Malawi in Hydro

Finally got both girls in my main hydro system yesterday. After spending way too much time and work trying to get 2 healthy Malawis in hydro, I ended up with 1 Malawi that's doing OK, and 1 Durban Poison from Dutch Passion. It took 4 seeds to get the 1 Malawi, so not good viability, I suspect from being harvested too early, but it is what it is. I'm hoping to get at least 1 more viable plant from my remaining seed so I can generate my own fem pollen for more seeds, else, this will be my last Malawi grow.

The Durban was started ~10 days after the Malawi, but has obviously gotten off to a better start. But since the title of the thread promises a Malawi grow, that'll be the focus.

A pythium infection took a little over a week to beat back, but the roots are recovering nicely and the plant is putting on some new growth. The chiller is keeping the 80 liter res 16.5'C - 18.0'C so pythium should be properly suppressed. I'm running straight Megacrop at ~500 and no sign of burn so will bump it up another 100 in a couple days.

The Malawi has grown 4 nodes and the internodes are staying really tight so it still looks pretty small. I'll probably put the ScrOG screen ~25 cm above the pots. Questions for you sativa growers:

1) Should I top or FIM, and if so, when? If the Malawi stretches and branches as Ace alleges, it seems topping isn't necessary, but I'll defer to experience.

2) Since I'm ScroGging, should I let it veg for a bit longer, or should the stretch fill the screen from this point?

Put up the screen ~30 cm from the pots, then witched to 12/12 schedule on 3/20 just before the Malawi touched the screen.Durban to the left, Malawi on the right:
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And here they are on 4/1:


Both looking healthy with vigorous growth.


The Durban, from Dutch Passion, is alleged to be 100% sativa, but is generally assumed to contain some skunk genes introduced to shorten flowering, which explains its early "indica" appearance.

The Malawi, though, *should* be "pure sativa," but has a similar indica-like structure. Is this typical, or does Ace seem to exaggerate their Malawi strain as "pure landrace?"

Also, the Malawi is 5 weeks since germination but I haven't even seen a pre-flower; are they just slow to mature?

Any sativa advice appreciated.
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Very nice Appreciate the updates. I would work the main branch of each into a large spiral covering half the screen. With a wide enough space between the branches, the side branches to fill in the spaces during 'stretch' without crowding anything out.

The general advice with sativas is 50% full screen before flip. I run clones multiple times, so I get a better idea of the best branch placement.

Douglas.Curtis said:

Very nice Appreciate the updates. I would work the main branch of each into a large spiral covering half the screen. With a wide enough space between the branches, the side branches to fill in the spaces during 'stretch' without crowding anything out.

The general advice with sativas is 50% full screen before flip. I run clones multiple times, so I get a better idea of the best branch placement.

Click to expand...

Thanx, Doug. The Malawi is branching pretty heavily so doing the best I can to spread out the growth tips.



This thing is surprisingly indica-like -- thick stems, short intenodes, relatively leafy -- but I assume it'll develop into a fullblown sativa as it matures; your experience?

My experience with nearly pure sativas is limited to some cuttings I picked up few weeks ago. lol Afropips Malawi Mini, and they're super skinny leaved plants with a dislike for nutrients.

The pink/blurple spectrum may be part of the leafier growth style, but not entirely sure.

Full rez change this morning. Added Megacrop to 850 ppm, then topped off with diy PK booster to 1100.



3.5 weeks in 11/13 and the Malawi just started to put out pistils at the terminal buds. Photo was taken a couple hours after lights out so she's pretty relaxed in the pic, but you can see the just the beginning of flowering.





Here's a shot of the whole screen. Durban on the left, Malawi in the right. Both have filled their scrog screen.






The Durban's stretch is slowing down and it's packing bud so I've stopped tucking them under the screen. The Malawi is still in full stretch mode, which is reported to continue for another 2-3 weeks, so I intend to keep pushing the buds under the screen until it slows down. I can only raise my light another 50 cm so hopefully I can keep her under control.



Any clue as to how long/much I should expect the Malawi to stretch would be helpful...



Tips and feedback appreciated.

skeptik said:

Full rez change this morning. Added Megacrop to 850 ppm, then topped off with diy PK booster to 1100.



3.5 weeks in 11/13 and the Malawi just started to put out pistils at the terminal buds. Photo was taken a couple hours after lights out so she's pretty relaxed in the pic, but you can see the just the beginning of flowering.


https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=82286&pictureid=2027880View Image


Here's a shot of the whole screen. Durban on the left, Malawi in the right. Both have filled their scrog screen.



https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=82286&pictureid=2027881View Image


The Durban's stretch is slowing down and it's packing bud so I've stopped tucking them under the screen. The Malawi is still in full stretch mode, which is reported to continue for another 2-3 weeks, so I intend to keep pushing the buds under the screen until it slows down. I can only raise my light another 50 cm so hopefully I can keep her under control.



Any clue as to how long/much I should expect the Malawi to stretch would be helpful...



Tips and feedback appreciated.

Click to expand...

In my experience with Malawi and not just Aces you need to cut the "lights on to 11" then 10 if you want it to stop stretching as long as they have food and 12 hrs light they just grow and grow.
They are big plants naturally outside 4 mtrs easily si indoors under lights you need to reduce the growing time a lot.
This plant has been on 10/14 since birth.
I have only 1mtr of head room so its been LST'd and trained.


First pic was 4 weeks ago 0n 10/14 since it sprouted.

Tangwena said:

In my experience with Malawi and not just Aces you need to cut the "lights on to 11" then 10 if you want it to stop stretching as long as they have food and 12 hrs light they just grow and grow.
They are big plants naturally outside 4 mtrs easily si indoors under lights you need to reduce the growing time a lot.
This plant has been on 10/14 since birth.
I have only 1mtr of head room so its been LST'd and trained.

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Hey, Tangwena; you obviously have documented cred growing the Malawi so thanx for dropping by.


I seem to have 2 phenos: A lush, indica looking plant in hydro and one in soil that's spindly and small with sativa leaves. Have you seen both of these and are they both worth keeping?


The Malawi in hydro is continuing to stretch at 4 weeks in 11/13 and last week just started to develop terminal buds. Normally I'd stop tucking the buds under the screen at this point and let them develop into colas, but concerned about head room. If I cut the schedule to 10/14, boost the PK and lower the N nutes now, any clue as to what I'm I looking at for final height?

Hi skeptic both the wide and narrow leaf are good the leggy one in my picture started life as a short tight nodes wide leaved plant.
I nearly threw it out you can see once the stretch started it morphed into a lanky thin leaved plant.
The plant in my avatar is Aces Malawi I grew from seed 10 days 18/6 then 11/13 finishing on 10/13.
Now I just go 11/13 or 10/13 from day 1 because of height restrictions.
These plants are big and growing indoors under lights is a challenge I try to feed sparingly during initial growth and stretch ramping up the feeds as the bud sites form.
I'm no expert at growing under lights but it seems to work for me doing it that way.
What you are doing re feeding and lights sounds spot on the stretch is hard to predict some phenos are 2 to 3 times the height other 4 to 5 you can always prune unwanted branches Malawi is hard to kill and reacts well to pruning and training.
Good luck the end result should be stunning from what you have posted.

Probably should tie off this thread for posterity. It ended up being a successful, albeit educational, grow. The Durban Poison plant "finished" and was harvested at the end of May yielding 7 oz of rough trimmed bud after 9 weeks of 12/12. By that time the Malawi was taking up 70% of the screen so the Durban was getting pretty crowded.

The Malawi had developed buds that just kept getting longer but didn't thicken and it was getting seriously out of control height-wise. So, as recommended above, at the beginning of June I cut the nutes to mid-veg level and added appropriate amount of a P-K booster with each feeding keeping the total PPM ~900. That did the trick. Vertical growth slowed way down and over the course of the following 6 weeks the buds fattened up nicely. After close to 14 weeks of 12/12 the trichomes were milky with a handful of amber and the girl got chopped.





Rough trimmed and ried down to 60% she yielded 1.5 lb, so respectable. I processed a couple of oz for edibles and made a batch of chocolate cookies at my normal dosing level for a test drive. OMG! I was skeptical about the marketing hype re: this strain being abnormally powerful, but I overdosed and became totally wasted with accompanying nausea and restlessness. Impressive stuff.

As far as lessons learned, I'd summarize the strategy for my next sativa grow as follows:

1) Maintain mid-veg level nutrients until mid-flower

2) Switch to 12/12 when the plant reaches the scrog sceen

3) Run the tops under, or tie on top of the screen until the screen is "full"

4) When the screen is full, switch to 10/14, lower the nitrogen and start adding P-K booster

Keep in mind this is my first sativa grow so take it for what it's worth, though, most is based on other input in the thread.

Hi skeptik,

Thanks for keep us updated, glad you learnt from your first sativa grow with Malawi and that you are impressed with her potency despite the very early harvest (plant is barely passing mid flowering in the pic). Your last comments are very accurate and i'm sure they will help others as well. Cheers!

dubi said:

Hi skeptik,

,,,the very early harvest (plant is barely passing mid flowering in the pic).

Click to expand...

An interesting observation (or guess?) based on ....what? Trichomes were 90% milky + 10% amber, lower leaves were degrading and pistils were brown and retracted. What have I missed?

Kindly post closer pics of the buds and i will be able to evaluate it in more detail.

Good first attempt wrangling the wild sativas! Glad you got satisfying effects. Did you take clones to dial them in next round?