21Apr: Happy 420. The Sinai have all expressed their sex with 2 males, 3 females. These males are isolated and outside full time starting 3-4 days ago. They havent bolted and become scraggly like the Rasoli male, but I am pruning them up aggressively and topping them both. Whichever does better after the pruning will be grown out; the other mulched. The three remaining females are doing great, though I have favored some other plants this week in transplanting and the Sinai should be in 5gal by now but are in 3gal which I need to fix by this weekend. Next week the weather should settle enough to move them all outside and concentrate on the upcoming war of insects.
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.