Qwiz

Up until this point the plants have grown branches in a symmetrical fashion. When a branch would sprout, another would grow on the other side of the stalk, much like a capitol letter Y. Recently, I have seen my first few pairs of alternating nodes. These new branches look more like a small letter y for lack of a better example. The new growth will appear a little off center, with one branch starting a little higher than it’s counter part. The branches have now developed a number of their own sets of branches, to the point where the new sets of new nodes will be alternating too. This is a sign of puberty and another minor milestone in the plants development. I’ve been diligent in turning the pots in order to take advantage of the under canopy lighting. As the leaves move towards the lights on the sidewall, they help expose the new growth on the dark side, which will get the full benefit of the lighting with a half turn of the pot.

In view of this new stage in the plant’s life, I’ve added another fluorescent light to up the lumens and changed the light to darkness ratio. Now that we’re getting a little closer to the night when we can finally plant them, I’ve reset the timer for the lights to 18/6, 18 hours of light and 6 hours of darkness. The weather looks good next week and I should be able to take full advantage of the sun and warm days forecasted for the middle of next week.

The plants are displaying the crystallization on the leaves, yet it’s not visible with the naked eye. They’re also starting to get their familiar odor, however it’s not overpowering at this point and has not been noticeable in the room that contains the chamber. The plants are looking very healthy and have sprouted so much new growth that they are really starting to get fat, in spite of their brush with stupidity.
Qwiz

Qwiz

I’ve had my plants out in the bright sunshine last week and it has done them a world of good. As I set the plants out on the deck for another day of sunshine. I could see the plants needed water ‘cause the tell tale signs were there. The plants were drooping from a lack of water. Just to be sure I checked them with the moisture monitor. The top of one of the plants drooped so much in the bright sunshine that it had toppled over like it was looking down.

I proceeded to mix up a large batch of nutrients, carefully measuring the amount of water and fertilizer after rereading the directions twice. I watered each plant until the nutrients ran out the drainage holes and through the deck. I went in to put away the water jug and fertilizer bucket until next time.

By the time I went back to check on the drooping plant, I was happy to see it had righted it’s self in the few minutes I was away. While taking a good look at the plant I noticed it was a little unusual. Rather than having the common double branches, this plant has symmetrical triple branches. I’ve never seen this before and I’m told that it’s been known to happen in the blueberry strain. In my way of thinking, this plant looks like it could produce 1/3 more bud for the size of the plant. I’ll watch it’s development with great interest as I plan to take full advantage of this anomaly and see if I can use this plant as a breeder plant when the time comes to farm for a few quality seeds.
Qwiz

Qwiz

The plants have reached the 18�? stage. When you take into account the height of the pots and the plants combined, it leaves me with no room in the chamber. The top leaves are hitting the lights. The fluorescent lights burn cool so there’s no fear of burning the plants but some of them are starting to get a kink in their necks. I could just leave them outside now, but I still want to maximize the 18/6 lighting schedule I’ve set up in the room. The taller plants may need to stay on my deck for the next week or so, until we get them to their permanent summer residence.

Preparations are being made to take the plants to the grow spot. The weather is perfect for the plants and we should have the threat of frost behind us by now. Spring has taken its sweet time getting here but has indeed arrived. We’ve had our customary spring hail and torrential rains storms. I believe the worst of the spring weather is over.

The farmers are busy in the fields, turning the soil, planting and fertilizing. This process has started later this year as well and I want to transplant after this has been completed and the field are then left under Mother Nature’s supervision.

My grow partner and I will be getting together this week to go over the transplanting plan. We need to narrow down the possible planting nights so I can stop watering the plants in anticipation of the big night.

The lack of water will help in a number of ways. First, it makes the plants light and easy to carry. Second, as I’ve stated in other posts, it makes the transplant operation easier as the soil and roots will come out of the pot together. Thirdly, the plants will need a good amount of water to help them acclimatize to the new soil conditions. The water will promote new root growth into the new soil.
Qwiz

Buddrow_Wilson

Thanks for the updates Q Reminds me of days past....

I'm curious how many plants you are working with. I know how much work can go into the way you are doing it.

Qwiz

Thanks Bud, glad to have you along on this year's adventure.
Yes bud, it can be a lot of work… As for the number of plants? I don't want to say how many but let me explain my thinking. The pending legislation when I germinated the seeds would have imposed a maximum $500 fine and no criminal record for 1 to 3 plants. Once you get to 25 plants you are considered a grower. These are the boundaries we will stay within. We are looking at a 50/50 male to female ratio.

We have a couple of grow spots in a couple of locations. There will never be more than 6 plants in any one location. Some of the locations will only have room for a couple of plants. Six plants in a row will stick out like a soar thumb.

Let me just say that we want to come away with 3 monster females each. This is why I’ve started so early this year. In past years we started late which meant that the plants would be smaller and easy to conceal. Our experience in concealing the plants and the fact that there is no longer helicopter surveillance in our area, allows us to grow much bigger plants. We have been scouting better and better grow spots too. I would just like to say that because the law is focusing on the number of plants rather than weight of the crop, cloning has pretty much become a thing of the past in this area. If you took 26 cuttings from one plant, you would then have 26 plants. You would be considered a grower then. It’s better to get caught with one monster plant. One root ball is equal to one plant.

As long as the plants are in my home there is no way the authorities can do anything. I have taken all security precautions into account. I never place anything from the plants in my garbage, talk on the phone about it, use email or tell anyone about what I have. I’ve known my grow partner for a long time and one of the reasons I picked him is because I know he can keep a secret. He’s also meticulous when it comes to the security aspect and the extra steps one must take to eliminate any breaches in security. He takes this aspect of it as seriously as I do. We only grow for personal use. We are taking a chance but it has been calculated in advance. We never sell.

We will never be in possession of more than 3 stalks each at any one time. Once the stalk is gone the evidence for the number of plants is gone too. We are growing one variety of pot only for this very purpose.
Qwiz

kjartan

WOW
the pot you get in the States must be way better than what we get in Europe

neighter alcohol or drugs are good for you but one needs something somethimes
so Canada has done the right thing
(as long as they dont import the pot from the US )

Qwiz

Well it’s official, I’ve run out of headroom in the grow chamber and I can’t leave the plants out all day and night either. It’s too much of a hassle to try and rearrange everything for a couple of days. I’ll just have to make due with the present situation using LST.

What we are doing is basically tying the top of the plant down. This will reduce the height of the plant for now, as well as expose more of the stalk to the lights. In the great outdoors the plant’s branches will be able to get more sun when the buds the branches reach for the sky.

I’ve started to use the Low Stress Training technique to manage the height problem. LST is an indoor process that we are using in our outdoor grow for some of the spots. I will try to describe it as best I can.

I took a thick elastic band, folded it so it was flat and wrapped it around the plant under some major branches, about ¾ of the way up the plant. I then pushed one of the folded ends through the other loop, kind of like a slipknot so that it would be snug around the stalk. I then tied a string to the elastic and pulled it so the plant bends to the side, thus lowering its total height. When the desired light arch is achieved, the string is then tacked into the bottom shelf and secured there. The plants will get a bit of a kink in them but will straighten up once they are out in the wild. Some of the plants that we will be able to monitor a little closer will benefit from this technique and lower their overall height. I’ll do this for the next week or so to buy us some time and room in the grow chamber.

Tonight I’ll meet with my grow partner as we put our transplant plan together. The May two-four long weekend a.k.a. Queen Victoria’s Birthday is the customary weed-transplanting weekend. Some people choose to celebrate this weekend with fireworks. We are celebrating it by transplanting our weed. The rockets will be fired up in the fall.
Qwiz

Qwiz

Well we met last night to set our plan in motion. My partner and I have been scouting out new spots we can use in addition to our spot from last year. Monday night, weather permitting will be the night we transplant. This is Victoria Day weekend here in Canada and it is the traditional pot-planting weekend. With spring coming so late this year we were set to wait another week but in light of the plants’ situation with respect to lack of room in the grow chamber, we've opted to get them out as soon as possible. The plants will get no more water until that time and will be pretty dry, which will make them easier to carry.

We have many spots that we’ve tentatively picked out. One was behind an old abandoned building. I've gone by this spot and there seems to be some construction equipment that's been moved to the adjacent lot. The old abandoned farm home is still quite a bit away from where the construction will be but we feel that security has now been compromised.

Over the years we've identified potential grow spots, some better than others. We're always on the lookout for new spots. We went through our list of spots, noting the positives and negatives of each one. Some spots have their own unique challenges when taking into account the many steps in the process of growing, watering, fertilizing, sexing and harvesting. Buddy tells me that he has a new spot for us that he is familiar with and was scouting it out last weekend. I’ve not seen the new spot but clearly I trust his judgment.
We will be collecting everything we need this weekend and will get together late on Monday night.
Wish me luck,
Qwiz

Qwiz

We decided to wait a week to plant them. We were expecting some bad weather and torrential rains. We will try again this weekend.
Here's a pic of two plants in one pot.
Class of '04 pic
Photo by Qwiz

Sote

How you go from having the plant as in that pic to converting it into smokable weed?