Those buds look fantastic. Great job on adapting your drought for your conditions.
Stunger's Organic Soil Stealth Balcony: Landrace Mulanje & Other Sativas
- Thread starter Stunger
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Thanks DV8, the cooling temps have helped bring out the colours, while withholding water appears to have worked wonders at encrusting up the buds!
Cheers LK. As this was the first time I have gone all out to intentionally drought a plant, it's been an experiment all along, and she's given me a wild and fun ride!
Looks like they're finally getting close to finishing up, in a beautiful way! Glad to have circled back before you start to chop anything. 
Plants are genetically designed to start flowering in summer and finish in fall. 12/12 only happens one day in that time period.
How long after pollination would you expect the seeds to be breaking out of the bracts? Asking for a friend. 
I have seen plants go into flower switching from 18/6 to 16/8. They would reveg if left there, but they certainly can tell when they're getting less light. When I would flower my outside plants naturally I would get pistils about a month after the days started getting shorter on June 21st. Sativas would take longer.
Plants are genetically designed to start flowering in summer and finish in fall. 12/12 only happens one day in that time period.
Interesting Pb! Are you gauging the finish line by amber? I posted this earlier in this thread but in case you missed it:
How long after pollination would you expect the seeds to be breaking out of the bracts? Asking for a friend. 
Phillybonker
Well-Known Member
My region gets real wet and humid last half of bloom so the plants never do finish due to having to pull early. The usual plan of battle is to let em go for as long as possible until losses to bud rot become too heavy. Under those circumstances there is no point in looking for amber since the plants will never make it to the finish line anyway.
The more sun the denser the buds, the less sun the lighter and fluffier the buds. Basically I just go by looks and how it smokes.
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Thanks Shed!Looks like they're finally getting close to finishing up, in a beautiful way! Glad to have circled back before you start to chop anything.
Just a guess, but I think they're well ready now as it has been 6 weeks since selective pollination, and at this point when the bracts start to dry that with any jostling movement they can tumble free. I recently removed some bud rot effected parts of the Honduras/Panama x Purple Honduras and a nice dark seed made a 'clink' as it fell out and landed on the bench. Because I potentially still have 3 weeks to go for the 2 sativas, I have to be mindful that I don't cause unintended 'seed fall' to occur.How long after pollination would you expect the seeds to be breaking out of the bracts? Asking for a friend.
Sounds like a rough way to end the season but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. You might want to try citric acid spray to see if it has any effect on bud rot. I use a 1% dilution to get rid of PM (which I get a lot of) and I haven't had any bud rot since I started that regimen. I have no idea if that's the reason though (correlation does not imply causation)! It would be an interesting experiment with no downside I can think of anyway.
Stunger, and whatever you do, don't drop any on my kitchen floor. 
@Stunger 
We were just chatting about this.
We were just chatting about this.Boom!
I believe that it does absolutely have a correlation. Citric acid is a popular main ingredient for a very well respected company that we are mostly familiar with and their 'Disease Control' product. I used that product (very pricey) for last year's GSC tent grow. I had zero mold or mildew issues. I did foliar and systemic drenches with it. For my outdoor plants, I incorporated it in via foliar sprays but stopped a few weeks before buds started forming. I don't know how it would affect bud development though. (taste, trichomes, etc.). A worthwhile experiment though. I'll spray some branches this year to see how the buds respond.
It affects them like this:
I look forward to your findings, and remember to wash your harvests!
Phillybonker
Well-Known Member
No harm in experimenting with citric acid spray on some of my plants next season to see if it has any effect on bud rot.
My first grow was real bad, 1/3 losses to bud rot.
Here is my recipe for the 1% spray I use (scale up as necessary...I now mix a gallon at time!):
5g citric acid
500ml distilled water
10 pipette drops dish soap
(For the record, 10 pipette drops of dish soap works out to a little less than 1ml in 1500ml of water, or .3ml per 500ml. I have since switched to yucca powder which is a little less than ¼ tsp/gallon.)
Mix well and spray, preferably first thing in the morning before the sun will be on the plant. If not, late in the day so it can evaporate before nightfall but not burn in the heat of the day.
Make sure you get the whole plant as PM can hide between the buds and the branch.
That must have been awful. I remember that depressing feeling of cutting away bud after bud of rot and leaving a mostly bare stick with a few flowers left at the top and bottom. It's heartbreaking when you lose that much.
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- #931
Funny, since my last recent post, I realised I was out of my 'tester' of Honduras/Panama x Purple Honduras which was drying on a rack and I could hear a number of 'tinkles' as a few seeds dislodged when removed some for grinding.Stunger, and whatever you do, don't drop any on my kitchen floor.
I haven't had any real experience of big weighty bats like the Honduras/Panama has. But now, in future I think I'll look at doing similar when I next grow a plant with fat colas. But, it is worth noting that the but rot affected bits I removed seem to be mostly all good.
Some of the cola tops were going brown which I took to be indicating that the cola was dying off with bud rot, but on closer look, a lot that I removed is quite fine. The trouble is, when on the balcony, I don't want to piss around eyeballing the goods like David Attenborough on a botany show and draw attention to myself. So I see what I see from the other side of the glass, and then open the doors and bang bang, in and out, to avoid making an announcement of it to all and sundry.
Hmm.. you mean the spray, that looks pretty nice!
That's really gutting, definitely worth giving Shed's approach a go.
Thanks Shed!
Phillybonker
Well-Known Member
I don't get any PM but I'd still like to try it to see if it does anything to botrytis.
I lost an entire plant to bud rot because it was my first grow and I didn't realize how fast bud rot spreads. Little bit of bud rot, 10 days later entire plant destroyed by botrytis with no buds to savage.
Everything starts off great, 100% germination rate, veggings going great, plants go into bloom right on cue......then it all turns to shit right at the end.
Sorry that was left over from my copy/paste from a thread where PM was the issue. Spraying method stands though since botrytis hides the same way.
Same here. I have yet to see PM, but as Shed mentioned, botrytis hides the same way. I plan on using the spray as well.
I also lost nearly an entire harvest a few years ago to bud rot. It was heartbreaking. I didn't fully understand how quickly it spreads and what I was seeing before a bull blown problem. Eradicated buds as @Stunger did is what I started doing last year and my plants did much better. Along with consistency in my pest and disease prevention.
It is a horrible feeling. Recently (Last year) @Trala had some issues. Well, many of us do. Which is why it is so important to discuss it and share our experiences. We all collectively get better as growers. Thanks for the wisdom shared here folks. Getting more and more excited to push myself to become a better outdoor grower this season.
DV8
Well-Known Member
Thanks guys. Can I ask will the citric only prevent or can it halt PM and botrytis?
Weather here is gone to cold, wet damp, and one auto showed a hint if Pm, and as Ive been neglecting them the other 3 must have picked it up before I moved it.
As my hearts not in it, like no big loss, Id love to experiment and give it a go. But is it too late?
Weather here is gone to cold, wet damp, and one auto showed a hint if Pm, and as Ive been neglecting them the other 3 must have picked it up before I moved it.
As my hearts not in it, like no big loss, Id love to experiment and give it a go. But is it too late?
Hi Stunger, I'm late to the party. Your balcony is looking great! Are you a droughter convert now? Will you do it again?
I make absolutely no claim about the citric acid and botrytis...none, zero! I hope Phillyb and Baked report back and let us know how the testing went.
The only thing I have found that sort of prevents PM is an oil spray like neem that coats the leaves, and I don't use neem ever after I see pistils. The 1% citric acid spray is to kill actual PM and may need to be sprayed on an ongoing basis (because it's not a preventative), but I can tell you it has saved many of my harvests. @DonkeyDick (among many others here) is a user as well.
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- #938
Thanks Carmen! I once did an accidental droughting that was stunning, this one was intentional. My feelings based on my limited experience and the greater experience of others leads me to feel that some droughting stress is a good thing for potency (which I like!).
Cheers Shed, I appreciate the suggestion and are not reading it as a promise.
It is only really one plant that has given me some bud rot issues this grow, it is the Honduras/Panama, I guess because of it's big weighty bats that can soak up lots of rain water. If I grew this one again, I think I'll try the Citric acid spray to see if it helps.
The only good WPM is dead WPM.
When I notice a patch I’ll spray and then increase my vigilance for a few days - taking suspects out of the flower room and visually inspecting each plant thoroughly. Usually two or three treatments a few days apart will get rid of it. I’m too lazy/busy to use it as a preventative. As a treatment it’s a flipping
So long as you do a budwash at harvest she’ll be Jake.
I want to lay down on those beds of trichomes like the two guys laying on Walt's storage unit of cash in Breaking Bad.Update - Mango Sherbert droughted and close to harvest - confirmation of amber - pictures
Greetings 420 enthusiasts! This may end up being the last post for the Mango Sherbert as she is just days away from being harvested. So this post is focused solely on her. The overnight temperatures are dropping and she is darkening and purpling up as a consequence. The breeder notes suggest 50 days flowering, which is barely 7 weeks. I could never get her done in 7 weeks. In these pics she is about 16 weeks if I start counting from first seen pistils on 4th January.
Her colas and buds are crusted from trichomes and the sugar leaves stiff and hard from the droughting process she went thru over 25 days.
Today, I looked closely for an 'amber signal' of sufficient amber trichomes. My method of achieving that is to enlarge closeup pics to see the trichome bulbs. They are not always pretty up close as I am hand holding the camera the wind is hard to deal with too. But, I think from these pics that there is sufficient 'ambering' of the trichomes occurring, such that by harvest in the coming days I will feel confident without further confirmation that the plant and her buds are where I want her. Lean in with me for a closer look.
This pic @InTheShed appears to be showing some seeded bracts on one the stems that I selectively pollinated with the Mulanje pollen (you asked a while back).
Dried buds from the droughted Mango Sherbert
From the droughting process her sugar leaves turn quite stiff. I would describe it, as if they have been varnished. Check out the following 2 pictures. This bud was pruned off the plant 10 days ago when I noticed that stem had died overnight, so I removed it for an opportunity for early testing. So in these pictures it is fully dried, and has retained it 'structure', unlike non-droughted buds where (in my experience) the sugar leaves will all collapse and dry 'around the buds', but here you can see that the sugar leaves of the bud have not only dried in shape from when there were alive, but they easily support the weight of the whole bud. I can attest that this 'early' bud, haha, has a very nice potency already.
Anyway, thanks for dropping in, be well and I hope you're enjoying some lovely home grown!
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