Blueberry & Durban Poison Cross Project

[BlueGreen]

I’m with you on finding a male with good vigor and all that and I’m comfortable with the process of collecting the pollen. I suppose my breeding confusion is more centered around the “selective” pollination where you just make seeds on a branch or two.
So can you reverse sex with CS , collect the pollen, and pollinate the same plant wit that pollen all on the same plant? In other words, let’s say I have a plant and love it. Problem is, I got no more seeds of that plant. Can I make fem seeds?
I know a cutting makes the most sense in that situation but humor me lol

well Arch I didn't do it on purpose! And this for me is a journey into unexplored territory. As for selective pollination, I know the strategy but I might screw up. I'm going to collect the pollen, dry it out, store it. Granted, the blueberry girls are bound to be completely seeded just from proximity to the male. However, the point of all this is to create a cross with the Durbs. I'm going to flower them right after i return from my work trip, and use the stored pollen when they reach week 3.

You use a brush to apply the pollen to the white hairs of a plant that has crested and gotten past the stretch. Then you gently cover that branch for one day with a paper bag. Every two hairs equals one seed, I guess. Some time next month, this is going to happen!

 

[Archiweedies]

Okay and I understand that people often bag the branch that just got pregnant and spray the rest of the plant off with water to hopefully deactivate the pollen.

 

[BlueGreen]

Okay and I understand that people often bag the branch that just got pregnant and spray the rest of the plant off with water to hopefully deactivate the pollen.

Yeah spraying the rest of the plant sounds like a good idea. You could put a plastic bag over the paper bag, spray. And then remove the plastic bag. Protect everything that way.

 

[BlueGreen]

Fed my 3 Durbans today. Everything is now in a 2 gallon pot, and they all got 1.5 liters of nutrient solution. EC going in was about 1.6. The plants seem to really love the increased ppm, their new pots, and apparently the pH is sorting itself out, because I haven't checked it once. Also, they've adopted the structures i've bent them into, and they're putting out new shoots up toward the light. In about two weeks, I'll cut a couple clones from each one and then send these babies into flower, along with the GC and Blueberry #1. Here they are in order, DP 1, 2, 3, top shot then structure shot.

 

[Archiweedies]

Well done sir! Plants are looking great

How tall are you willing to let them get before you flip? Is that whats driving your decision to flip in 2 weeks? Just trying to get in your head a little.

 

[BlueGreen]

Well done sir! Plants are looking great

How tall are you willing to let them get before you flip? Is that whats driving your decision to flip in 2 weeks? Just trying to get in your head a little.

hey thanks! Minor daily tweaks and upkeep are really paying off. Truth is, i have to school myself to stay out of the way sometimes!

As for why I'll flip in two weeks, I think by then I will have enough shoots on each plant to make it worthwhile. The blueberry has sativa qualities and I'm expecting it to stretch and get bushy. The tent is just over 6 feet tall, so considering hanging room for the light and space beneath that, I don't want the plants to get any taller than 4 feet. What's the point of getting them tall, only to lollipop the crap out of them? The quadlined plants and the flux plant are a risk for getting tall, because despite the look of their leaves, they are supposed to be sativa dominant. So training them short not only helps to provide a strong base, it'll allow several colas to grow up right beside each other, all the same length, buds from top to bottom. The Green Crack is going to wind up about 3 feet tall without too much more attention.

The last week or so, i have been aerating water in a bucket at least overnight. My air pump is kinda wimpy, but at least the chlorine can offgas and never touch the roots.

Thanks for your feedback and questions

 

[Archiweedies]

Ahh excellent I see your thought process and I agree why grow them so tall if you just lollipop the bottom third. I guess the better question is how wide you want to let them get by LST'ing more? Im used to growing autos where you just kinda LST till it stops growing haha

 

[BlueGreen]

Ahh excellent I see your thought process and I agree why grow them so tall if you just lollipop the bottom third. I guess the better question is how wide you want to let them get by LST'ing more? Im used to growing autos where you just kinda LST till it stops growing haha

I've never grown Autos before. I have some now and decided not to train them at all actually.

As for the others, I don't plan to pot them up again. They'll get as wide as they get, and I have found that 5 plants fill up my 3x3 veg tent just right. Last time, i grew in 3 gallon pots, and I found the coco stayed wet for DAYS. This time, I want to see if the 2 gallon pots might be better, allow me to cycle more nutes through the plants, recover from intermittent rinsing more quickly, and grow bigger, better, healthier plants than last time.

 

[Archiweedies]

I've never grown Autos before. I have some now and decided not to train them at all actually.

As for the others, I don't plan to pot them up again. They'll get as wide as they get, and I have found that 5 plants fill up my 3x3 veg tent just right. Last time, i grew in 3 gallon pots, and I found the coco stayed wet for DAYS. This time, I want to see if the 2 gallon pots might be better, allow me to cycle more nutes through the plants, recover from intermittent rinsing more quickly, and grow bigger, better, healthier plants than last time.

Love it! Im as excited to see how things play out as you are bro!

 

[BlueGreen]

Last week or so, my gf took some of the Blueberries home. They didn't really love the change. We've had to pull quite a few leaves which were covered in rusty and purple/brown blotches. On the other hand, they've retained their structures very well. Today we gave them all a good rinse to reestablish the content of the medium. You see, she gave them a few feeds with a different type of nutrient than they were used to. I took over the Sensi Grow and B52 today, and we mixed up a 1.2 EC rinse and ran 1.5 liters through each plant until what was coming out the bottom was the same as what was going in the top. I think their going to be ok. And even though they are still short, she's going to flip them next week or so.

Here they are, from BB2 to BB7. BB7 was the trifoil mutant which is actually my avatar. I really like it.

BB2

BB3

BB4

BB5

BB6

 

[BlueGreen]

BB7... The mutant.

 

[Archiweedies]

I’m sure they’ll bounce back stronger than ever. Any worry of bugs going between the two grow environments?

 

[BlueGreen]

I’m sure they’ll bounce back stronger than ever. Any worry of bugs going between the two grow environments?

yeah their stalks are way huger than the quadlined Durbans. Can't say why. Different strain, I guess. I think they'll beer just fine.

As for bugs... The plants only go in one direction. I raise them for a month then pass them off. I don't have bugs except 4 tiny gnats stuck to sticky traps, and they're dead.

 

[Archiweedies]

I hope you didnt feel as though I was suggesting there were bugs. Just curious if there are precautions you take and what they might be.

 

[BlueGreen]

I hope you didnt feel as though I was suggesting there were bugs. Just curious if there are precautions you take and what they might be.

all good. I put up sticky traps before i see any bugs, and I try to dry out the top of the coco early. That's why it was so frustrating last grow, when the coco would stay wet for a week. My problem there was poor root development. After i harvested those suckers. I saw how dismal the roots were. This time, i have really been focusing on the roots. I'm giving b52 and RapidStart every feeding and they love it. The roots grow, they drink the nutes, the coco dries out, the bugs have no swamp to start an infestation. My gf and i have done this a couple times, and neither of us has seen worse than gnats, and really not that many.

 

[BlueGreen]

So I've been keeping notes along the way, regarding the development of each plant. Not exactly scientific, because I didn't do everything the same, but good enough to do its job. Once these "regular" seeds go into flower, I'll be able to make some decisions. For example, if BB7, the mutant, is a female, I'll just grow out the buds. But if it's a male... Do I want to pollinate the others with mutant pollen? BB2, the runt, actually has the best natural form of them all, it was simply underfed and transplanted too early. Do i gamble that it's really the star of the show? It's been a labour of love so far, but I do love it, so it's not a problem at all.

 

[BlueGreen]

Here are a few pics of BB1. This is the one Blueberry I held onto, different from all the others. I fimmed it, and I have found that fimming has a slower but more pronounced effect. Instead of quickly shooting out alternating pairs of branches, the plant goes into wtf-mode and at first nothing seems to happen. Then after a few weeks, suddenly you get a real bushy plant with short spacing and many branches.

This next picture is BB4, at my gf's house. It was also fimmed and it looks different than the others plants she has.

Not sure I actually like the haphazard result of fimming, but in a case where I want to take clones (like BB1), it definitely seems like the way to go.

 

[BlueGreen]

Well i have to leave town for 5 nights, so I just watered the plants with a light nutrient solution. In a few days, my gf is gonna come hit them again. I don't love leaving them alone, but I've had this week planned for a few months so I can't cancel.

Here's the Veg tent. 3 Durbans, BB1, the Green Crack, and to either side, 2 nycd autos and 2 jack herer autos.

 

[Emilya Green]

looking great!!

 

[BlueGreen]

looking great!!

thanks! I'm not so sure about the light green color of the new growth. I've been adding epsom salt to the mix but everything looks good for the most part, so i'm not too worried.