And we are officially through step 1 of the latest pollen chuck👌🤟. They all started spewing around the same time and the bulk of it was in the air within about 3 days. All of the females have noticeably taken to it as well so the males have served their purpose and made short work of it too👍.
All 3 of these Spicy Bitch males were absolute cum dumpsters🤩 but, one in particular showed that added pizazz😎.
We elected to salvage and harvest the pollen from this particular plant juuuuuust in case the opportunity presents to use it once more on something new. I doubt it given all the crosses we now have to test.
As far as our pollen harvesting methods are concerned. It’s pretty basic and rudimentary.
- Cover the plant in an appropriately sized plastic bag and tie off the tag ends at the base of the stem.
- snip off the main stem at the base of the plant.
- beat the shit out of the bag.
- just kidding 😁, “vigorously agitate” said bag so as to encourage all of the mature pollen sacs (and their pollen) to drop off the plant to the bottom of said bag.
- remove the plant from the bag, giving ‘er a good shake as you do.
- give the pollen bag a strong shake and further agitation to encourage all the pollen to its bottom.
- cut the bag like a bag of chips that’s half eaten and pour it out on to some tin foil.
- separate any leaf matter but generally keep all the pollen sacs (this is the super lazy method after all😉).
- fold the tin foil into a spout type shape and pour your sacs and pollen into a freezer bag.
- add roughly the same amount of all purpose flour as a dessicant.
- wrap in tin foil, seal with cardboard (added dessicant) in Tupperware and freeze in refrigerator of your choice.
- done. Shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes give or take👍.
That’s it for these girls! On to where the rubber meets the road. Can’t wait for dem seeds🤞🤞🤞.
***Smoke update: terps, colour and bag appeal are all on point with this girl. Same goes for most growth characteristics. The smoke is hard to rate at this point. Definitely sativa but not overly strong at all. Could be due to the seed she produced though. She did catch some stray pollen during flower so tough to comment on. Either way - generally an excellent all around strain, par for exotics course👍👌.
A reliable, small footprint fixture. Dimmer adds some extra utility for rooting clones and the flower results have been surprising for such a small and sleek package👍😎
She shines brighter than anything else we’ve got and the plants have shown no issues with heat stress. This was a winning tent/light combo all the way. Glad we went with our gut there😎👍😎
She gets a 4/5 star rating only because I wish it had about 8+ more inches of extra headroom. Other than that - it’s a very well built tent and has served us quite well👍😎👍.
Background
Fingers crossed that these Spicy Bitch regs provide at least one male so that we can back build some stock of it. In the event that does take place we’ve got a single clone of each strain from the previous pollen chuck to sit in the tent with them so they can make babies for the next few months. The whole point of the last year was to start making some foundational genetics for a third generational cross we could call our own. If you’ve been following along than you’ll know that it’s been anything but easy. Our previous pollen picks didn’t pan out at all so we’re back to the drawing board with a new option from ExoticSeeds.
This’ll be a 10 plant run with 5 regs and 6 strains for pollination including the strain itself.
We’re running in a 2x4 MarsHydro grow tent all powered by a Mars Sp6500. That’s a little more than 600w packed into half the recommended footprint😳. Why? you ask - because we like our buds big and overcompensatory😂. Really, I’m just of the mind that we can pack more light into this space than recommended and get much better results. The math doesn’t lie. At least not as long as I wasn’t high when using the calculator again…..
Many thanks to @MarsHydroLED for the opportunity to test run the equipment👊.
In addition, we’ve also moved to a new nutrient system - Druid Nutrients out of the Netherlands. They don’t really have a presence on GD yet but you’ll be hearing about them very soon I’m sure. The beauty of this system is that it’s literally a 1 (one) component system for the entirety of the plants grow cycle. It really has changed the game in terms of ease of feeding and maintenance. It’s also very versatile and seems to provide everything needed across multiple different strains in the same ratios. Keep your eyes peeled for these folks. Pretty much a guarantee that they absolutely blow up once more people know about them👍👌😎.
Strain Background
Spicy Bitch: predominantly sativa, heavy yielder with a daytime kinda trip profile. It’s a cross of Queen Mother and a Pre-2000 AK47. We’ll pull what pollen we can and hope to have a female run out a larger supply of seed for the future.
Many thanks to @Exoticseeds for the chance to give these beans a go👍👊.
Pollination Strains:
Holy Surfer S1 - this is one of the focal points for this cycle. A fellow growmie was kind enough to ship over some S1 genetics I took an interest in. The only ask back was that if I did cross it to send a few his way for testing👍. Shoutout and cheers to @blendmedmedman. Hoping to have something back to ya in short order. For full details on this alluring hybrid option check my buddies link at seedfinder -
https://en.seedfinder.eu/strain-info/Holy_Surfer/Smiling_Tiger/
Northern Lights - this came from a particularly interesting batch of seeds that have shown a very dependable variegation trait. It’s a compact and squat plant requiring very little maintenance. Typical for the strain really. It’s been chosen as an option to potentially mellow out the high , shorten the stature of the resulting hybrid and inject it with some of that mellow indica effect.
Boogie Nights - total shot in the dark. Still haven’t even tried the strain myself yet but it was available at the right time and interesting enough to make a salad with. Big thanks to AMS who’ve been nothing short of an excellent seedbank to collaborate with. Expect similar growth characteristics to that of the Northern Lights. Better resilience however.
Blueberry - this particular clone is from extremely strong stock. Spliff seeds broke the mold with this strain. She’s lower maintenance than the NL, more resilient than anything else we’ve got on the menu and the terp. Profile on this girl is out of this world. If we can bring any of these qualities to the cross, then it could be magic👌.
White Widow - garrghh, I just can’t get away from this particular plant. Again, still haven’t even tested the buds yet and all I can say is that the growth characteristics are extremely vigorous and desirable. This plant is one of 3 unicorns that I have yet to tame due to a combo of extremely bad luck and circumstance.
All told, it’s still the same story: a VERY experimental breeding project designed to shotgun a broad swath of genetics against a reliable and dependable Breeder who’s put out proven fire 🔥🤟😎👍.
@sailormoonflowers, thanks dude yeah - it’s a never ending adventure that’s for sure👍. All in search of the elusive omega strain and the best way in which to grow it👍😉
@BioBuds, cheers dude. I got 3 in there with the girls so they’ll yield a ton of seed no matter what. Also leaving one that’s showing a leaf mutation just for some extra variation in the spicy bitch genetic. This shits just as fun as growing actual buds lol
@amsterdammarijuanaseeds, no doubt and the original seed of this clone has shown great resilience. Thank u again for the opportunity to grow this out👍👊👊
Hey man, I see in your update you mention deciding on if and how to store pollen for later. I’ve experimented with this. My best success was to collect the pollen on aluminum foil, try get it as clean as possible with no leaf matter. Mix it with some white flour that you bake in the oven until it’s dry, just be sure it doesn’t toast and change color (bake the flour only not the pollen). Mix this with the pollen. Then for overkill mix this with some white rice, make a foil package and seal in a plastic bag inside a glass jar in the freezer. I stored some feminized pollen this way for 12 months and when I used it, it was still viable. To apply the pollen I just used a paint brush and brushed the white hairs. Within 24 hrs they were turning orange. There were some immature beans but not a significant amount. Well worth the effort to save the pollen to have on hand to spread the love when you it.
@DeaneR , yeah dude - totally worth it if you’ll be utilizing it in a reasonable time. And @Captain_7 is fully on point with resiliency. If stored properly, it’ll last a lot longer than you’d think. I had some recently that I used twice to full effect without flour and just thrown into a baggie and Tupperware. It really shouldn’t have worked after 6 months but fully did👍.
@Captain_7 & @TheBudWhisperer, Good info here. I've heard about the flour for stretching pollen, storing, and baking it....great to hear some feedback from people who use these methods👍 I've only used pollen fresh...I need to learn to store that shit!
@Captain_7, not at all dude, if anything it just promotes further discussion like this👍. That’s interesting about the flour though. Didn’t know that. Although I’ve never had issues with it in its normal state in the past. All good man and thanks for take’n a look!👍👊