Indoor New grow, Old + New Seeds, ft Optic Foliar

[bakEQuatorial]

About time I started a journal. This grow is aimed at growing out seeds from a very badly stored stash. I thought it would be easier than this but it has been 3 weeks, and I have yet to fill up all pots.

Most of them just won't germ, no matter what I try. I guess dead means dead. I actually prefer it that way. Compared to some that will pop a tail but just cannot form cotyledons. Upon closer inspection, seems that the bean inside is just too dried up. All shriveled up, unable to turn into cotyledons. This is most frustrating, as I usually give them some time before pulling the plug. I've tried H202, Kelp and even GA3. I have personally concluded that soaking for around 18-24hrs with some H202 then paper towel them gives me best results.

Some of the seeds that successfully germed ended up giving me mutated growth. Despite the nightmarish start, at least I learnt a lesson this time and will properly store my seeds in the future!

A Big shoutout to @BombSeeds as they are the most viable from this batch. Details below. Dan was also kind enough to send me more seeds, for my next round and just in case, my current seeds all don't germ. An awesome fella! Love the dude and their genetics!

Big thanks also to @Seedstockers_Mischa. I only managed to germ 1 Thin Mint Crack from my Seedstockers stash. And even that one is mutating on me. I was just informed that more Seedstockers are coming my way! Thank you so much!

Of course, not forgetting to thank @HSO-Mark @Dinafem-Mark and Shortstuff for always being so great to me!

I am particularly heartbroken that the below strains did not germ for me:
HSO Bubba Kush
Seedstockers OG Kush and Candy Dawg
Expert Seeds Amnesia Haze
Flash Seeds Purple Mazaar (zero out of 3)
Shortstuff StarDawg
RQS Auto Diesel
And perhaps most bizarre of all, Gorilla Auto from Dinafem. It was the newest and sealed in original packaging with dessicants. Never opened.

I only wanted 10 x 5gallon Pots this run. I do not plan to train them like I usually do. Feel like letting them go natural and perhaps just topping a few tall girls if necessary. Will be a first for me. Depending on the germ rates these couple of days, may have more or less than 10 pots. We'll see.

Details of the grow:
Tent: 4×8×7
Lights: 4000K + 3000K QBs + Red + Far Red + & UVA supplement
Medium: Soil
Nutes: Organic
Fan: 8 inch with speed control
Carbon Filter: 10 inch

Strains that popped first leaves so far. Dates are from first leaves showing. Pics from today:
HSO Dedoverde Haze 1 - 28th June

Shortstuff Auto Gorilla Bigfoot - 1st July (Mutated leaves). Gonna let her be. Don't look too bad.

Seedstockers Thin Mint Crack - 1st July (Mutated leaves). Last seed. Gonna let her be.

Dinafem Cookies - 3rd July. Doing great!

Bomb Seeds Berry Bomb - 3rd July (mutated leaves). Don't look good. But it's my last one left. Gonna let her try.

Bomb Seeds Auto Bomb 1 - 3rd July (cotyledons eaten by ants)

Today

Bomb Seeds Auto Bomb 2 - 5th July (same pot as Auto Bomb 1)

Bomb Seeds THC Bomb 1 - 5th July

Bomb Seeds Auto Bomb 3 - 6th July (2 gallon pot)

Bomb Seeds THC Bomb 2 - 7th July

Lastly, a THC Bomb I had to baby since about a week ago. She didn't look like there was much hope so I transferred her to a solo cup, to see what she can do. She might just make it. We'll see

That's 8 × 5gallon Pots, 1 × 2gallon Pots and a solo cup so far.

1 of the 5 gallon Pots have 2×Auto Bombs in it. I figured it's a small strain and one of the seedlings had 70% of its cotyledons eaten. Still looking healthy though.

After I fill up all pots, will select a few plants to foliar with @opticfoliar Optic Foliar. Thank you Dinesh for the samples!

If Lady Luck smiles on me, I'll be expecting another 3 plants to pop in a day or two:
HSO Dedoverde Haze Auto 2
ShortStuff Auto Gorilla Bigfoot 2
Seedsman White Widow Auto

Hopefully these will make up for the 3 mutated plants. Space should not be an issue as I don't plan to train them wide. Just gonna let them grow upwards.

Till the next update! Thank you for reading.

 

[BombSeeds]

Pleased to hear that many of our still lived! Ants are a pain, especially in warmer climates, try a few stick traps in your growspace - that should help.
Subb'd up and keen to see how these work out.

Peace
Dan

 

[bakEQuatorial]

Pleased to hear that many of our still lived! Ants are a pain, especially in warmer climates, try a few stick traps in your growspace - that should help.
Subb'd up and keen to see how these work out.
Peace
Dan

Yup. Ants are a pain here. Sticky traps don't work on them, as they breed in colonies. Our ants are so smart, they begin to recognize ant baits, although by the time, the damage is already done and population decreases drastically. It will take another ant bait formula to make them mostly leave. You'll still find a random one here and there but they mostly travelled from far and is not colonizing the Soil.

You might also notice cinnamon powder being sprinkled around the soil. I even added some cinnamon sticks. Room smells like a bakery Lol! Those work to a certain extent too.

If the next 3 seeds fail, I hope Cosmic Bomb makes it to me in time soon! I may get to pop her this round after all! PM me tracking if you have it mate! Thank you once again! Bomb Seeds Rock!

 

[Death The Cultivator]

Subbed. Good luck! Have you tried diatomaceous earth?

 

[bakEQuatorial]

Subbed. Good luck! Have you tried diatomaceous earth?

Yes but I rate it very poorly. Pretty much useless when it's even the slightest wet. Its difficult to keep dry when I'm trying to keep seedlings in a moist environment.

 

[bakEQuatorial]

Sigh.…Luck is certainly not on my side for this run. All three upcoming seeds don't seem like they'll make it.

Same old problem. Show me a teaser tail. I plant them. They break ground, struggle to form an impossible cotyledon, then die! I was lazy to take a picture but am regretting it lol. Despite the frustration, I feel like I learnt a lot on seeds and germination. To give a slight picture, the cotyledons have some shriveled and dry parts. These shriveled parts will remain that way. They are almost impossible to wet. I see this as a dead spot. Making it impossible for cotyledons to form and/or open up.

Most likely, the beans used up their energy with my bad storage. The fluctuation in temps and humidity, must have caused this.

Good news is, my Seedstocker beans will be arriving in about 2 days according to tracking info. Can't wait to germ some fresh beans for a change. Massive thanks to @Seedstockers_Mischa and Michaela for the speedy delivery!

Unfortunately, Seedstockers plans to discontinue the Fruit Cake Auto that I asked for. Also highly recommended by @arty zan so its quite a pity. Instead, I'll receive Gelato 41 Auto, which is great cos I can compare it to the original Sherbinskis photo crosses that I'll test soon.

I'll be receiving the following autos:
Gelato 41
Purple Punch
Sticky Fingers

Purple Punch will be my first purple strain! Yeay! I may very well run them all, considering my current state of germ results. I am hoping that the different starting time for the girls in my tent won't come back to bite me later on.

 

[bakEQuatorial]

Update:

First off, the new Seedstockers i received germed 100%! I really needed this confidence boost. I was starting to think it may be me, not the beans. Thank goodness! I knew my germ technique was fine!

Special mention that my beans only took 4 days to arrive, internationally, and over the weekend no less! @Seedstockers_Mischa and Michaela - Mucho Gracias!

I germed 2 x Sticky Fingers, 2 x Purple Punch and 1 x Gelato 41. All popped, some slightly after 18 hours soak + 8 hours paper towel.

36 hours later and they are up and running. A really nice feeling after all the fails.
Sticky Fingers 1 - 16th July. Got her head stuck in the ground. Had to help her out a little but looking good.

Sticky Fingers 2 - 16th July

Purple Punch 1 - 16th July

Purple Punch 2 - 16th July. This one is a little embarrassing to explain. I tripped over the pot while trying to be fancy, getting out of the tent. The planted seed came out of the soil with taproot, as she was already slightly poking. I planted her back but thought she was a goner. So far, cotyledons are already green but first leaves are still pretty yellow, which is unusual for me. We'll see. This is totally my fault though.

Gelato 41 - 16th July

 

[bakEQuatorial]

Next are the updates for the older girls/seeds.

Dedoverde Haze Auto - Cruising along since 28th June. Have been fighting urge to top her. As mentioned, I wanna try letting most if not all my plants go normally, with some topping at most.

Auto Gorilla Bigfoot. The new leaves are turning normal. She is also showing heavy variegation on new growths. I do believe she will grow just fine. It looks like a minor mutation. So far, only one leave looks really outta shape.

Thin Mint Crack - Showing some variegation too but growth is still okay. I'm not quite happy with the first set of 3 finger leaves. One of them is still slightly deformed. Hopefully the next set of leaves will be free of such deformity. Am gonna let her be regardless. Its my last one and Seedstockers don't seem to sell it anymore.

Cookies. All good except for a weird finding. On her second set of leaves, one of them is a two fingered mutant, missing the third finger.

Auto Bomb 1 and 2. Doing ok I guess. A little slow but looks okay.

THC Bomb 1. Looking good.

THC Bomb 2. This one is giving me some funky growth too. Different from THC Bomb 1. I seem to be getting a lot of weird plants with these old seeds.

If anyone is wondering about Berry Bomb, I transferred her to a solo cup as she don't seem to be going anywhere. Still gonna let her go till she cannot anymore.

There is also Another THC Bomb in solo cup. This one don't look too good. Struggling to form second set of leaves.

 

[bakEQuatorial]

Update:

I have divided the plants into two groups. On one side are the old seeds aka older plants. On another side are the new seeds aka younger plants. I'll also mention which plants received Optic Foliar treatments.

Let's begin with the older ones. Dedoverde Haze is doing well. Today should be around day 28. Doing as she should but still not showing sex. Could be a big one!

Auto Gorilla Bigfoot is doing fine, except for some burnt tips. The only one so far. I used zero bottled nutes. Just top dressed with worm castings, some IMO5 (Indigenous Microorganisms 5) with NPK of less than 3-3-3 dry fert, an organic 6-3-3 dry fert and Neem cake. Each pot gets about half a cup of the above mixture. This is to prepare them for Veg/stretch.

She is also an Optic Foliar girl. Only thing i can think of is the consecutive Optic Foliar treatment I gave that one time. I have allocated Mon, Wed and Fri for the Optic Foliar sprays but accidentally gave one on Tuesday too. None of the other girls seemed affected though. I have skipped giving her the last Foliar. Just water for a while.

Here you can see a third shoot from the same node. No more leaf mutations or variegation on new growths though.

Thin Mint Crack is interesting. Optic Foliar girl. She gave me a pair of good leaves but right after that, gave me a 2 fingered leave. Its like the mutations skipped a node. Fortunately, it looks like the new growths are quite normal so far. Interesting to see how she progresses?

See the two fingered leave?

Cookies doing good but a little short. Also given Optic Foliar. I suspect the soil may be too compact, but my soil is the same mix for all pots. Maybe something was off when I mixed a batch? Not sure but i used a pin to skewer the top soil a little for this pot and also the THC Bomb and Auto Bomb pots. Maybe it's just a small pheno? Around Day 20 or so.

Auto Bombs are doing alright. Auto Bomb 1 and 2 are just starting to do their thing. Its almost like they know they're sharing a small pot and taking things easy. Still very slow for almost 3 weeks old so I also skewered the top soil a little. I'm totally cool with them doing whatever they want. I just hope they don't become unmanageable. My first time having 2 girls in one pot. According to Bomb Seeds, they are not supposed to get taller than 85cm. These two look like they won't.

But Auto Bomb 3 in 2 gallon pot is showing a lot of growth at a slightly younger age. We'll see how she does. I don't plan to pot her up any bigger than the 2 gallon pot she is in. All Auto Bombs are given Optic Foliar.

THC Bomb 1 also looks slow so top soil was skewered slightly as well. But growth looks healthy so gonna just let her do her thing.

THC Bomb 2 is showing no more funky growth since last week but is kinda slow. I potted her to a 1 gallon pot to give the space to Cosmic Bomb. So far so good. Both THC Bombs are fed Optic Foliar as well!

So pretty much on this side of the tent, Only Dedoverde Haze is not getting any Optic Foliar.

 

[bakEQuatorial]

The new girls are all up and running, with the latest addition of Cosmic Bomb! I am so excited for this strain but the first seed i germed did not pop. Still in paper towel hoping for a miracle. The second one was good but I may have planted her too shallow. Found her with taproot out of soil in the morning. Replanted her and seems okay today.

Here is Cosmic Bomb on Day 1, 25th July! Please don't stall on me! LOL

Sticky Fingers 1 and 2. Doing good.

Purple Punch 1 is doing good too.

Now for my biggest embarrassment in the tent. Purple Punch 2, that I tripped over and resulted in yellow first leaves, have not fully recovered. She is struggling to catch up but is still a step behind. The yellowish of new growth is still present. Hope she catches up after a while, with more leaves. I gave her Optic Foliar too, with hopes that it'll help her catch up. Looks okay at this angle.

This top view gives a better picture.

She was like this a week ago.

Gelato 41 is growing well like the rest.

Berry Bomb that I moved to a solo cup is showing signs of growth. A little late for 20+ days lol.

THC Bomb in solo cup however, looks done for. I guess we can't have it all lol