Tropic Orange - Equilibrium Genetics

DAY 14 No water. Updated Strain information to not mislead any growers. Tropic Orange from Equilibrium Genetics. DAY 12/13 Gave the seedlings a light watering in the morning. I have successfully started all the plants for the outdoor season. I will focus mostly on growing Tropic Orange outdoor this year. The first female I identify from the bunch will have its own 45 gallon home until the chop. The remaining females will be paired up in 30 gallon fabric pots. DAY 11 No water today. New seedlings are ready. Surprise! T.O.3 somehow stayed alive and now I have T.O.3 and T.O.11 both sprouting from the same pot. Considered moving one, but then I said nah! Just leave it. DAY 10 Watered early in the morning. The days are cloudy, but not wet. Soil has retained water nicely. The seedlings and sprouts are both in similar locations. DAY 9 I didn't water. New seeds all germinated. I placed all 7 roots in soil. Will continue with moving plants in the night to avoid the slugs in the garden. So far I have successfully germinated 15 Tropic Orange seeds from Equilibrium Genetics. All seeds have then been placed in Fox Farms Happy Frog soil. DAY 8 I water the seedlings very lightly. I would say it is a sprinkle more than a watering. They are some eager seedlings that are growing significantly by the day. I am starting 7 seeds today to make up for the seedlings the slugs are eating. I am complacent to change my ways in the garden at times, but I am aware that there are ways to fight the slugs.

Quick Update: Mixed some soil to start off diary Veg Week 2. Basic stuff (pick-a-soil mix, perlite, bag of worm castings). Planning on moving the seedlings early, but not too young to avoid the pests in my garden. My guess is maybe Veg Week 3 -- starting to look like Veg Week 4. The goal is to have 2 females per 30 gallon pot. Tried it before and it helps with keeping the plant height low -- just remember to train the plants (LST) to give them both room to grow and defoliate to allow air flow since humidity does become an issue when you grow the plants close to each other. Whats up with the plants?: The second set of seedlings is catching up in height to the first set. They're only a week apart-- it shouldn't make much difference by the end of the season. T.O.2 (just numbering to identify) is showing the curly leaf tip trait. I'm not sure where I first saw or read about this, but it's a genetic trait of the plant--and not a nutrient deficiency or watering issue (see picture). Watering? Honestly. I'm just checking the plants and soil. I'm allowing the soil to dry -- not entirely, but I'm practicing my patience to wait for the plant to start to droop slightly before giving it a good shower. Usually watering about every 2 to 3 days (normal for seedlings). Slowly increasing amount as ambient temperature starts to go up. Eventually I will be watering every day and placing plants near a pop-up canopy for partial shade.

Veg Week 3 The Plants DAY 22 - Transplanted T.O.5. Not Root Bound, but definitely could see the bright white roots all around the container. The plant started stretching almost immediately. So cool to see plants move. DAY 26 - Finished Transplanting for this week-- T.O. 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13 to ~1 gallon pots. Watering Starting watering every day toward the end of the week (Day 26). Days are starting to get warmer. Growing in fabric pots in Southern California typically requires daily watering starting in June. I've learned through the years that the plant just sucks up the water and boosts in size. The more water you can give it without rotting the roots - the bigger the plant. There are still differences in strains - some plants just like to get dry before the next drenching. Couple more weeks until the June solstice (June 20). Nutrients Building up the arsenal in my cupboard--Bud Candy + Overdrive from AN, Kelp Meal from Down To Earth. I usually don't add too much stuff because the soil is fairly loaded from the bag.

This ended up being the week of the transplants. Up potted everything and ran out of soil. Watering Typical stuff. Over watered and now I'm waiting to see what happens. No water discipline time.

The solstice. Here we go! I hope to start seeing some action soon and pulling out males. I have my hunches, but haven't confirmed any pollen sacks. The plants got over watered so I have laid off the watering for now. I will be preparing my last transplants soon so I modified pot size to show 30 gallon. So far so good. No changes yet. Considering LST for the 4 plants growing together. I indicated weak smell, but you can begin to get subtle hints of lemony/orangey aromas. Happy Growing grow-mies.

Still watering lightly. It looks like this variety requires much less hydration than other strains I've grown before. Not new to sativa; but each strain is different to be honest. I will at minimum: LST one for kicks (maybe even FIM one), let one grow regular by itself, grow 2 in one pot. After years of growing I finally decided to focus on one sativa dominant strain from a reputable seed provider for the outdoor season. Happy Growing grow-mies.

Watering has intensified after solstice due to hot, sunny, and sometimes dry days. All plants have been transplanted. The last 3 to be transplanted appeared root bound-ish and heat stressed. I put up the canopy on the evening of Day 52 to avoid further heat stress along with a good drenching. There are 5 plants that are half the size the other 7...at first I thought boys are tall, but I don't know. My experience with sativa dominant plants has been that they start off small and all of a sudden begin to blow up in size. We will see. None have died yet, other than the 3 slug victims.

Week is going great everyone. The canopy allowed all the plants to green up. I guess they were getting sun/heat stressed and it caused them to yellow. At first I thought it was over watering, but not watering did nothing. I'm actually watering a bit on the heavy side this week. I'm also thinking it's about time to add some worm castings. 1 girl identified on DAY 57 (she's tall and leafy, has a little red on one of the lower leaves' stem). I'm going to bend her a little and have her angled across the pot. She has one companion that hasn't been identified. 3 males identified as of DAY 63 --all three tall--one thicker than the others--all 3 taken down--great roots--orange danky aroma--not planning on keeping males this year--but it still hurts a little to take a plant down. :-( Thank you to all the likes and everyone else viewing. The outdoor season is in full effect. Happy growing!

Happy to see the plants taking off. Watering has not been an issue with the hot weather. Give them as much as they will take every 2-3 days. Gave them kelp meal (1tsp/gallon of soil) and some worm castings this week--about a handful worm castings per pot--dry amendments are very gentle and forgiving in soil. Fems: Both identified growing solo in 30 gallon fabric pots. Not pulling the 1st female much. I did gently set her under a small tomato cage slightly. 2nd female is growing regular--no pull--no pinch--nada!--just straight up. Males--As far as the male count--currently 6 males have been removed from the grow area.

Hi to everyone. DAY 74 -- Happy to say I haven't had any major issues so far this year. Made a video to show the progress and the difference in how the plants look. Some are getting stretched/pulled; while others aren't. All are getting partial shade throughout the day to avoid the heat stress. Am considering full sun now that they are bigger. Count: 50/50 male/female; 6 of each basically from the 12 seedlings.

Great week. I simply keep watering more. I'm going to start with the juices and more kelp meal sprinkles next week. They're getting taller by the day and no sign of being waterlogged and no runoff either. Green, smelly, in pre-flowering or transition state, companion plants taking off also. Haven't spotted any males or male pollen sacks in the grow area after the removal of 6 identified males. No pollination from my grow, but the environment is wild for pollen around here--i get seeds every year--even if it's just 8 seeds from a whole pound of harvest--a bee lands on the flowers in mid-october and it's like 50/50 seed or not in that location--just saying that it's part of growing outdoors without a net.

Week 13 (Aug/1/2024-Aug/7/2024) DAY85 - Nothing new. Water, check, repeat. Added Kelp Meal for nutrients this week. I am thinking how I will separate the plants this week--they're starting to bunch up together--staggered may be the best option to minimize space in the garden. DAY 89 - Gave one of the girls to my buddy. Helped with the bunching of the plants in a limited space. They're a lot to handle when you harvest alone. Kept the tall one, the short two(LST), the different one in the 45 gallon pot, and the bushy one(LST-ish). By the way: I include germination as part of the day count. So basically day 1 is when I put the seed in water. These seeds all rooted within 48 hours.

Week 13 (August 8 - 14) Just pushing through. Definitely in flowering mode. Watering at least a gallon a day. Each plant smells slightly different, but they all have that citrus undertone in the aroma. Really hot portion of summer weeks away, basically more water for hydration. Oh yeah, killed one caterpillar, lost one nug. That's the non-insecticide grow life. No B.T., no neem, none of that shit, just good old hand picking and chop sticking.

Really hot. Using more water. About 2 gallons a day each pot. Watering daily. Summer peak hits in the next month, then comes the wind down to the season...from September to Croptober. I don't see as much stretching as I see buds coming in right now, which is really exciting. Wind: I usually experience strong winds for the end of August and start of September. This means that I am taking the canopy down and letting the sun hit the plants with all its force for the remainder of the season. More water means fatter nugs. Nutrients: Day 105 - 21 August 2024 - Added 1 cup Bud Candy and 1/2 cup Overdrive from AN, then added 2 gallons of water in a large watering can. I let that sit for 2-3 hours, then I add it equally to the four pots. I'm alternating this and kelp meal biweekly from Down to Earth (every 2 weeks). This recipe is gentle and it works for me. Thank you to all following the grow. Straight up... each plant looks a little different - my guess it's because of all the crosses behind the genetics. Basically looks a little Malawi, a little tropicanny, a little cookie, and sour orangey for sure. I don't care for a stable line where all the plants look homogenous (basically the same, I may have messed up the description) - I just want something that will have a good end product and these plants all look fine to me. Now I just have to be vigilant so that the caterpillars don't destroy all the flowers. It's a bit nerve wrecking, but I'm committed to not using pesticides or insecticides - organic or not. I'm also considering washing the herb at harvest--that's got me a little nervous also because it gets really humid around harvest time, but all the testimonials and videos I've researched all seem to agree that it does not affect the end quality in terms of effect since THC is basically water resistant, not water soluble or something--i'm thinking water hash in my head to comprehend the science a little better. That's it. Just a few more weeks to go. About 8.

Aug 22 - Aug 28 Week 16 (Day 106-Day 112) The Low Down- Plants responded well to the Advanced Nutrients I watered with a couple of days ago. By 'responded well' I just mean that they didn't yellow or adversely react. I'm still watering 2 gallons per day per plant when I water, but I skipped a day since I don't want to get root rot. Twice before I have had the plants get waterlogged at the bottom of the pot (obviously right =-) ), and I didn't know then that it caused the leaves to yellow from the bottom up. I honestly thought I had nutrient burn. That said, I skipped a day on the watering. I applied kelp meal on day 111. I broke my rule and used Monterey B.T. on day 111. Honestly--I felt scared because I can't inspect the plants everyday so I went for the Monterey b.t. to combat the caterpillars. Not sure if I will apply again since we are in flowering. The Plants- The plants look great and smell great. Thank you EQuillibrium Genetics. Everyday they get a little more aromatic. The smell is somewhere between minty/lemony/orangey and some bomb ass weed. Will definitely hit. One day I could've sworn it smelled like that Gary Payton weed, basically kushy, citrusy, and a little sour diesely. On DAY 108 in the morning they smelled like orange fanta. Amendments- I applied kelp meal on DAY 111 (Aug 22). The quality has improved in my plants since I started more actively amending the soil a few years back. Before I just used to add that Alaska fish emulsion directly on the soil once a month. Now I use Kelp Meal from Down-to-Earth and the Bud Candy and Overdrive from Advanced Nutrients. I even used some cha-ching from Fox Farms at the end of last season. I don't start adding anything until at least a month or two into the grow because the soils I use already come amended. I also continue using the soil year after year. I take all the soil at the end of the year and place it on a tarp. Then I add perlite, bone meal, blood meal, kelp meal, molasses, coffee grinds, banana peels, egg shells, and mix it all up. I let that sit for a couple of weeks or longer and then start using it on my potted plants in the garden. If I have enough left over after 2 months I will fill up the fabric pots again and plant clover, thyme, and oregano during the off season.

Aug 29 - Sep 04 (Week 17, day 113- day 119) Thank you to the universe ✨. Thank you to the sun 🌞 for providing this year. Thank you to everyone following. The season is going great as you can see from the pictures 🖼️🖼️🖼️. The caterpillars (las orugas 🐛) have not returned--and if they did then they are gone for now. There's just about 5 to 6 weeks to go according to the information on the seed box. Im super excited--by the way--this weed smells like the peel on a ripe mango mixed with orange peels 🍊--it also has that distinct sweet weed smell 🌿 with a little minty and lemony 🍋 mixed in. Ummm. Delicious. 🤤 Gracias al universo ✨. Gracias al sol ☀️ por proveer este año. Gracias a todos siguiendo el diario. Esta temporada va fenomenal por lo que pueden ver en las fotos 🖼️🖼️🖼️. Las orugas (the caterpillars 🐛) no han regresado--y si regresaron, pues ya se fueron por ahorita. Quedan casi seis semanas para cosechar según la información en la cajita de semillas. Estoy súper emocionado--de por si--esta mota huele a la cáscara de un mango maduro mezclado con cáscaras de naranja 🍊--y también tiene ese olor distinto de la mota 🌿 dulce con un poco de menta y limoncito 🍋 mezclado. Ummm. Rico papi. 🤤

05/SEP/2024 - 11/SEP/2024 (Week 18 - Day 120 - Day 126) Much love to everyone following. The smell is tantalizingly orangey / citrusy / kushy. One of them also smells like ripe mango. I hope to make it to harvest without any mishaps. The nugs are sticky, fluffy, aromatic, and starting to get more colorful. I'm really nervous about the timing since sativa dominants go longer than I'm used to, but the breeder said Mid-October. I think that's early for a sativa, but we will see.

Wow! 18 weeks since germination. I'm thinking it still has about 4 weeks to go. Flowering still in full effect. You can see the new flower growth because it is a lighter color. Getting closer to the full moon at the end of the grow week. Have one more moon cycle to go. About the mid October mark. I'm watering about 75% less than last week. The heat has calmed down significantly, but it is still warm. Sidenote: I took a few of the pop-corny bottom nugs to sample and also because an animal in the garden broke one off. I will have a sample ready to puff probably around harvest time.

Great week. Cloudy days and laid off the water. Only issue has been a consistent influx of caterpillars. Have been picking them off and removing the damaged flowers. The smell is powerful. Happy growing to all the viewers. May your harvest be bountiful.

Hello to all those following. The season is coming to an end and I have started cutting down the first branches. All the trichromes are essentially milky white with very little amber. I am not cutting down entire plants since I am trimming alone. I simply cut down a few branches every morning and little by little I wet trim and begin the drying process. The first few nugs I have started drying have easily lost half their volume. Definitely Sativa dominant fluffy nugs. The smell is great at first, then quickly dies down after a day and a half. Will definitely need a good cure to get the orange aromas to pop out. I am happy with the result of the grow and patiently cutting down the plants. Once I finish in a week or so I will go ahead and post the harvest week pictures and so forth. I don't have a scale so I may just eyeball it together after I start curing and place a value for yield. I honestly thought I was going to get at least a kilo, but the buds really compress in size once you start drying. I strongly recommend the breeder. The flowers came out great regardless of the yield and the plant responded well to different techniques. The yield does seem to get affected if doing LST, but I still have a lot more to learn when using this technique. I don't have to LST where I live, but I like to experiment to see if it affects the quality of the flowers. As mentioned in the prior weeks I had one plant that had the flowers turn purple over night. This is only the second time that I get purple flowers. It's really beautiful and exciting. Thanks again to everyone following. Just a few more days before we are officially in the drying/curing phase of the cycle. I consider this the most crucial part of growing herbs. Time to bust out the humidity/temperature meters and mason jars. The plants could have easily gone longer, but the caterpillars and humidity are a real issue once we get to the end of the season

Hello fellow growers. Croptober is here. Still displaying flowering on the week because I only harvested 2 of 5 plants. I checked the trichromes and they were T-d off and all milky white. I will wait a few more weeks for the remaining plants. The goal is to have a couple plants at the beginning of the harvest window and harvest the rest when they are more mature and ripe. The 2 plants I harvested were the bigger ones and each yielded about a pound each. One was the tall purple nug plant and the other was the bushy one. The shorter one smelled like gas once you got all the flowers bundled together, definitely can smell the sour diesel in the genetics. The tall purple one also smelled gassy, but also fruity. I would describe it as a mango/orange smoothie kind of fruity aroma. I didn't get a lot of popcorn and even the smallest nugs looked at least like a grams worth. The bud was sticky and gave a lot of finger hash. The leaves also looked packed with trichromes so I will save them for making medicine. The plants didn't grow as tall as I expected. I've honestly had indicas grow bigger, but the quality of the herb is there. Next time I will start these seeds earlier in the year to get bigger plants. I started them in May, but usually start my seeds in late March to get the roots to develop earlier. Usually they get stunted in height when you start them early, but the roots are developing. Once they take off, they tend to grow bigger because they already have an established root system. IMO BTW. The DRY. I placed the nugs in one of those multi-level mesh containers for drying. I used the top three levels. They started off displaying around 85% humidity on the first day and on the third day are now down to 68% humidity at 76°F. They are not moldy. I handle them once daily so they don't flatten out too much on one side. This is the down side of using this type of drying technique. By the fourth or fifth day, they should be ready to start jarring. I've left them longer in the past, but they start getting really dry if you leave them in the mesh too long. Smells like it's going to be at least a two to three month cure to get that smell out, but the one I already had curing from 2 weeks ago is already smokeable. We will see how good it gets by the end of the year. I can't wait to see how the remaining plants turn out. I will let them go as far as I can to see how the smoke differs from the early and the late harvest. Sativa dominant genetics should go at least another month, but I will start with the let's check in 2 weeks rule. Thanks to everyone following. This has been a great year for growing.

Hello fellow growers. I didn't have any pictures of the plants this week, but I have a pic of the buds curing from the first cut (October 7, 2024). As I mentioned in the previous week: will be cutting the remaining three plants once I get a good amber on the trichromes. The first two plants had all milky white trichromes with a little amber here and there. Weird thing is that the trichromes had t-d off, but weren't turning amber. About the buds and the cure. I am already smoking flowers I cut on the 1st of October(2 weeks ago). The smoke is smooth and already tastes good. The taste and smell is improving by the daily. The buds have enough resin that you start getting finger hash when you roll a joint. This plant is good for hash making if you have the experience. Smoke session. Hits quick, but not heavy...in other words you don't fall asleep. The feel is very happy and followed by a good appetite during the come down. Dry mouth was experienced. The flavor is that OG kush aroma with a heavy gassy sour diesel after taste. I am expecting different results from the 3 plants still growing. We will see. Stay tuned for next week's report.

This is it. The chop. Cut down the remaining plants this week (3 total). The trichs were around 30-50% amber. It really just depended on the branch I checked. Some nugs were almost 100% caramelized while others were like 20% amber. That was the goal for the remaining plants. This has been a great season. The Season This season went really (s)well. Nothing extraordinary other than I opted to use BT for the first time. I applied b.t. twice after I noticed caterpillars were starting to increase on the daily. They still appeared, but the damage was minimized. The 2 things that I made a mistake on was probably (1)not having the right size container for the first up-pot. I should've just placed the plants in slightly larger containers immediately. (2)Tropic orange didn't like getting moved around the garden when in flowering. I can't make this up. I noticed that I had them in the North side of the garden--i moved them 10 feet south in the first week of flowering and they got a little sad looking. Just weird. The plant that I didn't move did not experience that effect. Now it's documented. 😂 The Grow I grew 5 plants to the end in fabric containers. All seeds were Tropic Orange from Equilibrium Genetics. All seeds germinated. I gave a 6th plant to a buddy who had to harvest early due to rodents starting to eat his flowers. Of the 5: 2 were placed in 30 gallon containers solo, 2 together in a 30 gallon container also LSTd, and 1 plant was grown in a 45 gallon container with pineapple, chilli, and thyme companion plants(this one had purple flowers also--1st time I see that they purp on cold nights). LST I experimented with LST a bit more. I was told by a fellow grower that what I missed was the pinch after the pin. That I should've topped the plants that were pinned down to get the yield up. At first I was like nah, but then it makes sense. Maybe I'll try it next time. I forgot to ask around when I should top also. More to learn about this technique on my end. Watering I finally got my trigger finger under control. No root rot this season. Summer still amazes me in the peak water consumed (about 3x the normal). The summer peak coincides with the flowering and a couple of weeks later the watering decreases to about 1/3 of the water. Amendments I only amended the soil about 5x this season. I think I added kelp meal like 3x and a combo of bud candy and overdrive 2x. The soil I used was also amended initially. Flowers The flowers were great. Gassy to fruity smell. Even got a hint of mango peel and orange peel. The last few plants smelled amazingly pungent. Letting them go longer also increases the potency in the aroma and the resin production. These nugs are more stickier than those from a few weeks ago. I think I got hash fingers from touching the stems and a few leaves too much earlier, this plant is resi-nous for sure. Harvest Plant 1 (short, bushy, purple and orangey leaf tips, sour diesel/Tropicana cookie lookin, had to hold the branches up, grew like 50" in a 30 gallon fabric pot with chilli companion plant)- OCT 7 chop all white trichromes with some amber here and there (~1 lb) Plant 2 (tall, but started the shortest, not bushy at all, very sativa dom hybrid looking, dark green leaves that looked maple leafy when young, very little foliage in general, but nugs were dense, turned purple, smell like a fruit smoothie of sorts, always stayed strong but required some support at the end, 62" in a 45 gallon pot with chilli,thyme, and pineapple companion plants) - Oct 7 chop all white trichromes very little amber (~1 lb)

Good harvest. Not too many leaves equals not too much trimming. Loved growing it. I recommend it if you want to find those guava/orangey plants or gassy Sour Diesel plants. The yield was excellent, but I think I could've gotten bigger plants if I would've started earlier in the year. The plant responds well to training, but does not like any movement or pulling once it's flowering. Thanks to Equilibrium Genetics on this release.