Tropical organic outdoor 2014

[ragamuffin]

For variety, I'm trying a selection of 5 different strains, and am happy that they've made it through the critical first 3 weeks. All are Nirvana seeds and I got 100% germination. The only one I've grown before is Blue Mystic, which grew with a strong diesel smell and produced dense, resinous buds with a strong piney flavor and so powerful a high that I ould only allow myself one bong hit at a time. The only problem was that I grew an auto strain, so the plants stayed small. This time around none are autos. the Kaya Gold is growing fast and strong, but the others now seem to be catching up.

I always grow outdoors, which has its pros and cons. On the good side, here in the subtropics, 18ºN, the sun is brilliant every day. And during the rainy season the plants enjoy abundant Ph-neutral watering. I have found that I don't need to worry about soil Ph because the rain keeps the mix right in the middle of the scale.

The greatest challenge is soil composition. The local heavy clay is far too dense and gets waterlogged easily, even with pots or cups set up for proper drainage. For seedlings, it's important to compose soil that drains all unnecessary rainfall but retains enough moisture so that a couple of dry days in the sun won't totally dry it out.

For this grow I am trying a nearly soilless mixture composed of coco, rice hulls, perlite, worm castings and dried cow manure. Everything but the perlite is produced locally and is dirt cheap. For example, a bag of uncompressed coco the size of a bed pillow is about $.30. There are no salts in the coco because we're not near the sea. I've also worked in a small amount of molasses-based fertilizer (vinasse I think is the term). Air and water flow through the mix very well, and I have added a thin layer of volcanic rock on the top to absorb heat from the sun.

In another week or so I will transplant them into bigger containers. The medium will contain more soil and compost so that as the rains taper off with season, it can retain moisture longer between waterings. Also bat guano and fertilizers to support the flowering phase.

In addition to the manure and organic fertilizers I put in the soil, I also use a liquid organic nutrient. In previous grows I have found that this fertilizer plus EM seem to keep the plants very healthy, and resistant to disease and pests.

A long way to go still, so wish me luck!

-Ragamuffin

[Gordon]

Hey man, looking good so far. You're very lucky to have such great environmental conditions for outdoor growing. Once I grew Maui Waui from Nirvana as well, though in my latitude it wasn't able to finish before the frosts hit, so I had to move it under lamp for the last weeks. The smoke was very fresh, citrus, with a mild, relaxing (but not couchlock) and pleasantly happy high, and very social as well. At the moment I have 1 Urban Poison and 1 Aurora Indica outdoors, also both from Nirvana. 7 of the plants fell victim to deer violence (1 was grown indoors).

 

Best of luck to you and your plants!

[ragamuffin]

Thanks, and good luck to you too dealing with those ravenous stoner deer.

[Dust]

Nice introduction man! Thanks for sharing all your infos and plants I hope the soil mixture will work for you and give you some nice results!

And may the weather god be good to you Full of sun and little bit of rain just enough to water the plants

 

Have a good grow!

[ragamuffin]

Here we are after another 3 weeks.

Shortly after posting the first set of pics, I transferred all seedlings into ~6 liter grow bags filled with my own version of super soil: compost, coco, rice hulls, manure, bat guano, bone meal, worm castings and some pelletized organic fertilizer for root growth. The soil gets soaked in effective microrganism solution and left alone for a week before transplant. I also topped 4 of the 5. Now they about 5x bigger than they were on Oct 1, with two top colas branching out.

They look very healthy to me, bright green, no insect damage

Maui Waui and Kaya Gold have just gone into flower, while El Dorado, Bubblelicious, and Blue Mystic are still in veg. The natural light cycle is already 12/12 here, so it will be interesting to see how much more they grow before putiing all energy into flower production.

This week I will put all into 20 liter pots to finish and begin tying the down for LST. The final soil mix will include more bone meal, more bat guano, and a different fertilizer specifically for flower production. I would like to go bigger, but in the interest of security I have to keep them small and, if needed, portable. Stay tuned!

[Dr3@m]

You have a nice panel of taste and effect, should look nice !! Two landraces at least (Mexico and Hawai), and nice tasty strains such as the mystic and the bubble. Hope the blue, is going to catch up some color on the buds, not only on the leaves, and the bubble too, which should get some pink buds at the end of the flowering...Wish you all the best for your nice mix of genetics! Nice start, good luck !!

[ragamuffin]

Thanks Sweet. This is only my fourth or fifth grow, so I am still a newbie, and it's good to know that I chose a good selection of strains. I really enjor having several strains to choose from and mix and match. I will share more pics as the plants develop.

[ragamuffin]

Time for an update. The good news is that all 5 plants are alive and flowering. However, I planted them too late in the season, so that they really didn't spend enough time vegging. In the natural 12/12 light,  they started flowering only 4 weeks or so after breaking ground, so remain quite small. In past grows, I started 1-2 months earlier, and the plants grew for longer and achieved reasonable size before flowering. 4-6 weeks left for these buds.

Because we've had a lot of workers around the property, I've had to be careful about security. I moved the plants into a protected space that is safe from prying eyes and gets about 6 hours of direct sunlight per day. That's why these photos are a but funky. The other reason is that when I transplanted from grow bags, I began LST. You can see the hemp string training branches. In the pics it's hard to tell the size of the plants and what's what. But the plants responded well to LST. Multiple bud sites are developing equally. 

The only plant that's really struggling is the Maui Waui. Even though all strains are in the same soil mix, Maui is showing stress in the leaves either from pH problems or some kind of nutrient burn, which is unusual for an organic grow.  You can see the damage, which again only shows on this strain. The plant did however respond well to topping and has two little colas developing thick juicy buds. 

So I guess I will treat this grow as a sampler to familiarize myself with the strains and try again when the days lengthen.

[Dust]

Thanks for sharing some news man Good to see everybody flowering even if they are smaller than what you expected Next year will be bigger   for your last plants it kind of looks like Calcium problems, in a little bit strange form tho.. did you spray any toxic product on it?

 

Have a good grow