this, but I REALLY wish I had access to a good dissection scope and a proper lab lol. The magnifying glass thing I snagged on Amazon is hell with bifocals, and incredibly hard to work with because it’s awkward.

Anyway, I plopped these guys right back into the vial and put it back under the lights in my grow rack. I’ve got it snuggled in between two tubs of hydroponic lettuce, so it’s at a very consistent temperature and it’s under 24h lights.

My next attempt will be more along these lines: https://journals.ashs.org/downloadpdf/journals/hortsci/26/7/article-p917.pdf

I think these seeds have potential, but they need a boost to get them going. Only 1 out of the 10 wasn’t green, it was brown and the stuff inside was obviously dead. That tells me that there’s still life in them- not much, but it’s there.

The boost I intend to use is Murashige-Skoog formula, ordered from here:

https://phytotechlab.com/phytoready-murashige-and-skoog-germination-medium.html

I will still add a tiny amount of gibberelic acid:

Hopefully the embryo is still alive, and this stuff will feed it enough to get it growing.

…to be continued

[DesertHeartGardens]

I dropped the white rhino in the mailbox a few days ago btw you get some to sprout will be following along

[Hippiechik]

Bless you, thanks!

[Rhino_buddy]

I’m enticed by your trials @Hippiechik . I’ll be watching to see how and how many you get to grow.

Interested in Some hella cracked beans? Hella jelly x green crack made by petalpowerseeds.

[Hippiechik]

I will gladly accept anything. That’s part of the fun, trading beans and seeing what happens. I only have these old seeds, but so help me if I ever get them going I will chuck pollen and send seeds too.

Bog’s old Bogglegum was a great plant, and it had really similar growth traits to Black Mamba. The offspring were all pretty good, and I crossed a really nice “mambagum” clone to Apollo11, and another to AK47.

Both of those pollen donors were pretty strongly sativa dominant, but I figured they might be interesting- especially if I found a good offspring from each and bred them back to each other.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I used to breed and show rabbits, so doing this kind of thing is right up my alley. I just wish I had better facilities to do this kind of work properly.

[joheimgrohen]

RISE AGAIN AND BRING HAPPINESS TO THE WORLD!

Welcome back to the OG. May all your beans pop and your flowers be fire.

The “green tissue” you mention is similar to the amniotic sac in mammals, or the albumin layer of an egg. It’s there to protect the birthing zygote and will either be grown out of, or need removal as it can dry out and strangle the new plant by not allowing the cotyledon to separate.

I think you’re doing OK, although I would lean more towards the paper towel method myself. I am more successful popping beans in paper towels than directly in planting media. @DougDawson is the seed popping king imo be may have some tricks you can adapt.

Again welcome back to the OG, I’m just going to sit over here and watch the Little ones shoot for the moon!

[Hippiechik]

I have tried the paper towel method and planting directly into soil, many times in fact. The end result was always the same: death, fungus and sadness. The seeds wouldn’t even split, they just exploded into a mass of fungus.

I started with a lot of seeds, too, and I am down to only a couple dozen- that’s why I’m trying a more scientific approach.

I just sent an email to the head of the department of horticulture at Kansas State University, Dr. Steve Keeley, and am waiting to see what he says.

[joheimgrohen]

I first soak my beans in peroxide for about an hour then swap the peroxide for water for another 24 hours then into the paper towels in a baggie. Keeps it all nice and clean. Also I only pop small batches, I don’t have the room to pop more than a couple of each strain and the strains are lined up for the next few grows already.

[Hippiechik]

Well, I have some rather bad news. I decided to take another look at my seeds, and I think that these are goners. I dissected them out of their shells under my scope, and carefully removed the layer of green tissue that I had seen earlier. There was zero sign of growth or change.

I’m waiting to hear back from a couple of plant scientist-types to see what they say, and if they can give me any advice on techniques. Rather than risk destroying my remaining seeds, I put them back in the fridge and will be starting something else instead.

I still need to try and climb my fat ass up on a ladder and install the exhaust duct in my closet before I get too far. It originally had a 6” inline fan, but I goofed when I got the replacement and bought a 4” instead.

Oops.

I will use it anyway because it is what I have, but I am saving up to upgrade later on. In the meantime, the 4” will probably suffice. It’s an iPower so I don’t have super high expectations. As long as it doesn’t burn my house down it should be okay- but I am still going to install a smoke detector and keep an extinguisher handy. (Good idea for any grower.)

I also gotta get a 3.8cft bag of Promix, too. I have always used Promix and coir, with GH nutrients. The Promix weighs around 70 pounds so I don’t know how I can wrestle it inside, but I will figure out a way. Lol

[Hippiechik]

@joheimgrohen

I first soak my beans in peroxide for about an hour then swap the peroxide for water for another 24 hours then into the paper towels in a baggie. Keeps it all nice and clean. Also I only pop small batches, I don’t have the room to pop more than a couple of each strain and the strains are lined up for the next few grows already.

Unfortunately, I think I ruined them by not storing them properly. Cannabis is normally fairly easy to germinate, but these guys are not showing any signs of life.

Perhaps one of the folks I emailed will give me some technical advice on techniques for embryo rescue culturing. That’s probably the best chance they have, and I don’t want to fvck it up. I have waited too long to lose hope on them…

[Hippiechik]

I’ve decided to put my old seeds back in the fridge until I can buy a microclone kit like this:

https://microclone.com/store/ols/products/microclone-sterile-seed-germinating-kit

So… let’s continue with something entirely different.

These are what I have to work with, and I have high hopes indeed! I am getting ready to start these beauties, and very eager to see what they can do.

White Rhino
Grape pie x snow lotus
Orange Goji x Amnesia Haze
Trizzlers F2 (auto)
Dirty Martini (auto)
MMXX F2 (fem)
Queen Anne’s Revenge
Poison Daddy F2

The autos were freebies from Twenty 20, and I am extremely curious about them. I’ve never grown autoflowers before, so we’ll see what happens.

I will be presoaking them on Thursday, and hopefully get them planted on Saturday. (It’s a new Supermoon and it couldn’t hurt.)

Thank you to everyone who helped me get back in the saddle (so to speak). I’m eternally grateful.

[Hippiechik]

Yesterday I finally felt good enough to whip up some seed start mix and pot up a few plants (I raise heirloom rose-scented geraniums).

My starter mix is a block of coir rehydrated with 1/4 strength GH nutes in the water, and 1/4 cup of mosquito bits (I use warm water and let them soak overnight before mixing them into the coir). To this I add one bag of Miracle Gro seed starter mix and 2 16-oz cups of fine vermiculite.

I also have a big pitcher, and hang a tea ball on the side filled halfway with more mosquito bits. I run hot water over it and let it sit there until it cools. I always keep it on hand and use a dipper to water my plants. It is great for suppressing fungus gnats.

I know everyone loves “organic” because it’s a trendy cool buzzword, but I am a lifelong gardener and have used this stuff for all my garden plants. These are of course seedling cups, and seedlings are delicate.

I put a tiny pinch (literally about 6 pellets) at the very bottom of each cup. This will give each baby a boost when its roots are ready, without frying them. There’s a small amount of fertilizer in the soil already, so the two combined should be enough to get them over the hump and to the transplant stage (which I do when they show sex at 7 or 8 internodes, or about 8 weeks). However, I do like to water with GH nutes roughly once a month.

From there, they will be potted up into a mix of Promix BX. I wanted the plain BX black label compressed bale, but the local shop had this stuff and the price was reasonable: https://www.pthorticulture.com/en/products/pro-mix-bx-biofungicide-plus-mycorrhizae/

I got half of my starter pots ready to plant, and will be doing the rest this evening.

What kind of hippie doesn’t like patchouli? I decided to start some of these patchouli seeds, too. Why not?

To be continued…

[Hippiechik]

So here we go (again). I took a cup of water and microwaved it until it was almost boiling, then added a quarter teaspoon each of molasses and brown sugar, plus a pea-sized amount of Clonex gel, and stirred it all up until it dissolved.

I divided the solution into four 50ml portions and dumped each one into a separate cup. Into one cup I also added the tiniest amount of gibberelic acid- maybe enough to cover the tip of a toothpick. Into each cup I also added about a quarter teaspoon of 3% H2O2.

I then placed three of the best looking seeds from each cross into a separate cup. The seeds will remain in this solution until they sink, and then I will extract each one, rinse it, and move it to a damp paper towel for further development and observation.

Cup 1 (+ gibberelic acid)
([Black Mamba x Bogglegum] x AK47) x (Black Mamba x Bogglegum, trifoliate)

The trifoliate was a cool plant that I really liked and was playing around with. I intended to cross the best offspring from this to the next one below (number 2)

Cup 2

[Black Mamba x Bogglegum, trifoliate] x Apollo 11, Genius cut

I got the Apollo 11 pollen for this (and the AK47 used to make the previous seeds) from another Overgrow member and bred it to a trifoliate Black Mamba x Bogglegum clone.

Cup 3

Chimera’s C4

I picked a delicious pine pheno from this, and used it to make:

Cup 4

[(Black Mamba x Bogglegum) x Apollo 11] x (C4 x AK47)

Ignore the label because I kinda got it turned around in my head and wrote it down wrong

So the wait begins…

[Hippiechik]

Update:

All the seeds have sunk, so it’s on to the next step: germination

I used a spoon to carefully remove the seeds, and put them in a glass of room temperature fresh water and gently stirred them up.

I then placed all three seeds of each cross (12 total) on top of a paper towel that had been folded into quarters and placed in a quart ziplock bag and moistened with a teaspoon of peroxide in 16 ounces of water, plus a tablespoon of the soaking solution mixed in. I used a little spritz bottle to just moisten everything, and then gently breathed into the ziplock bag to inflate it a bit and put it on top of the rack in a sterlite container to keep the drafts out.

I also decided to start some of the newer stuff, too, and used the remaining soaking liquid to water each planted seed.

Now the waiting begins. This is a new moon, and a supermoon at that, so I am hoping that it will help. But this isn’t any ordinary supermoon; it’s the closest the moon will be to earth in the past 992 years, as well as the closest it will be for another 345 years!

[Hippiechik]

Well, it’s not looking too good for the seeds. There’s mold growing everywhere on the paper towels, and nothing else has changed. I will try giving them a rinse in h2o2 to see if it helps, but I don’t have much hope for them.

Let’s turn to the backup, shall we? For a recap, these are the other seeds I started that night:

I had room for 11 cups, so I decided to start one of each or 8, plus an additional White Rhino, Orange Goji x Amnesia Haze, and Grape Pie x Snow Lotus.

As of this evening, all 11 are up and running. I had to assist a couple of difficult births by removing the shells and the little cap of tissue that keeps the cotyledons stuck together at the tip, but they’re alive at least.

This one was the lone straggler, but it finally popped up and said hello this evening.

The light in my little rack setup is terrible for cannabis, so as soon as the first few broke ground I moved them into the growroom and put them under the 1k. (I didn’t want them sitting on the cold floor, so I put them on a cat litter bucket.)

I can hear all the gasps of abject horror, “but they’re seedlings! They’re delicate! They can’t handle it!!” Grab your fainting couch and smelling salts, because I think they can. An LED isn’t any more intense than the Sun, and they do just fine with that lol.

Although the 1k is doing a decent job of keeping the temperature up at plant level, I may have to move them temporarily back to the rack next week, because the temperature is forecast to drop into the single digits.

Although I doubt these guys would be affected much under the lights, it’ll likely be so cold that I risk stunting them. As I am down to smoking fan leaves and stems, I would prefer to get this show on the road and not stall it if possible.

For our purposes, today is Day 1.

[Hippiechik]

Btw after a lot of deep thought (and a bout of acid indigestion) I decided to pull out the now-moldy paper towels from each ziplock bag and give the inside of each bag a couple of spritzes with peroxide and water to hopefully kill any fungus inside.

Only two seeds (out of 12 total) are growing fungus, and both were in the same bag. I gave one a 5 minute soak in peroxide, cleaned it off as best I could, and put it back in the bag with the noninfected one.

I decided to sacrifice the very worst one for “science” and dissected it. There was no evidence of growth. You can see the embryo and the radicle in this photo (the embryo would normally develop into the actual plant, and the radicle would develop into the roots- I removed the cotyledons or seed leaves):

Since the remaining seeds aren’t growing fungus (yet), and haven’t cracked open yet, I will put them back where they were and leave them be…for now. I will continue to monitor them closely, and will check them a couple of times a day and see if anything changes.

I’m somewhat encouraged that they aren’t moldy, so maybe there’s a teeny sliver of hope. Lol

I’m also going to pull a few more seeds out of cold storage and put them outside in the garden tomorrow. Maybe going through a natural winter and spring will be enough to revive them?

[Hippiechik]

Sad update: all the seeds developed mold and didn’t germinate.

So, moving on…

My plants are still in solo cups (I normally keep them in cups until they are sexed) but I fear I goofed badly with one of the autos. It’s already flowering! Yikes.

I also gave them their first feeding, because they were really hungry. It’s made a significant difference. There’s a mutant in there, also- the Queen Anne’s Revenge. It only developed a single leaf and had no terminal growth node visible. I had originally planned to cull it, but it is now starting to grow so I’m going to give it a chance. Who knows, it might be something special. It sure looks weird, though.

I’m not very happy with my lights, either. They’re sufficient for other plants, but I don’t think they are enough for cannabis. So, I ordered a HPS for my closet (I plan on eventually running two or possibly three, supplemented with the LEDs). This room originally had HPS, so I’m going with the gear I am familiar with.

I have seen lots of photos of other LED grows, and the amount of stretch is pretty bad. Little popcorn buds and lots and lots of stems. If I wanted lumber, I’d go to Home Depot. I’m not trying to build a damn cabin here, after all.

I’m going to be transplanting everything and redoing the setup, so it is still very much a work in progress.

This is the mutant.

They were very recently fed, and are exploding into growth and starting to green up again. They’ll look a lot better once I get them into their new homes.

[Kabuddha]

Those are some great sounding crosses…wish I had seen this thread earlier. Are these the ones that failed to germinate?

[Hippiechik]

The black mamba crosses are the failure to launch ones. Makes me sick, too. I still have some seeds left, so I will just keep trying. I have them stored in my fridge until I can get that microclone kit later on- I feel like it stands the best chance of success. I’m on a fixed income (SSI, I am disabled) so I really don’t like throwing money away for no reason. I wouldn’t even consider buying something like that unless I felt it would help.

In the meantime, I have some fabulous sounding goodies to play with in the growroom. This is my first time growing autos, and an entirely different room setup, so I expect a few errors along the way.