Indoor My ETD saga

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As some of you may know, I was blessed by GoAuto6 with some ET Dragon seeds late last year. I have grown it once and found that I really love this little plant. I think it has great potential and am going to take some time to learn it better and maybe play with it to see if I can maximize on its potential.

I currently have 3 ETD's in the tent as part of another grow, call it research. I have what appears to be 2 different phenos in the existing 3. Overall plant structure is open yet compact with a dominant main stem and typically 4 to 6 side branches of varying size.
Height is the difference here. 1 of the 3 is 23.5--24" tall while the other 2 are both identical 17" tall clones. This will be my first challenge, stabilize the size.

I would also gauge the THC level of the ET's to be about 15%. And you can chime in here GoAuto6 if you have better info. I think the effect is great and very manageable if you just want to smoke with your mates. But I also like it for the insomnia relief it gives. While we did not have a lot of herb from my first grow, we really appreciated the full nites sleep that this affords. While I think that most high THC, predominantly indica strains will be effective at putting you to sleep, I have found that a strain which allows for long term uninterupted sleep is a much more rare thing. I have reverted to restless sleep through the night and the wife, while doing better than me, is not sleeping through the nite now either. So for this very reason, I need to keep a constant supply on hand, and wouldn't dream of changing anything. But there is always the burning question, "what if".

I dropped 4 ET Dragon beans yesterday to do some more research. Lets see what we get with these. I will be dropping 3 or 4 more in a few weeks to continue the saga. I need some males to pop for me so I can harvest and store some pollen. I really would like to play with the ET genetics and other strains. I did something very empowering this morning. I simply cut down a 10 week old clone that I had been playing with. I have 2 additional clones from those genetics, and decided that I could afford to just let it go. That was an odd revelation. I am getting better at this growing thing, and I don't have to keep, coddle, or play with a plant that I lose nothing by getting rid of it. By cutting that plant, I cleared space in the closet under cfl lighting to begin my ET dragon babies. Right now they are in a shallow pan of water on a seedling mat under a single cfl. They should be popping out in the next 24hrs.

I am also going to harvest the plants in a staggered fashion in order to determine the difference in effect based on harvest timing. I will harvest 1 of the existing 3 plants at days 55, 65 and 75. The development of the plant and the effect of the buzz at each of these stages should be interesting to note. I have a candidate for the 55 day sacrifice, which will actually be next tues. 1 of the shorties has pistils that started turning brown 2 weeks ago, and although she doesn't have much bulk she is a pretty little thing.

Enough for now though, join me when I return.
 
Some quick pics of the 3 ET Dragons from my other grow.

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This is the pheno that I would like to reinforce. This is a good base size to shoot for. 23" to 24" inches in height with side branches that are large enough to give some additional weight in final yield. I have a 24+" Afghan Kush Rider that is almost perfect as far as structure is concerned, very like the ET Dragon here in shape with a larger stature. With its high THC content maybe it is a candidate for a future cross to shore up size and shape. But since I have not finished my first grow of the AKR yet or tested its effects that is all way premature.

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These 2 are just not doing it for me though. They would be fantastic for a sog grow as they could be planted close together to maximize plant count per available footage. For me though, I would like a larger plant. I will enjoy all the fine bud that these little shorties provide though without complaint. In this pic, the one on the left will be sacrificed at 55 days, then day 65 for the plant on the right. I did take a peek with the jewelers lens and there are actually some amber trichomes on these plants. The percentage is still really low, but they are present.

More to come.
 
Just a quick update on the quads. As of this morning, 3 of the 4 beans I dropped the day before yesterday have popped and are working to peek out of the rockwool cube. I'm sure the 4th will pop before the day ends. Then just a couple of days under a humidity dome and into dirt they go. I think I will continue to utilize the 1gal pots simply for uniformity. I will just incorporate the size constraint as part of the qualifier for success, as well as a control to ensure consistent test conditions.
 
And just to be wiener, the 4th bean has popped and by morning I should be well on my way to a little miniature forest. So lets also keep track of germination rates. Of the 7 seeds that I have dropped recently, which are the first generation of seeds I harvested from my original grow, all have popped. The first 3 all turned out to be females and I'm really looking for a male or 2 to play with. Only males with the largest stature will be allowed to pass on the genes.
 
So at this mornings check, 2 ET babies are progressing above ground and the 3rd and 4th are close on their heels. They will be left on the humidity tray for a few days so I will make up some new dirt today so it has a few days to normalize before I must pot these babies.
Again to set the stage. The dirt I use is a combination of recycled soil from previous grows and the following, 60% bagged organic compost, 20--25% coco, and the remainder in pearlite. This gets blended well and worked to ensure that no clumps exist and then the whole tub gets a dose of mycos in granular form and I also add powdered infant formula to the tub at this time. About 1 tablespoon per gallon of soil. I don't know if this really helps but have you read the trace elements that are included in baby formula? It may only benefit the baby plants for those first critical weeks when they are on water alone, since it is going to be flushed away pretty quickly once full waterings are applied. But since I don't see any detrimental effects I will continue the practice.
As a side note. As far as the recycled soil is concerned, I am only using organic ferts, and flushing regularly (every 3rd or 4th watering is plain water)as well as a final flush. I only remove the main root ball clump from the pot losing very little of the soil in the process. Most of the roots are retained with the majority of soil and worked back into the dirt tub once it has been left to dry for about a week after chop. Since dirt does not go bad per se, it only gets tired as I like to put it. It just needs to have fresh material added to it and some mycos added back to make it useable for generations of plants.
 
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Quick update on the little babies. As of yesterday, 3 of the 4 were standing tall and getting light. But I'm sorry to report that the fourth baby suffered an episode of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). She popped above the top of the cube and began straightening up and at the next check, it was just laying on the surface of the cube. Upon closer examination I see that the stem has like dissolved just above the seed. Sssooooo, bada bing bada boom, no crying , just out with the fallen and a new seed was dropped right in and we wait.

the other 3 look great and I will leave them under the humidity dome for a few more days, but I want them into soil soon so they can get going. I made up soil friday, well I added the appropriate amounts of dirt, coco and pearlite and began mixing those and blending with the existing soil. Yesterday I added my mycos and about about 8 tbls of powdered baby formula. And I mixed some more. Today I will mix some more and I'm sure I'll mix tomorrow. Getting a homogenous mix is key.
 
Welcome ELSAM, You just happened to have caught up on this one at the beginning. Should be interesting though. I have pics of the larger pheno ET in the tent now, but not the others. The babies are still little bitty and the other 2 will be sacrificed for research as outlined above.

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This is the pheno that I would like to strengthen and bump the yield up on. Enjoy these pics and come over to tags perpetual grow (in the signature) to see some Afghan Kush Rider and Girl Scout Cookies as well.

That close up being fuzzy is really bothering me, I'll get some different ones for you.
 
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Ok, I have been doing some reading and thinking about the criteria to follow for selectively breeding a larger stature ET Dragon with increased yield. And I ran across a comment in another breeding thread that got me thinking. I want to dump here and see if this makes sense.

Since the trait that I am trying to reinforce is larger overall size, I have decided that for an initial benchmark I will establish a minimum height of 22" and automatic inclusion of any plant that tops 24". So, I am thinking, 30 seeds to drop per run to give me some manageable variation. At day 15 the largest 15 will be retained, and the rest will be removed. Once all plants have shown sex, males will be separated out and females will be allowed to continue. As the males mature and begin producing pollen, I will only keep pollen from the largest males at that moment. And only the largest females will be pollinated. At harvest, seeds will only be retained from those females that exceed 22" initially and the goal is 24"+ consistently. And repeat.

I realize that this was pretty simplified, but good so far on the generalities?
 
Some of my research begins today. The smallest of the ET Dragons that I have currently growing in the tent,was cut this morning. Day 55 which is early, and the plant was not done filling out yet, but in the name of research, she was sacrificed. I took her apart and she is resting in a paper bag as we speak. Fair amount of resin on the buds, about 50/50 on brn/orange and white pistils. I'll give her 3 days in paper, (the humidity in my house is only at 40%) then into a jar for some cure. So I think it will make an appearance after the Thanksgiving Dinner for first vapes and evaluation. Here are some post trim/pre cut pics for you consideration.


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