Welcome to my new grow journal for the new outdoor season down under!
This year I am growing Sativas from regular seeds, of which I have had a 100% germination rate. I am hoping to make some seeds of the Mulanje, if that goes to plan then I may look to make a cross with the other plants also (just selectively pollinating a branch or two only), but that's getting ahead of myself at this point, just saying for now.
A flashback to last year's balcony grow
This pic was taken of my last balcony grow. It can be seen in my previous journal
Stunger's Last Stand: Banned To The Balcony. One was quin-lined and supercropped, and the other two were LST'd and supercropped. I got close to a pound and a half from them.
Location
Southern Hemisphere, land of the long white cloud, temperate, humid summers. Growing outdoors on a balcony that only gets direct sun in the afternoon and is open to bouts of rain, wind and bad weather.
Training low for stealth
Due to suburban living I need to keep my plants as stealthy as possible, mostly that means keeping them height restricted by topping and training them to no more than 2.5 feet max. When it comes to smell, I can only hope that my long term neighbours either don't mind or don't realise. I always hope any dank smells stay under the radar, altho sometimes there are dank whiffs in the air that are detectable to me when the breeze is in a certain direction, but to someone who wasn't a grower or connoisseur of this fine plant, I am not so sure they'd notice. Of course, it is a risk, but I think once you decide to take it, you just have to let go of such concerns and trust the thought that it will likely be undetected to others, and therefore try to avoid getting stressed about it. I used to feel the stab of stress whenever I heard a helicopter passing overhead, but now, thankfully, I have accepted that they haven't been gawping at my grow and so I don't get bothered about it.
I will look to carry out some selective pruning to remove weaker growth, because there simply isn't a lot of space for voluminous canopies on the balcony. But having said that, many folk post pics of tasty frosty popcorn buds which causes my pruning hand to hesitate.
Growing in organic living soil
The soil recipe that I started with a few years ago was initially based on what I could source locally to match or approximate Subcool's Super Soil recipe. I added fresh worm castings to it and soon had worms living in the soil too, even with the harsh hot wet/dry cycles of the pots some worms always still survived post-harvest. I re-use the soil for successive grows and re-amended the soil during and between the grows, so this soil has been used in grows several times already. I have since included ingredients from Clackamas Coot/Jim Bennet's soil recipe, like crustacean meal and malted barley, and more rock dust. I regularly added more worm castings from my home worm farm and some home compost mixed in. I have a 3 layer worm farm unit, which is easy to feed the worms chopped up banana skin, fruit/veg waste, and in return you get rich dark worm castings and worm wee that the plants appear to grow well with it included in their daily waterings.
Due to the intense heat that my home made 'air pots' are under, I usually put a mulch layer of pea straw or similar, on top of the soil, it helps keep the moisture in and allows the roots to come right up, and worms tend to hang out underneath.
Amendments added between grows
For what it's worth, below is the list of amendments I mixed in to my final pots after the last grow. I added the amendments over 3 months ago, so the soil should be good by now for this year's grow. It's pretty much the same amendments as I gave them last year in the 'off season' between grows. Rock dust is an amendment that keeps on giving for many years, so I probably won't bother with giving this batch of soil any more of that from now on, besides I'm almost out of it.
2021 organic soil amendments based on 30L container ( or ‘*’ for 50L)
2/3 cup (*1 cup) Blood n Bone
2/3 cup (*1 cup) Kelp meal
1/3 cup (*1/2 cup Neem powder
1/3 cup (*1/2 cup) Fish meal
1/3 cup (*1/2 cup) Guano phosphate
2/3 cup (*1 cup) Malted barley (diastatic)
2/3 cup (*1 cup) Seafood Lush Fert mix
1/3 cup (*1/2 cup) Gypsum
1 cup (*1.5 cup) Aged chicken manure (composted with sawdust)
1 cup (*1.5 cup) Dried shrimp, washed/soaked to remove salt
1 tsp Humic/Fulvic acids
1 tsp Fish Hydrolysate
Top Dressing during the grow
In order to carry out a full grow that is water only, either bigger pots are needed or smaller plants. I have usually found that after 3 months vegging, the plants are ready for some kind of topdressing which I have usually carried out with amendments like Neem meal, organic Blood n Bone, Kelp pellets, fish meal, Guano phosphate, worm castings.
Foliar Feeding
I feel Foliar feeding is of benefit, and something I have regularly done using a seaweed Kelp concentrate in the spray water once or twice a week, the plants seem to really like it, and when I have tested the leaves with a refractometer they have shown high Brix readings.
Pots
Final pots sizes I use, either 30L (8 gallons) or 50L (13 gallons). I have drilled holes around the rims to secure plastic coated training wire for LST purposes. Ideally, I would like to grow in much bigger pots but these are the practical limits for me and this location. As I mentioned above, for these size pots I have found top dressing is still needed during the grow.
I got interested in the concept of 'air pots' before there were any such available where I live. They seemed very compelling for root health and growth so I drilled a fair number of holes in the sides and bottoms of my pots, and I made a simple pot liners from some lightweight landscape fabric to keep the soil and worms from coming out through the holes. These pots cause the soil to lose moisture quicker because of all the holes drilled into them, so I have usually watered daily and on hot days more than once when the heat measured coming off the stone tiles of the balcony can easily get up into the high 30's C (somewhere around 100F).
The 4 sativa plants/3 strains that I am growing this year
These 4 are all from regular seeds, I am hoping if genders are 50/50 that these will give me at least 2 females, but 3 would be even better!
#1 Mulanje
A landrace sativa from Southern Malawi, grows at 1800m on Mt Mulanje the second highest mountain in Africa. It has been described by some as the King of Sativas and very strong. It is said to be high in THCV, but I have no confirmation of that, it is said to be very clean in effects, psychoactive, euphoric, long-lasting.
I started with germinating 3 Mulanje seeds, but unfortunately a hungry slug ate one of the new seedlings so I only have 2 surviving Mulanje plants, I have topped both above the 4th node, first nodes removed and hex-lined with the remaining 3 nodes. I usually micro top by 'wiggle wagging' the young shoot when it is only an inch long (or less) because it breaks cleanly and heals fast. However, this time with the 2 Mulanje plants, the shoots were more 'bendy' and failed to break off from my 'wiggle wagging', so instead I used a pair of scissors to micro top both Mulanje plants above their 4th nodes. My eyesight is not so flash these days, and in time I saw I clearly buggered up the attempted topping and managed to FIM one plant, and then a few days later I realised it was now apparent that actually both plants had been FIM'ed, oh well no worries. My designated #1 Mulanje plant is shorter than the #2 and therefore with no other signs yet apparent I am pencilling this one as a potential female.
#2 Mulanje
This one is taller with greater internodal distances, possibly male? I will put it into a smaller 30L pot when it's ready. Because if it is a male, I will use it for pollen so no need for it to grow large. In fact, if I can verify that it is a male before up-potting to the final pot, then I will consider putting into a smaller 20L pot to make it easier to limit it's future size. It's FIM growth is larger than #1, and I have applied some additional LST to bend the stem over a bit, and LST to keep the other top node shoots closer to horizontal.
#3 Purple Honduras/Panama
xPurple Honduras
Honduran sativa with purple Colombian phenotype combined with Panama sativa and re-crossed to a Purple Honduras. Said to be initially, clean, energetic, euphoric, and leading on to dreamy, psychedelic, blissful.
#4 Malawi/Ethiopianx Mulanje
Ethiopian and African strains can be high in THCV, although I cannot confirm that for what I am growing, but nonetheless it is interesting to note. This has been described as strong, euphoric, laughing grass, for which I think there will often be times when that could be my cup of tea.
My aims with this grow are to
- maintain stealthiness,
- make some seeds, ideally some Mulanje,
- probably prune off more weaker growth this grow to focus on bigger colas which would allow less extra canopy to manage, as it can become a PITA for maintenance when it is crowded on the balcony.
- If I can balance all the above ok, then I'll consider some drought training too, as my one real experience of (unplanned) drought training was really encouraging (small ceramic pot in hot summer), I still rate it as being the plant which gave me the stickiest and strongest buds I have ever grown.
- make some cobs from the Sativas
Any suggestions/comments all welcome, as it's only through the experience of so many other good folks that I have any chance at all of growing these wonderful plants.
One final caveat before we get started. I have not previously grown pure sativas before, so I don't know how they will respond to the necessary stealth training that is ahead of them, or indeed the environment that I am offering them, but I am assuming that they'll be fine.
Mulanje #1 & #2
#1(L), #2(R) These are about 3 and half weeks after breaking soil. The first 2 nodes of #1 grew as single blade leaves, whereas the #2 grew the 'normal' 3 blade leaves on the 2nd node.
#1(L), #2(R) These are about 5 weeks old and were topped above the 4th node a week prior.
Mulanje #1
#1 at 5 and half weeks. First node leaves and initial fans removed and plant's main arms trained out.
Mulanje #1 at 6 weeks
Mulanje #2
#2 at 5 and half weeks
#2 at 6 weeks, showing extra FIM growth which has been additionally LST'd bent down.
Germinating 2 more sativas
For these, I gave my usual scuff and overnight soak in roughly 6:1 dilution of 3% H2O2.
Then instead of planting direct in the soil like I did for the Mulanje, I chose to put them in a zip lock bag on some water moistened paper towel. Previously I have sandwiched them in the wet towel but this time I did it so I could see any progress thru the plastic, it was great to be able to easily view them.
After 1 night in plastic bag
After 2 nights in the plastic bag, now ready for planting
#3 Purple Honduras/PanamaxPurple Honduras
4 - 5 days since breaking soil
#4 Malawi/Ethiopianx Mulanje
4 - 5 days since breaking soil
Amazing power to stay alive in that wounded 
one!
But thanks mate. This is something I've thought a little about and I reckon it depends on many things. There will be a sweet spot I'm sure but it will all depend on strain, pheno, pot size, etc. That sweet spot will vary. I've found that fewer but denser colas is easier when it comes to trimming though. Ha ha. I did feel when I trained to have more colas they weren't as large or dense but it could have been several factors that caused that. It would be interesting to do a little experiment with clones one day.
, and a further gender reveal.
