Class 207: Semester 2, Part II

Our plants came down, and the result was some excellent smoke from the hard work put in! We will check out everything in the harvest report, but it is worth looking at some of the challenges we’ve faced. The plants in this flower cycle faced some unique circumstances but thankfully overcame them. The results also saw how picking the right medium (soil, coco, and premixed alternatives) to grow in will affect our end result for better or worse. We will begin our next flower cycle outdoors to explore flowering in the Arizona fall and winter seasons. As our next flowering cycle happens outdoors, I will be getting my newly sprouted strains ready for their flower cycle. The new sprouts have been started from seed on an all-organic nutrient schedule and we will see the differences in result, as well as caring for our plants. We will raise the new plants while we explore the life cycle of our plants while utilizing non-salt based fertilization. Let’s revisit this cycle and some of the challenges we’ve faced as well as the differences observed from new techniques.

Lessons Learned

The Arizona summer this year has been brutal whether you grew indoor or outdoor cannabis. The biggest factor being the heat, so much so that we had to get creative to overcome it by making several changes to our grow. These included flipping to an inverted light schedule of lights on at night and off during the day which greatly reduced the heat in our tent. We implemented a technique known as ‘schwazzing’ which consists of a heavy defoliation of our plants to keep control of the vapor pressure deficit as well as aiding in air flow. I saw rapid bud development in the 11 plants I schwazzed in comparison to the plant I used as a control with a standard defoliation. The schwazzing also eased the stress immediately after my AC unit had died for a few days in the middle of August with temperatures hitting over 90 degrees fahrenheit.

We also added a small dehumidifier to help ease some of the humidity spikes Arizona had during the very active monsoon season which provided several storms that resulted in record breaking rainfall. Finally, we are working to seal our tent from outside conditions, and directing climate controlled air into the environment from late flowering into our drying process. Sealing the tent during a hot but active monsoon season helped us to avoid any insects from taking up residence. All of these factors were experienced by cultivators around the state, and many were stifled by the consequences. These challenges are opportunities to learn and plan for next year, and we also took time to conduct trials in other areas as well. I moved away from some of what we know and products I’ve been using to help find other viable options.

Soil Medium Matters

I have been utilizing a soil/coco mix of Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil and ReadyGro aeration coco; I wanted to explore some other options that might offer the same benefits in a premixed option, as well as a super soil. My chosen premix option was Tank’s Green Stuff Coco-Soil Potting Soil mix that was recommended by the garden shop I purchased from. Tank’s is a well put-together option and I initially thought highly of it, but I was shocked to find it brought a slew of insects into my home. The plants using this soil mix were definitely struggling at certain times, but with the introduction of Mammoth P CannControl it was quickly resolved. These issues could have been anticipated based on how the garden shop stored these soil bags outdoors. This invited insects to lay eggs in the soil so eggs would hatch at a more favorable time later on. The problems experienced with this mix were in stark contrast to the super soil from 420 Growers Choice LLC. which supplied the Cannabis Cactus with a bag of their super soil at Errl Cup.

The super soil from 420 Growers Choice LLC has many of the ingredients sought after, this includes: yard compost, aged bark fines, pumice, perlite, sand, peat moss, cow and chicken manure compost, alfalfa meal, fish compost, fish bone mean, feather meal, and limestone as a pH control and wetting agent. The soil mixture also comes loaded with a mix of Mycorrhizae and beneficial bacterias. The soil claims to only need water for the lifecycle of the plant, but we combined the soil with my specialized regiment of nutrients. The plant used was Skywalker OG which has many unique features but also some of the most potent terpenes and effects. The plant had few problems with its pot, medium, and overall care. The Skywalker OG cultivar before going into the super soil had many issues and was in near constant shock. The change in health came when uppotted into the 420 Growers Choice LLC soil, which kicked the Skywalker OG into a very successful flowering cycle. The super soil is recommended, but a word of caution when buying anything widely available from your local garden shop. I will continue to run trials with different varieties of soil against the tried and true result from the Ocean Forest/Coco mixture we started with. I am excited to see how our soil mixture will do in the Arizona fall season, and hopefully we can compare more soils as we experiment.

The Great Outdoors

We are moving our cultivation outdoors, and will explore the do’s and don’ts of outdoor cannabis cultivation. We will be running a full 12 plants so we can see our yields, success, and failures over a full outdoor flowering season. We will be utilizing 7 gallon smartpots that will hold our plants in the preferred Fox Farms Ocean Forest and ReadyGro Coco. I will be elevating the plants onto a picnic bench so I can see when they begin runoff during watering to reduce waste. Finally, we will be running 11 cloned plants, as well as sending our Ace of Spades mother plants outdoors to flower and eventually end. Our mother plant has already been moved into a 20 gallon Smartpot with our soil/coco mixture. The hope is that this beautiful plant will complete her life cycle with flowering and help decide about whether bigger plants will yield better.

New Curriculum

The last update is about our newly sprouted seeds, which include the following strains, Spider Monkey by @pugetsoundseeds, Dumpster Punch by @firebudzgenetics, Captn’ Hook Cookies by @sunkentreasureseeds or the amazing genetics from @bz_selects like Sour Garlic OG, Sour Plushberry, Agent J1 and Gibbasier F2. All of these strains will be utilizing all organic supplements from seed to smoke to observe the differences and benefits. This organic regiment will consist of Agromar Seaweed Solutions, Aptus, and @greatwhitemyco as well as #kingcrab liquid beneficial bacteria. We will be talking to Bee in our next issue to see what his advice for finding great phenotypes are, and if we can find anything amazing from out popped seeds. I am looking forward to the harvest and end results because it has always been my experience that organic medicine is the best medicine! Let’s look at our last harvest utilizing salt based fertilizers and what we can hope to expect in the future.

Harvest Report

Sunset Sherbet

Strain: Sunset Sherbet

Height: 36 inches

Wet Harvest Weight: 15oz

Total Dry Yield: 3.5oz

Sourced From: @birdman378

Difficulty rating: 2/5

Notes/Review: Resilience to pests, environment. Good Yields, smells like shoes and orange peel

Wedding Cake

Strain: Wedding Cake

Height: 52 inches

Wet Harvest Weight: 13 oz

Total Dry Yield: 4 oz

Sourced From: @birdman378

Difficulty rating: 2/5Notes/Review:Strong growth, high yield, smells like baked goods and Earth

Blood Diamond

Strain: Blood Diamond

Height: 47 inches

Wet Harvest Weight: 12 oz

Total Dry Yield: 3 oz

Sourced From: @swamp_donkey_seeds @smokeeeJ

Difficulty rating: 3/5Notes/Review:Struggled with Tank’s solid mix, very frosty, smells like crunch berries and petrol

Ace of Spades

Strain: Ace of Spades

Height: 46 inches

Wet Harvest Weight: 15 oz

Total Dry Yield: 3.9 oz

Sourced From: @subcoolsig @smokeeeJ

Difficulty rating: 3/5Notes/Review:Good yields and ease of growth, orange and chocolate smells

Skywalker OG

Strain: Skywalker OG

Height: 56 inches

Wet Harvest Weight: 15.5 oz

Total Dry Yield: 2.5 oz

Sourced From: @moltenwhisper

Difficulty rating: 5/5Notes/Review:In constant Shock, very difficult, smells of lemon and petrol, very orange pistils

Grand Daddy Confidential

Strain: Grand Daddy Confidential

Height: 62 inches

Wet Harvest Weight: 16.4 oz

Total Dry Yield: 7.8 oz

Sourced From: @plantaddictsnursery_pan

Difficulty rating: 1/5Notes/Review:The highest yielding strain, least amount of work/attentions, great bud structure, taco terps and good amount of THC content

GDP

Strain: GDP

Height: 29 inches

Wet Harvest Weight: 8oz

Total Dry Yield: 3.3 oz

Sourced From: @theganjamom @theclonedaddy

Difficulty rating: 4/5Notes/Review:A heavy producer, weight will affect plant growth, great yield and bud structure

Space Candy

Strain: Space Candy:

Height: 31 inches

Wet Harvest Weight: 8 oz

Total Dry Yield: 2 oz

Sourced From: @dinosaur_barber

Difficulty rating: 3/5Notes/Review:Development similar to a cookie strain, small nugs,fair yields, smells like Fruit Loops cereal

Strawberry Cake

Strain: Strawberry Cake

Height: 55 inches

Wet Harvest Weight: 14 oz

Total Dry Yield: 2.8 oz