Search for Punto Rojo

Managing the stretch - Part 1

Greeting MNS time travelers,

Big Sur, kbonsai and musashi, thanks for your comments and well wishes.

I've been carefully observing this grow and thought I'd share. When I put the clones in the flower tent nine days ago, it took several days for the plants to get going...for a while I suspected a problem with the big batch of nutes I had mixed up (while high :) ) or maybe something wrong in the coco/perlite media, because some of them got very pale green. The image below is a composite showing the puntodorado plants on days 0, 5 and 9 of 12/12. I still think they look like they could all use more nitrogen.

puntodorado_F0-F9.jpg


Plants #4 (upper right) and #8 (lower left) had not rooted when I put them into the tent, and I'm still not sure they will. The others are doing well. Once they can build up a little root mass they start growing fast. PD2 and PD10 are now growing 1 inch per day; both of these plants had very vigorous root growth.

PD_stretch_plot_F9.jpg


Based on very early preflowers on the 8-week-old seed plants, it looks like #2 and #5 are males. Interesting how bushy #7 looks at this stage, like mom did, so I think it leans toward the punto rojo side.

I think I have about five more weeks of stretching to deal with. If they stretch about 1-1.5 inches per day I'll be in good shape.
 
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Old leaves yellowing almost always means that they need more nitrogen. Any plant, not just Cannabis.

Old rule of a thumb: Old leaves turning yellow, your plants needs nitrogen. New leaves turning yellow, your plant needs iron (chelated iron at that). This is because nitrogen is very mobile in plants, and thus they will scavenge nitrogen from old leaves to grow new ones if they are low on nitrogen. Iron is fixed in leaves, so they cannot move it around, hence plants low on iron will have new leaves that are yellow. You generally need chelated iron in alkaline soils, as alkaline soils bind up any available iron and it will not be available to plant roots, no matter how much is in there. Chelated iron is not bound up by alkaline soils so it can be absorbed by plant roots, no matter the pH of the soil.

Similarly in acid soils, iron is freed up, but phosphates become bound up by metals in low pH. Hence why I use super phosphate in acid soils, and chelated iron (Ironite) in alkaline soils. No, I do not grow organic... why limit things to only that? Plants make no distinction between organic, synthetic or inorganic fertilizers. Its all the same to them (yes, UC Davis and many other university studies have proven that).
 
Old leaves yellowing almost always means that they need more nitrogen. Any plant, not just Cannabis.

Old rule of a thumb: Old leaves turning yellow, your plants needs nitrogen. New leaves turning yellow, your plant needs iron (chelated iron at that). This is because nitrogen is very mobile in plants, and thus they will scavenge nitrogen from old leaves to grow new ones if they are low on nitrogen. Iron is fixed in leaves, so they cannot move it around, hence plants low on iron will have new leaves that are yellow. You generally need chelated iron in alkaline soils, as alkaline soils bind up any available iron and it will not be available to plant roots, no matter how much is in there. Chelated iron is not bound up by alkaline soils so it can be absorbed by plant roots, no matter the pH of the soil.

Similarly in acid soils, iron is freed up, but phosphates become bound up by metals in low pH. Hence why I use super phosphate in acid soils, and chelated iron (Ironite) in alkaline soils. No, I do not grow organic... why limit things to only that? Plants make no distinction between organic, synthetic or inorganic fertilizers. Its all the same to them (yes, UC Davis and many other university studies have proven that).

Lots of good insight here Big Sur. I guess my photo didn't upload, so trying again! Let me know if this strain looks similar to anything you know of/have seen before. This is the plant from seeds acquired near Belize boarder near Lake Bacalar in Quintana Roo, Mexico. It's priceless to have insight from someone who has detailed knowledge of the histories of these "hot spot" areas. Like I said before, based on the looks of this small girl, she seems to be close to pure sativa. She's on the 6-7th node and only putting out sets of 3 leafs at a time.


IMG-1261-1.jpg
 
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Thanks for the comments, hombres.

PD_and_PD10_F13.jpg


Thought I'd post a pic to show the spread in pheno from this seed pop. Sorry about the yellowish light in the photo, they all look pretty healthy right now. This is #10 on the left and #7 on the right. I've never seen such huge leaves on a plant this small as I have on #7...she's only 5 inches tall yet that fan leaf is larger than my hand. The punto rojo mother had pretty large leaves in veg and early flower, but #7 is an outlier. I'm thinking it may be an inadvertent cross of punto rojo x The Doors, but I'm pretty sure I culled the Doors male before mom showed any pistils last summer. So far I like #10's structure the best.

It can be challenging determining sex on these Colombians. The very early preflowers on #2 certainly had that spade shape that says it's a male, but last night #2 was definitely showing a couple early pistillate flowers. So far after 13 days of 12/12 it looks like I have four females, one male and three not showing yet. Of the three unrooted clones i flowered, one has died (#8), one has rooted and is taking off, while the other appears to have rooted but is still a 2" dwarf.
 
Lots of good insight here Big Sur. I guess my photo didn't upload, so trying again! Let me know if this strain looks similar to anything you know of/have seen before.

Too early to tell anything for sure. Growing under lights there are many variables (light spectrum, distance, length, etc). Your plant certainly does not look like an indica though. It also looks like you pinched it. Which I do here as well to force growth shorter and outward. But it affects the natural growing aspect of plants.
 
Thanks for the comments, hombres.

Thought I'd post a pic to show the spread in pheno from this seed pop. Sorry about the yellowish light in the photo, they all look pretty healthy right now. This is #10 on the left and #7 on the right. I've never seen such huge leaves on a plant this small as I have on #7...she's only 5 inches tall yet that fan leaf is larger than my hand. The punto rojo mother had pretty large leaves in veg and early flower, but #7 is an outlier. I'm thinking it may be an inadvertent cross of punto rojo x The Doors, but I'm pretty sure I culled the Doors male before mom showed any pistils last summer. So far I like #10's structure the best.

It can be challenging determining sex on these Colombians. The very early preflowers on #2 certainly had that spade shape that says it's a male, but last night #2 was definitely showing a couple early pistillate flowers. So far after 13 days of 12/12 it looks like I have four females, one male and three not showing yet. Of the three unrooted clones i flowered, one has died (#8), one has rooted and is taking off, while the other appears to have rooted but is still a 2" dwarf.

They look happy enough. They look Colombian too. No indica in there that I can see. Hybrids from the same region are apt to be more robust than IBL landraces. More genetic diversity. I have seen that with Colombian, South African and Mexican breeding.

I do not trust so called pre-flowers. Colombians may also herm late in bloom and be more like SE Asian strains that are more unstable with sex. Some are trannies, and some are straight. They bloom really late and really long, and they take a long time to force into bloom. Longer than most strains. Last year my 'lombo males were harder to force with light dep than the females. They were also the last to bloom, even after the SE Asian strains. I would also change your light timing to 11/13 or even 10/14 to force Colombians. In California when I grew them outdoors at the 36th parallel, they did not start blooming until late October when the day length was well under 11 hours.
 
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~ 2 weeks

Thanks for chiming in, Big Sur. I'm going to keep with a 12/12 light cycle until the plants stop stretching around 6 weeks, then 11/13, then down to 10/14 at ~12 weeks. Loving these Colombian sativa hybrids!

Here's a puntodorado update after the first two weeks of 12/12. So far it looks like I have two males, and four females, with two stragglers taking their time rooting and showing their sex. They're all looking pretty happy, with beautiful light green colors and most with very skinny leaves. As the plants develop root systems they are exploding in growth. I've observed that when the plants got to about 3" tall they finally had enough root mass to start growing ~1 inch/day; some of these plants are now growing 2 inches per day. Yesterday I cut the lowest branches off all plants. I may cut more lower growth to control how wide the plants get.


PD1 (♀), PD2 (♀) and PD4. The height difference in these plants is essentially a function of how easily they rooted as clones. PD2 has been extremely vigorous since it first cracked the seed husk, and was well rooted when it went into flower. PD1 only had one little root showing when I flowered it. PD4 showed no roots before I flowered it, and it has taken about 10 days to finally start growing.

PD1_PD2_PD4_F15.jpg




PD 5(♂), PD6 (♀) and PD7 (♂). I'm glad PD5 is a male and I'll be keeping a close eye on him and his bushier brother, PD7. PD6 seems to have the skinniest leaves so far. PD7 has the widest leaves and slowest stretch, but I'm pretty convinced it's also a pure sativa. Leaf morphology and plant structure reminds me of it's mother.



PD5-PD7_F15.jpg




PD9 and PD10 (♀). PD 9 had not rooted when it went into the flower tent but it's doing fine now. PD10 was the last seed to pop but it's clone had the most vigorous roots by far. It's a beautiful sativa.

PD9_PD10_F15.jpg


Finally, the stretch. The chart is reminiscent of a pandemic...of awesomness. I figure I have about 3-4 more weeks of stretch to deal with.

PD_stretch_plot_F15.jpg


Thanks for checking in. Viva sativa!
 
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Nicely going over there Mark :cool: Have a good hunt again, hope you`ll find your pot off gold!


While back ive read some article about keeping the stretch in control, by keeping night temps the same or higher than day temps. Had some thing to do with the precesses in the plant. Will see if i can find it again, i thought it would be an instresting test do once with a heavy influenced sativa.
 
Hola amigos!

Fish, where do you find this music? I like it! Byorn, thanks for looking in. I've read that about limiting stretch but I do not currently have that level of control over my environment, so for now I use what has worked for me in the past. Hopefully I get a little better at growing sativas with each batch. :)

These plants are growing so quickly; things are changing fast. Most plants are growing on average 2 inches per day, and I still have about three more weeks of stretch to deal with. I stopped moving the lights up for a while and will keep the lights at this level for about 2-3 weeks, allowing the taller plants to grow through the light fixtures. Yet another thing I like about these COBs.

puntodorado_F17.jpg



Of the 8 plant's I've flowered so far, I got two males and six females. I'm generally seeing two sativa phenos: skinny, long leaves (presumably from the 78 CG father) and somewhat wider leaves often only with 3 leaflets like the punto rojo mother. All plants have lanky sativa structure and lighter, bright-green color except one outlier. That outlier is one of the males, PD7. He's the one on the right of the middle row below.

puntodorado_F17a.jpg



He's darker in color, smaller and bushier, has wider leaves, a thicker mainstem, and a much more pronounced and different aroma than all the other plants. He's so different in so many ways that I'm pretty sure he's a punto rojo x Doors cross, so culled him because I want to do whatever I can to keep crippy genes out of this landrace Colombian hybrid line. The next couple pictures show the marked difference between PD7 and his half brother, PD5.

puntodorado_males_F17.jpg


puntodorado_males_F17a.jpg


I was thinking about letting PD5 flower in the tent and thoroughly pollinate his sisters, but I probably won't because I have a little 78 CG pollen in the freezer that may be viable and I'd like to BX a couple of the females to dad. I also have some frozen punto rojo x mangobiche pollen in the freezer that I may be able to use to make a 3-way Colombian hybrid from four different lines (TLT PR, CBG PR, CBG MB, and 78 CG).
 
Aloha brah!

Pretty sweet stuff you got going in your corner, Marcus. Did you change anything this go round? I like your set up and hoping you get them all through without too much difficulty. Will you keep the males? Just love the morphology of these thin leafs!. See you on the other side brah!


Shaka
Mu
 
stretch monsters

Aloha brother Musashi! Thanks for your kind words; we are narrow-leaf-loving brethren. My setup remains the same, although I'm more carefully watching the plants and dialing back nute levels a bit and paying better attention to pH. I'm also moving the lights as the plants grow.

I have the male clones and seed plants but not sure what I'm going to keep yet. I'll certainly be freezing pollen. I culled male #7. I've removed male #5 from the tent amd am flowering him in a hastily converted closet. I also found another male tonight; #4, the smallest plant that was last to root. He'll join his big brother soon, and I'll have to decide if I want to select one or use both males. Here's PD5 when I removed him from the tent. He's going to start dropping pollen soon. Beautiful symmetrical Christmas tree structure and he's developing some lovely aromas on the petiole rub.

PD5_male_F22.jpg


The pandemic has given me more time than usual to log this grow. In particular, I'm really trying to collect some good data on how these jungle plants stretch and how to effectively control them. To that end, I've been plotting plant height and light height versus time as shown below. I'm entering week 4 of 12/12 and will keep the lights at this level (35" above "soil") for about 10 more days. Everything is growing 2.5 to 4 inches per day. The two tallest plants have grown through the lights and have already showed signs of slowing down. Three other plants will be into the lights in a couple more days. When I finally move the lights up to max height I'll only have a week or so of stretch left to deal with.

PD_stretch_plot_F22.jpg


Here's the tops of PD2 and PD10, the most vigorous plants in this batch.

puntodorado_stretch_tops_F22.jpg
 
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Aloha brother Musashi! Thanks for your kind words; we are narrow-leaf-loving brethren. My setup remains the same, although I'm more carefully watching the plants and dialing back nute levels a bit and paying better attention to pH. I'm also moving the lights as the plants grow.

I have the male clones and seed plants but not sure what I'm going to keep yet. I'll certainly be freezing pollen. I culled male #7. I've removed male #5 from the tent amd am flowering him in a hastily converted closet. I also found another male tonight; #4, the smallest plant that was last to root. He'll join his big brother soon, and I'll have to decide if I want to select one or use both males. Here's PD5 when I removed him from the tent. He's going to start dropping pollen soon. Beautiful symmetrical Christmas tree structure and he's developing some lovely aromas on the petiole rub.

PD5_male_F22.jpg


The pandemic has given me more time than usual to log this grow. In particular, I'm really trying to collect some good data on how these jungle plants stretch and how to effectively control them. To that end, I've been plotting plant height and light height versus time as shown below. I'm entering week 4 of 12/12 and will keep the lights at this level (35" above "soil") for about 10 more days. Everything is growing 2.5 to 4 inches per day. The two tallest plants have grown through the lights and have already showed signs of slowing down. Three other plants will be into the lights in a couple more days. When I finally move the lights up to max height I'll only have a week or so of stretch left to deal with.

PD_stretch_plot_F22.jpg


Here's the tops of PD2 and PD10, the most vigorous plants in this batch.

puntodorado_stretch_tops_F22.jpg

Awesome thread...Those PD's have crazy internode spacing...Awesome you are BX'ing these. I love seeing the crazy morphology/geometry of these purer sativas. Nice work!
 
In general, I have found that plant stretch is due more to heat than anything else. Unless they are not given enough light, in which they will stretch looking for more light. Or one plant is fed, and the other starved for nutrients. Or if they are pot bound, they will be smaller. The main heat cutoff point is about 85 degrees. Below that they will not grow as tall, and that is why most indoor grows are kept at or below that temp. Above that and they go to town with internode stretch in the stems. Above 100 and they really go to town with the stretch. My brother had 12 foot Lebanese Red pants in his GH 3 years ago with heat in the 90-105 range. That is supposed to be a 'short' plant? Hardly.

I saw the same thing growing outdoors in NorCal in the 1970s. My plants in Big Sur and Pacific Grove were 4-6 feet tall near the cool foggy nights and mornings/clearing in the afternoon coast. The same plants in Carmel Valley where it was always hot and sunny were 10-15 feet tall. Those were bag weed seed landraces from places like Guerrero, Mexico and Santa Marta, Colombia. Its the same here in Oregon. My brother gets 50% more growth than I do from the exact same clones. The difference is that he is in the valley and I am in the foothills. I am on average 5 degrees cooler here both day and night during the growing season. Same latitude, same weather pattern. Different micro-climate though.

Rule of thumb from my college horticulture notes: every 10 deg. F in temp equals about twice the growth, from 50 to 90 degrees. Hence way better plant grown in warmer greenhouses and why they are used so much along the coast in California and Oregon.
 
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it is not beneficial to let the plants grow up above the lights like that.
instead, if the plants were trained at a 90* angle at a certain distance from the light,
those tops will get better light. but they will curve back up again after training, so it must be done lower than you want the tops at.
the plant seems to be more sensitive to light at its top, and the dimmer area will induce the plant to stretch even more and that is not what you are trying to achieve.
there may be more heat higher up there too.
 
~ 4 weeks

Greetings and wishes to the sativa brotherhood for good physical and mental health as we move past the peak of this pandemic. Musashi, always good to be on the receiving end of your positive vibes, Musashi! Good to hear Big Sur and kbonsai chime in...thanks! Welcome to week 4 of puntodorado.

Throwback, thanks for the input. It is exactly opposite that which I received from another MNS member, which inspired me to try this stretch control technique last year. It seemed to work in my last punto rojo grow, but I didn't log the data which is why I did this grow so I can assess what's going on. If you look at the graph, it's pretty clear that letting the plants grow up through the lights did NOT cause them to stretch faster. A day or two after each plant grew past 35" it's slope on the chart decreased. Yesterday I trained the two tallest plants (PD2, PD10) and moved the lights up to their highest position. PD9 had made like Icarus and grew directly into one of the COBs and topped itself. I think letting the plants grow through the lights decreased the rate of stretch and had the intended effect. It's a fair question to ask if the slope of the curves decreased due to this technique or due to the plants approaching rootbound status. I've also gradually decreased the light cycle from 12/12 to 11/13 during the last week, so that may have played a role in "flattening the curve."

PD_stretch_plot_F29.jpg


Here's the five girls in the tent at 4 weeks. I'm feeding them 560 ppm at a pH of 6.1. They're happy and healthy, other than a few clawed leaves on top of the plants that grew above the lights. Aromas are developing nicely but not much resin yet. Bud sites are just forming and the first pistils are showing.

Puntodorado_F29.jpg


Having culled a wider-leaved male outlier, I will probably cull another (PD5) and select PD4 as the keeper male and primary sire of F2s, unless he shows intersex traits. The PD4 clone was the runt in early flower that was slow to root but it is as vigorous as any other plant now. PD4 was selected as the stud because, in my opinion, he leans toward the 1978 CG father. PD4 was selected because it is longer flowering, has skinnier, longer leaves with more leaflets, and better early resin than his brother. It'll be another week before he drops any pollen.

PD4 - probable keeper
PD4_F29.jpg




Here's PD5, dropping pollen in a separate part of the house.

PD5 - will probably be culled
PD5_F27.jpg


PD5_cola_F29.jpg
 
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~ 4 weeks

Now for the skinny, sexy Colombianas.

PD1
This plant is developing a really nice aroma. Woody, musky, earthy, spicy.

PD1_F28.jpg


PD2
This plant has always led the pack in vigor, and I think it looks more like the PR mum. It's huge and has a spread about 6x wider than the bucket, with more horizontal side branches. I had previously trimmed off the lowest 2-3 nodes of growth and I'm glad I did. As they say here in Boston, "It's a freakin' monstah!"

PD2_F28.jpg



PD6
This is my favorite girl in the tent; I think it is phenotypically on the CG side of the spectrum. Perfect narrower Christmas tree structure with skinny leaves. I did a stem rub last night and got the most amazing faint smell. It was beautiful but so fleeting, so hard to describe or recall. Like waking up from a beautiful dream and missing it intensely, unable to hold on to and describe, like sand slipping through your fingers. Incense. Maybe some pine. Something else. Not sweet, not sour, not fruity or citric, but perfumed.

PD6_F28.jpg



PD9
Icarus. Also a CG leaner in my estimation. Sharper serrations on the leaves.

PD9_F291.jpg


PD10
This plant has been extremely vigorous, and as a phenotype I'd say it's middle of the road between mom and dad. Very narrow in width with nearly vertical side branches. Massively huge leaves. The apical cola has been trained over.
PD10_F28.jpg
 
Kia Ora,

Mmmm tall skinny fingered ladies my favourite :D Mate I love all the graphs and such you do, that one of the Frankincense terpines was real interesting.

Interesting technique letting them grow taller then the lights, maybe the plants get shocked by the lack of light so focus on lower growth ? Quite different to my technique of blast them with as much light as possible as close as possible to the tops preferably blue light and feeding with a low phosphorus, high potassium feed. (Around 3-1-4 for duration of veg/stretch)

High levels of phosphorus promotes artificial stretching, low phosphorus feed promotes shorter growth and high potassium promotes stocky growth it's something I learnt from an old Bonsai grower many years ago and it seems to work ... I can only find scientific data on phosphorus levels and stretch, N has nothing to do with stretch despite popular belief and there is plenty of science to back me here.

I don't doubt your techniques, your a much better grower then myself, just thought you might find it all interesting.....
 
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It's also possible the stretching slowed just because they were nearing the end of the stretch naturally.

I just discussed this with fish. My last HighlandMexicanxBlueberry has a trough-shaped canopy. LOL. More than one way to skin a cat.

Looking great!

EDIT: on further thinking, probably not anywhere near done with the stretch.
 
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