Bob's search for the real White Widow with Dutch Passion's regular genetics

[Bob's Auto's]

Hey friends


Today was repotting day. My bag of soil improver had arrived and when the lights came back on, I went at it.

First towards the greenhouse where my pile of living soil was waiting for me. This lot has been turned over 7 times over the winter time. And I must say, everything incorporated inside isn't recognisable at all. The smell is a sweet forest smell. So I'm quite confident this soil will work perfectly

Shoveled about 40L of soil into the tub.

The space available isn't all that much. You can see my knees in the picture and I'm sitting with my back to the wall. To the left of me is the tub with the living soil. In front of me the original tent, which I'm using as a flower tent. And on the right the parent tent. Which is lying on it's side.

I've removed the plants from their P9 pots and placed them inside the new pots. Smeared some clonex gel on the part of the stem which will be under the soil. And filled the pot's up with the living soil.

Gave each pot 200ml water with my orgatrex and then topped the soil with the fertisoil.

I finally ended up with 24 pots instead of the dry tested 21. So that's a couple more.
My selection procedure was based on how the plants smelled after rubbing them, how the internodal distance was. And of course if their were some visible genetic defects. The fact that I was able to place 3 plants extra gave me some leeway as most of them smelled like onion or garlic. Two of them smelled like White Widow. Noice!!!

When I was done, I took the time to clean up in and around the tents. First with the vaccuum cleaner and then with a mob. A clean work environment is important!


Anywho, that's about it for today.

Regards,

Bob

 

[Bob's Auto's]

Hey Growers & Blowers

Yesterday evening I've sprayed the plants with some BoomBoom spray. It keeps the plants happy, but also gives the side shoots some extra enery for when they are cut from the mother/fater plant...

Some of the sideshoots are long enough, at least I think so... What do you think @Antonio_DutchPassion?

Pushed the seringe into the soil to give you an idea how large the shoots are...

Another great example of a nice plant with some great looking shoots on the second node. I also think this is a male, conform to the stretched appearance and all. I topped this one at the third node as topping at the fourt woul push the leaves into the light.

Loads of shoots on this plant. Gonna give 'm all a week for the smaller shoots to catch up with the longer one's.

For pictures and time lapses the light suck big time. But for stretching the nodes, the lack of usefull light does help in stretching those shoots...Still I can't wait for my light to arrive. I've been checking the topside of the tent and think I'll be removing the controller and led driver from the board. On top of my tent lies a thin piece of stiff wood back boarding. My thought was to use this as a mount to screw the light onto. A couple of holes for the wiring to go through and a couple of washers to spread the weight onto the board. This way the light hangs as high as possible.

The plants aren't very big, And that's intentional as the max height of the tent is only 60cm/2' high. With my DIY light I'm losing about 10cm for the frome, controller box and fans for the COB lights.

All heathy looking plants if I may say so

No time lapse as the light in this tent is causing that obnoxious flickering in the photo's...
I do have some news. Got a scratch card this week and won 500€, so I've treated the missus to a new pair of glasses and with the remainder I'm currently on an auction site bidding for some choice genetics. Some Sativa dominant and some Indica dominant. And everything in between.
My current damage sits around 190€ and this for a total of 125 seeds. All regular photo's, and most have one form or another of Skunk #1 inside. I even got a G13 (Hash plant) Afgan Skunk hybrid, which I had to fight for against another contester, extending the auction by at least 12 seconds, lol. I finally won it for 30€ at 15 seeds.
Still, there are three days left for all the biddings I'm contesting in, but I have more seeds than I actually need, so I'm waiting to see when someone overbids these and then I'll tab out. If noone does It'll cost me 15€ per pack of 15 seeds. If someone (fair chance that'll happen) overbids, my damage will be under 200€ and that's with tracked shipping.
The seeds will be kept at a stable temperature inside the basement where it's always 8°C/46°F which will keep them safe for many years to come. I keep all my seeds there and never had any issues germinating older seeds

Anyeone willing to take a guess what my next project will be about?



Regards,

Bob

 

[Bob's Auto's]

Hey Growers & Blowers

Thanks for the rep @Antonio_DutchPassion, this means a lot!!


Three weeks old and the plants are loving the new soil they're in...As they have blown up over the last few days after repotting the lot. All have healthy leaves which formed a thick canopy. The introduction of the living soil did bring with it some gnats, but since hanging the yellow sticky flytrap I've only cached two of these little buggers.

To open up that thick canopy I removed quite a lot of the bigger fan leaves so the light could penetrate a bit further and help the side shoots to elongate towards the light. Remember, the plants in this tent don't have to be pretty, but generate shoots for me to use as clones.

Some of the plants, which I think are the males (like D5 on the right) look quite naked now without their big fanleaves. But that's ok

I hope by next week to be able to take cuttings from all the plants and root them...
The smell inside the tent is starting to change from green grass to a more musky down to earth smell. This tells me that in normal conditions they almost would be ready to flip. Luckily this isn't the case for them and they can stay on 18/6 for quite some time to come. I will need to prune them once in a while, but that will only give me more material to work with. I might even try some tissue culture if I can find the time for it. That would make it possible for me to send some overseas to a buddy of mine. We'll see what comes of it...

Again, no time lapse from this tent as we're still waiting on that light. Let's keep our fingers crossed I receive a tracking number by the end of the week like @Marshydro promised.


Regards,

Bob

 

[Bob's Auto's]

Hey Growers & Blowers


Almost cloning time, so I soaked the plants with a vigorous dose of BoomBoom Spray.

Most plants already have nice sideshoots, but are lacking the extra pair of leaves where to make the final cut.

I've been reading up on cloning techniques and supposedly I can make use of the connecting tissue where the shoot meets the stalk. I could also try to use the air layering technique @Shiva's Mistress suggested to me.

What do you think @Antonio_DutchPassion?

I've also noticed loads of lifeforms in and around the soil. So turned on the macro function of my phone and voilla...
Here's a Gnat resting on the rim of one of the pots just before I squashed the little fugger.

Even zoomed in closer and one can see a couple of compost mites.

And these little buggers were awfully fast and difficult to take a decent picture of...The Fungus mite.

Oh, watching all those tutorials for cloning, I noticed I forgot the add a pair of rubber/nitril gloves. So we'll add that to the list above
Wish me luck as the next time I'm posting, I will probably have taken the cuts. I'm not going to photograph the whole process as I'm learning and need to focus on my technique rather than combining the two.



Regards,

Bob

 

[Bob's Auto's]

Hey Growers & Blowers


Got something else todo tomorrow so I did the deed today...

I made sure everything was as sanitary as possible to start with...
Cleaned my hands and cutting board with ISO, used a sterile scalpel. And used the cut off tops from the plastic syringes to put the Clonex in. This way I didn't waste to much of the gel. The remainder in the tops got thrown away as you're not supposed to put it back into the container. I presume this is to prevent infection next time you use it.

First I labeled each Clonex starter cube and poked a hole in the bottom, with a thin piece of electrical wire, as I had to turn them upside down so they had a more stable footing. Then I took two cuttings from each plant, removed a tiny bit of the outer skin by scraping the sides with the scalpel. Each cutting got dunked in the Clonex gel for about ten seconds, after which it carefully was inserted in said made hole. I didn't cut the fingers of the leaves as this could possibly be a point of infection.

After I was done, I sprayed the inside of the propagator's lid with some clean tap water and carefully put it back in place. Then closed the airholes off so humidity can rise and stay there. It's kinda crowded in there, but then there are 48 cuttings that are being rooted, so...
I'm glad I spent the money on a decent propagator with an XL high lid. As the cuttings can use all the extra breathing room they can get!

This whole ordeal took me about one hour and a half and sitting there on my small stool for the entire time surely hurt my back, but then the deed is done and I feel I did it correctly. The light is set for 24/7 on and only at 20%.
The temperature is hovering around 24.4°C and I think I'm going to leave it at that. Going to monitor it the rest of the evening and go check on the cuttings just before bedtime.

Wish me luck people


Regards,

Bob

 

[Bob's Auto's]

Hey Growers & Blowers

How's everything going on with your grows?
Today I'm going to show off the mothers and fathers in their tent. It's almost time to give 'm a trim again as the shoots are stretching like hell to get that tiny bit closer to the light source itself. Speaking of light, my long awaited light should be at my doorstep any moment now. Got a mail from my local postoffice that it's on it's way to me... Let's keep our fingers crossed everything gets here in one piece

The plants are loving their living organic soil and the little red mites, which I thought were fungus mites, are actually predatory mites. These don't harm the plants at all, but rather go on a hunting trip and eat the eggs and larvae of all other beings. That's why there are so little fungus gnats sticking on that yellow strip.

It does seem they are running out of food as they are running all over the place. Going from pot to pot and even attacking each other.

But all in all, the plants don't mind them at all and all are basking underneath the light...

...which means, my DIY light isn't at all that bad. I think I'm going to use it in the greenhouse as I can hang it up higher and turn the output higher. That'll help in removing the darker spots and devide the light better over the plants underneath.

I've placed the eight plants that didn't make the cut to the greenhouse and planted these into 10 or 15L square pots in the same soil as these plants are planted. The cold shock at night did have it's effect on them as growth isn't coming close to what the plants inside the tent are showing, but that's ok.

I'm hoping they will react to the amount of light they are receiving now, which at the moment is something in between 10:00 hours to 10:05 hours/min.
Maybe I can at least force these to start flowering and give up something to smoke as at lately I'm craving some nice bud to roll up into a joint...

Inside the 'clone' tent it seems the cuttings I've taken are doing their thing, but don't believe my word...Have a look for yourselves.
Speed = 30fps, duration = 90 hours. Enjoy

Regards,

Bob

 

[Bob's Auto's]

Hey Growers & Blowers


Installed my fan yesterday before going to bed and while at it took some pictures and made a clip from the working fan.

I've got loads of nice shoots which will have to be trimmed very shortly.

Don't wory, for each shoot I remove two will return in it's place

Meanwhile the yellow sticky trap has managed to catch many more gnats.

Regards,

Bob

 

[Bob's Auto's]

Hey

So those pictures from this morning were actually from yesterday. I took some tonight and since I'm stoned as fuck and had the munchies, I though, why not share these pictures now, instead of tomorrow morning.

I can present you my clones. It looks like they are actually growing and except for those two on the left side, are looking nice and green. What do you think Antonio?

Later this evening I took these, just after trimming the plants.
I found some leaves that weren't looking that great because of being to close to the light. So I trimmed each node back to the second node.

Didn't water these after the trimjob. But I'll be checking the VPD this evening. To high and I'll slow down the ventilation a bit. So it's nice and cozy while they lick their wounds.

I think that one in the left side of the picture, the second to last plant is a male. Just a feeling, but I think it's male...

Some nice spots for shoots are left over. Lot's of nodes to develop into shoots which can be harvested for clones.

The plants are at the stage where the nodes aren't side by side anymore. But rather in a step-by-step patern.

That male again...

This plant got a bump while I replaced the light. I only saw it a couple of days after it happened because of the wilting of the top part. But I was lucky and still had a nice piece left over to continue with. It's still way smaller then the rest of the plants, but that's ok. Given time it'll grow nice and big again.

Regards,

Bob

 

[Bob's Auto's]

Hey Growers & Blowers

With proud & joy, I can show you the first succesful clones.

Some of them have just one root sticking out, but that just means, more is to come.

I'm going to give the rest another week to see which ones can join the league of winners

Only a small root pooking through, but that's enough. I openend up the vents from the seedling tray a tiny bit and watered the cubes with some of my DIY orgatrex. It's got loads of bennies and some carbs to feed them. I used the tiniest dose possible. ie, I've added 5ml/5L(1 gallon) water. This had been sitting in the canister since yesterday. So the bennies surely had their feed on the carbohydrates. The alfafameal added to this mix is to give the plants a tiny bit of N and some magnesium.

So happy to see results!!

Two days ago I photographed this one and it didn't show any roots. So I think in the next coming days I'll be finding more and more roots emerging from the cubes. A side note, the two clones that I marked in the previous post on the left side, are actually the same as the plant that got a bump from the light coming down, when I replaced the DIY light with the bought one. Either this is a special one or it's meant to be. We will see very soon. If both clones fail to root I'll be taking new clones alongside the male's I will clone for the next round. Just will have to keep an eye out for those two, I do want a tiny bit of harvest from them so I can sample the warez and do my selection

I wish you all a fine evening/day/morning and hope to hear from you guys/gals very soon



Regards,

Bob

 

[Bob's Auto's]

Hey Growers & Blowers


Today several packages arrived, two of them were for my 'hobby'...
One box with ten trays of 150 Eazy Plugs. They are a lot smaller then the Clonex cubes, but will do just fine
So Antonio, if you need a clone in the near future...I've got ya covered buddy

Also my auction winnings arrived...Man, was that a hoot!! Just couldn't stop bidding, very addictive indeed!
The reason I went for so many cultivars is that Shanti turned 60 not so long ago and things can/do happen. When he kicks the bucket prices for his cultivars will go through the roof, just like what happened when Nevil past away. So these seeds will go straight into the fridge until I'm ready for them.
Like I said to my missus, this is an investment. And what do you know, starting prices just went up with 2.5€ so I already saved +20€ on buying these seeds when I did.

In total I got 9 hybrids.

• Early Skunk
• NL5 x Skunk
• Afghan Haze
• Early Queen
• Pink Floyd
• Critical Skunk
• G13 x Afghan Skunk
• G13 x Widow
• Early Skunk Haze

Loads of Skunk crosses I believe @JP1 would be very interested in. Also two G13 crosses as the auction for the G13 IBL went for over 300€!! And that for 18 seeds...Pfieuw...The moment it went over 30€ I was gone, but out of interest I followed the bidding until the end. I do think I can get that G13 out of those hybrids by open pollinating them a couple of times. But that's for a later date.
I've also got several "Sativa's", the one I'm most interested in is the Early Skunk Haze as this one has a 8-10 week flowering time. Ok, it's not a fully fledged Sativa, but then again I don't live in the tropics

Next up are the clones, yes people!! CLONES As most of them are rooted. There are a couple that haven't shown any roots from them cubes and as luck has it, it's always the same two cuts from two or three plants. But we'll get them in a later stadium. I'm not going to make new clones just for the shear fun of it you know...

Now we wait until the 100L fabric pot arrives and then I'll be transplanting these in one go, instead of first potting them up into the P9 pots. Or do you think I should pot them up now Antonio?

I've just watered each plug with the same solution as I use on the adult plants. Don't change anything, no pH adjustment or diddly squat.

The entire 'I' range is doing really good...forming nice roots and growing like a mf'r

And finally we end today's post inside the parent tent...
I'm keeping things cool and running these plants low 'n slow, just how I like my BBQ

Trimming these plants last time has the plants producing a large amount of shoots and just like with the hydra, every time you cut one head of, two will appear. Also I'm minimizing the amount of water I'm giving these beauties. The more they drink, the faster they will grow and since this is all new to me I want to take my time to do things the right way, so slowing their growth will give me more healthy shoots to pick from.

After three days I finally gave 'm some water. Just 2.5L divided over all 24 pots though, not a drop more. The light is also running at 20-25% and the extraction fan is slowly pulling air at 10-15%. The small clip-on fans are running at setting two, which is actually creating a whole lot of air movement inside the tent.

These plants don't mind though as they all look very healthy. One thing, I'm having a bloom in gnats lately. That's why you see them yellow sticky papers all over the place. To remedy that I just ordered a new batch of nematodes (Steinernema feltiae)...25 million to be correct! That's more then enough for these pots and for the pile of soil inside the greenhouse and then some. I'm also going to treat all the potted plants in-house as well.
I'm only going to use half of them when they arrive and keep the remaining nematodes inside a sealed container inside the fridge. These will keep for several weeks.

And as you can see from above, loads of nice shoots emerging from within the foliage. This is something I like about photo's, as long as I don't change the duration of light I give them, they won't do a thing except grow and be happy ♥

Regarding your diy light… I have a Phantom 315 w CMH laying around.

Wow, that's old skool bro! Do you still use it much or did you go LED whole the way?



Regards,

Bob