Ase is Back! Multi-Strain Quadlining In Coco Part 2

It has been about a solid 7 months since I really had an active journal. I did a small auto-grow and kept up with the Quadsquad thread, but finally life has calmed down (back to just one job!) and I can focus more of my efforts to growing and journaling again. This coincided just in time with the next grow I was starting so perfect timing! These grows will pretty much be just my normal way of growing in coco coir with feminized seeds. There will be some new things in this grow but the style and methods will be the same as always.

The main differences in the grow will be using my new light that I won in the Plant of the Month contest for August, the Nexlight Core (@NextLight ) . This thing is bright and puts out way whiter light than my Mars Hydro Reflector Series "blurple" lights. One of the 144s I had burnt out during the last grow I had doing the Autos so it was good timing. Mars hydro offers to send you the parts to fix it yourself but I'm not going to waste my time right now. I will pair this light alongside two of the Mars Hydro Epistar Pro II 120s ( @SmokeSara ). These were two lights that I won in contests last year and even though they are Mars Hydro, they have way less blurple than the reflectors do. Altogether this will be a lot more light than normal and I'm interested to see if the yield is better. So really I have an all contest light setup now and I will also be using nutrients from contest winnings too.

This will be the first time not just using the General Hydroponics nutrients that I normally do. I will be using some of the additives and boosts but not the staple 3 of grow, micro and flower. The nutrients I will be using instead are the Dutch Master Nutrients for coco coir that I won in some of my first contests. I will be trying to mainly follow the bottles instructions and using my boosts and everything to add certain things at different phases of the plants grow to help enhance the growth of the plant. I will also be growing in 5 gallon fabric pots instead of 3 gallon. All of my 3 gallon fabric pots are outside in my fruits and veggies garden and all that is winding down, but not in time for this grow so 5 gallon it is! Instead of starting in a small pot too I am just going to germinate the seeds and put them straight into their final homes. Since it is feminized photoperiod seeds I am in total control and I think they will have plenty of time to fill out their 5 gallon pots with roots prior to flipping to flower.

Other than the Crop King Seeds one, all these other 3 are from sponsor Cannapot Cannabis Seeds
The CBDream was from Crop King Seeds, a sponsor back in the contests a couple years back, so all the seeds are sponsored too!

Here is the lineup for the first grow in this journal:

Gorilla Glue #4 by Original Sensible Seeds - My all time favorite strain and 50/50 Indica/Sativa. Never grown it before though.
Nepal Jam by Ace Seeds -80/20 Sativa/Indica.
Bubbas Gift by Humboldt Seeds - 80/20 Indica/Sativa.
CBDream by Crop King Seeds - CBD strain. My fiancé is the only one who has actually grown CBD strains. I just never have gotten around to it in coco so I wanted to try. Plus I will likely use a lot of it for topicals which I meant to do last year and never got around to either.

This morning I woke up and put each seed in a labeled shot glass and filled with warm water and placed it on my heating mat. The water got a touch cold so I removed some of the water and topped it off with warm water. Once all the seeds had sunk to the bottom of the shot glass (about 7 hours) I pulled them out and put them in a damp paper towel and into a labeled plastic baggie. I then wrapped the plastic baggie with a regular sized towel and put it on the heating mat. I will check often as I do not want the towel and baggie to overheat. You can literally cook the seeds if they are hot instead of just warm. If they seem to be getting too hot then add another towel underneath.


I will (of course) being using my traditional training method called Quadlining. If you want to know what that is or haven't seen it, there is a great thread that you can find here : The Quadsquad Thread, A Community for Quadlining. I wont bore you with details about me, if you want to find those out you can read the intros in my previous journals which are in my signatures. This journal will be informative, fun and just me growing. There are a lot of quadlining journals out there now and the information on how to do it has been seen by most so I will hit on the big things and some tips and tricks I do but mainly this will be focused on the whole process of my grows with coco. Hopefully there will be some more contest worthy plants coming from this round! Thanks to everyone for tuning in and I'm excited to be back at it again!
 
I’m definitely curious about the Bubba’s gift. What is crossed with the Bubba to make that?

This amazing fusion of two beautiful Indicas was created in 2007. The Pre-98 Bubba Kush was crossed into God’s Gift making for a powerful and unmistakable presence.

Bubba’s Gift is a marijuana plant whose lineage proves its quality. It has been obtained by crossing a Bubba Kush and a God’s Gift and the result is exactly what could be expected: a magnificent, hardy and compact plant which radiates good quality all over it. Its dark green leaves are sprinkled with purple hues during flowering period. The use of anti-odour filters is required given its strong scent. If properly taken care of, it would reward your work with numerous compact buds in the shape of golf balls. Although it performs well both indoors and outdoors, it does not thrive in humid climates.

The flowering period develops quickly. Large crowning buds develop during the 5th week of flowering and deep purple hues begin to show in week 6. Feedings should be modest, as not much nutrition is needed, as well as minimal support for infrastructure. Bubba’s Gift finishes in just 45-50 days.

Bubba’s Gift shows excellent aromatic and taste characteristics: very exotic, with fruity nuances that bring to mind the “Piña Colada” cocktail as well as with some touches of oil and species. Its effect will take you on a fascinating trip that leads to physical and mental relaxation. It is the perfect cannabis strain for those who need a relaxing effect for recreational and medical use. As for the therapeutic use of it, it stimulates appetite and relieves muscle tension.

Genotype: 20% Sativa / 80% Indica
THC: 17-20%
CBD: 0.1%

Sounded like a stellar Indica to me so I decided to give it a shot. I still have so many seeds I'd like to grow in my stash but this fit the build for what I wanted in an Indica strain. I have an indica dominant strain, sativa dominate strain, a 50/50 hybrid and a CBD strain.
 
Bubbas gift sounds awesome! Love the variety of this grow! A med for any part of the day! Haven’t seen the CBDreams since your girlfriend grew some. Excited to follow along!
 
Bubbas gift sounds awesome! Love the variety of this grow! A med for any part of the day! Haven’t seen the CBDreams since your girlfriend grew some. Excited to follow along!
Very excited to see what the CBDream does in hydro instead of soil. That stuff she grew was incredible though so I got a lot to strive for if I want to beat her ;)
 
Welcome back Ase! I just returned as well. I'll tag along for this one if you dont mind. Im curious how the lighting situation works out. Sounds like your ready to rock and it should be a good show. Happy growing! :) :)
 
Germination

I briefly touched on my germination method in the first post but I will go into things a little bit more here. When I choose what to grow for a multi-strain tent I try and always get the most variety I can when it comes to strain. After that when I look at the seeds themselves I look to see the size of the seeds and the markings on them. I've always heard the bigger the seed and the more markings the better. I'm not even sure if this is really legit or not (because I've never tracked it) but I have gotten lucky with some large plants in my grows so I continue to do it. Anyways, I picked the best seed of the bunch from the strains I wanted to grow and dropped them each in a labeled shot glass. I also make sure to keep the water warm if possible and I changed out the water 3 times to do so.

When each seed sunk to the bottom (you can tap the seeds if they are on the surface and see if they sink or float back to the top) then they are ready to put into a wet paper towel and into a baggie. I take a damp paper towel and fold it over and then slide it into a plastic baggie and then seal it shut. I take all that and wrap it with a real towel a few times and then place it on my warming mat. After about 12 hours I start checking the seeds every few hours to see if I can see any tails (taproots) popping out.

This is what my seeds looked like when I decided to go ahead and plant them. The bottom two seeds are perfect. The top right seed has cracked and has a tiny taproot coming out and the top left seed the shell had started to crack but nothing coming out yet. I don't want the taproots to get too long because they are fragile and can break easily so I decided to plant them all. If I didn't have work I may have left the two top ones for longer so I could get the same sized taproot before planting but I'm sure they will just be a little behind. An interesting thing to note this time is that the CBDream and GG#4 both were the first two seeds to sink the shot glasses and they were also the first two seeds to sprout taproots (they are the bottom two seeds in the picture). It will be interesting to see if these two also end up the largest or if it has no effect. Just something I noticed this time and am curious to see the end result.

These are the girls all planted in their first and final homes. If you know anything about my prior journals I am all about the 3 gallon pots and not the 5 gallon (for coco only, you for sure need the 5 gallon for soil) but all my 3 gallon are occupied until my outdoor fruit and veggie garden is done. No big deal. I did make sure to flush my coco and let it dry since it is re-used coco coir from prior grows. I then put the dry coco in the pots and drizzled water (with cal-mag and rapidstart) all over so it was damp but not wet. I made a little hole to put the seed in with a pencil and sprinkled in some Great White powder. Then I dropped the seed in with the root facing down and the seed facing toward the surface and then lightly covered it with coco. Two key things here is to not try to pack down the coco once the seed is planted and do not plant the seed too deep. I barely go down maybe 1/4"-1/2" depending on how big the taproot is.

Also, in case you had followed prior journals, my setup is different now in terms of my lights. This tent has so much more white light in it with the new lights. There is some blurple but its far less then with just the reflectors. Also I just plain have more light in there this time so I am expecting some really good results. The tent is a few degrees warmer then it was before but we are going into a cold fall and likely cold winter so it'll be fine for this grow. I do have my fans running for air circulation but don't have them planted towards the girls, just towards the walls of the tent. That way any air that the seedlings do feel isn't direct and wont cause damage. It also keeps the air circulating around the tent so it doesn't get too hot.

All of this happened about 24 hours ago. Basically the seeds were in shot glasses for 6 hours and then were put into the towel and by the next morning they had taproots. That basically puts the whole process at about 24-30 hours to get seeds going. I've had it take longer before but this seems about average for me. Quite often (if I cant be home to change the water with warmer water) I will just skip the whole shotglass step and just put them in the baggie. I've had pretty much flawless success with both ways. Anyways, I just checked on the tent and the GG#4 and CBDream have the seeds barely poking through the surface and the other two are still below the surface of the coco. I'm guessing by tonight the Nepal Jam hits the surface as it was the one with just a tiny taproot poking out. The Bubba's gift probably wont see anything until tomorrow.
 
Thanks Ase that’s a great summary you put together there. I like the warm water trick, the towel, the heat pad.
I read somewhere (and didn’t bookmark it, dammit. I did remember to bookmark your post just now though.) Sorry. Anyway. I read a post explaining that u-turn the tap root makes. If the root has already got the bend you’d plant it tip down. If the root is still short enough to be straight you plant it pointing up which seems counterintuitive. The u-turn the root takes then becomes a spring mechanism more-or-less which helps to flick the helmet off the shoot as it lifts it up through the top of the soil as it straightens out.
The thinking is that if the root tip gets ‘confused’ over which direction to take then it is more likely to stall.
I hope I explained that ok. I wish I could remember who posted the idea.
That’s all it is, an idea. I’m not disagreeing with you Ase or taking a particular point of view.
On the planting of seeds, spring theory and all, I’d be interested to hear peoples thoughts?
Maybe someone else saw the post I mean?
 
Thanks Ase that’s a great summary you put together there. I like the warm water trick, the towel, the heat pad.
I read somewhere (and didn’t bookmark it, dammit. I did remember to bookmark your post just now though.) Sorry. Anyway. I read a post explaining that u-turn the tap root makes. If the root has already got the bend you’d plant it tip down. If the root is still short enough to be straight you plant it pointing up which seems counterintuitive. The u-turn the root takes then becomes a spring mechanism more-or-less which helps to flick the helmet off the shoot as it lifts it up through the top of the soil as it straightens out.
The thinking is that if the root tip gets ‘confused’ over which direction to take then it is more likely to stall.
I hope I explained that ok. I wish I could remember who posted the idea.
That’s all it is, an idea. I’m not disagreeing with you Ase or taking a particular point of view.
On the planting of seeds, spring theory and all, I’d be interested to hear peoples thoughts?
Maybe someone else saw the post I mean?

That is something I've never heard before but I guess I could see that happening (kind of?) but is probably not something I am going to try in the future. It really does seem counter-intuitive and seems like a lot more work for such a fragile seedling. I try to get the seedling up and into the light as fast as possible to get them growing. I haven't hardly ever had helmet issues either though so if that's a problem someone has often then maybe it's worth trying. I'd never rule out an idea though. Growing weed is still a very new thing for most people and ideas can always be improved or updated! I just stick to my ways because they seem to work very well for me. I would be interested if anyone else has heard of this as well.
 
Just a small germination update!

GG#4 and CBDream are both about an inch above ground and the shells are off. Both the Nepal Jam and the Bubba's gift are only a tiny bit above ground with the helmets still on. The good news though is that all 4 have germinated and off we go! I'll get pictures tomorrow when you can see what is going better and likely that will start Day 1. I found it interesting that the Bubba's gift and the Nepal Jam are at the exact same point even though the Nepal Jam had a tiny taproot coming out and the Bubba's gift had just barely cracked when I planted them.
 
Day 6 From Seed

I'm calling last Tuesday my Day 1 as it was the first day that all 4 of the girls were above ground and have their green leaves out for a full day. Over the last 6 days I have only been watering pretty minimally and about every other day. Today was the first day that I really soaked the whole pot until I saw a little water coming out. The reason I did this was because it was very noticeable that the leaves really started growing faster and bigger. In my experience this means that the roots are getting established and the plant feels comfortable enough getting bigger because the roots can support it. You can tell a lot about what is happening below ground by what is happening above ground in the early stages of veg.

This watering was also the first one where I used the new nutrients. I pretty much have the General Hydroponic line down in my head. I have gone a few grows in a row now where I hardly measured anything out with them. Now that I am using the Dutch Master Coir line I am just having to double check everything. I even got the old PPM and PH meter out just to make sure everything is still in the same ballpark as the GH line and it is. It's something i'll be cautiously watching over the whole grow to see how my grow reacts to the new nutrients. I'm not going to lie, it makes me a bit nervous using something different but I'm excited to see if it's better or worse or basically the same in the end.

Here is a picture of the nutrient line up. I'll still use a few supplements like Rapidstart and Unsulfured blackstrap molasses and probably a P-K boost in flower with this lineup but this will be the base.

These are what the girls looked like today and I expect to see some pretty good growth in the next week. Pretty happy with the way all 4 of them look. So far none of them really look like they are slower or faster than the others. They all look to be growing about the same for now. CBDream might be slightly bigger but no noticeable runts in the bunch yet.
 
Day 12 From Seed

Yesterday I decided that they were all big enough to take off the first node of branching (this included the cotyledons and the single pointed fan leaves, as well as anything growing out of the corners). I will likely remove node 2's branching tomorrow on all of them and I will top them when each one is ready. The CBDream is going strong and looking like the front runner while the Gorilla Glue looks to be in last place. The other two look about the same. I noticed that my temperature monitor thing was showing minimum temps lower than normal and I realized I haven't hung up my sheets that I use in the wintertime that keeps my area warm. I'll have to get that done tomorrow too so they don't get too cold at night. I also moved my tower fan so that it directly hits the girls now and turned it on the lowest setting. The girls were all noticeably thicker today than yesterday and the branching felt hard and strong. They are getting sturdier by the day.

 
Day 13

Another little update for the girls. They all got their 2nd nodes removed today. None of them seemed to slow down at all from the removal of the 1st node 2 days ago. In the picture you will notice that the CBDream (top right) is missing some foliage in the middle. She was the only one that was ready to be topped so I topped her today as well. Quadline training will begin soon for her. The other 3 likely will need a day or two before topping. The CBDream is shaping up to my monster for this grow. I always seem to have one that is bigger than the others and one that is a bit smaller. Maybe this time I'll just have one monster and 3 regular ones without the "smaller" one. Either way I am pretty happy with the start. To be topping and defoliating at 2 weeks from seed is a good start in my books.

 
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