"Yes, I really do need all these plants." 🤣 Autoflowers, photoperiods, bugs, breeding, & a Humboldt heirloom (journal)

[RainToday]

Thanks! The stuff I read suggested if the seeds were really old then they might not have proper sugar stores of their own, but you’re right its mostly going to be microbe fuel, which is super risky early on. I’ll try the next batch without any sugars and with the higher % hydrogen peroxide you mentioned.

I think temps were my main failing point. I do usually just germinate seeds in the house temps, but after a bit more reading its clear those really aren’t ideal. and in fact it seems mid to upper 70s would be better. These seeds are from outdoor cannabis too, used to northern california. My dad & the neighbors would start them indoors, but I’m sure it was somewhere warm in the house. (Wood stove heating back then. ) I’ve got a tub set up and temps are up in the mid 70’s now.

Some tails popped out from batch #2 and I’ve just moved all the seeds from the soak into paper towels in a little glass tupperware. The towels just have filtered water mixed with a little tiny bit of the fulvic acid stuff.

I’m going to have to set up some heated seedling trays in my greenhouse too, because assuming I can get some past the tail stage I bet these baby plants won’t put up with cold nights like my others do. What a PITA

[JohnnyPotseed]

Whenever we ran out of WC, rather than use the stuff that was half-ready, we’d just buy a bag of WC off Amazon, when finished with it, just mix it into the composted soil mix for use in the pots.
Always had heat mats with some insulation between the tray and mat, to drop the temps a bit in the WC tray/humidity domes.

[RainToday]

Thanks! I just ordered some, and another heat mat & a couple other things that looked like fun. Got plenty of seeds left to go round a few more times.

[JohnnyPotseed]

Be sure when you ready, to wet the WC down really good, until there is water standing… then soak up the excess with paper or cloth towels. Leaving the WC wet, but not swimming, ya know? If you get one of the heat mats with thermostat controls it’s no problem to turn it down to where the tray isn’t ‘hot’, use a towel over the humidity dome to give em darkness.

[RainToday]

That’s what I tried to order, I’ve got a separate controller with a probe on my mat right now, it’s just a touchy mess. Ordered something easier. I’m also starting to conclude that these seeds really dislike being moved. Going to set up some WC for one group, and try rapid rooters for another set. I got 6 small seedling trays coming instead of one big one, so I can do different setups. These babies are getting the deluxe treatment. I’d really really like to grow them successfully.

Thanks for the support! You, and @BigDaddyDrew and the folks stopping by to drop a like, its nice not to feel quite so alone in my plant adventures.

[RainToday]

Most of the first two round seeds are dead. I planted one seed with a tail that hadn’t rotted, and the handful of uncracked seeds that weren’t moldy, but I don’t think they’ll make it. I’m struggling to understand the tails popping and then death. Sigh.

3rd try

today, more science-y. 12 variations of germination stuff.

Keeping at 80 degrees as best I can.
Soaked 15min in 2% hydrogen peroxide.
Rubbed seeds.
Soaked 10h in 1/2 cup water with 1/2 teaspoon Ful-power, and half the seeds also with 1 teaspoon coconut water.

Planted in Rapid Rooters / worm castings / both, and sprinkled half with Mykos. All 72 seeds pointy side down.

No tails yet, I’ve been seeing those closer to 20 hours, and the goal this time is not to be changing the up/down orientation of the seeds after tails appear.

Had to add a towel cozy to try to get the temps even. Got annoyed and ordered a fancier heat mat. Its a good thing I don’t have any other expensive hobbies, this one is plenty.

[DirtySlowToes]

Yo! Love the explanations and experiments. Perhaps leave the domes off a few and see if you have better luck? Personally, seeds pop for me without domes. Perhaps I’m heavy handed on wetting my media, perhaps the lack of airflow, perhaps domes increasing temps are what mess with me, but regardless…everytime I dome my seeds, I see more issues. It’s counterintuitive but I wet my media, toss a seed with a tail, and loosely cover it. Leave it at 65 or 70%, with temps no lower than 70. Whatever ends up working! I’m invested

[RainToday]

Thanks! That’s a great idea. I’m not normally a “domer” either. I spritz them if they look dry before they need real watering, but that’s in my grow room where humidity is a little higher. For these I was more worried about keeping them warm, but maybe I can rig something with a mesh cover with a towel over it. They do also have little opening in the top of the covers, I ought to be able to open all those this morning.

Realizing I really wish I’d done this in the summer. I turned the house heater up last night so it wouldn’t get so cold. My new morning idea now is to put a space heater in my greenhouse room and warm the whole darn thing. 6x9 isn’t that big, should be able to keep the whole room at minimum 75 all the time, then the heating mats won’t have to work so hard.

Just checked on them, too cold, and not even heating on the mats. But at least they’re not cooked. On to the space heater (oil filled coil, not gonna burn down the house

[BigDaddyDrew]

How goes? I think I caught the word most in there-- meaning that you may have a few seeds growing?>
Funny to me how my first several seed hatches went off with no effort, fast and 100%, it was september and october- still 70-80 daytime temps… But then as fall moved on, germinations really dropped off… I think part of the answer is it’s better to have nature and the season on your side… Without that- seems like a much more sketchy proposition…

Hope some luck comes your way.

[RainToday]

I’m a sad panda. No joyous little ancient embryo sprouts for me yet, so I must infer they are all dead. I won’t toss them of course, because there’s still a little chance. I dropped a phacelia seed into each little cell yesterday. They’re borage relatives, good little nitrogen-fixing companion plants with gloriously wisteria-scented flowers. I need to feel like I can do more than murder seeds and I thought perhaps a little life would be encouraging. Never know what might work.

@SCJedi is giving my remaining seeds a better chance than I could, whether it works or not I’m so appreciative. Makes my heart feel peaceful that I’ve done the best I could for the seeds. I’ve got another plant friend trying some things with a few more seeds, and I’ll keep you all posted - and maybe @SCJedi will nothing private about these embryos.

Anyway, I just did some calculating and realized if the old Humboldt grow I’ll be vegging & cloning before they need the whole room for flower. So that means…

There’s time for a quick autoflower run!

I’m going to run these autos:

• Several of my sativa-side pineapple crosses
• Pineapple from HomeGrownCannabisCo
• Imperium X auto from Anesia seeds
• A home cross of two other crosses from Pigtail Gardens, growing those to provide some indica bud. I don’t intend to breed them.

My own crosses are all regular seeds, so there will be some males I can use to make seeds. I plan to advance my pineapple cross line, which is a few generations in, to cross it back to the pineapple for a more true to original variant, and to cross it to the Imperium X which has a very compatible description in a quest for increased potency.

It’s taken all my self control, but I’m making myself stick to one set of pollen so I’ll be able to be sure of the parentage.

[RainToday]

Been cleaning up and rearranging in my grow room, close to finished. Took a panoramic photo to share.

A bunch of my home cross seeds popped, and the commercial ones sank at least, so I planted them all. The top few inches are ProMix, and under that is a messy mix of living soil with lovely amendments. Once they show sex I’ll transplant the males - doesn’t matter if those get stunted ;-).

The phacelia sprouted nicely in all the Rapid Rooters. It did best in the ones I had top dressed with worm casting. Mykos didn’t seem to matter at this stage. I think the pure worm castings cells are too dry, so I added water. It gives me a last gasp of hope for the cannabis seeds in those cells.

Heater is in the greenhouse, set to 76f, which is the hottest I can stand and I set the exhaust fan to 83f, so the days will be warmer than the nights. Someone told me maybe heat is the missing factor to get my dragonfruit to bloom. Perhaps I’ll get lucky and babying my cannabis will also get me dragonfruit.

[RainToday]

I really like it when they live
So many little sprouts today! Cannabis, and some companion basil & beans in the photo. Also two little volunteers who I think will be happier with the light intensity reduced. I turned it down just now. They get to grow for now, because nothing I really care about can get planted in that pot since the dragonfruit took it over.

[TopShelfTrees1]

Really hope you get some of those beauties to live and thrive. glad you have something else going to lift your spirits in the meantime, I hate losing seeds, especially old ones too. I’m sure a few will be viable at least, I almost always get a couple to pop , even stuff others said “no way” that was over 20 years old. You’ve got this

[RainToday]

Thank you for the encouragement! Yeah, it’s very cheering in there now.

Only lost a pineapple from the commercial seed, and that’s on me. I didn’t clean them, dug it up yesterday and saw it started to germinate but then rotted.

Everything else is up and lifting their little leaves to the light! Pretty nearly all the home crossed seeds grew, which means I’ll get to do some picking and choosing even after I pull the males.

I’m having one of days where it seems there is much resistance in the Force. Started off with my poor recently shaved cat pressed up to my chest in the bed shivering. He gets a lion cut with a #7 blade because he won’t let me brush him and I don’t fancy treating him for intestinal impaction when all that fur gets stuck. He doesn’t mind the shave, but I discovered the heater turned off in the grow room somehow, and that’s the only thing heating my room, so it was probably 62 degrees. I pulled the blanket over him until he warmed back up, and I’ve got the heater back on now. Cat mom guilt, plant mom guilt🤦‍♀️ but they all seem okay & the heater is back on.

[TopShelfTrees1]

Winter is such a pain in the butt growing, my dog is similar, she gets a real short cut and usually shivers a bit afterwards in the winter anyway, but in a day or two she’s back to normal, if I go any longer I’m cutting it every 3 weeks

[RainToday]

Photo update - the first round of babies are looking good! A little over stretching before I turned up the lights, so I added some soil. Have to say, all sativa-leaning autoflowers seem to look the same at this stage so I’ll just put two representative pics.

And how about this “oops” trio these are the extra unpopped seeds from the float germination in shot glasses. They all grew. They can’t all grow well like that, it’s an odd shallow pot, like 11" deep. Really one plant is way plenty. So who shall it be? I’m inclined to cull the two larger seedlings, on the theory that males are more likely to get big fast, and also because there’s not a lot of headroom either, so a small plant would be better.

I just planted more seeds too! Soaked last night, into promix top layer today after about 20h.
From Nukeheads, Purple Panama Red x2 & a Chocolate Thai Cake. From Night Owl, 3 Zamdelica Express F4 regulars.

So much drama though. As I was moving the Zam regs into their float cup, I dropped one. We did just sweep yesterday, but still I found 3 seeds on the floor. Two of them were definitely not the seed. So I floated # 3 on its own labeled with a ? and then moved a glass aside to find yet another seed. Which maybe was the one I dropped, but can’t be sure. So now I’m growing out two unknowns, hoping that one of them is a photoperiod so I’ll know it was the wrong one, and that the other looks exactly like its siblings. Making space for that required culling one pot of home x plants. I have lots of seeds of it to run later, but still. Argh.

I was really thrilled though to see the chocolate thai cake was the one seed that had actually popped in the cups. I only ordered one, just for an adventure, so I’m glad it’s vigorous.

[percyryan66]

Great journal…thanks for sharing your learning experiences with us…

YOU GOT THIS!!!

[BigDaddyDrew]

I put two of your pineapple crosses to soak, about a week ago… both cracked at less that 10 hours of soak… I planted them about 10 hours later, one had already shed it’s cap and had 2 white cotyledons showing along with a short tail, the other just had a tail… Very vigorous seed. The one with the two leaves failed. I buried it super shallow, but it failed to break ground, when I searched, I uncovered 2 green leaves( sorta trapped under 2 mm of soil)… but they never progressed even when exposed. The other is racing along. I will be dropping a few more shortly… just thought you’d like to know some of yours are growing over here. Thanks again

[RainToday]

Thank you! That is utterly delightful!! Awesome to hear how they do for other people

[RainToday]

Thought I’d venture into my photo box with some bud. Clearly going to need to venture a better camera or maybe daytime ambient light too.

Anyway, here’s what’s in the drawer here right now. I blew it on my last grow, got pollen all over the place and had to harvest some things early & some things seeded . Fortunately the crew around here isn’t worried about bud size and I usually harvest on the early end anyway to reduce couch-lock / sleepy effects. Should be fun to compare these to the next harvest, which I’ve promised myself not to frack up.

Edit: I see I left one out. I refuse to get them all out again, sorry