OlderStoner - Indoor/Outdoor Grow

Just when you thought you'd have figured this out...one of the seven original seeds I received which was a White Widow X strain, turned out what I was convinced was a male plant. I had taken a clone from it several weeks before I saw all the pollen sacks and kept it in a plastic cup with just some potting soil. Well once the parent of this clone showed me it's male-ness, I just took it and transplanted it into the soil in my backyard. It gets about 12 hours of light each day but only 4-5 of those are direct sunlight. It's grown well but tonight, and I swear, I've not had a single drink....not yet...I just took a very close look at her...notice I said "her" because sure as all get-out, this is a female flower on this one. And I can with 99% certainty attest that it came from the cutting when I first topped those White Widow X's. This can only mean one thing...that the plant I 86'ed a few weeks ago was a hermie afterall. Which means the pollen sacks I collected are of no use to me now. I will get a picture of this one up shortly...it's too dark outside right now.
 
DAY #89:

The white widow X female and the Cotton Candy female are in 12/12 and moving along. The white widow X is yellow, looking very jaundice but her buds are looking like it just might work after all. The white pistils are starting to turn pinkish and some, a few of them are brownish. I can see trichomes in there with my 30x mag but they are all still very white, clear in color...so I think there is at least a few more weeks left for her. I will probably give her one more good feeding in a few days and then start the final flush. I learned a lot with this one, like even though she's yellowing and showing so many signs of stress of missing nutes, the tips of her leaves are showing burning from too much ferts. And this one is not dry... I watered her tonight with just plain 6.5 ph water. Run off is 6.9 and only 580 ppm.

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This is the Cotton Candy plant...the original from seed. She germinated at the same time the White Widow X's did. I have five clones from her in various stages right now. Just took two more clones from her clones on 12/05. Those topped clones are going to be my experiment with SCROG using this strain. The plants are beautiful, deep green and show great resistance to nute problems. The buds are also unlike any others I've ever seen. Oh, sure they're buds, but they are smaller, more condensed and there are more of them. I can't wait until this one is well off into it's flowering so I can see how the buds fatten up.

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I also took one of the clones I got from the White Widow X female and cloned it. This one one was in a grow block with the other two Cotton Candy clones. I transplanted the Cotton Candy into FF Ocean Forest soil. This soil is great for clones, they all take off in it. But there is an abundant amount of nitrogen in this soil as it's causing the fan leaves to grow huge and they have that dark green color which makes them look almost black. But they are healthy to say the least. The WWX clone was transplanted today into Coco. This is my first try with coco and if it works well, the Cotton Candy clones I'm going to do the SCROG with will also go into Coco.
 
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And now for the mystery plant. This one is a White Widow X...and as best as I can remember, it was cloned from the plant I called X2. If you look at page 8, post #106 you can see the reason I call this plant a mystery. When it was 8 weeks old I saw the pollen sacks which show up so abundantly in the previous photos. The plant threw me for a loop because it showed all the signs of male, but the very top of it was throwing me off because it looked female. I blew it off as a male and cut off the pollen sacks to use for later. This clone was taken at 4 weeks into the parent plant's grow. I stuck it in dirt, no grow blocks, just dirt in a cup. It grew and once I discovered it was a male (hermie) I transplanted it into the soil in my backyard in a spot which gets sun most of the day. Only about 4-5 hours are direct sun but there is light on it for at least 12 hours. I've poured a little of the FF nutes on it but mostly it's just been given rain and water from the garden hose (9.0 ph).

Now, if you look at the above photo you can clearly see this plant is female. However, it's parent went hermie on me so bad that I really believed it was 100% male. I'm going to let this one continue to flower and just see how it turns out. The yield won't be much because this thing is only about 10" tall. But check out the node spacing...it's like 3/4" max.
 
DAY 94:

Darn that seems way too long for a grow...but...

The White Widow X female has only a few weeks more. I think two will do it...but I'm watching the plant and seeing what it tells me. And right now it's not pretty. The buds look choice but the rest of the plant went yellow in a big way. I think I learned all I needed to with these soil mixes and nute schedules. There are very few leaves left on it as the plant seems to be focusing all of it's work on those buds. But what's worse is tonight I saw spider mites through the little 30x scope I've got. There were not many trichomes, but they are there. But so are these little tiny spider mites...I'm assuming they are spider mites. They are so small and move so slow that even with the mag lens they are very hard to focus on and could be mistaken for dirt or bits of the brownish colored pistils. So tonight I am whipping up some Marlborough tea. Boiled about 6 cigarettes in a small kettle and once it cools, the plant will get a treatment (spray bottle only). Hope it works because at this late stage I'd hate to use chems on them.

The cotton candy plant has some very beautiful buds. Small right now but starting to fill out. It's also loaded with trichomes and even though it's right next to the big, almost done female with spider mites, I don't see any mites on this plant. Once again, and I will double check this later, but this little strain appears to do better than all the others. Although I've not seen any mites on the other plants either but they don't have the big, plumping buds on them yet. Are mites bud lovers too? Anyway, the trichomes on this thing are abundant. I can see this might just be my first plant in all my grows to show me the frosty buds. I made several clones of this cotton candy plant so I'll get to try some more things later on. One of them is in the new coco setups I started. I've got two of them now.

The harvest time is still at least two weeks away. Hope that's time to run off the mites and let those buds finish out properly. BTW the trichomes on all the plants right now are still milky white and/or clear. I don't see any amber colored ones yet and the ratio of redish brown to white pistils is still only about 25%. A little more time is in order.
 
OlderStoner said:
DAY 94:

Darn that seems way too long for a grow...but...

The White Widow X female has only a few weeks more. I think two will do it...but I'm watching the plant and seeing what it tells me. And right now it's not pretty. The buds look choice but the rest of the plant went yellow in a big way. I think I learned all I needed to with these soil mixes and nute schedules. There are very few leaves left on it as the plant seems to be focusing all of it's work on those buds. But what's worse is tonight I saw spider mites through the little 30x scope I've got. There were not many trichomes, but they are there. But so are these little tiny spider mites...I'm assuming they are spider mites. They are so small and move so slow that even with the mag lens they are very hard to focus on and could be mistaken for dirt or bits of the brownish colored pistils. So tonight I am whipping up some Marlborough tea. Boiled about 6 cigarettes in a small kettle and once it cools, the plant will get a treatment (spray bottle only). Hope it works because at this late stage I'd hate to use chems on them.

The cotton candy plant has some very beautiful buds. Small right now but starting to fill out. It's also loaded with trichomes and even though it's right next to the big, almost done female with spider mites, I don't see any mites on this plant. Once again, and I will double check this later, but this little strain appears to do better than all the others. Although I've not seen any mites on the other plants either but they don't have the big, plumping buds on them yet. Are mites bud lovers too? Anyway, the trichomes on this thing are abundant. I can see this might just be my first plant in all my grows to show me the frosty buds. I made several clones of this cotton candy plant so I'll get to try some more things later on. One of them is in the new coco setups I started. I've got two of them now.

The harvest time is still at least two weeks away. Hope that's time to run off the mites and let those buds finish out properly. BTW the trichomes on all the plants right now are still milky white and/or clear. I don't see any amber colored ones yet and the ratio of redish brown to white pistils is still only about 25%. A little more time is in order.
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>>>The buds look choice but the rest of the plant went yellow in a big way....There are very few leaves left on it as the plant seems to be focusing all of it's work on those buds.

This is seen as normal this late into flowering. Leaves will start to yellow and die off from the bottom and mid-section, upwards. An 'end-of-harvest' flush may be in your near future when you are confidentially 1-2 weeks from harvest.

>>> Hope it works because at this late stage I'd hate to use chems on them.

All of the chemicals you are boiling away in your nicotine tea is still no where near the amount of harmful chemicals that are still left in the brew. That's why it kills pests, but I will always be wary of it for cannabis use especially.

>>>The cotton candy plant has some very beautiful buds...I don't see any mites on this plant.

I have read upon and have heard of strains that posses a natural insecticide that they emit throughout certain phenotypes. Maybe this Cotton Candy is a super plant to say the least:laughtwo:

Everything is looking in order Older! I might have to extend my harvest time an extra week than yours depending on how my teichomes are looking;)
 
I give up. This big budded White Widow X plant has me at a loss. I went from one emergency to another with it through out these 3 months and now the buds are totally infested with spider mites. Only two weeks away I started the flush on it today and when I examined the buds the spiders mites are in there by the hundreds, perhaps even thousands. The webs are all over the place. I am taking that plant out of the rotation and will cure the buds outside in a box. I don't know what if any affect the spider mites may have on the quality of it, but unless they fall off of those buds by the thousands I don't know what I can do other than to toss it all in the compost pile. This plant was a giant exercise in how not do do it.
 
Please some help quickly. The big white widow X female was totally infested with red spiders mites. You can't count them there are so many. I 86'ed that plant and have hung it upside down to see if I can salvage anything from it later. The Cotton Candy plant is looking great and I saw no spider mites on it....until just now. I thought it might have some built-in insecticidal properties but apparently not. I only saw a few but I'm sure they were there. All the other white widow plants are pest free...for the moment. So now is the time when I need some real advice. The CC plant is at least another 3-4 weeks in flowering. The WW's are right behind by a week or so. I need to get these little baggers out of my buds so this whole grow won't end up with nothing but wasted time and money. If the Lady Bug larvaes really work, then I'll do it...if neem oil is the best shot at this moment I'll do that. The hydro shop owner said bug bomb the room but I still have plants in veg and clones growing in there. And besides if I can't bug bomb the plants then I don't want to waste time. I need a sure fire method for controlling these guys before the turn this beautiful CC plant into another waste of time and money.
 
Lady Bug Larvae, heck even actual Lady Bugs are a perfect first step into handling the pest problem without the use of chemicals or organic sprays. I would wait to chop any more plants before the pest problem gets better. If anything is salvageable, you would want your plants alive to to be able to somewhat recover.

I have never first-handedly dealt with mites before, maybe I'm just lucky. Before your next grow, take the time to properly spray down and fumigate your future grow space. I hear pest problems tend to stick around seasonally.

Sorry I can't give any more helpful advice. But I'm sure you'll pull through with something positive here :Thumb:
 
It may have been my tendency to put the plants out in direct sun. I don't think the spiders were in that room until the plants got there. And I didn't see any mites until the buds started swelling. And now that the CC plant is starting to flower...well I will inspect it again today but I'm pretty sure I saw at least two little red mites on the top bud of it last night. And two will soon become 20, then 100, then 1000. The buds on the big white widow X looked cancerous there were so many of them. Can't even think of trying to smoke that stuff and won't even think of it. The mystery is that I've grown at this location before...and at this time of the year. Never saw mites until this grow and never seen such an infestation.

BTW I live in a tropical area of the country. It's always warm and humid down here and bugs are a problem for everyone.
 
If pesticides are not on your agenda, and since you live in a tropical climate, something that Will prevent future outbreaks are pest-killing insects. I know there are many out there, but the one that stands out to me as the most efficient (and with previous personal experience) insect is the Lady Bug. They eat mites by the thousands a day. And that's only with a dozen or so. I have seen a lot of growers use such insects, in heavily populated pest areas as well, with excellent results.

Give it search on the googl and have a look around. You still might have some of your harvest saved, and may be able to prevent future outbreaks such as this.

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I found a package of 1,500 lady bugs on-line. Should I order that many or will only a few of them do. The 1,500 pack is only $6 US. I guess what I don't use in the room I will let loose in the backyard. But then that brings to mind the question of ecology. I don't know or ever remember seeing a lady bug down here. I don't think they are indigenous to the area. So releasing into the wild may not be such a good idea. But I could see how 1,500 of them would eat up all the food supply in that room in a matter of days, if not hours. Then I guess I could just let them expire instead of turning them loose.
 
I've commonly seen them sold in huge quantities like that. The one's in the photo above were collected in my windowsill.

As for disturbing the ecology, I doubt lady bugs indigenous to the U.S. will have any ill effects within the country. I'm sure factors like that ought to be considered when transporting between hemispheres and climate changes.

When I flooded my tent with 25 or so LB's they all ended up dead after a month or so. If there is no food, they go into a deep state of inactivity then suddenly go for the HPS out the exhaust fan...and you get the rest.
 
OK...another lesson in the grow room. First off, live lady bugs are not that easy to find on short notice. I found that the local big box stores will sell them but you have to order them and then wait about 1 week for delivery. And the other local suppliers who were listed in droves on various websites are either not in the business of selling them as advertised or they were out of business. I think this too might be a case similar to the head shops in Texas years ago. They had dozens of water pipes on display but if you even mentioned the words "water" and "pipe" in the same sentence they would demand that you leave the store or hangup the phone on you. This is still very much a stealth operation.

Now, I of course am concerned about ecology with this. And several articles I read discouraged the use because the natural population of lady bugs is dwindling due to people gathering them for resell. OK...so far so bad. I inspected all the plants again this morning and did see one or two of the little baggers. So before I try to deploy insects, I'm going to try the old "habenero tea". I used some tobacco tea on the other plant and while I could see it did kill some of the pests, so many survived and even with more than one treatment they got out of hand quickly. Plus the tobacco tea smelled bad and looked like it discolored the buds.

I must save this Cotton Candy plant. It's covered in trichomes and it's been a long road to get it this far. I don't want to loose it now.
 
Thanks very much to AG and KJC for your replies on this. I would like to know if those pesticides you recommend are safe for application during flowering. Or how long should I wait after application before smoking anything?
 
Ok, those both look like they are usable on edible plants right up until the day of harvest. So I will give both of them a try. The spider mites have moved into the grow room and setup residence. I have no way to get rid of them without killing off all the other plants and starting over...which eventually I will do. This grow was a real learning time for me. Trouble is, years ago when I did an indoor grow I never saw so much as one spider mite. But the last two grows in the last two years, there's been no shortage of them.

I read an article by some poster who said they got rid of them by growing strictly organic. I can't see how just using organic ferts will deter these little baggers. When this grow is over, I'm going to have to think long and hard about how to avoid this stuff on the next one.
 
Monterey Garden Insect Spray with Spinosad can be used up to the day of harvest, I would not use Monterey All Natural 3 in 1 Garden Insect Spray up to 1 week before harvest as it contains I believe rosemary and other oils that would flavour the buds.
 
The number of mites I saw last night was zero...but that's just because I didn't see any. If the cycle is like last time in a week or so there will be hundreds of them. I have ladybugs which should arrive today. My guess is that they will not work, but I'm going to try natural predation first. The pesticides are also ordered and should arrive in a week or so. The trouble with this area is there is no real change of season. It's always warm and humid. The warmth of the HPS also helps these little mites settle in for the long haul.

As Oliver Hardy used to say to Stan Laurel, this is another fine mess you've gotten us into.
 
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