Greetings, MNS brethren. I hope the pesticide discussion doesn't further derail this grow log. I have been using mosquito bits and it seems to be helping...just did my second weekly application. I could dial back the watering frequency but probably not enough to both dry out the upper layer of coco AND also keep the plants happy...seems that it takes at least 3 days for it to dry out and these plants need water more often than that. Besides, you really can't overwater a hempy bucket, right? I am going to set up a drip system which can address the top-watering problem as well as give me the flexibility of leaving the grow unattended for several days, if need be.
@Cola Bro - Thanks for the compliment, man! I'm jealous of your living in Costa Rica, so we're even!
@cyoheights - I really appreciate your input. Your advice and suggestions are welcome and have been very helpful to me. I'll PM you about your recommended GH nute recipe. The two girls currently in Week 8 are starting to show some tip burn, so any advice you can provide on nutes will be valuable to me.
@musashi - Nice concise summary of IPM. Fungus Gnats really don't bother me much now that I've gotten rid of the bubble cloner and gone with a simple propagation dome. I'd still like to be rid of them and eliminating top watering seems to be the most effective way to do so. Thanks.
@PlantManBee - No worries, I'll hold off on the Raid! I've read Subcool say that early-flowering males tend toward hemp characteristics, but I've never seen any evidence to back up the claim. Of course getting any kind of solid evidence from any breeder justifying their selection criteria is usually pointless!
OK, back to the grow. The girls are still stretching after 18 days of 12/12 light schedule, although they do appear to be slowing down a little. I may have to supercrop AB7 as she is now within about 5" of the COBs; that's over 6X stretch, and still going! On the other hand, the seed plant AB10, mainlined for 8 colas, only stretched 2X. I put a little chart together to better visualize it.
I'll wait until next week to post new pictures of the girls, but here are a couple photos of the two males I retained for pollen production and F2 seeds. I let them stay in the flower tent as long as I dared until their balls started swelling, then I lopped the upper 2/3 of each plant off and stuffed them in the flower chamber for randy males, where they seem to be doing well.
Here's AB1 right before he was pruned, not as large as the other male but reminds me of pictures I've seen of Thai plants.
Here's AB9 before he was pruned. Very vigorous and he is developing a mango funk smell.
Both males had hollow stems. I've read that this is a good indicator for potency.