The OBBT Grow Show!

[rrog]

I am really, really appreciating the before and after pics. Thanks for continuing to take the time to show us this grow.

Heavy cytokinin treatment does something strange to the plants at this stage.

I learned about the great benefits if Cytokinin in my last grow. I used Nitrozyme during flower and they really got huge. I would have started my next grow using the stuff from the start of veg, and then would have panicked when all stretch and no sex.

 

[ItsAllOver]

So wait am I to believe that the idea is that sex is not predetermined and can be coaxed either way? This is news to me if true.

 

[DrunkenMessiah]

Afraid its true buddy, sex in cannabis is very far from genetically pre-determined. Even without hormone treatment you can influence the sex of the plants.

For instance, sprout a cannabis plant. Early in its life top it, have a fan constantly blowing it around, and feed it with a potassium-heavy diet during veg. This plant will go male every time. Likewise, you give a cannabis plant lots of blue light and nitrogen, keep it short and squat and do not top it and it is more likely to go female.

We can swing the odds in our favor even more by using cytokinin. It is a naturally-occuring plant hormone found in great quantities in certain kelps.

THIS:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1077417

Is the hard science behind what we're on about. Cytokinin treatment physically alters the structure of the plant to be more effeminate. Pistillate development is greatly encouraged by high levels of this hormone. By growing a certain way (pretty much just like Lady L is here) you can convince cannabis plants from mixed seed to go female every time.

Its been a couple of days since flower. If Lady L doesn't come on here in a wave of tears here within 48 hours then she is gonna get 5 out of 5 females. She accidentally broke one of the rules and topped one of her plants, but it was on the day of the switch flip and so shouldn't effect things unduly.

Sit back and be amazed my friend, this is a technique that the Lady and I developed together and it is very reliable. 5 different mixed seeds from vastly different genetic backgrounds can all predictably be sent female under the right conditions. We're gonna be seeing plenty of on-command-colas here in a few short weeks.

Good luck and happy gardening!

-DM

 

[LadyLargely]

out of the woods perhaps

out of the woods perhaps

Well, we're way past 72 hours into flower now and I've seen no sign of nuts or male-ness at all. Huzzah! Plants that go all-male always show very early on, so I am now confident that I won't be getting any.

Doesn't mean there still isn't some risk of pollination. Any one of the plants (especially my accidentally-topped-WW#2) could toss off a few errant nutsacks.

But I am hopeful! For now we will keep our finger crossed and the ladies-to-be soaked with cytokinin.

Speaking of those ladies, they are really getting magnificent:



Right on schedule. They're already eaten up a good 10-15% of the avaliable open screen. I hope to fill it all up enough to bring some growth tips back around to give a good double-filling to the holes with enough room.

Training scoots right along. For those of you who have ever been afraid of merely giving their stems a little pinch, check this out:



Gahhh! Oh the humanity! Its cannabis abuse! Surely the bits of growth upstream from these horrific scars must look terrible!



Uhhh... Actually they look lovely! Aside from sitting a little low in the screen all tops which have been supercropped and twisted beyond recognition all grow at the same rate as other less-mangled tops. Cannabis is amazingly flexible, I mean look:



Some WW#1 glory top-shots. Its very early in the game and I loose count of the number of growth tip nodes on her after 40



I've been reading a lot about training solutions over in the micro-grower forums and I have to say I'm appalled. The level of popularity when it comes to topping and removing fan leaves and generally making serious modifications to the plant frightens me. I was reading a thread where a guy was asking how he should keep his plants low to the ground and some chap came along and seriously suggested using plant growth inhibitors on his cannabis like you might use to make a bonsai tree

I was just at a loss for words! Why is this happening? You don't have to cut up your plants or use chemicals, good god, be a gardener. Cannabis will bend to your will and you don't have to have a screen to do it. Don't cut off their heads, head colas are magnificent Just like with my grow you can have a shitload of tops per plant without having to sacrifice a fabulous head cola or half your fan leaves, goodness gracious!

Anyway, all is well in the Land of Nod and me screen is filling up nicely. Will continue to bring in pics and such as the weave gets more complex. For now, here's a before-n-after of my training for the day:



Stay tuned!

 

[high_rider]

LadyL first off wow. great work. your garden looks amazing.
two questions first what size tubs do you use?

and second why dont you mix bone meal into your soil to help in flowering? would it get broken down to quickly and hurt the veg cycle?

 

[McDanger]

"...has been happening to me for years now. I've had lots of tripod (three leaves per node instead of just 2) plants, but as far as I knew those are genetic flukes. Ever since I started using the grow method I use now (organic OBBTs with heavy cytokinin treatment) I've had at least one of these per grow. Randomly, one of my plants' offshoots will start to grow tripod. No idea why. This time, DM#2 has done it."


One of mine is doing the same thing. In addition it has a Siamese twin leaf as one of the three, so there are actually 4 leaves on 3 nodes. Hard to explain but I can't get any pics right now.
Everything else keeps chuggin along.

 

[LadyLargely]

high rider

Hey mate! Welcome to the dark smelly world of OBBTs!

My tubs measure out to 4.4 gallons. They are just about the perfect shape for OBBTs, you want a container that is nice and deep without being enormous (anything bigger than 5 gallons really isn't useful for even the biggest cannabis plants). Mine measures 12 inch deep, 13 inch long by 7 inch wide. I think square is the way to go, more space-efficient, but there has been much success with basing them off typical 5 gallon buckets.

Yes, used incorrectly the bone meal could have hurt my nute ratio. However, look at the amount. Its only 1/3 cup per 5 gallons of medium.

Keep in mind, what I used was not ordinary bone meal, it was Fox Farms fancy bio-active bone meal. I use it much more for the cool dormant bio-life that is in it. It also has nice organic extras like humic acid. So little of it gets used that the nutrients present won't all break down at once and cock up the nutrient ratio.

McDanger

Hehe, it is odd isn't it? All kinds of weird growth anomalies happen when you are just growing fast, but this tripod business seems fairly unique, especially with how often it happens to me. I've got 7 of them now on 2 plants. I think it might have something to do with how right after I supercrop a stem I soak it down with pure tomato spray. The hormone finds its way into the breaks in the stem and goes straight to work. Perhaps that throws a wrench into things...?

 

[LadyLargely]

Tea Time

Tea Time



Better late than never eh?

We're hovering around the 40 day mark now and I think I'm finally ready to brew up a tea! My pre-loading regiment worked perfectly. Nice and nitrogen-heavy it has been the only thing carrying the plants so far. It has been able to support some phenomenal growth all on its own.

However, I think my plants are finally starting to bump up against the limits of what my pre-loaded nutes can provide. To get anything more out of them I'm gonna need to add more nutes! This first tea will carry the plants through the rest of sexing and into the first round of starvation which triggers heavy flower.

Today's Lesson!

sex tea!

We're past a week into flower. No plants have gone male which means I'm home free. I may see a tiny bit of hermie action, but for the most part it should be all-ladies. But right now there's nothing at all! No nuts, no pistils, no nothing. No sign of sexual orientation. Its time to prod the girls down the right direction with elevated levels of phosphorus and the heaviest doses of cytokinin yet!



Its a simple matter. Fish emulsion, bat guano and kelp meal. I do hot extraction, it isn't for everyone.

I boil a nice big pan of water and add to it:

1 1/2 cups kelp meal (1-0-2
2 tablespoons bat guano (.4-12-.5)

Remove from knarly heat and just simmer slowly for 5 minutes. The kelp meal soaks up water and expands like crazy. Strain through a colander and take away the hot liquid. I put this concentrated nutrient juice in my 1 gallon glass jar and let it cool to room temperature. I then add:

At least 1 cup fresh Lacto B culture
5 tablespoons fish emulsion (2-4-0)
3 tablespoons liquid kelp extract (.1-0-1)
1 1/2 tablespoons molasses

and then top it off with enough cool de-chlorinated water to completely fill my 1 gallon jar to the rim, like so:



Now I have a super-concentrated tea. This is way too strong in its current form. This tea has to be digested and the junk must be tossed out through the foaming process. To make that suck less I do this:



Place my 1 gallon glass jar of tea concentrate into a 2 gallon bucket and then add my bubbler. Because its completely filled any foam that forms will pile up on the edge and immediately fall out of the jar into the bucket. This way I don't have to remove the nasty manually.



A good tea that has had some nice active cultures added to it should start producing foam within the first hour:



If your cultures where weak/dormant/you didn't use any then foam may not start for a day or so.

After my concentrate has foamed completely and all junk has been removed I will add it to enough de-chlorinated water to make 5 gallons of finished tea at the correct concentration.

And that will happen tomorrow! This boost of nutrients should give the plants a noticeable surge in growth over this next week. After about 2 more weeks of sexing/stretch we should finally start to see some pistils and we can go through the first starve cycle to punt the plants into heavy flower. Till then, try playing spot-the-tripods on WW#2



Find all four? Hehe, until next time, stay tuned!

 

[ItsAllOver]

Everything's looking good, LadyL. Keep it up. Also, I appreciate the info on sexing that DM posted above. So how are cytokinins being introduced? My bad if I missed that.

Also the before and after shots are great for those that are intimidated by scrog in general so maybe post those in the training thread in the organic soil forum?
Peace

 

[LadyLargely]

Cytokinin has been part of the game for quite a while now. It was applied by itself to the plants when they where very young, just a couple of days into rooting the sprouts. They've had a dose of it at least once every 48 hours, one way or another, ever since. Upon adding this new tea that will go up to a dose every 24 hours. Some doses are still plain tomato spray, these are the ones that I give the plants right during training. I spray their stems down with the pure stuff after breaking, twisting and weaving them.

Bigger all-over foliar doses of it are given in the form of my foliar sprays. I've been using a 'veg spray' so far. It just contains 5-1-1 fish emulsion, molasses, liquid kelp and tomato spray bubbled with a Lacto B culture. I will prolly whip up a small batch of 'flower spray' that contains 2-4-0 fish emulsion and mebbe even a touch of guano tea instead.

Cytokin treatment continues until a couple weeks into flower formation. Its usage continues as early pistils arrive and the buds wad up, but you taper it off and stop completely once the buds are a couple weeks old. The very heavy use up front lets you not use it at all for the last 4-8 weeks and just let nature take her magnificent course.

I've been looking at the indoor soil forums. Gonna post a new thread over there aimed specifically at this whole extended sexing all-female phenomenon. But I'll definitely have a look for that training thread.

Stay tuned!

 

[ScrubNinja]

Excellent thread LL, I finally got through it all! Even though I'm not doing OBBTs yet, I've learned an incredible amount and it's amazing how much you do that is already part of my process in a roundabout half-assed sort of way (on my part). And a lot of the rest will be getting assimilated into my methods very soon/now.

ItsAllOver just asked the only real question I had, about how you actually apply cyto's. Thanks for the answer.

Just wondering if I could shoot you a link of the analysis of the Seasol kelp product I use, could you tell me how it fares as a source of cyto's? It's a PDF file just so ya know. Otherwise here is the specific breakdown for Cytokinins:

Trans Zeatin Riboside 3.5 (± 2) micrograms/litre
Isopental Adenosine 1.0 (± 0.5) micrograms/litre
Trans Zeatin 0.4 (± 0.1) micrograms/litre
Isopental Adenine 8 (± 3) micrograms/litre

I see a couple of those big words on the link DM gave but that is about as far as I can understand. :

Thanks and consider me signed into this thread!

 

[LadyLargely]

Hey buddy!

I had a look at Seasol product way back when Silver_Surfer_OG mentioned it in DM's thread. Frankly, I'm quite jealous! Its gotta be one of the nicest, hormone-oriented kelp extracts that I've ever seen!

It has a lovely variety of cytokinins, but the concentration is several orders of magnitude lower than in the tomato spray. However, I'm not sure that's really a problem. After years of using it I'm beginning to think that the regularity of the dosage is much more important than the strength of the dosage. I think kelp extracts like seasol could fit the bill so long as they are used religiously.

We'll be seeing a post-tea update soon, stay tuned!

 

[ScrubNinja]

Really? How awesome! Thanks and I haven't kept up with DMs thread for a while but I'll find it. I knew I liked seasol for a reason! I think I even asked him about it but I wouldn't have known what a cytokinin was back then

Looking forward to the updates.

 

[RipVanWeed]

Thought I woild post up an update.

These plants are at 42 days flower

Super Silver Haze



White Russian



Dabney Blueberry



I had to take my plants outside so I could spray them with Neem, and take pictures. I have found some signs of Caterpillar. After spraying them just before lights out, I checked on them when the light came back on. I tried to remove all damaged leaves so I can moniter for any new signs of caterpillars. I only had to pluck about a dozen leaves, but look what I found.



Dead!!!

I plan to spray again in a coupla days.

Obbt's are the bomb. Just fill them up every 3 days with EJ, AACT, or water. Last run I crammed 10 plants in the same area I have 8 now. When I harvest I'll compare the yields. I'll be checkin' Trich's in 2 weeks.

Respect,

 

[high_rider]

LadyL, So i think i am ready to try some obbt action, however due to an upcoming move and the fact that i gave my box away i am gonna give some tomatoes and peppers a whirl just to try out the method until i can build a new box and get some girls.
so sorry this is off topic but my question is if by replacing the lime in your mix with sulfur can i create a medium with a pH closer to the tomatoes desired 5.5? Any ideas on that front? thanks

 

[McDanger]

Thought I woild post up an update.

These plants are at 42 days flower


White Russian



Do you get this clawing of the upper leaves on the "white's"? My last 2 grows of WW did the same thing when I switched to 12/12.

I had to take my plants outside so I could spray them with Neem, and take pictures. I have found some signs of Caterpillar. After spraying them just before lights out, I checked on them when the light came back on. I tried to remove all damaged leaves so I can moniter for any new signs of caterpillars. I only had to pluck about a dozen leaves, but look what I found.

I thought you were not supposed to use neem after about the 2nd week of flower because it will leave a bad taste to the buds.



Dead!!!

I plan to spray again in a coupla days.

Obbt's are the bomb. Just fill them up every 3 days with EJ, AACT, or water. Last run I crammed 10 plants in the same area I have 8 now. When I harvest I'll compare the yields. I'll be checkin' Trich's in 2 weeks.

Respect,

 

[RipVanWeed]

McDanger,

I've read various opinions on how late Neem can be applied to flowers with some saying up to 1 week before harvest. I just lost a few oz's to pest's outside, I had to do something to protect these indoor girls when I saw some munched leaves. There were only a very few damaged leaves, but after seeing the hollowed out, feces filled mess they leave behind....I sprayed. I'll let you know if my buds suffer for it.

The White Russian's clawed on my 1st grow as well. I belive a number of factors are at play here, light, air blowing on the plant, excess watering, and excess nitrogen. I kinda tweaked my methods to reduce these claws, without effect. I noticed recently that the leaves that are on the "lit side" of the plant are clawed. The leaves that I tucked back through the screen are looking beautiful, no claw whatsoever. My thoughts are that this is a tendency of this strain. I think these White Russians are a little too green, even though I cut the N earlier. Next grow I may preload a little less.

Respect,

 

[LadyLargely]

Fuck!

Fuck!

FUCK!



Problems have arisen in the land of nod. That there, is a pair of pistils appearing high up on WW#1's head cola. They are a week early, I should not be seeing them yet! Something in the delicate balance of my sex-suppression regime has gone awry.

They have appeared in only one spot on the largest and most mature plant however, so there is hope. I just emptied the resivoirs and gave them all a good flushing, I think I hit them with phoshpate-heavy semi-flower ferts too early. I thought I had enough nitrogen in that mix for it to be cool, but looking back there wasn't all that much in there. Should have left out the bat guano. I prolly also underestimated the plants' ability to take up the nitrogen pre-loaded into the soil. My N supply must have been more depleted than I thought.

I'm brewing up a new, nitrogen-only tea with some super-nitrogen-heavy fish emulsion I got off a gardening buddy. Will be applying it as soon as the foaming subsides.



Also, the center three plants seem to be reacting to some unkown stress. They are bruising and bitching around their supercrop wounds much more than usual. A couple of the tops that I trained up last night still haven't sprung back up towards the light, which is very unusual. Recovery from their training never takes them more than a day, this is indeed a worrying development.

Not sure what's going on. I'm gonna get them back on an N-heavy diet and back off on the ferocity of the training a bit. Nothing to do for now but wait and see what happens. Till next time!

 

[rrog]

So the concern is that pistols are showing now rather than a week from now? Still female, but you wanted one more week of stretch?

 

[s13sr20det]

holy shit this thread has alot of good info...
im going to have to re-read it a few more times to fully absorb it.
nice looking plants. keep up the good work!