Zephyr grows and creates

[zephyr]

Continuing with photos of my first grow ever…

This is the third pheno of the shaman. I planted this one later than the others, so you can see it is the least mature.

This one ended up being my favorite, probably because it had the best growth characteristics for my foggy San Francisco microclimate.

The guy who gave me the seeds thought this one looked different, and that it might be a fluke accidental hybrid with an OG clone that got light burn and hermed near the shaman.
As you can see its branching and over all structure look like the shaman, but its leaves were smaller, and it threw 3 finger og-like leaves when it flowered.
To me, it just looked like the shaman. This was some of the most impressive genetics I have ever grown in terms of resin coverage, resinous leaves, flavor, smell, and potency.

it smelled like a sweet fresh basil version of OG.

I gotta take a break now, but I will continue and post the rest of the pictures from my first grow tomorrow.
so stay tuned for
Part 2 - elite clones

[nefrella]

Looking good! Can’t wait to see the additional pics!!

[nube]

Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Isn’t it funny how far you’ve come personally and, in that time, how much the scene has regressed? Cookies really set the industry back a few years. IMHO. Such is life - things change.

That’s very cool you kept pics from that long ago. What year was this?

[zephyr]

These were taken in 2010.
2021 will be my 12th year growing.

In some ways I’m still a rookie, but as my health declined I really had to dedicate myself to the plant in order to stay alive. It helped that I had a lot of great mentors encouraging me, and sharing their knowledge and unique genetics with me.

And it worked too! I’m doing a lot better now than I was 5 years ago. I may be more physically disabled than I was when I started growing, but my health is more stable, I am not losing function any more, and I am in a lot less pain.

Looking forward to 2021 and beyond, I am hopeful that now that I can manage my condition effectively with cannabis, I will be able to start working up to more physical activity and slowly gain back some of the physical capabilities that I lost over the years.

[dequilo]

wow!!!wow!!!wow!!! what a great thread and read so much good info

I will be rereading this one a few hundred more times

thanks for your time in posting all this and putting it all together

be safe and stay free

Dequilo

[zephyr]

@nube
in 2012 Cookies had just hit the bay area market, but at that time it was only in one dispensary in the sunset neighborhood, one dispensary downtown, and in the hands of a few black market dealers (who were actually growing the bagseeds, which were basically girl scout cookies sisters, and later girl scout cookies s1’s).

I grew a few of those sisters and pre-cookies versions, the best one was durban pie, although like cookies itself, they were often herms.

It really started to gain traction in 2013 and started to become more widely available.

Berner got cookies as bag seed from a dispensary supplier. He named that batch girl scout cookies, and he called the bud from the s1 herm bagseeds girl scout cookies as well.

That grow seemed to be poorly maintained, they grew the girl scout cookies alongside a bunch of old bay area cuts which kept herming from light burn or other stresses. Knowing those stress herms would produce females every time, they started growing out all the hybrids as well. When Berner realized it was selling well, they grew out more bagseeds and selected their keeper which they called the “thin mint” cut.

Berner would never have had a platform to market girl scout cookies, if it wasn’t for Jacka.
Jacka (rip) was a beloved rapper, artist, and philosopher, and the nephew of Huey Newton. Berner was jacka’s weed man, and jacka put him on his Drought Season album in 2008.

In my opinion, Berner owes everything he has to Jacka.

“I put a truck full of reggie on the highway”
-Berner, 2009.

Now that’s the Berner I know.
Just trying to move some shitty midgrade bud that won’t even sell in California.
That’s closer to Berner’s comfort level.

[lefthandseeds]

It’s cool that you kept a log of your beginnings. My very first plant was in a 2x2 tent in an apartment. I think other people were growing in that building, because I had aphids within 3 weeks. My plant stagnated forever and never finished. Humble beginnings…

I’m glad you are enjoying the Lebanese so much. In my head, I’m so fixated on it, I think I’m going to have to grow it again next. I’m looking for something with the mildness and light hashyness of the Blue Hemp Lebanese, but I’ve been working on bringing together several of the lines I had so I can do selections and hopefully get some vigor back.

[zephyr]

Thanks dequilo! that really means a lot. I know you’ve been at it for a long time.
I always really enjoy reading about your experience with large scale grows, and chatting about music and stereo gear.

[zephyr]

Yeah the lebanese is so unique and special as a line that was isolated from the standard breeding process of the western black market, which selected only for high thc and commercial viability.

The lebanese has a totally different story to tell.

[lefthandseeds]

I think so too. This coming year, I might take a hiatus from potent strains and spend time on interesting low potency stuff. Right now, I’m really digging this Bodhi Acapulco Gold… it’s probably like 5%. I think I’m realizing that I tend to prefer that except for a nighttime smoke.

I felt the BH Lebanese was maybe the best anti-anxiety strains I’ve ever grown. It was hardly even psychoactive, but it brings a wave of well-being over you. Such interesting genetics to explore…

[zephyr]

Continuing with photos of my first grow ever- part two, bay area elite clones

These are the first two clones I ever grew, and the first clones I got through the old harborside medical collective in oakland.

Deadhead OG

chem 4 x OG – this one must have been the selected offspring of a femenized hybrid breeding project.
This plant had really nice genetics. Excellent branching with rock hard OG nugs (so dense they made a “clunk” sound if you dropped one). The nugs were slightly larger than a pure og. This one had beautiful pink pistils as it ripened. The smell was pure earthy soil. Extreme knockout indica potency, very high medicinal value for pain relief.

Harborside was great because they had a consistent supply of clones from nurseries and large scale commercial medical growers, as well as unique clones from the private medical gardens of collective members. These were unique privately held strains, and some were true diamonds. It was rare for these ones to appear more than once, and some were truly amazing genetics. I hope some of them are still held in private gardens in the bay area.

In the collective system, any patient who could produce good enough products could sell to the collectives they belonged to. There was no limit to the number of collectives you could join. It was a really really great time to be involved with cannabis.

[MimirKush]

Harborside was legit years ago… Are they still around? Man every time i see your pic i just wanna go back to H.I.T.W. miss that beach

[zephyr]

Oh man, harborside was the best. I think it’s around but it’s a lot different now, at some point the collective system was changed and mmj patients can’t sell directly to clubs anymore. I think harborside is a recreational dispensary now.

[MimirKush]

That sucks thats where i found blood diamond og years ago. If you wanted the best that was the place… Pricey though

[zephyr]

little guava update-
I told you these made funky seeds. Conjoined triplet seed - f2 b#2 ix f1 male.

Like a star anise pod.

I shuck my seeds into the lid whenever I pack a bowl, there was also a twin in the same nug. Before I shucked it that twin might have actually been conjoined with these as well. an additional twin attached would make it a quintuplet seed.

edit-
Just for fun,
What’s your speculation about the genetic outcome of this triplet?

I haven’t grown a triplet yet, but I’ve seen a lot of variations of twin cannabis.

For conjoined seeds, sometimes you will get a forked plant with two stems, both the same pheno. Sometimes they are the same pheno but one outgrows the other, and the small one becomes like a branch. Sometimes it’s two different female phenos. Sometimes it is a female and a male.

Single seed twins usually produce two of the same pheno, with one being dwarfed and turning into a branch.

[Pawsfodocaws]

This seems very intriguing I would like to know the outcome of said growth of this triplet.

[zephyr]

Continuing with photos of my first grow-

Purple Urkle
Mendocino clone only. unknown genetics from a family farm, the mother plant was held privately for many years before they shared it as a clone.

very complex sweet smoky smell like pipe tobacco, raisins, and hard candy. Very sweet mild smooth smoke. The purple comes in evenly, not like a blush or in streaks like grandaddy and other purple strains. Produces tons of tiny dense nug berries on the branches, and a compact ultra dense top cola.

this will be the last part of this series.

I actually had even more plants in this grow, you could grow a lot in San Francisco with a medical card. I had some bagseed and some standard seed bank seeds from a dispensary. Those plants just weren’t as interesting and special as these unique bay area clones and shaman seed line. I might post a few shots of those if I revisit my old photos again.

If I find more photos from my other bay area grows, I’ll post some of those. I had a pretty sweet greenhouse for a while, and grew a ton of the classic bay area clone lines using my perpetual outdoor method.

For now, here is the final photo from the San Francisco garden.
A ganja guardian pumpkin spider. It’s cool that these always show up in my outdoor grows.

Check out that detail, you even can see a tiny dewdrop on the back of his funky spider knees

[zephyr]

and now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

I have some sinsemilla going in the flowering tent right now. This is the final cycle for my guava hashplant “F” f1 mother plant. This will also be the last cycle for my Raspberry Afghani bodhi tester cut (goji raspberry sharpie f2 x old mother ghani).

Here they are, doing their thing. As you can see these mother plants are old and sparse, and have put out a lot of clones. To control the height and hopefully increase the production of the top colas, both of these have had some light training during stretch.

I love how different these are. That’s the raspberry afghani on the left, and the guava hashplant on the right.

This is the raspberry. check out these thick curly pistils that droop over, and the downturned deeply serrated leaves.

I’ve been calling these melted ice cream nugs.

The dried nugs smell exactly like vanilla ice cream, strawberry, and lime with a hint of fresh Jordans. The live flowers are pure lemon and nike rubber.

Here is the guava, looking like the total opposite of the raspberry with its arrow straight hairs sticking straight up. (compare it to the raspberry bud on the front left.)

starting to get pretty faded and showing a few orange pistils. This one flowers within 45 days, it will bulk up a little more and be done soon.

emits strong vegetal planty smells and occasionally a brief blast of skunk while growing. I don’t use a carbon filter, although I do have an ambient air filter running to keep the place from smelling too dank. The flowers themselves will have a mild sweet toasty black pepper and bitter kush smell.

[zephyr]

Zephyr grows and creates

germination test results The results of this experiment may be of no use because of some unplanned variables. I may have overcooked these with too much h2o2. Once they dried after soaking, the hulls looked bleached even on the healthy seedlings. Possibly as a result of this, all of them needed help removing membranes and hulls. 4x guava f f2 - 4 / 4 3x guava b f2 - 0 / 3 These all looked like good seeds, but after soaking, two of the seeds actually looked green and unripe. They were planted …

update / correction on my germination results

Guava B f2 - 1/3
I miscounted the Guava hashplant B f2’s. I actually had two sprouts. The one I mentioned that grew in a loop eventually didn’t make it, but the other sprout was fine. Just a little stunted. After establishing roots, it’s growing fine.

And some clarification on the mistakes I made when starting these-

I was rushing when I started soaking the seeds and made a couple mistakes

1. I didn’t sterilize the glasses before soaking the seeds
2. my lactobacillus serum may have been too old, but I used it anyway

After soaking for one day, there was some kind of cloudy transparent film visible around the fresh guava ix seeds. I think it may have been some sort of bacterial or fungal bloom, or possibly just waterlogged remnants of the membrane that grows between the seed and calyx clinging to the surface of the seed.

Because I wasn’t sure of the cause, I treated all the seeds to address the possibilities that it may have been caused by the old lactobacillus serum, or environmental contamination.

In my usual seed starting method I would switch the seeds to a very dilute hydrogen peroxide in water solution after soaking for two days in water with lactobacillus serum.

I overcompensated and used too much hydrogen peroxide in my attempt to treat the bacterial or fungal bloom.

So to sum it up, my germ rates may have been slightly higher if I had followed my own procedure a little more carefully when germinating the seeds. Fortunately, the ones that sprouted were seemingly unaffected.

[OleReynard]

My red heri fruitbud beans had that Saturn ring.
All 6 perished