Durban Poison [Males] Outdoor Kratky

Hi there! My mission for this grow is to check if my coastal climate will allow me to grow outdoors through winter. If not, I'll be testing if I can squeeze in a short grow with a small harvest while I can before next outdoor season. This is my first year growing, all outdoors. I have had a few successful harvests already and now want to improve my techniques. I grow all my plants from seed, or clones from plant started by seed. I grow a little different using the Kratky method for a more passive grow. I only add water when necessary or when adding nutrients. This week the first seedling popped out of three seeds planted. Germination from rockwool cubes. All three seeds are Durban Poison (regular).

2/3 Seeds have now sprouted. About a week apart on the seeds popping. The third seed has yet to sprout, and I'm not sure why. The seed has cracked open and it looks like a small root is growing but nothing has come up yet. The seed has looked that way for about a week now. I started off with a very mild nutrient solution for the seedlings I've planted. I planted in an 18 gallon bin to utilize the Kratky method. The winter season shouldn't be too warm and I might not need to refill the bin with additional water. I have previously used bins this size for multiple plants and was not pleased with the roots tangling together. I have also used 5-gallon buckets for single plants with tiny 1 inch net cups. I know that Durban Poison will grow large, so I have used 3.5 inch netcups along with devoting the entire 18 gallon bin to a single plant.

It looks like my 3rd seed won't make it. Growth is slow as daylight hours are shortening. The placement of my grow reduces the direct light received by the plants as well. I may place a small LED grow light over these plants to provide additional light, possibly in an attempt to keep them in veg longer. I'm sure the plants will quickly outgrow the light that I have, so it's now or never for me to decide on using it. I added more nutrient this week, much closer to the recommended doses. I lowered the pH from around 7.0 to around 6.0 using lemon juice. PPM of my tap water is about 300, readings in the bins is showing 600 now. I have read that sativas like lots of nutrients and I'm a bit worried that I'm already not providing enough for the seedlings. My previous grows never really took off, and in hindsight I might have been too cautious around using fertilizers. My very first grow got nutrient burn and I've been on the light side ever since.

I'm a little disappointed with the slow growth. The location of the plants outdoors gets a lot of shade this time of the year, only about 6 hrs of direct sunlight per day. I would consider moving them, but they are here for stealth reasons, not visible to any neighbors. Since I'm growing regular seeds I also don't want to use my grow light, I've read that red color light will increase the chances of males, while less light and in the blue spectrum will increase chance of females. Temperatures have dropped quickly this last week, but forecast shows higher temps again this week. I've been increasing nutrient concentration gradually, some leaves are showing small brown marks, I think that could be bugs or a lack of nutrient if anything. Looks within normal growth though. I have a neem oil + soap mix that I used as a foliar spray this week as well, if there are bugs causing leaf damage I don't want that to continue or worsen. I'm convinced at this point that this is the wrong time to grow Durban Poison, too late in the season. I was just too excited after getting my seeds, I planted a few right away. In the future I think I could do really well with autoflowers in the late season like this. I am really excited to grow the rest of my Durban Poison seeds in the next growing season. And I might be speculating too early in the grow, we'll see how these turn out in a few months. Hopefully they'll be better than I'm giving them credit for right now. 😅

The larger plant turned out to be male, started showing a few days ago. The smaller plant may show as early as next week if it sticks to the same timeline, hopefully female. Hopefully it gets a little bigger before showing too. I started adding the bloom mix into the male for transition. I intend to let it pollinate if I get a female, or harvest some pollen to use after the winter if both are males. I'm certainly disappointed with the slow growth coming into winter, but if I can use this round to get some seeds I'll call it a win. Some small spotting on lower older growth leaves that I took some close up pics of. I marked this week as the start of flower, not sure if I would call it that at all since it's really entering the first couple weeks of transition. The male plant has put on significant growth since starting transition. Also, since I've only ever grown regular seeds I know how to identify males early on. If anyone wants to see, check out the pictures. Especially the first day I saw it show.

Unfortunately it looks like both plants are males. I will be harvesting pollen to breed more seeds come next years growing season. I'll keep updating the grow diary as some might find it interesting to see male plant development, and pollen. Currently I'm not planning on adding in much more fertilizer since they're males. Just a little bit of Bloom formula to make sure they have what they need to create some pollen. Growth has been quick and stretchy since entering into flower stage, one plant has put on at least 4x it's height, and grows taller each day. Which is what you would expect from a pure Sativa from my understanding. I was a bit surprised the growth spurt occured with such limited sunlight though. Getting about 3 hours direct light, 11 hours total light.

Had to move the plants this week to attempt and hide them from a few contractors showing up. I will move them back into the sunnier spot soon. The first plant to sprout has significant size now. Still growing taller pretty fast, the second plant is starting to shoot up now as well. Both have developed several pollen pods, I will start collecting pollen from the larger plant most likely this week or next, a few have already opened but most remain closed. I'm planning on storing the pollen in the freezer until I can pollinate the females next season. Hopefully the pollen will stay good that long. I do have some concerns over that. I don't plan on wasting any more fertilizer on these males, I'll get pollen off of them no matter what and won't have any bud.

Chopped these guys down just before some rain came in this week. Since my other grow had some females start showing I felt it was a good time to chop these males down. Since these are males, I can't report to anything of the effects of Durban Poison or smoke quality. I have more seeds which I plan to grow at the start of outdoor grow season next year. These grew well in my climate, even with less than ideal light they grew to a decent size. I can't wait to see what happens growing them in the full season.

I've been collecting pollen from the larger plant this week. Smaller plant has yet to fully develop pollen sacs. I haven't moved them into a sunny spot yet, waiting on a visit from a contractor. In their current place they don't receive much, if any, direct sunlight each day. This doesn't matter too much though, since I've already collected enough pollen, these plants don't serve much purpose now. Might leave them around growing for a bit just to see what happens. I've never grown male plants past this stage.

Flowering has slowed tremendously while these guys have been in the shade. Just haven't bothered to move them yet. I also haven't been good about harvesting more pollen. Although I think I have enough at this point.

Finally got around to moving these guys back into the sunnier spot. Since moving to get more sun both have shown some significant height gains. Still producing lots of pollen, the larger plant seems to have released most of its supply now. I got some pics of the roots this week for anyone who's interested. You can also see that I don't use an air stone, just a bucket filled with water which I add nutrient to. In summer I sometimes have to add more water depending on the length of time the plant grows and the size of container I use. If you compare the larger plants roots to the smaller plant, it's evident to me that enhanced root growth probably lead to the difference in size/nutrient uptake. The smaller plant is younger as well, but I think the difference in root mass is more important than age.

These guys keep getting taller. The one that flowered first was reinvigorated after he started getting more sun. He started making new pollen again. This might be my last week with these guys. My experiment with growing males for a bit has no need to continue. I was able to collect plenty of pollen if I choose to use it later on some females.