| White Widow Grow Report |
| Posted By: |
aja My Strains |
| Genotype: |
Mostly Sativa |
| Breeder: |
Dutch Passion |
| Grow Location: |
Indoor/Outdoor |
| Medium: |
five gallon airstone supplied buckets w/controller |
| Sea of Green? |
No |
| Lighting & Wattage: |
600 watt HPS w/Hortilux bulb |
| Fertilizing Method: |
Mix of chemical and organic |
| Pruning Method: |
Bush |
| Stature: |
Average size |
| Flowering Time: |
50 to 55 days |
|
| Grow Results |
| Appearance: |
Very pretty leaves and bud formations. |
| Odor: |
Very pungent and strong |
| Average Height: |
45 inches |
| Yield Per Plant: |
3.25 |
| Taste: |
Mixture of spice and pine |
| Buzz: |
Somewhat couchlock |
| Ease of Growing: |
|
| Overall Rating: |
|
|
| White Widow Grow Notes |
Final Grow/Smoke Report
Okay, so now that I have looked over my
scribbling and dried all of the bud, I will offer up some observations
on this strain. As usual I would like to say that a handful of plants
hardly constitutes a fair and scientific investigation and more
thorough growing is needed to make anything more than general
conclusions. On a good note, I found this strain to be very stable and
all plants were fairly uniform and similar in requirements and
appearance barring the obvious color and leaf variation. With that in
mind, here are some of my findings:
Shared physical traits:
White
Widow absolutely loves hydro. I have never watched a plant grow quicker
in the vegetative stage than these girls. It was an amazing rate of
growth. After two weeks in the buckets, all of the plants had stocks as
thick as the circumference of a quarter. The root systems developed
very quickly and nearly reached the capacity of the buckets by the end
of their cycle.
The speedy growth compelled me to prune these
plants very aggressively. I literally trimmed a full sized garbage bag
full of pruned branches and leaves. Pinching was a mistake this grow.
The plants went sideways in a hurry, forcing me to quickly tie down
certain branches to achieve decent light penetration. The WW’s will
definitely get bushier and thicker when topped or pinched.
My
cramped space unfortunately, was not well suited to this condition and
I paid for it with poor bud development on the lowermost branches. Due
to this issue I have re-designed my grow room to allow more spacing
between my plants. I am convinced as ever that there is no substitute
for balanced light coverage.
I’m undecided if yield increased with all my tweaking, but without pruning these girls will overrun your house.
Training
is very easy with this strain as the branches are very pliable and easy
to position. The fan leaves are gigantic and numerous, making it a
constant struggle to maintain light to all of the areas of the plant.
For this reason I see the WW as a great SCROG/SOG candidate.
Super
Cropping was effective with this strain and it recovered quickly with
minimal stress. Care must be exercised when handling the branches and
leaf stems, as they are very soft in the veg stage and easy to damage
if you are careless. I split more than a few branches but they healed
quickly with very little lag time in growth.
During the 12/12
stretch, the plants surprised me with their relative short stretch.
Although they more than doubled in length during flower, I had expected
much more. Some of this may be due to the excessive veg time. These
plants were all fairly mature before I went to 12/12 light cycles. I
guess I was envisioning a vicious stretch based on their quick
development in veg. Instead these girls behaved like typical Indicas
and sported a short, but husky, appearance all the way to the end.
Stretch lasted until the 7th week of flower.
Plant heights were
all similar throughout and finished around 40”. I have a feeling that
there is a more Sativa dominant pheno within this release that I have
yet to discover.
Nutrient needs -Deficiencies
Germination/Vegetation
All
five seeds germinated in five days or less and growth rates were
uniform. The stems were not rigid enough initially to support the
weight of the plants. Adding splints for support quickly solved the
problem and by week two they were able to go unsupported. Keep a close
eye on light-to-plant distance, as they will stretch very quickly if
the light intensity is too low.
The cloning solution seemed more
than adequate for the first weeks. No other food or supplement was used
until week three. As I said earlier, the plants grow very quickly and
will surprise you each morning with their nightly progress. I
encountered no significant nutrient related issues during veg. Possibly
the most trouble-free grow overall, that I have had.
The plants
all stressed a little during the first transplant and reacted poorly to
the HID initially. The plants also reacted to temp changes unfavorably,
so try to keep any changes to a minimum in the early days of life. The
roots grow very quickly on this plant in optimal conditions, so be
prepared to move them to individual containers soon if that is your
intent.
I would recommend going easy on the nutes until you feel
that they are lagging and then bump it up a bit. Unlike my previous
grow, these seem to perform better with a less is more attitude
concerning food.
The plants really didn’t smell much until the
4th week. At that time I started to notice a very strong odor. The odor
is very skunky and will carry for miles if you let it. You will not be
able to eliminate this smell without using some form of odor control;
dryer sheets are not going to cut it.
Flowering:
I flowered all of the plants at around 18” and my initial flowering mixture was around 900 ppm.
This
was too high in my opinion and resulted in minor edge and tip burning
on two of the plants. After taking it down progressively to 700, I
think the plants were much happier. I’m not convinced that higher nutes
are beneficial in this case and I will certainly be less aggressive the
next time around. I maintained 600–800 through week 8 and then diluted
the mixture to 0 gradually for flushing in the following weeks.
Bud
sites appeared roughly two weeks in and sex was evident at around 10
days for my one hermaphrodite, and at two weeks for the remaining three
females. The hermie wannabe had shown obvious stress during transplant
and as a result warranted my suspicion. Sure enough, it turned to the
dark side and was destroyed quickly.
Phenotypes
There were two phenotypes in this grow and they looked nothing alike.
Pheno #1
This
type was more Sativa dominant in appearance and featured bright
reddish-purple calyxes and long very thick buds. It matured a full two
weeks ahead of the others and yielded the most of the three.
This
plant finished at 44” tall and was theoretically ready to cut at week
8; I let it go longer hoping for more resin and crystal production.
Although the plant finished very sticky, I doubt that the extra time
was worth it. Because of the quick maturity and decent yield, this was
the better of the two phenotypes and I would recommend keeping it if
you come across it, as the finished smoke is pretty good stuff.
Calyx to leaf ratio was average, but there seemed to be quite a lot of trimming and hash fixings at the end.
Color: bright green with dark red calyxes that turned purple in week 4 of 12/12.
Beauty: 10. Sweet looking colas and leaves.
Ease of Grow: 10. Great strain for a first time grower.
Smell: 8+. Don’t grow this plant if you can’t remove a great deal of odor.
Yield: decent - 120g.
Smoke Report
I
have heard many conflicting reports on WW and I wonder if that has to
do with all of the crossbreeding and different seed banks. Regardless,
here are my thoughts.
To be objective I cured the bud for a
minimum of two weeks in glass Mason jars after a two week dry and
smoked it in a clean glass pipe, which really is the best way IMO.
The
buds burn very well leaving only a fine white ash behind. They are very
tight and one good-sized nugget will get 4 people very high. The taste
is unique and hard to describe. Some skunkiness yet too sweet to be
afghan. A very slight citrus after taste that isn’t unappealing but
doesn’t make you crave it like the berry or haze strains do.
This
is sleeper herb, and sneaky at that. The tendency is to smoke more than
you need only to find yourself impossibly stoned. My eyes got a little
puffy and Cotton Mouth set in shortly after the first hit. After two
hits from my Steam Roller, I am ready to sit out for a while. Not
trippy, but very tingly and cerebral. I have come up with several cool
ideas while under its influence, now if I can only get motivated to act
on them.
The taste is average, but should get better with a
longer cure. The high is very reflective and can fuel some very
interesting late night conversations. No munchies or other side effects
were encountered other than the eyes and cotton mouth mentioned earlier.
Potency: 8. Coming from me, that is pretty high.
Taste: 5. Not too good, not too bad.
High: 7. Above average, good daytime buzz, not a sleep aid.
Desirability: 6. Way too much out there that is better and finishes quicker.
Social Liability: 0. A good up high with minimal physical impairment.
Paranoia: 0. No paranoia at all.
Friend Maker: 9. Very social weed that offers a good time for all.
Pheno #2
The
last two plants I flowered and the one straggler that I kept in veg,
fall into this category. They all lagged about two weeks behind pheno
#1 and yielded less at the end. The calyx to leaf ratio was poor. Bud
sites were small and surrounded by legions of fan and shade leaves.
Just keeping even light exposure became a nightmare requiring numerous
pruning sessions and creative uses of string.
Not spectacular
yielders by my standard and they matured much too slowly in flower for
my tastes. Both flowered plants were nearly identical in yield and
final size.
In a bigger grow this pheno wouldn’t have made the
cut, not enough buds for the amount of leaf material, and they just
didn’t keep up with the others.
Color: dark green leaves and calyxes, with bright red hairs at harvest.
Beauty: 10. Very pretty leaves and bud formations.
Ease of Grow: 10. No problem.
Smell: 8+. Skanky.
Yield: average, 80-90g.
Smoke Report
These
buds took a long time to dry, even now as they cure, they are damp with
resin and very sticky to the touch. The nuggets are not as dense as
pheno #1 and mash together very easily when handled. The smell is
wonderful and I look forward to opening the jars up each day for that
initial blast of MJ goodness.
The nugs burn very evenly and
reflect the thoroughness of my flush. The stone hits you immediately
and the taste is quite pleasant. A tasty mixture of spice and pine,
with a hint of fruit. The high is body in nature and quickly extends to
your face, legs and arms. Your joints quickly go numb and the rest of
your body quickly follows. It’s like being immobile but your mind is
clear as a bell. Unusual in that you think you are okay until you take
a step and think better of it. Not a true couch-lock, but close.
No
nasty side effects, but there is a mildly unpleasant aftertaste that
may or not disappear with more curing. Overall a nice smoke with muscle
relaxing and face numbing tendencies.
Potency: 8
Taste: 7. May get higher rating in future.
Smell: 9. Very pungent and strong. Prepare to smell like weed.
High: 7. Body high with clear head.
Desirability: 5. Poor yielder, too many leaves.
Social Liability: not good for social smoking, motivational vacuum.
Paranoia: 0
Friend Maker: 10+. Great gift for friends in need of medicine.
Summary
White
Widow is another one of those famous strains that I had wanted to grow
for some time. The lack of clear information on WW was frustrating, but
overall I feel it is an excellent plant that requires a good deal of
growing to find that elusive ‘killer pheno’. I was encouraged by the
stability of the strain and the relative ease of the grow. First time
growers should definitely give this one a shot. Expect a few lemons in
the group, but even the lemonade isn’t too bad.
The plants were
happy with lighter nutes in veg and flower and will reward you with
fantastic rates of growth if given the right balance. These are very
responsive plants that quickly tell you if there is a problem. I
managed to shock one into Hermieville, but that was my fault and I
don’t associate the event with the strain, rather, the stress coupled
with feminized seeds was the culprit.
Yield was above average
from pheno #1 and average for pheno #2. I believe that pinching
increased the yield on pheno #1 but might have been harmful to #2. A
SCROG would optimize this strain and pull out a higher yield.
Like
I mentioned before, this is a very quick growing plant that requires
maintenance throughout the veg period. Left to its own devices, it
could easily Overgrow the world.
Color appeared on the one
pheno but the others remained dark green with a heavy coating of resin.
It is impossible to come away from these plants in flower without a
strong odor of dank. Even brushing your bare skin against the buds
produces slight tingling and numbness to the affected area. From that
perspective, these are the most resinous and naughty plants I have
grown.
The clones I took rooted very quickly and seemed to grow
well after the initial shock period was over. Care must be taken to
properly support them early on, as they are very pliable and easily
bent. All six rooted within ten days and were ready for transplant.
A
harvest time of 8 weeks was probably optimal for pheno #1 and 10 weeks
turned the others into couch lock. I would think 8 weeks max for the
types I grew; the additional two weeks had little benefit other than a
slight increase in Resin/CBN’s.
The trichomes are easily visible
and can be observed without magnification, even in the early stages. I
would still advise using a magnifying lens to be accurate. |
|
| Comment Posted by: Mr.Gr33n on 01-25-2011 at 16:53 | | | i have been growing WW for some time,
I find it best ''In my opinion''
To do 12/12 for 8 weeks - then drop it to 8/16 for 10 days
For me this works very very well.
It makes them even more resinous,
Since it sends the clones into over-drive | | Comment Posted by: Max44 on 02-06-2010 at 04:19 | | Nice report, just got some WW04 and am excited to try it!
| | Comment Posted by: NORCALMELTDOWN on 01-26-2010 at 03:27 | | THANK YOU FOR YOUR REPORT. I JUST STARTED SOME WW IN MY EBB TABLE. I HAD MY RESERVATIONS DUE TO THE 10-11 WEEK FINISH FOR PRODUCTION REASONS, BUT IT'S REPUTATION INTRIGUES ME. HAVE YOU FOUND A WAY TO FINISH QUICKER WITH RESULTS? | | Comment Posted by: Sister Sara on 07-10-2009 at 02:30 | | Circumference means the distance around a circle. Diameter means the distance across a circle.
| | Comment Posted by: lionzion on 05-15-2009 at 01:27 | | can you tell me about the dryer sheets!?
| | Comment Posted by: lionzion on 05-15-2009 at 01:24 | | yeah
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