14Apr: Lovely genetics emerging on week 5. Mixed indoor-outdoor totalling 16hrs/day while sexing finishes up. One boy, one girl, three unknown so far. The boy is looking nice and bushy which will have me aiming to grow it out, collect pollen, and inbreed with it. I would call these Indica-leaning phenotypes so far. 1tsp/gal of Nitrogen nutes on Sunday was their first non-soil food, when everyone got a good light feeding. Weather had them outside 4 days of 7 for 6-8hrs of sun. When not outside they are in the 5x5 MarsHydro tent under a SpiderFarm SF4000 LED panel running at 100% until 6pm when I drop it to 40% until the timer kicks off. By 4pm the plants have had 10hrs and show the drooping of their leaves that says "we're tired".
So glad to find someone growing landraces! I’ve got a bunch from the same seed bank and am super eager to try. Will you be keeping them in the tent the whole way through?
@Growpotkin, I am lucky at this point to have a private and secure yard to grow in. However, even the years I grew in a rental apartment, I got a few hours of sun each day. We had a 4'x20' 2nd floor balcony, and even if just on weekends, I put those plants in whatever ray of sunlight I could find. Outdoors doesnt mean 'planted in the ground' which I find to be less than optimal until plants outgrow a 20gal trashcan, or you have a tractor to dig holes with. As a kid, we planted on year-round streambeds and ignored until they were 6ft tall. City life just makes that impossible now, so I do the extra labor it takes to carry potted plants in and out nearly every day until summer comes. IMHO, 100% indoors is fine for landraces IF you have at least a 5foot high grow tent, or better, use 8ft ceilings with no grow tent. Big plants need big roots, even when chopped down to grow as bushes. With a 20gal pot you lose 18" of height due to the pot, but little pots JUST WONT DO! Good luck, bro!
@MrCrispy, gotcha, thanks. I’ll be really interested to see how it goes! I wish I could grow outside but it’s not realistic for me. I’ll experiment with them in the tent for the full life cycle but am not expecting much.
Those are great roots!!! For more roots around the soil you could make holes on the sides, them the roots may get more oxygen around the pot, not only on the bottom!! Check how they don't have roots around...
Also, more perlite would be great.
@Psilocubensis, Thanks! Since they only spent one week in the 2.5qt pots, I wasnt expecting much visible side-rooting. Next transplant I will look for them pretty much stitched up with roots all around, but in wildly swinging weather I needed them in safer/larger containers as fast as they would support it. Have a look at the Nanda Devi and you can see I am also dealing with intentionally poor soil mixes for Himalayan native strains. I am intentionally *not* following general grow methods for my landrace adventures, though the Sinai isnt acting like a landrace.