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Took a bit of a break since my last grow resulted in two males.
This time I'm using my 3 remaining Congo seeds, all germinated after ~48 hours directly in the substrate. Had some issues with early stretching, I'm still struggling to get my lights working well for the very early stages of growth.
All going strong now, early issues with stretching has been resolved and they're looking very healthy.
#1 is noticably taller than the others with narrower leaf blades. Absolute stunner to my eyes, fingers crossed it's a girl!
All going well still and they're really growing fast. #1 is still my favourite - sorry #2 & #3.
I've noticed a bit of nutrient burn on some of the leaf tips but I haven't even fed them! I am using a new compost mix which I'm assuming is a bit hot. I'm taking this as an indication that these plants won't be heavy feeders.
I also topped them this week after the 2nd internode. This gives me only 4 main branches which I'm hoping will make managing my scrog a whole lot easier than last time. Time will tell.
After topping, I took clones and switched to 12/12 for sexing.
Bad news everybody, #1 is a boy. But on the other hand #2 & #3 are both girls!
#1 is now trimmed right back and I'm going to try and collect some more pollen from him.
#2 and #3 have been moved up to their final pots, the scrog screen is installed.
I've now reverted back to 18/6 to let the girls fill out the screen a bit more before I go back in to flowering.
Meanwhile, the clones are looking good & for anyone in to cacti, I've had over 30 flowers this season and I can't describe how happy that's made me - just 12 months ago I rehomed this collection. They were in a very poor state and apparently hadn't produced any flowers in over 4 years.
I have these two plants just sexed after 1 week of flower. I was going to go back to 18/6 tonight for another week or two veg to fill the screen more. Is this a good idea? Or should I just continuing flowering? Strain is ACE's Congo.
Thanks!
I’d just keep it as is.. I’m not a fan of unnecessary stress like revegging personally.
It looks filled out decently and you’re still gonna have some significant stretch
Everything seems to be progressing smoothly. They require training almost every day at this early stage of flowering.
At the very end of this week I have started giving feed with their water:
0.25ml/l grow - very low concentration as the girls were repotted about a week prior to feeding, so I expect the soil to still be providing enough nitrogen. I will be scaling this up slighly over the next two weeks.
1.0ml/l blood - this is half as much as the manufacturer recommends, but as it's still early in flower and I suspect these plants prefer lower levels of feed I'm keeping the concentrations light.
Scrog training continues, and I accidentally broke off one of the main stems. Slightly annoyed at myself, but it's not the end of the world!
I did some light pruning of the undergrowth at the end of this week, removing side shoots from the lower parts of the plants which are unlikely to ever see the screen.
Alright, here we are a week later.
Training continued daily until the screen was filled as best as I could manage (which happened really quickly). It's not perfect but most cells ended up with a budsite, a few cells have 2 sites etc. Since I stopped traiing, some side branches have not really taken off as I was hoping resulting in an uneven canopy.
Throughout the week I've been defoliating, with all branches not yet at the screen removed later in the week and I continue to pinch off new shoots that I spot which are below the screen.
At the end of this week, I increased their feed of both grow and bloom as I was expecting the soil to be pretty much exhausted of the main nutrients at this point. I was a bit eager to do this, and it has resulted in some very minor nutrient burn on the tips. Next water, I intend to reduce the bloom back down to 1ml/l and keep grow at 1ml/litre.
Thanks for reading!
This week things have progressed fairly well.
I have stopped feeding grow and also reduced bloom. Plants are still showing signs of light over fertilisation so I will be reducing the bloom back down to 1ml/l next water. I think the stretch is nearly over which is good because I'm running out of space. I have now removed pretty much all the growth beneath the screen - it's been pretty humid here recently and I really want to get as much airflow as I can. I've also removed a couple of fan leaves from above the screen where they were blocking light to other bud sites. I expect I will be doing a lot more of this in the coming weeks. The canopy is very uneven which I'm a bit disappointed in myself about - more practice is required!
These girls are absolute beauties though, I love the narrow blade-like leaves they have developed in flower.
The clones I took have now been reduced to a single mother, who I will be using to practice my bonsai skills.
Alright, here we are at week 4 of flower and trichomes are now starting to appear and the smell is starting to develop.
The stretch is pretty much over now, which is great because I'm essentially out of vertical growing space. Any taller and I will probably need to start tying some of the taller branches down or maybe some HST would do the job. I think I might grow a nice compact indica next, just for a break from managing these tall buggers.
Ambient temps and humidity have been high this week again and a dehumidifer has been ordered. I'm having trouble deciding if the top of the plants are showing signs of heat/light stress or nutrient deficiency. The new leaf tips are still slightly light green and ever so slightly crispy in places which makes me think nutrient burn. However, feed has only been 1ml/l bloom this week and some of the top leaves have started developing light green patches (pictured) which makes me lean towards light stress. Maybe it's a bit of mix of both.
No trimming of leaves this week, but I am now considering having a fairly aggressive trim of foliage above the screen to improve airflow, reduce humidity (fewer leaves, less transpiration) and improve light penetration to all the bud sites. There are some areas of the screen which have many colas all bunched up, blocking each other from the light and creating a high humidity micro-climate which I am a bit concerned about, but apparently Congo does have high resistance against mildew etcs so fingers crossed.
Overall, things are looking good.
Alright folks,
A day after my last update I spotted some signs of deficiency on a lower leaf. Feed was upped to 3ml/litre and I kept an eye on how the lower leaves progressed. By this morning the deficiency was still progressing up the plant with more leaves showing signs so today I have given a feed at 5ml/l. Right now I do not intend to keep levels this high but this is my first time using this compost mix and nutrients so really I'm just guessing - one of these days I'll get it right :).
Dehumidifier is now running and ambient room humidity ranges from 42-50% depending on how long it has been since last watering. Canopy humidity is obviously a bit higher. I would really like to do some trimming of the lower foliage at this point but I want to get the deficiencies sorted out before putting them under more stress.
Overall though, buds are continuing to develop quite nicely, as is the smell which is kind of earthy at the moment and still mild. Trichome development is slow right now, but these girls look to have a way to go yet!
In other news, the clone I took has been kind of neglected and half-heartedly trained so I took some time this week to try and do a better job of it. Is the setup I'm using for keeping a mother plant ideal? No. Does it work? Yes!
Not a lot to report - these girls are monsters with some really large colas. For some reason, one particular branch is noticably under-developed (pictured).
I over-compensated with the feed - since last update I gave them one feed at 5ml/l, then at 4ml/l. This has stopped the progress of the deficiencies in the lower part of the plants but has resulted in a little bit of nutrient burn. For now, the plan is to feed at 3ml/l.
I've decided against any extensive removal of fan leaves at this point, with about 3 weeks left to go I don't want to stress them. Just going to let them to their thing.
Phew, this week flew by and this week the plants are really confusing me. The middle portions of the plants are showing further signs of nutrient burn (extra crispy tips) and the lower parts of the plants are continuing to show nutrient deficiencies. Perhaps I have created some sort of nutrient lock out? I guess we've reached the part of the grow when I traditionally fuck things up so fingers crossed this time around.
I've kept their feed at 4ml/l this week. I think I need to start reducing it, so 3ml/l from next watering. The colas are starting to develop a bit of bulk now and they're starting to lean/fall over in some cases. Trichome devlopment and smell has also noticably increased this week.
We've at week 8 of flower now and I guess I have about 3 weeks left minimum - the breeder says 9-10 weeks to finish I seriously doubt these two ladies will be ready to chop next week considering some tips are continuing to grow vertically!
Howdy folks, it's been a bit of a watershed week here in my little growdrobe. I knew I had both toxicity and deficiency of nutrients, but I wasn't sure why. Then HighRoller909 left a couple of comments for me which just perfectly explained what I was seeing and as such I've been able to adjust my plans. I'm going to include the comments here because they were so helpful:
"[...] never seen congo like this. regular seeds are apparently different from feminized ones. looks like a more clear congolese sativa expression. almost no pakistan chitral characteristics visually. they say congolese parents tend to flower much longer so I can guess this is a beautiful true congolese sativa experience for you. lovely.whatever you do,this strain always have leaf tip clawing,hates nitrogen,can't process it well,growing is harder than most other strains there is always a problem but end product is brilliant. how's the fragrance on these ones?"
-HighRoller909
"normally it doesnt stretch a lot if it has considerable amount of PCK(paki) in it but yours look much different than that,like how ace describes that rare congolese sativa. [...] another indication of a true congolese sativa pheno is that it smells like how you said,like earth and wood with sweet notes.my fem congos smelled like grapes and sweet berries because of paki chitral kush influence.you'll love the high.i think you have 6 more weeks and will have a great electric buzz at the end"
-HighRoller909
SO! This means I need to try and reduce nitrogen levels and that they are going to be flowering a whole lot longer than I thought.
I have switched to feeding BioBizz Organic PK as the main feed, it has half as much N and a lot more K. I hope this helps with their overall health but I doubt it will solve the problem. My compost is already enriched with calcium and magnesium but with the anticipated longer flowering time I decided to give the girls a dose of my organic calmag+ which contains oyster shell flour, seaweed extract, epsom salts and mineral water - just to make sure it has all the trace elements they need. I will probably repeat this once every other week.
I also have a problem with the canopy level with one or two colas being very tall and vertical, forcing the lights up, while the other colas are starting to bulk up and fall over- I was going to ignore this, but with another 6 weeks of flowering ahead of me I need to do something about it which is the plan for this coming week. I would have done it sooner, but I ran out of string so I was only able to HST the tallest cola - which was almost touching the light.
Well well well, welcome to the 10th week of flower. I am expecting her to go another 4 weeks.
This week we broke out the string and offered some support to the various drunk branches and colas. Combined with some additional HST I am evened out the canopy a little bit, bringing more colas closer to the light and also clawed back some vertical growing space.
The girls really are starting to look very tatty with some colas being worse affacted than others. Some lower leaves are very light green, almost lime green which to me looks like an Mg deficiency but also some upper colas have very crispy leaves. Both symptoms pictured. Despite this, colas are continuing to really develop.
Next water is in two days and I think it's time to really wind back the nutrient levels and I will probably move back to my standard bloom feed. My feeding plan right now going in to the final weeks is as follows:
2 weeks @ ~2ml/l
1 week @ ~1ml/l
1 week @ plain water
Harvest!
Comrades in horticulture, welcome to my 11th week of flower, and it was a good week!
I have been inspired by the diaries of @deFharo whose updates make me smile when I read them. Henceforth, I shall try to bring a bit more character to my updates in the hope that you might also discover a tiny morsel of unexpected happiness, let us begin!
Throughout my grows I see my failures with great ease but struggle to take note of my successes and things that I have done well. These two plants have been no exception so far, all I've really been seeing each week are burnt leaves and yellowing veins; mismanagement, mistakes and the ugly results of them.
Not so this week; the issues that are haunting my grow seem to be stabalizing while the plants have scaled up their dank production mightily. Brushing against their branches now releases a strong and complex scent - wood and earth, spice and incense. It makes me think of soft, squisy hashish and it is delightful. It has allowed me to see that the problems these plants have are not as bad as I think they are. They are not perfectly healthy but these congolese girls have produced these beautiful colas, increasingly resinous and pungent as more and more string is needed to support them and lift them towards the light.
With autumn well underway, outside temperatures falling and with with my girls having little observable PCK influence, I decided to install my heat mats. I doubt the temperature will get low enough for the thermostat to even turn on but better safe than sorry!
Not too many weeks left now, see you next week!
Welcome comrades in horticulture to week 12 of flower.
I don't have much to say about this week, the plants have got a bit more tatty and have actually developed some purple on a couple of leaves. A little bit of PCK influence?
They also appear to have finally given up on getting even taller - one or two colas specfically have been slowly but persistantly reaching for greater heights. That appears to have stopped now and these tips are fattening up. This coming week, feed will be reduced to 1ml/l, then down to pure, clean water.
Through the loupe, not a single amber trichome can be found - I think still they are mostly clear but it's hard to tell, I think I want a stronger loupe. I am not expecting many (if any!) amber trichomes given the strong congolese sativa influence so I am aiming for mostly cloudy. My plan as it stands is to harvest in two weeks - I hope this is long enough for them to finish properly, and at the back of my mind I'm quietly thinking they might benefit for another 2 weeks of flower for a total of 16 weeks. Time will tell!
Hello comrades in horticulture!
At the end of last week I increased the hours of darkness by an extra hour (photoperiod now 11/13) just to let them know that they really should hurry up and finish up their flowering cycle. On the 3rd Nov, I fed these them for I think the last time - nothing but pure clean water from here on out. They are noticably less thirsty these days, I don't think they have much longer - another week? Two? Three? One thing is certain; I'm going to need more storage jars.
My thoughts are now increasingly turning to two things....
1. What am I going to do with all the trim? Freeze it for bubble? Dry it for other concentrates?
3. What shall I grow next? I know I should use some of the seed I already have, but there are so many others out there...
Hello comrades in horticulture!
There isn't much to say this week, I suspect this will be my last update before harvest. I think now I should have cropped a week earlier, but I wanted to give them at least a week of water to flush out anything which might affect the taste. The amount they are drinking has really crashed - they've barely drank 6 litres since last Wedsnesday.
The plan now is a simple one...
1) Give them 2-3 days to use us a bit of the water currently stored in the compost (this is to make sure humidity doesn't get too high during step 2)
2) Turn off lights for 72 hours
3) Chop, trim & dry!
-- UPDATE 16th November 2021 --
Okay folks, they're chopped and now drying.
Before I get around to my final harvest update, I wanted to put down my thoughts on these two plants, so here they are:
Both my girls are strongly influenced by their congolese background, showing little from their PCK parent. I can well imagine an 12' tall bushes of this growing on some marginal land, developing truly gigantic colas under the African sun. If I were to grow this again indoors, I would do things a little differently to try and control the height a little more. I also think this phenotype would really benefit from more intense HPS lighting during flower.
Freshly cut and trimmed, I have 1490g of buds with stems and around 500g of trim which I have frozen. The buds are airy and I imagine they have a very high resistance to bud rot and my concerns about humidity were entirely pointless! The low density off the buds has contributed to quite a fine collection of trim which is ultimately going to be used for cold water extraction.
I do not think I will end up keeping the mother plant that I kept back. While this has been a wonderful plant to grow, having expanded the boundaries of my horticultural knowledge and experience, it is also slightly impractical for my setup. Of course the final decision on the fate of the mother plant is a way off yet, this weed might turn out to be the finest high I've ever had!
Okay folks, it's 4 weeks later. Let's talk about the results...
Let's get some basics out of the way first - I made a pretty glaring mistake during this grow which caused... issues. What was that mistake? I switched to flower far too soon after repotting the plants giving them access to far more nitrogen than they wanted or could deal with. This (combined with their genetics) resulted in excessive stretching, increased leaf-to-flower ratio and a longer flowering period. The excess nitrogen I think probably played a role in stunting the overall development of the plant and the strength of the final product.
GROWING IT
I have had feedback from ACE themselves, who describe my phenotypes as strongly resembling Congo #3 (one of the Congolese landrace strains that provided some of the genetic base of the strain) which is native to the Brazzaville region of the Republic of Congo on the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There is very little influence from the other Congolese sativas or the PCK which make up this strains genetic heritage. As such, they demonstrated strong sativa characteristics during growth. They hated nitrogen, got really tall and produced huge but very low-density flowers. I ended up with 423g of dried flower - I nearly went back to remove some extra stems just to reduce that down to 420g.
I would love to have the opportunity to grow this plant outdoors or in a polytunnel, as I think that's where it would do best - under the great big lamp in the sky.
TASTE & SMELL
The freshly ground buds smell fresh and piney with light astringent notes that clears the sinuses ever to slightly. At 4 weeks cure, the taste is actually quite delicate. Overall, it is spicy and herby though it retains a feint vegetable taste (that I actually quite enjoy, it reminds me of sugar snap peas) though I expect this to disappear with further curing. I have detected hints of under-ripe raspberry or other citrus when vaping it soon after brushing my teeth. In summary, it tastes and smells entirely unoffensive, but it's not particularly noteworthy.
GETTIN' HIGH
For me these buds produces little or no brain fog, no insatiable munchies, no dry mouth, no paranoia, no creeping fatigue or waves of sleepiness - absolutely none of the stuff which can be the negative effects of cannabis (for me at least).
It is not a strong smoke for someone with a tolerance like me and the high duration is fairly short. Initially I was disappointed that this plant that I spent so long growing didn't get me high at all. Immediately after that thought I realised it was 11:30PM and I had just finished reassembling my oven after dedicating the last 2 hours to cleaning it thoroughly after baking an apple pie for the next day.
This is a motervating, energising strain which has been wonderous for managing the mental health concerns that I deal with. It is a great day time smoke for me, not so much a recreational product but highly medicinal instead.
I really enjoyed growing this strain; I found it difficult to manage and I made several mistakes. This means I learnt something, which pleases me greatly. I would absolutely grow this again if I didn't already have a list longer than my arm of other strains I also want to grow. I was amazed by the size of the colas which in some cases were longer than my entire arm. I have quite long arms, for the record.
@sativaman, nope they are grown from regular seed - bought 5, recieved 6, planted 5, got 3 males and these two girls. These two are virtually identical to my eye so far though for what it's worth..
amazing view beautiful colas wow never seen congo like this. regular seeds are apparently different from feminized ones. looks like a more clear congolese sativa expression. almost no pakistan chitral characteristics visually. they say congolese parents tend to flower much longer so I can guess this is a beautiful true congolese sativa experience for you. lovely.whatever you do,this strain always have leaf tip clawing,hates nitrogen,can't process it well,growing is harder than most other strains there is always a problem but end product is brilliant. how's the fragrance on these ones?
@HighRoller909, sounds like I'm getting exactly what I wanted, it's just gonna take longer than I'd hoped.. I dream of the day I have enough space to use an entire room for growing - until then though, I will continue trying to grow impractical sativas in a wardrobe! Cheers friend, I appreciate the info 👍
@wrongleverkronk, normally it doesnt stretch a lot if it has considerable amount of PCK(paki) in it but yours look much different than that,like how ace describes that rare congolese sativa.in my experience,panama stretched a lot and it was feminized,will most likely stretch more than this.i know tikal stretches good too.if there is no stealth restrictions,i would advise to grow these sativas in an open room without tent.another indication of a true congolese sativa pheno is that it smells like how you said,like earth and wood with sweet notes.my fem congos smelled like grapes and sweet berries because of paki chitral kush influence.you'll love the high.i think you have 6 more weeks and will have a great electric buzz at the end
@HighRoller909, that is incredibly useful info - getting nutrients right has been confusing as heck for me, especially as I'm using a new compost mix and feed. I'll adjust their feed with this info in mind - thanks! I kept a clone of one of these girls so I can have another go with a lighter compost mix in the future. I was worried about my other ACE seeds that I have to try (Tikal, Panama) given the stretch of these congos was a bit daunting and I figured the other strains could be too much for my space.. but if my congo girls are examples of very stretchy congolese sativas I feel a bit better about it.
I'm terrible at describing smells, but I would say it's earthy or woody but with a bit of sweetness to it. The smell has only really started to develop in the last week or two.
Good luck with your grow I hope you get the best taste of buds and healthy plants! Take care and stay lit! I will drop by sometimes to check on your process! Say hello if you ever visit my page!
Greetings from L.S.T 🙏🏼🌟
@sativaman, I can assure you the best way to start your day is with some of this run through your favorite vaporizer :) I really do love it, I've grown sativa-dominant hybrids before but this is my first exposure to what feels like a proper sativa. Those hybrids just don't compare...
@sativaman, and they're bloody massive too! Very airy like you'd expect for a sativa. I think a lot of the lower buds will end up being frozen for making hash at some point.
@sativaman, I'll take your word for it - I lack the experience to know much about the different phenos. I did have 1 plant which was taller but it turned out to be a male unfortunately!
@SaKeZC, hey mate - yeah I did spot signs of deficiencies on one or two lowest leaves on the Friday and upped their feed to 3ml/l bloom on the weekend. Lights are set at 18-20cm at this point when it's all sealed up - they did get a bit closer this week but I think I am seeing a bit of bleeching on the tallest colas. They seem to be doing alright though, fingers crossed!
wrongleverkronk
