Critical Mass by HHHG

How much have they stretched and how many of them are Indica leaning?
How about nutes? Running a lot of ppm , or not that much?

Not much stretch. I don't use nutes, just water.

My flowering soil mix recipe:
8 parts Potting soil
2 parts Perlite
2Tbs/Gal Granular (not powdered) lime
1Tbs/Gal Blood meal
2Tbs/Gal Bone meal
1Tbs/Gal Kelp meal
 
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Seed plant scents at 39 days flowering

#1 - Peppery, rubber tire
#2 - Fruity
#3 - Pineapple, vanilla :p
#4 - Rubber tire afghan
#7 - Sour
 
Like the sound of #3pine/van, hope that shows through at harvest.
Nice size ladies, be interesting to see how they yield in that vert set up w/your mix.
 
Spider Mites part 2

I noticed a couple weeks ago that the spider mites were back. I sprayed the flowering plants with Mighty Wash and also sprayed them twice with high pressure water. I plan to do the water spraying weekly going forward.

I caught the mites early enough this time so there were no webs, but I removed the fan leaves to keep from further damaging the buds before they are harvested next month. I know it will cut down on yield.

The good news is I have clones of CM#1-5,7 all vegging and they will be flowered this summer.
 
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hi hhg,

nice grow:D

with the climate who s going warmer , i also start mites and thrips prevention:
every week a light organic solution, it work fine, i never have probs

1l of water
1 cs of neem oil
1/2 cs of pyretre
1 drop of black soap

and 1 time /month

1l of water
1/2 cs of essential oil mix
1 cs of potassium bicarbonate
1cs of serenade
1 drop of black soap

peace
 
hi hhg,

nice grow:D

with the climate who s going warmer , i also start mites and thrips prevention:
every week a light organic solution, it work fine, i never have probs

1l of water
1 cs of neem oil
1/2 cs of pyretre
1 drop of black soap

and 1 time /month

1l of water
1/2 cs of essential oil mix
1 cs of potassium bicarbonate
1cs of serenade
1 drop of black soap

peace

Thanks for the info la resistance verte

My spider mites started in the damp/cool fall, most likely it came from some plants I got from someone and it has never gone away completely. After the summer flowering is finished I'm going to be left with only small vegging plants so I hope to kill the mites for good at that time.

These first Critical Mass have been through a lot of stress. As long as the next grow goes well I expect the clones to perform much better than the seed plants.

I waited until 7 weeks old to remove the fan leaves
 
hi hhg,
i m really interesting about organic pest and disease control,i do a lot of garden ;vegetable,fruit,flower,both indoor and out,
this receipe work fine, but you always have to be constant with organic products and try to kill all generation of pests ...
spinosad is also a really good pesticide organic

if u live in us thoses products are really good(not seel in europ):
monterey spray
serenade spray
zero tol ( ed ros )

peace
 
Seed plants #1-4,7 are now 8 weeks old and some have lots of dark hairs so I will check the trichomes soon.

I didn't mention these girls have also had a lot of heat stress (over 100F) from the new hanging 1000w MH bulb. I just put it in a cool tube and temps are under control now. There is some whiteness on the tips of some of the highest buds. It's probably bleaching from being so close to the bulb.

So add heat stress to the many problems these girls have survived since I started their seeds many months ago. All the factors have definitely made the yield less than what it should be for this strain so keep that in mind when I post pics. The buds look good and healthy which is most important. I'm giving them a high pressure water spray weekly to minimize any spider mite issues. Most of this bud will be used to make RSO. The bugs float to the top when mixed with naphtha. I don't know what happens to the eggs and waste and don't want to think about.

I just trimmed and tied down the clones that will be flowered this summer. They are: #1, #2, two of #3, #4 and #5 for a total of 6 plants. They will be grown in the same tent with 2000w. There is a slight possibility they will be grown in a greenhouse if I can make that happen this summer.
 
Almost there

I checked the trichs at 8 weeks and they looked like they needed a couple more weeks so I'll check them again at 10 weeks (they are currently 66 days flowering). I dried some small buds from 8 week old #3 and #7 and they were nice relaxing smokes, and pretty smooth with just over a week drying.

The yield is much less than I would normally expect from this strain, but that is to be expected from all the stress they have been through - cold, heat, and chemical leaf burns that nearly killed them all. They didn't show any stress after removing all the fan leaves a couple weeks ago due to spider mites. I've broken some branches while removing leaves and giving several high pressure water sprays, so between the lack of leaves and broken parts they don't look so great, but the buds are healthy and hardening up nicely.
 
Seed plants harvested

I harvested all the seed plants at 11 weeks. I didn't have time to get pics but by harvest time the plants didn't look very good anyway, though the buds still turned out nice, despite temps of 30-160F plus spider mites and the damage caused by high pressured washings. Each plant produced 1-2oz which isn't bad considering all the stress they have been through since birth.

These plants have been through hell and still produced nice bud. I'd say they are very vigorous. I'll post dry bud pics when I do the smoke reports this Summer :cool:

There are 6 CM clones vegging now that will be flowered this Summer so I'll continue this thread with the results of the clones.
 
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Avid.

The mites can really suck out all the good'ness in a plant very quickly aye mate, even when there hard to spot and no tiny white dots are to be seen on leaves, yet theres enough of em to turn a plant to a light sickly green colour and eventually yellow/death, - the two spotted mite a mate of mine has and have just done the same damage to our garden recently,

I got on the job with the only product I no that keeps all types of mites away for longer periods of time than other remedys ive tried and tried as we do,

I get roughly 6 - 12 months grace mite free if I did the job right with avid the first two applications, the eggs are still visiable some days later under the leaves when the two spotted mite is the culprit, the 2nd spray application takes care of these and the few remaining hangers on,

It can be used anytime of growing phase, no apparent health risks if the sprayer is carefull enough, no need to spray directly onto buds anyhow, id not like to smoke anything directly sprayed with any type of poisen chemical be it organic or other, this brings me to - Beer Sludge ' for mite resistance !

I wrote a thread on other site about - beer sludge to use on a new plant variety of myn to help make it spider mite resistant or resistant to fight mites off better than not at all, anyhow no one could really give me much info on it all because not many breeders actually try these things out,

Well some say there plant is spider mite resistant and can be yes, but only because it worked out this way like nature and there own some what lucky selection to, not really having worked on the making a plant with mites resistant is what im dealing with, or would like to try,

I was speaking with a vine yard friend of the family a while ago of how they approached spidermites and other bugs like mealy bug were there worst offenders in the early days of growing the best vines to keep, keeping as clones and mothers much as we do with canna really,

They wanted a organic spray and to build up resistance in there plants by spraying every season, 3 times a season of Beer sludge straight from the brewerys before they normally biffed it out, and spray there vines with the sludge, watered down a little with a hormone additive, it began to work well for both mealy bugs and spider mites, dunno what type of mites they had though,? - probably the European Red mite ?

Over the years they took clones of course and kept introducing the new mother clones to the main yards and haven't changed anything since, this was just one major region of the nz wine vine yards though, dunno if others followed there way of things or not, 1989 and upwards theve been in business since it took off, - makes sense to me the beer sludge thing might work !?

being marijuana is related to hop's in all, just never no, Ive tried it the one time so far, worked on the adult mites, not eggs or every single mite, but is a great sign to build from, makes a yucky stain on big fan leaves to, lol they still breath and look healthy thou.

shit been great chatting away, id love to see the C/Mass clones in full bloom when ya get em going, I spray my clones as im vege potting them, just in case a mite egg has survived the odds. -- b :)
 
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congrats, HHHG on finishing your CM! Sorry to hear about all the issues you ran into....

Ironic I was talking about high res temps in a cloner, while you've been battling temp issues and infestation issues, I've had temp issues in my cloner!

I resorted to using frozen bottles in the short term, combined with aluminum foil! LOL my clone sites are filled with pucks I cut out of pipe insulation. The curve in them causes them to sit convex a bit and everything's by hand so there are gaps as they sit in the lid of the bubble cloner. I thought light leaks might be an issue, so I covered all unused sites with foil, dull side up and...I'm starting to root. These clones are at least four weeks old! I have others rooted and a mother, now I'm on a mission to finish what I started, just like you were...

For a long term fix, I got a larger tub, some spray on carnauba wax, and 4 bottles of Great Stuff. I sprayed/wiped the wax on the larger tub, filled the bottom with a layer of foam, inserted my spare (plastic, painted black) cloner tub. Filled in the sides with foam, waited 12-24 hrs (cant remember), pulled the whole mass out of the larger tub. Now I have a cloner tub with 2-3" of foam insulation around all sides but the top. Then I spray painted the whole thing with satin white spray paint for plastic. I sprayed the top of the lid separate too. I wonder if the black was absorbing heat...

the foam is very flammable, which I'm not concerned about in my application. I have yet to try it out but got the idea from something I did years ago in a similar situation. I used to run waterfarms in a small room within a room. The small room was built just like a house, with wood studs, insulated, drywall on the outside, foil coated foam on the inside. problem was heat. So I bought some two part boat foam and insulated all the waterfarms, which were plumbed a la Heath Robinson. Someone stole his plumbing idea, mass marketed it, and now you can buy the system for over a grand for 8 sites (cant remember the name of it offhand).

In regards to your spider mite problem, I had a similar infestation for a similar reason but with aphids. Neem did not work at all. Spraying with water worked decent, but not good long term. First off, the lesson to be learned from that, which you learned also: NEVER, EVER bring anything foreign into your garden! Come to think of it, I might would be scared to use someone else's clones lest my garden be contaminated...I got my aphids by introducing an outdoor plant into my indoor garden and only one thing got rid of them, forever....

Ladybugs! I'm unable to do the research while I type in this browser, but I bet there is some kind of biological control for your spider mites...lacewings? I dunno but ladybugs are the end all, be all when it comes to eradicating aphids. They keep in the fridge forever, one package has a ton of em, I kept ladybugs in there until I saw no sign of aphids, then kept em in there for another crop at least. now I have no aphids and haven't for several crops.

I have root gnats and some things that looks like a very tiny cricket in there now. Sticky traps do work well on the gnats. I've been using the kind for ants/beetles that are a solid piece of cardboard with glue on one side, lean them up on the side of my fabric pots. I need to add something to the soil. Probably look in to what has already been suggested in this thread.

BTW, have you considered CMH bulbs? I use LED and T5 exclusively but when researching my LED's a person trying them out used CMH (ceramic metal halide) primarily and loved em, and so did everyone chiming in on his thread (on a different site). Might be something to look into if your ballasts/socket sets can use them.

Take care, I hope everything works out for ya and your next crop of CM is more like what you want. Peace
 
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Oh hell yeah, Gnat Off is getting looked up in a minute...

Say HHHG, did you find the indica dom you were looking for?

I suppose I could go back and look at your pictures, but I've been looking through this thread enough, I'm kind of tired :)

How did your pineapple/vanilla pheno end up? totally awesome? I see you have two clones of it to flower next time....

So, what is your opinion of the CM? I know, you had a rough go of it and that affected the final product, but your thoughts? or do you reserve opinions until your next harvest, or the one after that?

You got a great germ ratio, normal M/F ratio, and they have to be tough to go through what happened to em, so in those aspects I have nothing but respect...
 
HHHG,

I did a little research which I think paid off, maybe this information can help you...

I knew there had to be some kind of biological control for the pest problems you had/have, some of which I have. By "control", I mean a predator. I found some.

The first is beneficial nematodes, which will kill spider mites and fungus gnats, their larvae, their eggs, the whole nine yards. You can add em to the soil with watering or add to a foliar spray and apply directly on the plants. There are a variety of species, sold together or individually, which attack different pests at different depths, some are more mobile than others. I looked up Steinernema ( a genus of nematodes) and found lots of information and vendors.

The second is Microbe Lift BMC (biological mosquito control). It contains a bacteria that attacks mosquitoes, their eggs and larvae, but I found someone recommending it for gnats too. For $20, its worth a try in my book. It can be had from any pond supply store. 6 drops to a gallon of water initially, then 2 per gallon for maintenance.

The nematodes are natural, I'm not sure if the bacteria in the BMC are GMO or not. The BMC is safe for fish and aquatic plants, but that doesn't mean it's organic which I know is your preference.

I'm gonna give both a go.
 
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HHHG,

I did a little research which I think paid off, maybe this information can help you...

I knew there had to be some kind of biological control for the pest problems you had/have, some of which I have. By "control", I mean a predator. I found some.

The first is beneficial nematodes, which will kill spider mites and fungus gnats, their larvae, their eggs, the whole nine yards. You can add em to the soil with watering or add to a foliar spray and apply directly on the plants. There are a variety of species, sold together or individually, which attack different pests at different depths, some are more mobile than others. I looked up Steinernema ( a genus of nematodes) and found lots of information and vendors.

The second is Microbe Lift BMC (biological mosquito control). It contains a bacteria that attacks mosquitoes, their eggs and larvae, but I found someone recommending it for gnats too. For $20, its worth a try in my book. It can be had from any pond supply store. 6 drops to a gallon of water initially, then 2 per gallon for maintenance.

The nematodes are natural, I'm not sure if the bacteria in the BMC are GMO or not. The BMC is safe for fish and aquatic plants, but that doesn't mean it's organic which I know is your preference.

I'm gonna give both a go.

Thanks for the info Toko Loco. I've been using "Mosquito Bits" with pretty good success, though it seems near impossible to eliminate soil gnats as long as I'm buying potting soil.

I have to shut everything down for house inspection in September and all that will be left is little bonsai parents that are easy to keep spider mites under control. It's the big bushy flowering plants that I have difficulty with. I've started spraying them with rosemary water twice a week now and follow it with a plain water spray the next day. I also give every plant a good high pressure wash after harvest, then hang in front of fan for a few hours so it doesn't get mold, then hang in the drying tent for a week before starting jar cure.
 
I should have the greenhouse setup within a couple weeks. I am using the corner of my covered patio that is against two walls of the house. One side will be open to the sun, as will the roof. Another side is open to the rest of the covered patio so it won't get direct sunlight. I know it's not ideal exposure but it's the best I can do right now.

I've added a couple ingredients to my twice weekly bug spray. The formula is now:
1 Gal water
1 tsp rosemary oil
1 tsp peppermint oil
1 tsp aloe vera juice
1 tsp dish soap

I also have to grow a couple CBD plants in the greenhouse so only have room for 4 Critical Mass. I wanted to try airpots but they are expensive for large ones and didn't feel like drilling lots of holes in buckets to make my own. So I got $6 w.mart 1.5 bushel (14 Gal) size laundry baskets that already have lots of holes, are made of strong plastic, and have built in handles to make moving easy. I am lining them with burlap coffee bags (only $1 each on Cr.list). Wish me luck with my first greenhouse and airpot grow!
 
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How is your new formula working? I’m looking for an inexpensive dip. Are the oils you’re using the standard off the shelf essential oils?

I haven't been using long enough to know long term effectiveness, but the addition of peppermint seems to be more effective than the rosemary alone. I use 100% pure steam distilled oils. I looked at the back of a natural bug spray at H.Depot recently and it said 0.5% peppermint, 0.5% rosemary, 99.5% other. I'm guessing the 'other' is water with a few drops of insecticidal soap or similar. Like all ready-made things, it is a rip-off. I get the oils from e-bay from reputable dealers and make my own bug mix for a fraction of the ready made mixes.
 
Change of plan

Landlord told me yesterday they are putting our rental house on the market immediately. I had to kill all my big vegging and flowering plants and won't be able to start growing again until we get a new house.

I have bonsai parents of all the Critical Mass and my other keeper plants in a couple plastic totes until I get moved and can start up again. The totes have lights and exhaust.

I have about a cupful of buds from each of the CM I plan to start testing after 2 month cure and will give smoke reports.
 
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