Malawi x PCK, Bangi Haze. Outdoor.

Update day 25. Plants+weather

Update day 25. Plants+weather

Update. Pics taken 21/June, at 25 days old since sprout.

I'm under the impression that tey are starting to develop some kind of nutritional issue. It looks to me like the top new growth is showing a little bit of interveinal yellowing/chlorosis, but I'm not sure because I can only see it under certain light (when the sun is full shinning I can't really see anything, they seem to be fine).

In case it is a nutritional problem, the interveinal chlorosis should be caused by one of these things (following the Jorge Cervantes chart):

1-Macro excess: P or K.
2-Micro deficiency: Mn, Zn or Fe.

If it is macro excess, I can't really do that much; Just flush the soil. But I don't feel too comfortable doing that because if it is micro deficiency then things could go worse. If it is micro deficiency, the only thing I can do is to feed them with the growing fertilizer; But I also don't feel too comfortable doing that because if it is macro excess then thing could also go worse.

I guess it could also be PH inbalance (caused by the rain maybe? I didn't water them for quite a while now), but I can't do anything about that for the moment. I should receive a PH meter sometime this week (I'm hoping I'll get it today or tomorrow).

So, my decision was to give them CalMax, that has some Fe in it but no P or K. I think it is the "safest" solution for the moment.

Other than this possible nutritional problem, they seem to be fine. They have grown a nice amount in the last five days, and now MPCK#1 is showing a bigger internodal distance than her sisters. She was also the only one that grew 3, 5, 7 and 9 finger leaves (in contrast with 1, 3, 5, and 7 from the others). The lowest new shoots of the BH are growing irregular, and the cotiledons got yellow (she is the only one with the yellow cotiledons so far), but she is doing OK too, like the others.

Minupdate. LST (day 28)

Minupdate. LST (day 28)

Miniupdate. Pics taken 24/June, at 28 days since sprout.

I just LST'd the plants today in the morning. Not the best job because I didn't position them properly when they were transplanted. But anyways, this is how they look now.

Update. day 42 general info

Update. day 42 general info

Update. Pics taken 8/July, at 42 days since sprout.

Alright, it's been a couple of weeks since the last update. First I will post some pics of the plants to see how they have changed and give general info, then I will post the weather charts, and then I will post "detailed" pics to talk a little about the problems I'm facing in regards to nutrition.
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As you can see, the plants have grown an acceptable amount in the last 2 weeks.

The LST is a little messy because I'm not using anything to keep the branching "trained"; I just bend the branches every day a little bit in the morning and then I let them alone for the rest of the day.

All the MPCKs have a similar structure. #1 has the main stem larger and less branching I guess, and #4 is kinda similar too. #3 and BH are more compact in general.

I'm not 100% happy with the job I'm doing this year, but I'm still pretty happy. I think that last year the plants were looking better, because of 3 main reasons (I think):
-I did a better job with the LST
-Last year's June was better in terms of weather. More direct sunlight mainly.
-Last year the plants were in a terrace instead of a roof. And even tho it can get very hot there, the roof is a more "extreme" environment.

I plan on transplanting the plants in around two weeks to their final 17L pots. I have pics from last year at exactly that time, so I will be able to compare the size and overall appearance much better.

Update. day 42 weather info

Update. day 42 weather info

Now, the weather. I have changed the contents of the charts a little bit: I got rid of the avg temp at 0'1 meters and rain (since it's not raining at all), and I included max wind velocity.

If you compare the graphs from June to the start of July, It's pretty easy to see how the weather has changed. Much more direct sunlight (clear sky), much higher temperatures and less average humidity. It's summer time baby.

Keep in mind that the max temp and min RH values are kind of orientative. Remember that the plants are in a roof, so when the hours of direct sunlight are high, the roof tiles get very very hot. That's why I included the wind in the graphs (the wind helps getting rid of the heat irradiaton from the tiles. If there is no wind, the plants get hotter).

Update. day 42 nutritional info

Update. day 42 nutritional info

Ok, now the tricky part (and most important). This year I'm trying something different for the feeding of the plants. I won't go in much detail about it here, but if you are interested you can check this thread that I opened, where I ask if this method is "good" or not.

So, first of all: as you can see in the pics I'm having some "troubles" with the nutrition. It turns out that it is pretty challenging (for me) to keep the plants healthy, specially when the environment is "not constant" (unlike indoors). The good part is that, unlike other years, I'm doing a pretty good job of keeping the girls "hydrated"; they have not shown any signs of lack of water (or so I think).

Second: I'm watering them pretty much every day with the following theorycal range of elemental PPM (just macro, I have no way to know micro and secondary nutes reliably):
N -> 190-200
P -> 85-95
K -> 233-251

I usually do 600ml a day, using white vinegar to low the PH to 6'7-6'8.

I checked the run-off water today (taking advantage of me wanting to take pics for the update) to compare it with what is going in. I don't usually check the EC meter for my solution (based on the link I provided), but just for reference, the PPMs of it are around 530. The values I got for the run-off are:

BH -> PH: 6'60 || 546ppm
MPCK#1 -> PH: 6'59 || 387ppm
MPCK#3 -> PH: 6'48 || 522ppm
MPCK#4 -> PH: 6'49 || 495ppm

In general, it looks like the numbers that go in are similar to the numbers that go out, which I guess is kinda good. I think I will make a specific solution for MPCK#1 since it seems that she is the one eating the most (as demonstrated by the pictures too, I guess).

My main 2 concerns are:
-PH; even tho I think the numbers don't look too bad, It's possible that the root zone is getting a little bit acidic, which may be a sign of excess of K.
-Color of the leafs. As you can see in the leaf comparison, the color of the new growth is kinda weird. I'm not sure if the color is "too green" or if it has a "blue hue"; I'm assuming the second option. IF it is the second option, it could be caused by P deficiency, but if it is "dark green", then it could be too much N, or something weird going on with the Ca.

So, based in these two concers, I will dial back the K but trying to keep P levels the same (which is going to be difficult).

And I think that's about it. Pretty long update, but it's been two weeks.

Take care guys.

Hello guys, It's been a long time since the last update. I wanted to upload some pics today but I broke the screen of my phone yesterday, just after I took the photos; I will try to take a couple of pics of the plants this weekend with another phone.

The news in general are not that good tbh. I've been fighting Aphids for over a month now, and it is a hard fight (specially because this is the first time my plants got them, and I'm still not sure how to combat them properly). I know I said I didn't want to use any pesticides, but the plants are infested, so I had to; even tho it did absolutely nothing tbh. The most effective way to kill the aphids so far (for me) is just to go leaf by leaf and fucking smash them with my fingers. I have killed literally thousands of them, but they reproduce quite fast.

This year the plants started to flower later than usual. The BH threw the first pistils around the last week of August (a little bit towards the late side, but more or less in time respect other years), but the MPCK's were quite late; MPCK#1 started around the 10th day of september, MPCK#3 around the 5th, and MPCK#4 around the 1st. So, I think I'm gonna have a hard time with the harvest, but fingers crossed.

No weather graphs this time. I will probably start posting them again for the next month, since the interaction of the weather with the flowering plants may be interesting for some of you. We'll see.

Take care.

Well, turns out that I still have pics of the plants the day of the last transplant (26/July). At that point there were no aphids yet, at least to my knowledge.

Hello guys, I wanted to wait until I could take pics of the plants in my place to update the progress on all the plants in one go, but I'm so happy I can't wait.

Remember MPCK#2 and #5? Well, when I said I got rid of them I meant I moved them to a location where I could not visit them too often this year (every 2-3 weeks or so). Unlike the place I'm growing in now, this place has a much better envinronment, but still a little bit too hot in July/August tho. The transplant to their final pots was done from 6L to the containers you will see in the pics (one is 17L, the other I'm not sure) the 8th of October, so pretty late. They grew quite a bit since that time, they were not too big at all before (almost 2 months in 6L pots with very few feedings). The stretch was pretty nice on both plants, and it's duration was longer than I expected, around 16-17 days I want to say (not 100% sure tho).

I want to start with my best plant of this season so far. I don't know if she is MPCK#2 or #5, because the person who did the transplant doesn't know which one went into what pot, and since I didn't get to see them to often I'm not 100% sure. So I will call them "Big MPCK" and "Small MPCK".

The pics of both plants were taken 18/September. Natural light, no flash.

This one I will call BigMPCK. I'm sorry but I will bombard you with pics of this one. It's been around two weeks since the last time I visit the plants, and man did they change a lot. Specially BigMPCK.

BigMPCK started to throw pistils around 4 days later than the BH, so around the 26 or 27 of August. As I said the pics were taken 18/September, so around 24 days of what I will call flower. The branches are quite rigid, not really flexible at all; but at the same time the "conection" with the main stem is a little bit fragile. If she fattens up and we have a storm over here, I think there is a chance of a broken branch. The buds are starting to show light purple colors, I hope you can see it in the pics.

The deficiencies are clearly showing and she has lost a pretty decent amount of "inner" leafs, so the branches are not as packed as they could be. But still, those little larf buds that are popping from leaf-less shoots are producing nice trichs; I will use those and the sugar leaves I get to make water hash. The strength of the feeding was incremented a little bit to give more N.

Little over 3 weeks into flower and she is looking like that, with that amount of really sticky trichomes; I carefully touched the plant a little to take pics and snif her and my fingers were very sticky in no time. In the middle of the day she clearly smells like strawberrys, with that marvelous fresh sweetnes to it. If you stand at 1'5 meters of her and there is a breeze of air coming you way, you can feel that sweet freshness blessing your nose. With a close snif there are also some organic undertones I don't know how to describe, that are more obvious when the sun goes away and the day gets darker and cooler.

This is the first time I can clearly describe the scent of a plant based on the scent of another specific fruit/flower... which in my opinion speaks very good about the terpene quality of this cross, even tho the deficiencies in the plant are showing very clearly.

BigMPCK 3 weeks flower. Bud pics with zoom.

This one is the SmallMPCK.She started to throw pistils around 7-8 days later than BigMPCK, so around the 2 or 3 of September. As I said the pics were taken 18/September, so around 16 days of what I will call flower. The branches are more flexible than BigMPCK, but not as flexible as other strains I had, still a touch rigid. The buds are less developed than BigMPCK, in size and "resin" production, but she also gets less hours of sun.

The smell on this one, to me, is clealy citrus. Not acid like lemon, it's sweeter, more like orange peels but not that loud. She shares the same organic undertones with the other plant. A little bit sticky too, not that much tho. This is actually the second time I can describe this kind of scents, which again says a lot about this strain.

The feeding problems with this one are even more evident and harder to treat; the smaller pot could also be a factor. First she was lacking N so she received a couple of not too heavy N feedings, but now It looks like the new growth is too dark and I've seen some burnt tips. I dialed the N back and kept feeding her with the same levels of P and K to see how she reacts.

And that's about it for now. The plants were pretty leafy in those pics; after taking the shots I claned them a little. No bugs at all tho; I never get any plagues in that spot.

I took some pics of the "roof plants" today. The quality is meh because the camera is not that good, and I don't have too much freedom of movement while I'm on top of the roof.

The plants didn't grow as much as I wanted them to. As always, and as you can tell by the pics, the feeding I gave them was suboptimal; I always have troubles in that regard, specially with root-bounded plants.

In this post you can see how bad the Aphid plague is. And I have to say that they are doing so much better in that regard now, just a couple of week ago all the leafs were like the first pic in this post. I did spend a lot of time trying to remove as many bugs as possible, killing them leaf by leaf and using a pesticide that did almost nothing. I'm not sure why those little motherfuckers came to my plants, but from what I readed it could be caused by too much N? I don't know. The good news is that I saw a couple of ladybugs today in one of the plants (which is very rare. Nowadays there are not nearly as many ladybugs as when I was younger (10-12 years ago)).

I had to remove a ton of lower leafs and shoots in order to combat the Aphids. So the production will suffer a lot.

MPCK#1 started to throw pistils around the 10 of September, so around 9 days of what I will call flower. The branches are thin and very flexible. The nutritional problems, as with all my plants, are very obvious.

She was the first one to get Aphids. And at one point she was the most infected of all. Now not that much, but still some of those bitches are around the leafs and the forming-buds.

Pretty much no trichomes so far. She is starting to give some kind of scent but I can't comment on it yet.

MPCK#3 started to throw pistils around the 5 of September, so around 14 days of what I will call flower. The branches are also very flexible. Again, the feeding problems are evident. She is overall the most compact MPCK.

This one was the 3rd plant that caught Aphids, but they spreaded more quickly in this one that in the MPCK#1.

Very low amount of trichomes so far, but the scent is the most "unique" out of all the MPCKs: it's not sweet, citrus o anything like that; it's a "darker" smell, it reminds me of hash.

MPCK#4 started to throw pistils around the 1 of September, so around 19 days of what I will call flower. The branches are also flexible. No need to say, but again the feed problems are evident. The LST performed in this one was different from the rest; I only tied the main stem, letting the branches grow more vertically.

This was the 2nd plant to get Aphids, and it's probably the most affected by them as of now.

She is starting to produce some trichomes, and the scent is kind of close to SmallMPCK; kind of citrus but also kind of spicy (instead of "organic"). She is also starting to get moderately sticky.

pd:sry for the rotated pics.

BH was the first of my plants to throw pistils, around the 22-23 of August, so around 27-28 days of what I will call flower. The branches are not as flexible as MPCK#1,3 or 4, but not as rigid as BigMPCK. Again, the feeding problems are evident.

This was the last plant (by far) to get Aphids, and that's why the lower parts of the branches are more packed than the others in this location (since I didn't have to remove so much plant material); but she was very infested too at one point.

The trichome production is there, but nothing really special. What is always special about BH is the type of resin she produces; it's not sticky at all, but very very greasy/oily. The scent of BH is always hard to describe for me so I won't try, it's so weird but so good.

Nice!