425jesse
Well-Known Member
You tricky little dog
. Cheers brother.
. Cheers brother.
Hyena's Never-Ending Adventures In Growing
- Thread starter Hyena Merica
- Start date
COgrower
Well-Known Member
The best show of the Fall is about to kick off.
- Thread starter
- #1,063
Happy Saturday!
Here's a PROJECT 28 REPORT!
Okay, the hotter-than-I-ever-remember weather bullshit is finally over I think. God it was a great summer!
I truly don't remember such a fun and outdoorsy three months for a lot of years...probably a part of the carefree feel was not sneaking up into a hotter-then-hades attic lab every day and battling to keep a grow alive. That's really what the past two summer's grows were. Just a desperate bunch of sweaty work to produce a bunch of potent and tasteless buds. Never again.
So now overnight that first big cold air mass of the Fall has crossed and it's 60 degrees outside. Nice. Let's get this going.
First, a recap of what we've done in here for three years now...
Yes, it has been fun. Time to do it again!
Behind this wall is the grow lab...
The room is musty but ready to restart. Buckets to be sanitized and a plumbing/pump/filter array to test.
Still a full-LED setup...still considering re-installing the HIDs but I don't know...a lot of work and both grow dank bud. Thinking.
When I post this I will sit down and open the prodigious Hyena seed bank. It contains perhaps 1,000 or more seeds comprised of about 30-40 varieties, including all the original seeds of my three Hyena strains.
I want to do a seed run and make 10,000-20,000 seeds. Is it possible in this space? I will effectively have nine medium-sized plants to use since double planting has usually resulted in two plants which together roughly equal a single plant. In fact less plants have consistently given me more yield and better colas so we will try to show some discipine this time and limit the number of plants. But it's just sooooo hard to pluck a healthy little sprout!! ;-( It seems impossible that so few plants might produce so many seeds but my previous results have been amazing with just the lower few branches of a few plants yielding 500-1000 seeds which comprise the bulk of the Hyena line genetics.
With a half-dozen folks having grown the various Hyenas now, all with pretty good results from what I have seen and heard, so I think the Blue Hyena is a pretty good bet to be a desired bean among those who like a tall, higher-yielding Sativa-dominant plant that also is easy to grow and can take all the light you give her. I would love to get my little creation out there into a seed bank. So let's assume if we make it, they will come. And go for it.
To the seed vault!
More soon,
Peace, Hyena
Here's a PROJECT 28 REPORT!
Okay, the hotter-than-I-ever-remember weather bullshit is finally over I think. God it was a great summer!
I truly don't remember such a fun and outdoorsy three months for a lot of years...probably a part of the carefree feel was not sneaking up into a hotter-then-hades attic lab every day and battling to keep a grow alive. That's really what the past two summer's grows were. Just a desperate bunch of sweaty work to produce a bunch of potent and tasteless buds. Never again.
So now overnight that first big cold air mass of the Fall has crossed and it's 60 degrees outside. Nice. Let's get this going.
First, a recap of what we've done in here for three years now...
Yes, it has been fun. Time to do it again!
Behind this wall is the grow lab...
The room is musty but ready to restart. Buckets to be sanitized and a plumbing/pump/filter array to test.
Still a full-LED setup...still considering re-installing the HIDs but I don't know...a lot of work and both grow dank bud. Thinking.
When I post this I will sit down and open the prodigious Hyena seed bank. It contains perhaps 1,000 or more seeds comprised of about 30-40 varieties, including all the original seeds of my three Hyena strains.
I want to do a seed run and make 10,000-20,000 seeds. Is it possible in this space? I will effectively have nine medium-sized plants to use since double planting has usually resulted in two plants which together roughly equal a single plant. In fact less plants have consistently given me more yield and better colas so we will try to show some discipine this time and limit the number of plants. But it's just sooooo hard to pluck a healthy little sprout!! ;-( It seems impossible that so few plants might produce so many seeds but my previous results have been amazing with just the lower few branches of a few plants yielding 500-1000 seeds which comprise the bulk of the Hyena line genetics.
With a half-dozen folks having grown the various Hyenas now, all with pretty good results from what I have seen and heard, so I think the Blue Hyena is a pretty good bet to be a desired bean among those who like a tall, higher-yielding Sativa-dominant plant that also is easy to grow and can take all the light you give her. I would love to get my little creation out there into a seed bank. So let's assume if we make it, they will come. And go for it.
To the seed vault!
More soon,
Peace, Hyena
425jesse
Well-Known Member
- Thread starter
- #1,065
It's Tuesday...
Normally a meh day but today...
The first REAL PROJECT 28 REPORT!
First, let me say HI to all new folks from Instagram that are reading the demented outpourings of my tortured soul for the first time...you are sort of joining the chronicle of the slow journey into insanity of a mad everyman at the third year juncture...I have been growing and very thoroughly documenting my experiments for seven grows now so it's kind of like starting to watch an edgy and disturbing tv series in the seventh season but no matter. I intend to begin this time as if it's the first time, and put a fair degree of instruction and analysis in, with the goal of helping others duplicate my success.
In other words, if you dream of achieving the frostiest and stoniest possible budz, this run will show you how to do it!
So pay attention and don't disturb the rest of the class.
Invite anyone who wants to become an advanced indoor grower to join us! My way is not the only way but if you care to go back through this journal you will see I know what I am doing and I will try to share and explain everything I know this time around.
First...some rules.
Whether you have been a grower for awhile or are just starting, the rules for success are the same. Let me remind (or introduce for some) a few absolute rules about this game if you want to be the best...
Rule number one of successful growing: DON'T TELL ANYONE. There's an old saying that "Two people can keep a secret...if one of them's dead." That saying is TRUE. The most difficult thing for me has been to never be able to share the wonders of my indoor gardens with the people I know and love. It's so hard not to brag when you grow better buds than any of your friends have ever even seen...or even imagined...and you have to explain it away believably when you pull one out. My friends know me as "the guy who knows the GUY"...I just tell them my "friend" regularly brings all manner of bud out from the West coast and thus I always have better weed than Snoop Dogg.
Peter Parker can't brag about being Spiderman and this is like that. So, I satisfy the human need for ego reinforcement by writing about my secret adventures for all my cyberfriends here on 420. Ahhhhh. Feels soooo good to tell you about all my naughty little experiments but trust me nobody in my immediate life knows anything. If anyone around you, even your best friend, knows you are growing, well, you are fucking up because nobody ever forgets seeing a grow and people don't stay best friends forever. Don't doom your project. Be quiet.
My setup is a secret hidden lab behind a false wall in a corner of my attic. Because of its secret nature, I don't go in there very often and I don't spend much time. Hell, I would love to live in there but there are rules that must be followed exactly if you want to be a successful indoor grower. So, here's RULE NUMBER TWO: The less anyone or anything is around your plants the better. People who want pet plants and like to be around them a lot DON'T GROW THE BEST BUDS. Not even close. Okay, weed is an amazing plant which will produce some results almost no matter how shitty it's environment, but that's a FAR cry from producing ALL IT CAN. I am all about my plants achieving EVERYTHING they possibly can so I only visit briefly...and only when I have to. So, if you like to hang with your plants a lot you should decide to try it my way once and you'll be amazed how it will soon prove that 90% of everything bad that can ever happen to your indoor grow YOU bring in there! I treat my grow lab like a hospital room and I am very careful never to bring anything in on my body or clothes or shoes, or any object. That might seem anal but consider how many grow journals tell about battling a host of insects, mold, fungus...I have never had any of that in my lab ONLY because I don't bring it in!
The third rule I firmly believe in is: LESS IS MORE! I believe most problems with growing, whether nutritional, environmental, or physical, are mostly caused by US DOING TOO MUCH! Here's what I mean...
There's a tried-and-true formula for growing cannabis hydroponically indoors. That formula consists of:
-18-on, 6-off lighting for vegetative stage, 12/12 for flowering.
-Reservoir PH 5.8
-Basic nutrients sufficient to allow the plant access to what it needs for proper development and function.
THAT'S IT.
Your plants need enough light, with the right spectrum. Period. Too much doesn't help, it hurts. They also need proper PH so they can uptake the entire spectrum of needed minerals. And, they need adequate nutrition but nothing beyond the basics required for normal plant function. If you are using ten different nutes the only thing we know for sure is you respond to marketing. You have a much better chance of over-fertilizing your plants than anything else, which is responsible for a huge percentage of the problems indoor growers run into. One imbalance creates another and before long you have a plant that is spending most of its life energy trying to get well and not on bud production.
Applying these principles isn't hard, in fact it's easy. I use plenty of light but not too much, and I keep my lights within a certain distance from my plant tops at all stages for maximum efficiency without being too close and burning the tops. I simply use the hand test...if it's too hot for your hand it's too hot for your plants. All there is to it.
I keep my reservoir at 5.8 PH. That is the sweet spot where all needed nutrients can be readily absorbed by a cannabis plant. Higher or lower reduces the uptake of certain minerals so keep it at 5.8. Not hard to do and a HUGE factor no matter what nutes you use!
Finally, I use simple nutrients (the General Hydroponics GROW, BLOOM and MICRO) but at about 1/3 (at most) of the recommended strength. My results are just fine using these concentrations because the plant only uses a tiny fraction of the actual nutes in the water...mostly, it just uptakes and transpires water itself. So, many gallons of water can be run through the plants but almost all the nutrients still remain in the reservoir. Adding more water does not require adding more nutrients, doing so only raises the mineral concentration (PPM) in the water. Again, the plant takes what it needs and that is very little. I only add nutes about four times in 20 weeks of a grow! Because I use so much less nutes they don't build up and create PH and other various problems. Our plants aren't pets and feeding them should not be an emotional exercise. Less is more.
So that's the bedrock of my grow experience. The simplification of the whole thing has allowed me to have consistent success, and combined with an automatic and highly reliable setup, I can have no contact for up to 10 days without fear of anything going awry.
Enough philosophy. Let me demonstrate how this all works over the next 20 weeks!
Well, where to start...after a week of preparations the beans are in the ground so to speak! It went like this...
After getting the lab back together and thoroughly clean, I first decided to make some changes to the hydro system, namely, replacing the main reservoir with a sturdier container.
The old one never leaked, but after three years I wanted to prevent any cracking or brittleness developing in the one component that could give me away and also destroy my house.
Then the pots (Dutch buckets) had to be sanitized and refilled with grow media.
They are the ideal indoor growing bucket...they have a little siphon that connects to an opening in the bottom of each bucket allowing liquid above a two-inch level to drain out and return to the reservoir by gravity. So, I can pump water continuously and it will never overflow the system. Also any interruption in pump function still leaves a two-inch reservoir in the bottom of each bucket which would support the plant for days. Idiot proof...which was made for me!
I cleaned and reloaded the grow pots.
I use a five-gallon nylon mesh paint strainer in each bucket, which prevents loss of any grow medium, and I use pure Perlite for my medium. It works great and when the plant is done you simply pull the bag and throw the whole thing away. Neat and easy.
Next I connected and tested the water distribution system.
I adjust and "tune" the flow to each bucket by using an adjustable valve on each line until every bucket is getting the perfect flow.
Then finally, everything ready to go! Time for the seeds!
I went into the prodigious Hyena seed vault and grabbed the packet of Original Blue Hyena (Ripper Haze x Blue Dream). I still have about 50 seeds and a dozen were carefully selected. Since I always like to learn something, I chose the biggest 8 and the smallest 4. My goal is one plant per bucket but in case a few don't come up I am planting a few extras for now. Plus we will see if there is a correlation between big seeds and small ones, within the same variety.
Soaked the beans in purified water for 24 hours. Even though these seeds are from mid-2016, several had tiny tips poking out already! I simply use a rooter plug made of some kind of spongy stuff. Nature roots seeds just fine if you make sure to put them in POINT DOWN. The taproot emerges from the pointy end of the seed case and if that end is pointing upward, it often costs too much of its precious life energy to re-orient and still emerge. Even if it makes it it isn't as vigorous as a correctly oriented seed which emerges quickly and with maximum energy remaining for cotyledon development.
I put the plugs in the medium and position the emitters so they will keep everything nice and moist. My setup irrigates for 15 minutes, three times daily. This allows a gentle flow to completely turn over the water in each bucket many times per day, circulating the nutrient solution and returning it by simple gravity, no chance of overflow, no complex parts to fail. One timer, one pump, zero worries. Crikey!
So, I closed the hatch for the first time this go around. Such a satisfying feeling to be back at it again! The first few days I'll check daily until all have emerged and I get a nice healthy sprout in each bucket. Then it's off to the races baby!
Just a reminder what my Blue Hyena can do...
Soon we will have a whole roomful of these, and maybe 20,000 fat seeds too!
THAT would make me happy!
Stay tuned my friends!
Peace, Hyena
Normally a meh day but today...
The first REAL PROJECT 28 REPORT!
First, let me say HI to all new folks from Instagram that are reading the demented outpourings of my tortured soul for the first time...you are sort of joining the chronicle of the slow journey into insanity of a mad everyman at the third year juncture...I have been growing and very thoroughly documenting my experiments for seven grows now so it's kind of like starting to watch an edgy and disturbing tv series in the seventh season but no matter. I intend to begin this time as if it's the first time, and put a fair degree of instruction and analysis in, with the goal of helping others duplicate my success.
In other words, if you dream of achieving the frostiest and stoniest possible budz, this run will show you how to do it!
So pay attention and don't disturb the rest of the class.
Invite anyone who wants to become an advanced indoor grower to join us! My way is not the only way but if you care to go back through this journal you will see I know what I am doing and I will try to share and explain everything I know this time around.First...some rules.
Whether you have been a grower for awhile or are just starting, the rules for success are the same. Let me remind (or introduce for some) a few absolute rules about this game if you want to be the best...
Rule number one of successful growing: DON'T TELL ANYONE. There's an old saying that "Two people can keep a secret...if one of them's dead." That saying is TRUE. The most difficult thing for me has been to never be able to share the wonders of my indoor gardens with the people I know and love. It's so hard not to brag when you grow better buds than any of your friends have ever even seen...or even imagined...and you have to explain it away believably when you pull one out. My friends know me as "the guy who knows the GUY"...I just tell them my "friend" regularly brings all manner of bud out from the West coast and thus I always have better weed than Snoop Dogg.
Peter Parker can't brag about being Spiderman and this is like that. So, I satisfy the human need for ego reinforcement by writing about my secret adventures for all my cyberfriends here on 420. Ahhhhh. Feels soooo good to tell you about all my naughty little experiments but trust me nobody in my immediate life knows anything. If anyone around you, even your best friend, knows you are growing, well, you are fucking up because nobody ever forgets seeing a grow and people don't stay best friends forever. Don't doom your project. Be quiet.
My setup is a secret hidden lab behind a false wall in a corner of my attic. Because of its secret nature, I don't go in there very often and I don't spend much time. Hell, I would love to live in there but there are rules that must be followed exactly if you want to be a successful indoor grower. So, here's RULE NUMBER TWO: The less anyone or anything is around your plants the better. People who want pet plants and like to be around them a lot DON'T GROW THE BEST BUDS. Not even close. Okay, weed is an amazing plant which will produce some results almost no matter how shitty it's environment, but that's a FAR cry from producing ALL IT CAN. I am all about my plants achieving EVERYTHING they possibly can so I only visit briefly...and only when I have to. So, if you like to hang with your plants a lot you should decide to try it my way once and you'll be amazed how it will soon prove that 90% of everything bad that can ever happen to your indoor grow YOU bring in there! I treat my grow lab like a hospital room and I am very careful never to bring anything in on my body or clothes or shoes, or any object. That might seem anal but consider how many grow journals tell about battling a host of insects, mold, fungus...I have never had any of that in my lab ONLY because I don't bring it in!
The third rule I firmly believe in is: LESS IS MORE! I believe most problems with growing, whether nutritional, environmental, or physical, are mostly caused by US DOING TOO MUCH! Here's what I mean...
There's a tried-and-true formula for growing cannabis hydroponically indoors. That formula consists of:
-18-on, 6-off lighting for vegetative stage, 12/12 for flowering.
-Reservoir PH 5.8
-Basic nutrients sufficient to allow the plant access to what it needs for proper development and function.
THAT'S IT.
Your plants need enough light, with the right spectrum. Period. Too much doesn't help, it hurts. They also need proper PH so they can uptake the entire spectrum of needed minerals. And, they need adequate nutrition but nothing beyond the basics required for normal plant function. If you are using ten different nutes the only thing we know for sure is you respond to marketing. You have a much better chance of over-fertilizing your plants than anything else, which is responsible for a huge percentage of the problems indoor growers run into. One imbalance creates another and before long you have a plant that is spending most of its life energy trying to get well and not on bud production.
Applying these principles isn't hard, in fact it's easy. I use plenty of light but not too much, and I keep my lights within a certain distance from my plant tops at all stages for maximum efficiency without being too close and burning the tops. I simply use the hand test...if it's too hot for your hand it's too hot for your plants. All there is to it.
I keep my reservoir at 5.8 PH. That is the sweet spot where all needed nutrients can be readily absorbed by a cannabis plant. Higher or lower reduces the uptake of certain minerals so keep it at 5.8. Not hard to do and a HUGE factor no matter what nutes you use!
Finally, I use simple nutrients (the General Hydroponics GROW, BLOOM and MICRO) but at about 1/3 (at most) of the recommended strength. My results are just fine using these concentrations because the plant only uses a tiny fraction of the actual nutes in the water...mostly, it just uptakes and transpires water itself. So, many gallons of water can be run through the plants but almost all the nutrients still remain in the reservoir. Adding more water does not require adding more nutrients, doing so only raises the mineral concentration (PPM) in the water. Again, the plant takes what it needs and that is very little. I only add nutes about four times in 20 weeks of a grow! Because I use so much less nutes they don't build up and create PH and other various problems. Our plants aren't pets and feeding them should not be an emotional exercise. Less is more.
So that's the bedrock of my grow experience. The simplification of the whole thing has allowed me to have consistent success, and combined with an automatic and highly reliable setup, I can have no contact for up to 10 days without fear of anything going awry.
Enough philosophy. Let me demonstrate how this all works over the next 20 weeks!
Well, where to start...after a week of preparations the beans are in the ground so to speak! It went like this...
After getting the lab back together and thoroughly clean, I first decided to make some changes to the hydro system, namely, replacing the main reservoir with a sturdier container.
The old one never leaked, but after three years I wanted to prevent any cracking or brittleness developing in the one component that could give me away and also destroy my house.
Then the pots (Dutch buckets) had to be sanitized and refilled with grow media.
They are the ideal indoor growing bucket...they have a little siphon that connects to an opening in the bottom of each bucket allowing liquid above a two-inch level to drain out and return to the reservoir by gravity. So, I can pump water continuously and it will never overflow the system. Also any interruption in pump function still leaves a two-inch reservoir in the bottom of each bucket which would support the plant for days. Idiot proof...which was made for me!
I cleaned and reloaded the grow pots.
I use a five-gallon nylon mesh paint strainer in each bucket, which prevents loss of any grow medium, and I use pure Perlite for my medium. It works great and when the plant is done you simply pull the bag and throw the whole thing away. Neat and easy.
Next I connected and tested the water distribution system.
I adjust and "tune" the flow to each bucket by using an adjustable valve on each line until every bucket is getting the perfect flow.
Then finally, everything ready to go! Time for the seeds!
I went into the prodigious Hyena seed vault and grabbed the packet of Original Blue Hyena (Ripper Haze x Blue Dream). I still have about 50 seeds and a dozen were carefully selected. Since I always like to learn something, I chose the biggest 8 and the smallest 4. My goal is one plant per bucket but in case a few don't come up I am planting a few extras for now. Plus we will see if there is a correlation between big seeds and small ones, within the same variety.
Soaked the beans in purified water for 24 hours. Even though these seeds are from mid-2016, several had tiny tips poking out already! I simply use a rooter plug made of some kind of spongy stuff. Nature roots seeds just fine if you make sure to put them in POINT DOWN. The taproot emerges from the pointy end of the seed case and if that end is pointing upward, it often costs too much of its precious life energy to re-orient and still emerge. Even if it makes it it isn't as vigorous as a correctly oriented seed which emerges quickly and with maximum energy remaining for cotyledon development.
I put the plugs in the medium and position the emitters so they will keep everything nice and moist. My setup irrigates for 15 minutes, three times daily. This allows a gentle flow to completely turn over the water in each bucket many times per day, circulating the nutrient solution and returning it by simple gravity, no chance of overflow, no complex parts to fail. One timer, one pump, zero worries. Crikey!
So, I closed the hatch for the first time this go around. Such a satisfying feeling to be back at it again! The first few days I'll check daily until all have emerged and I get a nice healthy sprout in each bucket. Then it's off to the races baby!
Just a reminder what my Blue Hyena can do...
Soon we will have a whole roomful of these, and maybe 20,000 fat seeds too!
THAT would make me happy!
Stay tuned my friends!
Peace, Hyena
- Thread starter
- #1,066
Welllllll.....
PROJECT 28 REPORT!!
We have babies!
Yes, my first-born. Have a cigar! It's a girl!
4 sprouts within 48 hours, so far so good. We still have unusually warm weather but everything's okay. Sprouts and young plants can handle anything...I've had it hit 120 F up here and not hurt the babies. But this time around it's just scraping 85 so no worries.
Lowered and positioned the lights and we're in business!
It's sooooooo nice to be back at it.
Just broke out a celebratory bud of Blue Hyena...oh man it's getting me so high.
Wish I had some help.
Peace, Hyena
PROJECT 28 REPORT!!
We have babies!
Yes, my first-born. Have a cigar! It's a girl!
4 sprouts within 48 hours, so far so good. We still have unusually warm weather but everything's okay. Sprouts and young plants can handle anything...I've had it hit 120 F up here and not hurt the babies. But this time around it's just scraping 85 so no worries.
Lowered and positioned the lights and we're in business!
It's sooooooo nice to be back at it.
Just broke out a celebratory bud of Blue Hyena...oh man it's getting me so high.
Wish I had some help.
Peace, Hyena
It's been awhile, good to see you back!
- Thread starter
- #1,070
Yes, trying to do the seed run...
We'll see. No predictions when dealing with nature!
Stay tuned!
Peace, Hyena
- Thread starter
- #1,071
Monday, Monday...dreary outside but great inside the secret grow lab!
Here's a
PROJECT 28 REPORT
Okay, I'm not writing much this past week because there's not much to see here folks...just some teensy little Hyenas opening their eyes as Ma Nature once more demonstrates the mystical miracle of new life!
A couple of the new Hyenas
Roughly half the seeds came up, but since these have been in storage since June 2016 that isn't surprising...as years go by viability percentage naturally decreases but what has emerged looks nice and healthy. One or two have come out after almost a week's delay, again probably because of age. lt's okay though, because my last grow only proved beyond all doubt it is possible to grow a canopy so dense it fails to fully develop in the middle because too little light can penetrate. There seems to be an ideal density where longer colas can get enough light to fill in from top to bottom. I definitely exceeded that by a bunch last time around which basically made the productive portion of the canopy higher and wasted time and space in the precious middle.
In fact I am leaning toward maybe six or seven plants max and doing an aggressive scrog, except for one which I will reverse that I will not scrog. My idea is, I can literally wait a couple more weeks to start the actual pollen "mother", keeping it a smaller and more manageable item than the others, so I can remove it when it starts to develop male flowers, and put it into a separate tent for eventual flower maturation and pollen collection. Then I will carefully apply the pollen in the lab which may allow me to do it in a manner that only minimally contaminates the chamber with ambient pollen grains.
I am resigned to some pollen staying around no matter what I do so future grows will probably include some seeds which I know will be Blue Hyena x ___________. That might provide further years of fun with totally new crosses galore...ahhh, I love genetics! Amateur or not it's just so freaking cool to create new forms of cannabis. The next grow after this (if this is successful) will be a bunch of different varieties all of which will cross with BH! The future begins now!
So I noticed a tiny sprout emerging late and looked more closely...sadly, it was the root tip going north instead of south! Even the tiny tip was burned and brown...the seed had been upside down and just went the wrong way.
I plucked it and saw the cotyledon still intact so what the hell, I flipped it and stuck it back into the moistened plug.
Seriously, if this somehow lives it would be a new record for tenacity. Ordinarily I would say zero chance but cannabis has amazed me so many times with its hardiness and determination to survive that I believe it could possibly happen.
We'll see.
The new plumbing works great and everything in the lab has gone from quite hot to nice and perfect, with outdoor temps now in the 50s-60s F. Nice. We are now on track for the growth phase. I will re-arrange the buckets once I'm sure no more plants will emerge, to maximize their position. One of the many advantages of my nine-bucket system...
So Fall has fallen and we're on our way. Smoke 'em if you've got 'em but remember...
ONLY YOU! And me.
See you soon,
Peace, Hyena
Here's a
PROJECT 28 REPORT
Okay, I'm not writing much this past week because there's not much to see here folks...just some teensy little Hyenas opening their eyes as Ma Nature once more demonstrates the mystical miracle of new life!
A couple of the new Hyenas
Roughly half the seeds came up, but since these have been in storage since June 2016 that isn't surprising...as years go by viability percentage naturally decreases but what has emerged looks nice and healthy. One or two have come out after almost a week's delay, again probably because of age. lt's okay though, because my last grow only proved beyond all doubt it is possible to grow a canopy so dense it fails to fully develop in the middle because too little light can penetrate. There seems to be an ideal density where longer colas can get enough light to fill in from top to bottom. I definitely exceeded that by a bunch last time around which basically made the productive portion of the canopy higher and wasted time and space in the precious middle.
In fact I am leaning toward maybe six or seven plants max and doing an aggressive scrog, except for one which I will reverse that I will not scrog. My idea is, I can literally wait a couple more weeks to start the actual pollen "mother", keeping it a smaller and more manageable item than the others, so I can remove it when it starts to develop male flowers, and put it into a separate tent for eventual flower maturation and pollen collection. Then I will carefully apply the pollen in the lab which may allow me to do it in a manner that only minimally contaminates the chamber with ambient pollen grains.
I am resigned to some pollen staying around no matter what I do so future grows will probably include some seeds which I know will be Blue Hyena x ___________. That might provide further years of fun with totally new crosses galore...ahhh, I love genetics! Amateur or not it's just so freaking cool to create new forms of cannabis. The next grow after this (if this is successful) will be a bunch of different varieties all of which will cross with BH! The future begins now!
So I noticed a tiny sprout emerging late and looked more closely...sadly, it was the root tip going north instead of south! Even the tiny tip was burned and brown...the seed had been upside down and just went the wrong way.
I plucked it and saw the cotyledon still intact so what the hell, I flipped it and stuck it back into the moistened plug.
Seriously, if this somehow lives it would be a new record for tenacity. Ordinarily I would say zero chance but cannabis has amazed me so many times with its hardiness and determination to survive that I believe it could possibly happen.
We'll see.
The new plumbing works great and everything in the lab has gone from quite hot to nice and perfect, with outdoor temps now in the 50s-60s F. Nice. We are now on track for the growth phase. I will re-arrange the buckets once I'm sure no more plants will emerge, to maximize their position. One of the many advantages of my nine-bucket system...
So Fall has fallen and we're on our way. Smoke 'em if you've got 'em but remember...
ONLY YOU! And me.
See you soon,
Peace, Hyena
425jesse
Well-Known Member
Great report Hyena. I’m rooting for the upside down gal, hope she makes it!
!
Latitude17
Well-Known Member
Glad you're back at it again HM, looking forward to watching the progress!
- Thread starter
- #1,074
Happy Friday!
It's the PROJECT 28 REPORT!
As I sit here this morning I am once again reminded how unexciting a weed project is at the beginning...
It always seems to take FOREVER just to get the tiny sailors all rowing in the same direction. Fits and starts. Obviously age has a relationship to the viability of seeds, I saw 8 out of 12 come up total but a few were a week later than the others.
Consequently I have 6 on the same schedule and then three more a little ways behind.
Got healthy ones at the corners and that allows me to work everything towards the middle...perfect. I think one of the small ones will be my pollen producing seed mother...should be a smaller and more manageable plant when time comes to flip to 12/12, which should allow me to remove it without much trouble and put it somewhere else when it develops male pollen sacs, probably a separate tent outside the lab. Then I will collect the pollen there, and apply it to the others in the main lab with a small paint brush to minimize the spread of ambient grains.
Some beautiful little Blue Hyena girls...
Healthy and strong, zero leaf tip discoloration which means we're nailing it.
The only bucket where two occupy one space...it won't hurt this run because I can spread them out just fine since I only have seven or eight total plants. Notice they are twice as wide as they are tall...the sign your little darling are getting enough light. If your sprouts aren't this stout they need the lights closer!
A couple late emergers...which works perfectly for my plans!
This will probably be my seed mother. How fun to imagine this tiny sprout will possibly be the mother of 20,000 children or even a whole genetic thread going on into new breeds and eternity...awesome.
And remember the misguided sprout that came up upside-down?
Yes, the amazing power of nature has that wilted and damaged sprout recovered enough to start growing. Frankly unbelievable but true!
Finally, despite all my experience...
An empty bucket. You can't win 'em all!
So at least we are off and running with plenty of healthy girls to impregnate. I'm especially happy when this first crucial 3-week phase is over...it's so important to have the right start and everybody be optimally healhy from the beginning. Avoiding nutritional issues is WAY easier than trying to correct them!
My setup includes a couple additional reservoirs for dechlorination and storage of water. I don't get the chance to refill very often, it's a lot like a giraffe drinking at a water hole since my lab is a secret even from my wife. Therefore I like to store weeks' worth of the precious fluid when I can! As it is needed I use a small transfer pump to move it around...
The mesh bag just keeps stuff that might be floating in the storage water from getting in the main reservoir. Everything is about clean. As clean as possible.
So I shut the door to the secret lab, all running smoothly on a 18/6 lighting schedule. Not yet necessary to fire up the heater but soon, so soon. Winter is slowly creeping in. I came down from the attic and opened the garage door, only to see a police car! We aren't too close to our two neighbor's houses as three homes share about 12 acres but their drive is on the garage side so I see this cruiser and you know my ass got tight right now! Fortunately it was at my neighbor's house, just a routine contact about some driveway issue and nothing to do with me but my God, there's nothing like coming down from your secret pot farm and seeing the fuzz.
I damn near shit. I need a joint...
Peace, Hyena
It's the PROJECT 28 REPORT!
As I sit here this morning I am once again reminded how unexciting a weed project is at the beginning...
It always seems to take FOREVER just to get the tiny sailors all rowing in the same direction. Fits and starts. Obviously age has a relationship to the viability of seeds, I saw 8 out of 12 come up total but a few were a week later than the others.
Consequently I have 6 on the same schedule and then three more a little ways behind.
Got healthy ones at the corners and that allows me to work everything towards the middle...perfect. I think one of the small ones will be my pollen producing seed mother...should be a smaller and more manageable plant when time comes to flip to 12/12, which should allow me to remove it without much trouble and put it somewhere else when it develops male pollen sacs, probably a separate tent outside the lab. Then I will collect the pollen there, and apply it to the others in the main lab with a small paint brush to minimize the spread of ambient grains.
Some beautiful little Blue Hyena girls...
Healthy and strong, zero leaf tip discoloration which means we're nailing it.
The only bucket where two occupy one space...it won't hurt this run because I can spread them out just fine since I only have seven or eight total plants. Notice they are twice as wide as they are tall...the sign your little darling are getting enough light. If your sprouts aren't this stout they need the lights closer!
A couple late emergers...which works perfectly for my plans!
This will probably be my seed mother. How fun to imagine this tiny sprout will possibly be the mother of 20,000 children or even a whole genetic thread going on into new breeds and eternity...awesome.
And remember the misguided sprout that came up upside-down?
Yes, the amazing power of nature has that wilted and damaged sprout recovered enough to start growing. Frankly unbelievable but true!
Finally, despite all my experience...
An empty bucket. You can't win 'em all!
So at least we are off and running with plenty of healthy girls to impregnate. I'm especially happy when this first crucial 3-week phase is over...it's so important to have the right start and everybody be optimally healhy from the beginning. Avoiding nutritional issues is WAY easier than trying to correct them!
My setup includes a couple additional reservoirs for dechlorination and storage of water. I don't get the chance to refill very often, it's a lot like a giraffe drinking at a water hole since my lab is a secret even from my wife. Therefore I like to store weeks' worth of the precious fluid when I can! As it is needed I use a small transfer pump to move it around...
The mesh bag just keeps stuff that might be floating in the storage water from getting in the main reservoir. Everything is about clean. As clean as possible.
So I shut the door to the secret lab, all running smoothly on a 18/6 lighting schedule. Not yet necessary to fire up the heater but soon, so soon. Winter is slowly creeping in. I came down from the attic and opened the garage door, only to see a police car! We aren't too close to our two neighbor's houses as three homes share about 12 acres but their drive is on the garage side so I see this cruiser and you know my ass got tight right now! Fortunately it was at my neighbor's house, just a routine contact about some driveway issue and nothing to do with me but my God, there's nothing like coming down from your secret pot farm and seeing the fuzz.
I damn near shit. I need a joint...
Peace, Hyena
DrDoob
Well-Known Member
Off to another great start! Can’t wait for the first time I see those Blue Hyenas on a seed site. I “know” that guy. 
Lol your cop story reminds me of SweetSue’s visit, 5 minutes after she got here just as I was showing off my various stinky jars and rolling one up a cop rang the doorbell. He just wanted to know if my cameras caught a license plate of a car that was in the ally but the pucker level was at maximum. The funny part is I didn’t have any of the normal fears, I was just worried I’d be the guy who got Sue in trouble.
Lol your cop story reminds me of SweetSue’s visit, 5 minutes after she got here just as I was showing off my various stinky jars and rolling one up a cop rang the doorbell. He just wanted to know if my cameras caught a license plate of a car that was in the ally but the pucker level was at maximum. The funny part is I didn’t have any of the normal fears, I was just worried I’d be the guy who got Sue in trouble.
I've ripped out lot of plants due to neighbours 
- Thread starter
- #1,077
I've ripped out lot of plants due to neighbours
Birdie! Nice to hear from you it's certainly been awhile...
I hope your life has smoothed out some, heard you have had some struggles but hey join the club babe and always keep your head up remember the real success in life is still being alive!
Stay strong and stay in touch!
Peace, Hyena
Hi
We are blessed and happy
Leaving soon. In December,God willing.
When we have relocated... You will notice
- Thread starter
- #1,079
Happy Monday!!
It's the PROJECT 28 REPORT!
I know, I just reported a couple days ago but now things are starting to get a little more interesting so we're going to up the frequency and share the love. I love growing cannabis!
Now there is perceptible growth every day, maybe every hour!
Some beauties popping...
Healthy and strong. We will have to string the scrog soon!
And look at little upside-down sprout...a previously doomed organism that somehow survives.
I wonder if it will be a small plant, stunted by having its growing tip destroyed? Seems like it's starting to grow at a normal pace so maybe not...we shall see.
In the news...
I see the "caravan" of foreigners "marching" towards our southern border...Grampa says if you just shoot a couple, the rest will turn around...
okay, but seriously, why don't we just treat them the exact same way we would be treated if we snuck into Mexico?
Too fair? Too logical? Apparently.
But here's the real reason we need to defend our kids against these Mexican peddlers...
It's just that it's crappy weed. I knew that breed was up to no good. Keepin' the gate locked.
Peace, Hyena
It's the PROJECT 28 REPORT!
I know, I just reported a couple days ago but now things are starting to get a little more interesting so we're going to up the frequency and share the love. I love growing cannabis!
Now there is perceptible growth every day, maybe every hour!
Some beauties popping...
Healthy and strong. We will have to string the scrog soon!
And look at little upside-down sprout...a previously doomed organism that somehow survives.
I wonder if it will be a small plant, stunted by having its growing tip destroyed? Seems like it's starting to grow at a normal pace so maybe not...we shall see.
In the news...
I see the "caravan" of foreigners "marching" towards our southern border...Grampa says if you just shoot a couple, the rest will turn around...
okay, but seriously, why don't we just treat them the exact same way we would be treated if we snuck into Mexico? Too fair? Too logical? Apparently.
But here's the real reason we need to defend our kids against these Mexican peddlers...
It's just that it's crappy weed. I knew that breed was up to no good. Keepin' the gate locked.
Peace, Hyena
- Thread starter
- #1,080
Wednesday...October 31st...which means...
A PROJECT 28 UPDATE!
And Halloween.
When I popped into the lab for a quick check all I saw was lots of nice plants growing like weeds...let 'em grow.
So I will talk about Halloween.
When I was a kid, growing up in Los Angeles in a rather poor part of the city, I looked forward to three days of the year: my birthday, Christmas, and Halloween. Of the three Halloween won hands down. I was the oldest of four kids and our mom totally loved Halloween too (actually she just loved being a Mom and having little kids) so she would stoke our excitement for a month, putting out candy early (which she never did any other time) and helping us make our costumes (there might have been costume shops back in the 60s but we did our own, always). We couldn't wait for trick-or-treat night...in our neighborhood there were a lot of kids and every house seemed to have bowls of candy so we went as fast as we possibly could from start to finish...if I didn't end up with four or five pounds of booty I would have been disappointed. Which I never was. Other kids had cute little plastic pumpkin treat buckets...we had pillowcases. I remember multiple years where I almost couldn't carry my bag at the end of the night. Success! And sore feet. It was only years later that my parents told me how they would take roughly half our candy right after we went to sleep...for our own good from a nutritional and dental perspective...I felt so violated. You can't trust grownups. I never did that to my own kids...maybe grabbed a couple Snickers...but my kids never collected five pound of candy each in three hours either or I probably would have.
The other big Halloween "tradition" in our big-city upbringing was to drive out to Wilmington and see the Great Pumpkin, actually an 80-foot-tall pumpkin-shaped oil storage tank they painted completely orange and lit up with a jack-o-lantern face, at the Phillips 66 refinery, one of dozens of oil and gasoline refinery plants in the Los Angeles basin. We had a station wagon right out of the movie Vacation, and we all crowded forward over the front seat and shared a big bag of the caramel corn conveniently sold at the venue. We would spend an hour or more just looking at the giant thing munching our treat and laughing. There was no activity, no rides or entertainment...just the Great Pumpkin. As I have traveled and lived all over this country I have realized there are a lot of fun and meaningful Halloween traditions enjoyed by families in every corner of our land, most far more sophisticated than thousands of people staring in awe at the gigantic toothy face of an oil tank. But when you are a kid, all that matters is having fun and being together, and you don't judge the bigness or smallness of things because everything is big to you. The Great Pumpkin was cool. I'm far removed from my childhood days in L.A. but today I am thinking of all the little folks who will be trick-or-treating, then parked at the Great Pumpkin, tonight. I am with you. Quit hogging the caramel corn and pass the bag.
To celebrate I sat down with a pumpkin and got high.
He got higher than me I think...
Peace, Hyena
A PROJECT 28 UPDATE!
And Halloween.
When I popped into the lab for a quick check all I saw was lots of nice plants growing like weeds...let 'em grow.
So I will talk about Halloween.
When I was a kid, growing up in Los Angeles in a rather poor part of the city, I looked forward to three days of the year: my birthday, Christmas, and Halloween. Of the three Halloween won hands down. I was the oldest of four kids and our mom totally loved Halloween too (actually she just loved being a Mom and having little kids) so she would stoke our excitement for a month, putting out candy early (which she never did any other time) and helping us make our costumes (there might have been costume shops back in the 60s but we did our own, always). We couldn't wait for trick-or-treat night...in our neighborhood there were a lot of kids and every house seemed to have bowls of candy so we went as fast as we possibly could from start to finish...if I didn't end up with four or five pounds of booty I would have been disappointed. Which I never was. Other kids had cute little plastic pumpkin treat buckets...we had pillowcases. I remember multiple years where I almost couldn't carry my bag at the end of the night. Success! And sore feet. It was only years later that my parents told me how they would take roughly half our candy right after we went to sleep...for our own good from a nutritional and dental perspective...I felt so violated. You can't trust grownups. I never did that to my own kids...maybe grabbed a couple Snickers...but my kids never collected five pound of candy each in three hours either or I probably would have.
The other big Halloween "tradition" in our big-city upbringing was to drive out to Wilmington and see the Great Pumpkin, actually an 80-foot-tall pumpkin-shaped oil storage tank they painted completely orange and lit up with a jack-o-lantern face, at the Phillips 66 refinery, one of dozens of oil and gasoline refinery plants in the Los Angeles basin. We had a station wagon right out of the movie Vacation, and we all crowded forward over the front seat and shared a big bag of the caramel corn conveniently sold at the venue. We would spend an hour or more just looking at the giant thing munching our treat and laughing. There was no activity, no rides or entertainment...just the Great Pumpkin. As I have traveled and lived all over this country I have realized there are a lot of fun and meaningful Halloween traditions enjoyed by families in every corner of our land, most far more sophisticated than thousands of people staring in awe at the gigantic toothy face of an oil tank. But when you are a kid, all that matters is having fun and being together, and you don't judge the bigness or smallness of things because everything is big to you. The Great Pumpkin was cool. I'm far removed from my childhood days in L.A. but today I am thinking of all the little folks who will be trick-or-treating, then parked at the Great Pumpkin, tonight. I am with you. Quit hogging the caramel corn and pass the bag.
To celebrate I sat down with a pumpkin and got high.
He got higher than me I think...
Peace, Hyena