Motherplant selection

Update day 9 7 of 8 Cannabis seeds have fully sprouted with success -> 87.5%. One of the RQS Shining Silver Haze didn't make it (red x). The seed was a dudd it turned dark and soft and white smear came out of it. That happens with some seeds I guess... Anyway, I removed the pellet not to leave it for mold or bugs whatever. So far one of the chilis has sprouted. As they take longer, I am giving other one more time. I will update the sprouting quote of the chilies (week 1) once I know it for sure. I continued to mist with DI-water and 0.5ml/L Alfa Boost 2-3 times per day. I aired the box 1x per day for 15 minutes. I watered them with DI-water and the listed nutrients, so to gently activate root growth and give minimal feeding. I poured off excess. Update day 10: The second chili has sprouted. So in total 9 out of 10 seeds sprouted -> 90% I will not post any pictures today, because there is not much change to be seen otherwise. Everything is looking good though. Update day 13 This morning seedlings looked very good. Still only one casualty (Shining Silver Haze; front left) Total 9/10 have spouted and shot up (7/8 cannabis and 2/2 chili). As expected, the chilis took a little longer. Two of the cannabis seedlings (orange circles), however, have still only got their baby leaves and have not shown much change over the past 2-3 days. I will keep an eye on them. Let's hope they also make it. Most of what I have been giving them so far was to optimise their environment and the soil; "EC-free" and at a very low dosage. But, I have been gradually increasing the content of "real fertilizer" with EC. My EC reads of feed solution have been: 0.34, 0.48, 0.65. I kept the pH between 5.8 and 6.3 in the feed solution. The run-off pH has been around 6.1-6.2. The rooting looks fine, 2-3 seedlings had 1-2 root tips have shot through the "pellet-sock" If they continue like this, I will put them into larger pots by the end of the week. Hopefully the first sets of real leaves will have shot out a bit more by then.

Update day 16: Re-potted in the afternoon and top fed about 50ml per pot as the substrate-mix was not moist enough. Update day 17: Bottom fed about 2L into the tray in the morning. Moved from the bathroom with China-LEDs to the DS120w with Migro Array 4. I will keep monitoring humidity, temperature of the tent, as well as pH and EC of the feed solution (and run-off when possible). All plants looked ok, but not perfect and not equal. Here is the low down: One of the Fruit Spirit and one of the Skunk XL (back row of the tray, middle and right) have still only grown their baby-leaves, but otherwise they looked more or less healthy and one even had a little root poke through the sock of the pellet - which is a sign of growth. One of the Fruit Spirit and one of the Skunk XL (middle row of the tray, middle and right) have grown a more or less healthy second - and partially third set or true leaves, but are a bit tall, slinky and top-heavy and started to bend so I supported them. The Shining Silver Haze (middle and back row of the tray, left) seeds that made it this far look best. One is a little taller than the other one and needed some straightening-up during the re-potting. The chilis and third Skunk XL look good, though the Skunk is a little small. I set up some yellow cards and fly catchers, lets see what they get. I will probably feed again in 2-3 days Update day 19: Top fed about 100ml per pot in the morning. Update day 20: I was able to remove the supporting metal pegs from the larger Skunk XL and Fruit Spirit (center and center right). The Skunk XL and Fruit Spirit in the back (center back & right back), still only really have their baby-leaves out. Who knows what is going to happen with them... The front center Skunk XL still has smaller leaves and is slightly lagging behind the others despite having more than the first set of proper leaves grow out. The 4 strongest and healthiest ones had slightly wavy leaf edges and 1-2 really small dry spots on them too. So I decided to put the cups back on during the day (except on the chilies) and tune down the lamp a little. The chilies looked great. Overall the pots were still quite heavy. Absolutely no watering needed. No sign of bugs, mites or mold.

Update Day 22 I am starting to manage the humidity better in the tent and room the tent is in, also the plants are getting a little older and are beginning to require less high humidity. So I took the cups off this afternoon. Better not to get mold or anything in there too. The two im the back with the baby leaf syndrome (or whatever) have not visibly changed in any way. Whatever, I will leave them until they die or grow I guess The scronkelly-dinkelly one in the front-middle is still lagging a bit behind, but looks fine in its own way, I think it will make it good with time. The 4 good ones have grown quite a bit, but show signs of stress on the leaves a little bit, like slightly wavy edges and tiny dry patches. So I also dimmed down down the light a little. I don't seem to have any bugs, as I could not see anything on the plants, in the room, on the soil or on the yellow cards and fly catchers. Yes, I also carefully checked under 1-2 leaves. Better not to have mites. Oh and the chilis look great. I will water them all maybe tomorrow or the day after. The pots are still a bit heavy. Update day 25 I watered them with masterblend for the first time yesterday and they seem to be taking it really well. Also I increased the light power slightly to about 35-40% and also increased the distance to the lamp by about 5-10cm. As I checked on them today and misted them I took a quick foto. Update day 26 They are really kicking of veg now as existing leaves are stretching out, new ones grow fast and healthy new shoots are coming beneath them. Babyleaf problem remains on the two in the back. The chilies look great.

Update day 29 The 4 strong ones had decently rooted, the scronkelly-dinkelly one half-decently, so I re-potted those and re-arranged all of them today. The soil was still wet enough, so I did not yet feed any of them. I will top the 4 strong ones in 2-3 days and try to get clones from the head shoots. Good Luck!

Update day 34 The 4 good plants are looking really strong. It has only been around a week in the new pots and I could already see a root tips at the bottom of some of the larger ones. I will top them tomorrow afternoon I figure. The skronkelly-dinkelly one is not so bad after all. It is catching up more and more. The skunk xl with the babyleaf problem remeains alive and unchanged. The fruit spirit with the babyleaf problem is showing growth of a first set of (scronkelly-dinkelly) leaves. Patience is key my friends.

Update day 36 This morning I watered them. A few hours later I topped them, removed 1-2 bottom leaves and spread them out a little bit with this training wire stuff. I am trying to clone the tops, lets see how it goes. Also I switched positions of the chilies to give the larger one more light. Update day 39 I moved the baby-leaf-problem-plants, the chilies and the clones from the topping into the propagator tent. The clones are additionally in the starter green-house. The plants in the propagator tent have been in there for around 3 days now and seem to like it in there a lot. In the larger cabinet I re-arranged the remaining plants, accordingly. The main plants are starting to show healthy new growth after the topping and LST on day 36. I fimmed the smallest plant of those larger plants (in the middle), that is the second Skunk XL, that used to be a bit skronkelly-dinkelly. I also fed them today as the soil was getting a little dry on the top.

They all recovered & responded well to the topping the first round of LST, so I gave them some more LST some days later and also removed 1-2 of the lower leaves and snipped the tips of mains shoots, to give two ends each again. Later in the week I began re-potting. I started with the mothers which have developed nice and healthy roots as you can see. Root juice and enzymes did their magic I suppose. I got rid of the baby leaf problem plants. They were not turning out well. The clones look great. Photos of those next week.

Re-potted the remaining plants into their final pots now too. The stems of all plants are very nice and thick too. I will post some pictures later with the clone pictures. Soon I will transfer the 3 white potted plants into the flower tent. And then in a week or so I will set up the autopot system. That will then be the conclusion of the motherplant selection grow. I will continue and finalise the 3 plants in the flower tent as another grow. Also the clones will be continued and finalised in another grow. So now I posted some more pictures of some of the stems and the propagator with the chilies and clones. :-)

Today, on day 59 I will conclude this diary. As announced in week 1, I have planted 8 cannabis seeds and 2 chili seeds: 3x Skunk XL and 3x Shining Silver Haze for mother plant selection (1 each). Also 2x Fruit Spirit and 2x Bullet chilis (not weed). All but the chilies are from Royalqueenseeds. Of the 8 cannabis seeds, 5 turned out well: 2 Skunk XL, 2 Shining Silver Haze and 1 Fruit Spirit. One Skunk XL turned out to be a bit skronkelly-dinkelly, so I fimmed it, to give it good spread but not slow it down too much. The other 4 of them were strong enough to be topped, so I topped them and attempted to make clones from the tops --> I succeeded. All 4 Clones look strong and good. So in total I have 9 strong looking weed plants in different sizes cabinets and pots. I have selected two strong mothers and put them into their final pots and cabinet: Secret Jardin DS120w (cm120x60x178h) 1 x Royalqueenseeds Skunk XL (strong one) 1 x Royalqueenseeds Shining Silver Haze each in a 20L Fabric pots on Autopot with Masterblend hydroponic fertilizer under a migro array 4 set to 16/8. The three ones not selected for being mothers and destined to flower I put into their final pots and cabinet: Secret Jardin DR150w (cm150x90x200h) 1 x Royalqueenseeds Skunk XL (skronkelly dinkelly one, got fimmed --> gave no clone) 1 x Royalqueenseeds Fruit Spirit 1 x Royalqueenseeds Shining Silver Haze each in a square 15L pot on Autopot with Masterblend hydroponic fertilizer under 2 x Sanlight EVO 5-150 (set to 16/8) & 2 x migro UVB tubes. I have cut four clones and three of them look very well and equally strong/healthy and one a little less strong/normal, but still ok: Royal Room C60SM (cm60x40x80h) & propagation greenhouse inside 1 x Royalqueenseeds Skunk XL 1 x Royalqueenseeds Fruit Spirit 2 x Royalqueenseeds Shining Silver Haze (one strong, one normal) each in a square 0.5L pot hand watered with Masterblend hydroponic fertilizer and some organics under 2 x Secret Jardin Cosmorrow 20w grow and 1 x Secret Jardin Cosmorrow 20w ultraviolet. Anyhow, in a week or two I will re-pot those and also put - the three equally strong ones of them - into the large flowering cabinet and then flower them out with the three seed plants. I will start a new diary called "Flowering out the leftovers" where I will continue to post on those 6 plants I have now destined to flower; the 3 equal clones and 3 seed plants not selected for mothers. I will attempt to flower them out all together in the large main flowering cabinet. I will probably have to harvest them sequentially as they are different strains and will ripen at different times. The chilies are healthy and strong. They are in the large flowering cabinet. They have started to flower. I have been pollinating them by hand. In 1 week or so I will put them outside into the balcony greenhouse :-) Here I will only post the harvest & final data of the chilies to conclude this diary. I will start a new diary called "Outdoor Clone" where I will continue to post on the less strong, but still ok Shining Silver Haze Clone and the chillies in the balcony greenhouse. Thanks for your interest. I hope you enjoyed my posts so far.

I planted 3 seeds and got 2 successful plants, that I successfully topped/cloned. So I have 4 plants in total. The stronger one of the seed plants was selected as a mother plant. The other ones shall be flowered out in a separate diary.

I planted 3 seeds and got 2 successful plants, one I successfully topped/cloned. So I have 3 plants in total. The stronger one of the seed plants was selected as a mother plant. The other ones shall be flowered out in a separate diary.

I planted 2 seeds and got 1 successful plant, that I successfully topped/cloned. So I have 2 plants in total. They shall be flowered out in a separate diary.

Just to share some pictures of the mothers :-) They are coming along well and the Masterblend over the Autopots has proven to be absolutely great! I hope you enjoy.

More pics from week 12. I hope you enjoy them. They are getting thicker and stronger every week! I already had to refill the resevoir. Yep, they drank 50 Litres of 1.3 EC within less than 2 weeks. Soon I will cut the first clones.