Mark's Angel's Breath - New Year's Haze

The Angel's Breathe cuttings are looking better after a day and a half in the bubble cloner. I added more water to the cloner because I'm not sure if the cutting tips were getting enough water; now the bubbles are popping at the surface right below the tips and they are getting lots of fine mist as they should. Four have perked up, and the other three appear to be improving.

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I have a question about the health of these clones. The tips of the cuttings appear to have shrunk in the area where I applied cloning gel. I'm not sure if this is normal and I should just wait for them to root or if I should re-cut and reapply gel to these tips. Any suggestions?

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I've read that cloning from topped plants, as I have done here, is more difficult than cloning from lower branches. Fortunately, if these clones don't work out I have plenty of new cuttings I can take from my seedplants, I'll just lose a little time waiting for the clones to root. The main thing I'm going to have to deal with soon is to figure out how to keep my seedplants to a manageable size through the grow. I'm going to go back and read up on the Bonsai Mother pictorial thread.

Those clones are finished. I would say start with new cuts. The healthier the cuts are, the more vigorous they are in flower. Like riding a wave.
4mLmicro/6bloom/1-2drops plain bleach/ 8-10drops superthrive per gal. I've tried many many methods of cloning, I stick with perlite now, but when I was experimenting with a bubbler in particular. I guess my best tips would be
-dont let the bubbler get too warm
-place cuttings 1/2inch above water or less
-don't place cuttings too close to the light, or under too intense lighting, until they root

The ones you have that failed just looked like they weren't getting their tips wet, but it looks like you made some adjustments

When I used a gel I actually found it more effective to mix directly into the water, for me anyway. I ran out n even cloned without any hormone at all in bubbler, but I like superthrive for the type of root system produced and that a bottle last forever. Personally prefer perlite to coco was easier for me to get the type of cuts I was looking for, but bubbler was cleaner.

Good luck to ya hope you find what your searching for...
 
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The Angel's Breathe cuttings are looking better after a day and a half in the bubble cloner. I added more water to the cloner because I'm not sure if the cutting tips were getting enough water; now the bubbles are popping at the surface right below the tips and they are getting lots of fine mist as they should. Four have perked up, and the other three appear to be improving.

AB_clones_at_36_hr.jpg


I have a question about the health of these clones. The tips of the cuttings appear to have shrunk in the area where I applied cloning gel. I'm not sure if this is normal and I should just wait for them to root or if I should re-cut and reapply gel to these tips. Any suggestions?

cutting_tip_after_36_hr.jpg


I've read that cloning from topped plants, as I have done here, is more difficult than cloning from lower branches. Fortunately, if these clones don't work out I have plenty of new cuttings I can take from my seedplants, I'll just lose a little time waiting for the clones to root. The main thing I'm going to have to deal with soon is to figure out how to keep my seedplants to a manageable size through the grow. I'm going to go back and read up on the Bonsai Mother pictorial thread.

Those clones are finished. I would say start with new cuts. 4mLmicro/6bloom/1-2drops plain bleach/ 8-10drops superthrive per gal. I've tried many many methods of cloning, I stick with perlite now, but when I was experimenting with a bubbler. I guess my best tips would be
-dont let the bubbler get too warm
-place cuttings 1/2inch above water or less
-don't place cuttings too close to the light, or under too intense lighting, until they root

The ones you have that failed just looked like they weren't getting their tips wet, but it looks like you made some adjustments

When I used a gel I actually found it more effective to mix directly into the water, for me anyway. I ran out n even cloned without any hormone at all in bubbler, but I like superthrive for the type of root system produced and that a bottle last forever. Personally prefer perlite to coco was easier for me to get the type of cuts I was looking for(small n able to build more vigerous root system), but bubbler was cleaner.

As far as that bonsai thread in particular that you referred to in this thread it is easier to build a more productive bonsai by taking a smaller cut and shaping n pruning it as it grows weekly that trying to shape and control a seed plant you neglected for a little. Happens to all of us. After the branches have hardened, they will grow but are generally not as fast growing or productive as same size plant thats soft n green and the branches develop thickness before hardening to supply demand. Not really a problem but thats not a "how to" thread.

For hazes if space is an issue I would focus on plant height and container size at onset of flower. You want as much roots as possible for the size of cut your using and going to be transplanting a few days to a week before flower. I like to remove some of the bottom leaves and transplant the whole stem along with roots as hazes n sativas in general produce roots tilll about 3-4 weeks in flower...n constantly produce fibrous roots well into flower. Indica's and indica dominant stop producing roots about a week into flower. To control height.... container size and height of plant at onset are the two main ones to focus on. Every plant is different but cuts are same. If you start a cut at a perticular height and container size every cut started that height will always stretch and finish the same, then you can focus on upping the yield. Some haze cuts I literally start at 1-2 inches to finish where I want it.

Good luck to ya hope you find what your searching for...
 
You still planning on making f2's? I think I would enjoy watching those grow out for sure... There was a pheno in there I remember smelling exactly like a fruit back home my grandfather called pum-ci-te but I know the northern Antilles call it June Plum...was a very nice tasting pheno type indeed. What phenos have you found thus far? This is your 3rd grow of her right? Did you find the maple incence pheno? green apple pheno? and the ginger snaps pheno also? I dont get allot of people that I can talk to that grew these out.
 
Thanks, all, for your suggestions.

@hesh, thanks for your comments. I may try the peat puck & dome method, but I'm stuck with my home-made bubble cloner for now. I've used a smaller version successfully a few months ago. Good luck with your Angel's Breathe run.

@OGL1 - thanks, I did re-cut the necrotic looking tips.

@jack hairy I think I'm going to try your recipe for cloner water. Part of the problem may have been my pH, which was about 7.6. Temps are holding around 71F in the cloner, which seems fine. I'd love to see a pic of your AB keeper and hear you describe the effects.

@cyoheights - thanks for stopping by. A couple of those clones have rooted, and I'm going to give the ones I re-cut a few more days. I've also taken more cuts from the seedplants. I appreciate your good advice. This is my 3rd grow EVER and first MNS or AB run. I'll keep an eye out for the phenos you describe.

Here are the 8 seedplants in veg as of tonight. They've been topped once and pruned, cuts taken. They all look noce and green and happy.

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Here's the AB clones, plus there are more in another cloner. The tops I cut 13 days ago are still in the top and bottom rows, while the middle row has cuts I took a couple days ago.

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This is what the clone roots (or lack thereof) look like tonight. AB8 rooted a few days ago and is doing well. AB7 and AB6 to the left of AB8 show root buds, so they're doing OK. The others have been re-cut so I'm going to give them another week or so.

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Finally, here are the two runts I started flowering two weeks ago. They are the only plants in my 4x4 tent right now so I unplugged one of the 300 W COB fixtures (slightly yellowish image because this light is 3000K). Starting to think I jumped the gun with that move based on what cyoheights said about root development only going on a few weeks into the flower cycle. AB 2 has very shallow roots and falls over if I water it too quickly. Not much I can do about it now. AB5 showed herself to be a female yesterday after 11 days of 12/12; the sex of AB2 has yet to be determined. These plants are not yet large enough for me to get any kind of a cutting, but considering they were 2-3 inches tall a couple weeks ago, they have already stretched about 4-5x.

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So I'm at the point I wanted to avoid, waiting on clones to root with a mostly empty flower tent.
 
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Oh... 3rd grow ever... I've been at it for about 19 yrs strait dunno which one is more addictive growing or smoking watchout hehe... I still have a cut of SSH I've had from my first pack of her. I hope you find your keeper in these. As you get better at growing the effects actually get better right along with ya

Well good luck too ya man... I'll definitely be enjoying the show...clones look great.
 
Hey Mark!

I`m no expert on cloning so i cant give decent advise on it. But for a 3rd grow ever i think you manage quite well. Its a learning proces, with ups and downs for sure. What you said about the ph to high could be spot on! in my DWC buckets its very imp to keep it between the lines or all sorts of trouble shows up.

Those seed plants you are ebb and flowing them? just curious about it as im looking around to get into ebb and flow myself.


how is the grow room coming along?



greetings Byorn! have a nice day!
 
Just read some more of this thread... First you are doing excellent for your 3rd grow ever. My 3rd grow was outside with promix n miracle grow and horse manure.... so cudos to ya

About the AB there was no embellishment... In my mind I thought I described her pretty accurately but a shorter description would be many phenos of this strain produced phenos more geared towards sleep and more geared towards breeding out to more energetic sativas or sativas that produces waves of euphoria... bc of the great flavors to be found and the shorter flower times. The strain is extremely variable with may phenotypes. The keepers you are going to find your going to have to dig for but are well worth it as far as unique quality in high and flavor(actual flavor). You did not pick the easiest strain to find keepers and must be done in larger batches with smaller plants.

Reason why i grow different strains is bc i honestly get bored smoking same strain all the time no matter how good it is.. I'm currently up to 21 different mothers all picked by me from popping seeds. :D and I pop new seeds every month. Not sure how experienced you are in smoking or moving herb but nothing gets it out the door faster than having a different keeper every week. Or more of a pleasure to a serious smoker... and I just recently started breeding so...I am usually busy.

Its my belief that you may have an easier time finding her, if your up for it that you can find the pheno I described (what I believe to be the afghan T effects) by making f2's of the Ortega as the f1's hide the trait a little. Then taking that plant that has body effects described and crossing her to a sativa of your choice. I personally want to cross her with Mandala #1 as her effects come on in waves exactly as described in her descript. SSH when grown right shares those qualities hits you with four different highs in stages and allot more pleasurable than mandala but takes allot more effort to bring that out of her and does not always breed true when crossed wtih certain genetics. I'm currently trying to stabalize her by backcrossing although my effort might be in vain I do enjoy her... If I get the pheno I like stabilized in seed form then I want to cross her with my AB kepper or whatever I find in the Ortega f2's but the ortega f2 smell similar to this strain and seeing as how elusive the female viagra pheno seems to be I might end up back crossing n stabalizing the indica first before outcrossing.....You will find when working with hazes for breeding that it takes a little more effort than others. Lots of work and time and not the only thing I'm working on... Everybody wants everything already done in seed but I find creating new highs a more pleasurable experience than enhancing whats out there already.


Good-luck my fellow comrade
 
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Yes, many of the AB phenos are heavy- producing lethargy after a few hours. Not a morning smoke for most of these phenos but an excellent late afternoon/ evening smoke with relaxation and pain relief AND great flavors and aroma. The other phenos found are electrifying. Great yields and a unique smoke that even my indie braddahs ask for.

Aloha
M
 
Hello MNS friends. I really appreciate all the great feedback and helpful suggestions. Here's the executive summary of where this grow currently stands. :)

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Here are the seedplants and clones doing their thing.

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Most of the seedplants are doing great, although AB1 is showing some problem, perhaps calcium deficiency? Any ideas what's ailing AB1?

AB1...calcium deficiency?
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AB6 has shown its sensitivity to nutes with a little tip burn. Previously I had been hand watering/feeding the seedplants and was able to dilute AB6's feed but just yesterday I set up the flood/ebb system for my seedplants, so I either have to keep AB6 happy and starve the other 7 plants or keep the other plants happy and overfeed AB6. Maybe I remove AB6 from the table and manually feed it? That kind of defeats the purpose of automating the watering system though. If anyone has any tips on how to adjust nute levels for individual plants when using a flood/ebb system I'd be interested to find a solution.

I am using Jack Hairy's recipe for a cloner solution. The clones are making their progress rooting but some are taking their sweet time. I currently have rooted or rooting clones for 5 of my 10 plants.

The two runts have been flowering for 20 days now. They have stretched by a factor of 6x-7x! Because they were too small to take cuts from when they were in veg, I decided to top them at F18 and am trying to get the clones to root. Here they are right after I topped them, first AB2, then AB5.

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Please allow me to ask a newbie grower question. I was feeding the two flowering AB plants tonight when I noticed these little bud structures growing on either side of where AB10 was topped. They certainly look like pistillate structures to me, but I've seen similar on some, not all, of my plants during my first two grows and those plants seeded themselves pretty good. I've looked at a lot of pictures of nanners but have never found any in my grow tent, even though they were certainly there. Are these things nanners, and if not do I need to keep an eye on them?

IMG_20171017_213650928_HDR.jpg
 
No, brother Mark, you're good. Those are on 99% of flowering female plants.

I usually pop a few off to chew on to get a rough idea of some flavor profile before harvest. Lol.


Keep up the good work bro, AB is such great smoke. Excited for you!

Stay hazed
Jake
 
Thanks for that Jake. Good idea on the taste test!

I have some sort of an infestation in my bubble cloners. I was looking at the stems with a loupe and saw these little black dots moving around. So I looked closer with my digital microscope and shot a quick video.

https://youtu.be/tEvrisFKl-o

Maybe this explains why it's so hard for me to get some of these clones to root? Google says it's a fungus gnat larva. I knew I had fungus gnats but they never seemed to bother the plants. Seems the larvae maybe are bothering the clones? Nasty fucker though. What are my options? Neem the fuck out of everything?

I'm starting to think I should use rockwool or rapid rooters and use a propagation tray and dome for rooting clones.
 
Hello MNS friends. I returned from a week's vacation with the plants under the care of #1 son. AB2 and AB5 are over 4 weeks into 12/12. I'm getting some brownish yellow spotting on the older fan leaves of AB5, and online guides suggest it is potassium deficiency or maybe a root problem. Best explanation I can come up with is my son was over-watering them while I was away, or maybe I was stoned and forgot to add Flora Bloom to the nute solution. :) But the buds look healthy, and AB5 has a lovely, vine-like haze structure and smell of lime and pine. AB2 is still very much a runt and/or indica dominant, and is developing a distinct leather smell. The clone of AB2 is starting to root but nothing yet from the AB5 clone.

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The cloning process is still going slowly, and I think the fungus gnat larvae have a lot to do with it. I have been using neem oil sprays frequently and the population seems to be decreasing. When I returned from vacation 7 of the 10 seed plant clones have rooted, although some of the larger root balls had developed some sort of root rot.

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I decided 6 of 8 successfully cloned seed plants is enough, so I trimmed the rotted roots and potted the 6 clones. I moved them to the flower tent which is now at 600W 24/0 and I'm going to veg them for a few days before I flower them. This means I have to remove the two flowering girls to a dark location for 12 hours. It'll be interesting to see how they respond to the full 600W of COBs. Here are the potted rooted clones.

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The only plants lacking rooted clones now are AB4, AB5 and AB10. I am going to disassemble, clean, disinfect, and rebuild the bubble cloners (without the dual tops) and try one more time. I'm also going to try using a propagation tray and rapid rooters for cloning. All the seed plants are getting large and unwieldy, and somewhat odiferous. Smells I'm getting in veg are haze smells, leather, lime, pine, and some slightly fecal funk on a couple. Rather than continue to dick around waiting to get clones from all 8 vegging seed plants, I'm probably going to flower the AB4 and AB10 seed plants. Those two will get huge fast even though I will have topped them for 8 or more main colas.

The show is finally about to start. :)
 
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Hey Mark!

nice to see that you got some clones ready for the show :)
sorry to hear that you got root rot in the bubble cloners. I can only suggest run something in your system that helps prevent it. Beneficial bacteria or go the steriel route with h2o2 or chlorine.

keep it going brother!

greetzz byorn
 
Autumnal greetings to my MNS compadres. Here is an updated executive summary of this grow.

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I switched the flower tent to a 12/12 light cycle 2 days ago. Before doing so, I put the AB3 clone back into the veg cabinet to grow larger because it was only about 2 inches tall. When it gets 6-8" tall I'll put it into the flowering tent and will then have all 10 of these plants putting on a show. Here's a pic of the plants in the flower tent when I made the flip...you can see my COB setup of 12 x 50W passively cooled COBs (2 x 300W fixtures). You may also notice the small 730 μm far red light that sits between the two COB fixtures. Based on my research the far red will obviate the need to go to an 11/13 or shorter light cycles to encourage the plants to finish flowering.

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I now have 6 remaining seed plants in veg (the other 4 are in the flower tent). They are very happy with the ebb & flow setup and require little care other than periodic reservoir changes and pruning/cuttings. Here are the happy veg plants:

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In the next couple weeks I am going to transfer the remaining rooted clones into small (4" square) as bonsai moms/dads because I'll need room in my veg cabinet for my next grow. I've learned a lesson from this grow: if I want to fully utilize the flower tent and flower rooted clones I'll need to pop seeds about 10 weeks before the tent is available (6 weeks to grow the seedlings big enough for cuttings, 2-3 weeks for the cuttings to root, and 1 week to veg the clones before flowering). Next up...Grail Widow! But that'll be a different thread. :)

Here's what my flower tent looked like one day after the flip. The clones were about 6" tall when I started. Hopefully that's small enough to accommodate the stretch in my tent that only has 48" of room between the coco surface and the COBs, and large enough to give me decent yields. Of course a lot depends on how crowded the tent gets, which we will know soon when the plants are sexed.

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Finally, here's what the early-flowered runts are looking like after 5.4 weeks of 12/12. First AB2, then AB5.

AB2
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AB5
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I think next time I run across runts I'm going to cull them. At least with these two I get an indication of what's in store. AB2 is so small that it will probably only yield a few grams of dried bud. I think it's also a bud-rot candidate with the super tight flower structure, but since I'll be flowering during winter months humidity shouldn't be a problem. AB5 has a nice hazy structure, and looks to want to go maybe 12 weeks, whereas I'm already seeing some of the pistils on AB2 turning reddish. Maybe that's an 8-9 week plant? In which case maybe I actually will have a little haze to smoke by the New Year. :)

Lastly, I would greatly appreciate it if someone could give me some suggestions on how to correct the problem I'm having with yellow-brown spotting and dring of fan leaves on the plants in flower. Everything in veg looks great, but both AB2 and AB5 have sorry looking fan leaves now. I ran into this problem with two sativa-dom Strawberry Cough plants during my last grow. I didn't experience this with DWC, so maybe it has something to do with growing in coco and using calmag? My tap water is ~100 ppm and pH 7-7.2, and I pH my nute solutions down to about 5.9. I've also been adding about 4 ml per gallon of GH Calimag. Otherwise been sticking to the GH DTW schedule I posted at the top of the thread. Perhaps I should dilute more in flower? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'd hate to fuck up these beautiful plants as the flower.
 
Quick update...I have 6 confirmed females now, 3 probable males, and one plant still unflowered (AB3 still in veg but has grown to ~3"). I'm psyched that the two most vigorous plants, AB7 and AB10, are females. The clones in the flower tent have doubled their height in 3 days while the manifolded seed plants have only grown a few inches, and are the last to show sex. Found a toad in my veg cabinet...I wonder what they eat?
 
Greetings MNS friends. After about a week of flowering most of the plants have tripled in height. Three males have been identified and are shown in the next photo as AB1, AB4 and AB9 (left to right). I plan to cull the more indica leaning AB4 and will soon move AB1 and AB9 into the dedicated chamber for randy males to produce pollen from which F2s will be made. AB9 is more vigorous but there's something about AB1 that I like.

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The next photo shows the most vigorous plant on the left, AB10, which is a seed plant and has been manifolded for 8 colas. This will be the tallest plant in the tent in a day or two. It also shows the two plants, AB2 and AB5, that are now 6.3 weeks into flower and are seriously hurting in the fan leaf department.

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Finally, the last photo shows the (almost) full flower tent with AB6, AB7 and AB8 in the middle, front-center and front-right, respectively. I like the structure on AB7.

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I'm going to be careful with the feeding on this grow as I've already seen a couple early signs of too-high nutes, so I'm diluting about 2X after I mix to the recommended nute levels. I'm using the low range of EC in the feed schedule. For example, the week 5 (early bloom) schedule in post #1 tells me to use 4/1/5/1 (Micro/Grow/Bloom/KoolBloom) with a ppm range from 500-700. When I mix up nutes using that recipe along with ~10 mg/gal CalMag and my 100 ppm tap water I'm getting values of around 1100 ppm, which I then dilute down to about 550 ppm. Let's see if I can post pretty bud pictures without burned tips.

Speaking of burned, I have also identified the likely cause of the problems with the yellow and brown spotting and drying fan leaves I had. My assumption that the pH values were OK was based on the premise that the pH pen was correct. It wasn't. The nute solution that I was feeding to AB2 and AB9 I thought was pH 5.9, but it was actually 4.3. :eek: That explains a lot. All plants got a good flush and a light feeding at pH 6.2 and I hope we're back on track. Lessons learned: when diagnosing plant problems check your premises, and always have a backup or two available to measure pH if you grow hydroponically.

Until next time, compadres.
 
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You are nailing it. :D

Just a note on your pollinating plans: be wary of choosing plants by how the look. IME it's easy to get attached to individual plants, only to find that they are NOT the best plant for your purposes.

When I was a new grower, it was often males that I fell for (not that there is anything wrong with that). It was that way with others too. IMO (and it is only that) use the effect as the ONE measure above all others. THEN use all of the other data to decide.

I know that I still fall for plants before they have been smoked. I even documented it here with my recent Satori Wreck. I was very lucky in that it IS a stellar plant (IMO). There were other plants from the cross that didn't live up to their looks.

Stepping down from the soapbox.
 
@PlantManBee - Thanks! I agree that selection based on how a plant subjectively looks is silly, to a certain extent. Somewhere on MNS there is a picture of the haze C male in flower and it just looks like a bad-ass plant. If the haze C male had a wallet it would look like this:

bad-motherfucker-wallet-base_1.jpg


Of course, there is no better progeny-tested pot plant in the world than the haze C male. So if one of my males looks more like him than the others, he's going to get preferential treatment. :) At this early stage of flowering, for the purpose of collecting pollen and making F2s, it seems to me the primary criteria on which to select would be vigor, early resin, smell, and sativa vs indica physical appearance. Even an entry level pollen chucker such as myself can select plants that show vigor and have narrow leaves. Some day I'd like to run through a whole straw of Afghan Haze and simply remove the wide-leaf plants and flower out the more sativa expressing plants. At my level of experience and with my limited space, I think it's reasonable place to start selection for making F2 seeds. I agree that when it comes to real breeding it all needs to be about the effect.
 
The problem with selecting males is that it has always been and will probably continue to be a crap shoot.

You can't determine what effect the male will have.
There were people in the past who tried smoking the leafs of males in early flower. The idea being "if I feel nothing, I shouldn't use it, if it gets me even a little high, it's probably a better."
But that was inconclusive to say the least ...

I read up on that topic extensively and just recently selected a male out of a bunch of 12.

Basically I feel with males you kind of have to go with structure/overall look of the plant. Even though I agree that this should not be the deciding factor, it is kind of all you have to go on.

Stem rub is apparently the best way to determine a keeper male but that is very iffy as well. A plant definitely changes smell and intensity of smell over the course of its lifespan. Combine that with the subjectiveness of smelling, your daily condition/health, none of that is really quantifiable.

Late/early flowering is another trait people seem to look for in males but again it is inconclusive which one is actually desirable.

The whole topic is so convoluted that a standing theory/suggestion is to actually look for really weak males who are "recessive". The idea being to select such males that basically pass on nothing to their progeny in order to solely rely on the selected mother for quality of offspring.


Basically you have to just trial and error and that takes years, decades. Because the only deciding factor is effect and the effect of a male cannot be determined until the female progeny has been sampled and even then it is inconclusive.

I am sure this is one of the hot/main topics scientists in the field are currently working on. Although it might again be more important to them to get the whole Monsanto thing going and make sure to patent genetics etc. etc. ...

Tough topic overall...
 
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