Tropical Adventure

[River Rooster]

I wish it was a Jaboticaba! Cauliflory is pretty common with trees in the rainforest that is some type of fig. Super happy with these vigorous haze hybrids from Wally Duck Seeds repotted some home ones to 12l pots today they are about 5 weeks from germination and working on there 6th set of true leaves. I think I will start taking clones of these soon with a big topping off each.

I haven’t watered these plants once since the last repot little bits of rain and temps are only up to 25c most days the high humidity means it takes a lot to dry pots out.

Prototype cage over tray for rooting clones at the growspot I have some good quality woven greenhouse material I can attach to it or maybe just some shade cloth will do my experience with rooting clones here has been that a cover can make them melt and they seem to do better only partially covered.

 

[River Rooster]

Lost my machete when I got stung by the stinging tree just got a new one so lots of clearing today to make space for more beds. It is the most useful tool one can have on a tropical adventure.

A wallaby seems to be following my trail in so going to put a gate on it, didn’t cause any damage yet.

X batch seedlings are up I lost some to the top potting mix drying out before the root could get down deeper, this was surprising and the pots that were not planted were still wet, seems the plastic protection has a bit of a greenhouse effect. Planted lots more mango haze x z99 seeds germinating these ones in a more shady spot and lots of showers over the next week. Lots more seeds need to be planted over the next few weeks they will all be planted in pots as the progress of the direct seeds has been sad compared to potted ones.

Took first clones and some more subtle topping on the home batch, starting to take off

 

[River Rooster]

Home plants are starting to show sex found 2 boys culled them both neither have much stem rub smell not that I really know what to look for.. I read that the earliest flowering ones should be culled anyway..

nhxc5m #01 - girl
nhxc5m #04 - na
nhxc5m #05 - na
nhxc5m #06 - na
nhxc5m #07 - dead boy
mh x z99 #02 - na
mh x z99 #03 - na
mh x z99 #04 - girl
mh x z99 #05 - girl
mango haze #01 - na
mango haze #03 - na
mango haze #04 - girl
mango haze #05 - maybe boy
nh x z99 #03 - dead boy
nh x z99 #05 - girl
nh x z99 #02 - na

So 5 girls, 3 boys and 8 others that should show next week.. the maybe boy mango haze has a nicer stem smell little bit fruity.

 

[River Rooster]

Quick set up for the home plants gas lantern routine, need to find some more posts to spread the light out. 10 girls here and one nice smelling mango haze boy keeping for now. 3 more I’m leaving away from the light till they show sex.

 

[Brother Nature]

What a cool thread, real Gorilla growing in action. Hope this turns out well for you mate!

 

[Swamp Thang]

Quick set up for the home plants gas lantern routine, need to find some more posts to spread the light out. 10 girls here and one nice smelling mango haze boy keeping for now. 3 more I’m leaving away from the light till they show sex.
View attachment 18861187

This is real innovation at work, Rooster. I like the way the battery is tastefully concealed barely breaking the ground surface with a waterproof cover. With this setup you decide when the sun sets haha.

I have for a long time been mulling over a method of installing a solar-powered dry season irrigation setup with the car battery partially buried exactly as you've done here. Matter of fact I went way beyond the conceptual stage with that dream, by ordering the solar panels that would trickle charge the hidden car battery, 12-volt submersible pump to go in the river nearby, drip irrigation fixtures, and a couple of AA battery-powered water valves with timers to release water per schedule from a heavily concealed and camo-painted plastic drum that would serve as the reservoir, set in the deep thicket near the grow.

One of the advantages of getting high is that I get really contemplative and motivated to design highly complex inventions that quite often never see the light of day. My irrigation setup will become a reality one day soon though. I will have to hire a couple of guys who will bury a couple of hundred yards of PVC piping that will convey the water from the solar-powered submersible pump in the river to the grow site, and that could potentially become a security concern, even if I take the precaution of hiring people who live far away.


Staying tuned to see how your daylight extender lighting works to delay the onset of the flower cycle.

 

[River Rooster]

Hey swamp this one is just for home same 12v lights though but just plugged in. Still working on the off grid one just got the new 12v timer.

Hi Brother Nature thanks hopefully get something out of all the blood and sweat haha

Did lots more work today the clearing is getting clearer.. Finally had no losses on the last batch of seeds planted haha got the technique sorted now hopefully! Planted more seeds and need to plant lots more this week.

 

[Swamp Thang]

Looks like you're getting a good workout with the machete, Rooster. A handy safety precaution I learned from watching farmers weeding with machetes is to cut yourself a walking stick to lean on with your left hand while stooping down to cut roots and low grass. That way if you swing too hard with the machete it will impact that walking stick and not your leg. I find it is easy to get too carried away while weeding after toking up, and more than once I've had the machete hit the walking stick.

For all other machete swipes while standing upright, take care to ensure that the trajectory of the sweep goes off to either side of you in case the swing follow-through is excessive. I'll never forget the day a machete slipped out of my wet hand as I was flailing away at overhanging tree limbs while standing in my wooden dugout canoe. The machete missed my leg by inches and impaled the wooden canoe. Took considerable to extract the deeply buried machete from the canoe floor and I still wince recalling that near miss.

 

[River Rooster]

Safety first Swampy I recommend anyone new to a machete to watch some youtube tips on using them safely like you said you have to always be aware of where the swing is going always imagining that the whatever you hit will cause no resistance I like to make short swings that plan on ending at the target. The angle of impact is also very important.

Looks like I set up my gas lantern routine a little late and some of the girls are going into flower hopefully the light is enough to put them back into vegetative growth and it doesn’t set them back too much.. I have changed the system over to off grid now with the new timer.. I’ll monitor it at home checking the battery charge each day to see if it is all working well.

So far out of 16 only 3 are male, one left unsexed

 

[River Rooster]

Only 3-4 that are like that maybe I should just flower those ones rather than trying to reveg and potentially stressing them out?

 

[Swamp Thang]

I was surprised to read somewhere in this forum that flowering can be prevented with a relatively short on-time duration of light after dusk falls. I had previously been under the impression that the light would have to remain on for hours into the night to prevent flowering. Pays off to read random posts by the pros in this forum for sure. I'm always running into new insights like that one.

On your question about reveging those 4 renegade plants, I did in the past have a few plants that never did make up their minds whether to flower or revert to veg after being set outdoors for the first time, so I terminated them with extreme prejudice and vaped them for good measure.

 

[Hasch]

so I terminated them with extreme prejudice and vaped them for good measure.

 

[River Rooster]

I decided to seperate out 5 of the ones showing the most stigmas. I don’t think they are rogue Swamp just didn’t set up the gas lantern routine early enough they only had 3 nights of the lights on so would have already decided they were going to flower last week.. I think I have another 6-8 girls that hopefully have been given the extra light early enough for them to not go into flower I want to take more clones. Even if it is a smaller yield some haze in September sounds good to me!

Giant leaf insect in the Napier grass was bigger than my hand

 

[River Rooster]

Planted those early flowering ones out at the spot, was way too much effort to bring them in and effort could have been better used on bringing other things..

I have had more losses to tiny germinating seedlings hopefully this next step is enough to keep them safe, if it is not I will bring metal posts and build something that is above ground.

The plants started in pots are growing a lot faster than direct seeded

 

[Swamp Thang]

These plants are off to a good start. They blend in so well that a hiker could walk right past them without noticing them. You'll need to go back and trim the undegrowth back now and then between now and harvest.

 

[blondie]

What a great thread. This is a far cry different than a basement, a tent and some whiz bang lights. Thanks for sharing your journey. Looking forward to watching the progress.

 

[River Rooster]

Hey Swamp not worried about people walking to it, the growth around is so thick and prickly it would take a few minutes of cutting to get thru a few steps my path in is very well hidden and to find that you have to walk thru a lot of rainforest, the forest hides my trail in well.. ground birds constantly scratch the fallen leaves, branches constantly falling down and the uncut ratten palms make a constant maze.

I am trying to hide it from the air as helicopters often fly over and people these days fly drones everywhere.

I have been trying to cut and mould the elephant grass so it blends more into my clearing rather than a 3m wall around it.

 

[River Rooster]

Hi Blondie it is an interesting evolving challenge with lots of choices and compromises to make haha can’t just follow a guaranteed way like setting up a tent. But it is enjoyable being out there alone working it out.

Big mistake was not starting the gas lantern routine early enough on the home batch, they are all slowed down doing a reveg the clone taken earlier are rooting but also reveging even slower than the big plants in gas lantern routine and they are under 18 hours of light.

They are getting bushy though so should be able to take lots of clones soon with hopefully still enough time.. Next time I take cuttings they will be going out to the spot so hopefully I can get the conditions right out there..

 

[Maria Sanchez]

Lovely work here so far, @River Rooster . After reading through this thread, you're in Aus (because of the wallaby!), and I'm guessing either Queensland or maybe NT (?), doing a spring grow.

Your elephant grass looks a lot like the stuff I get here (24N), north of the equator from you there, down in the plains next to the rivers. Grows about 4-6 m tall, and has a sharp edge on it if you push through it. Lots of uncles around here cut out vege gardens from it by the river side to grow all kinds of veges, bananas, papaya, eggplant, okra, peppers and stuff. And the soil there is similar too, very fine sandy, high drainage, which is needed because of our massive rainfall. I'm up in the mountains now, though, so it's a bit different. Soil is richer, and bigger trees and stuff in the forest.

Anyhooo, getting to the point: what's your experience with the sativas and sativa dominant cultivars when you're doing a spring grow (or even summer) at that latitude? How long do they vege for? Do you need to plan / schedule things to harvest during the dry season? When is your dry season, by the way, if you have one? We just have wet, wetter, and typhoon season around these parts.

 

[Mtn. Nectar]

enjoying your jungle grow RR……always nice to see others in diff environments ……

swamp….those machete stories bring back my lesson learned…called them bolo knifes cause had the curve at the end…..’77 was clearing a nice patch in Aptos and holding a bigger branch to stabilize when bolo went farther than expected….actually split my thumb down the middle…..talk about some lasting pain….still see the scar today…..but what a dip shit maneuver…..always been one to learn on the job…..

‘look forward to more Rooster….
ganj on…..