Caribbean Landraces

19/07/20 (Sunday) 7AM - Set 4 seeds to germinate in cups of water (Trinidad and Tobago, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Jamaica, Columbia) 7PM - St. Vincent and the Grenadines seed shows taproot 9PM - Trinidad and Tobago seed shows taproot 10PM - Seed from Jamaica shows taproot 11PM - Set the 3 germinated seeds into individual half gallon pots filled with promix. 20/07/20 11AM - SVG seed rises to the soil level 8PM - Jamaican follows suit 11PM - TT also exposes itself 21/07/20 The weather and forecast for the week show scattered showers and the seedlings are showing early signs of stretching so I decide to build a makeshift grow tent to supplement their light cycle while bringing them outside for a minimum of 4 hours every day to acclimate them. I decided on a 75W output LED bulb with a temperature of 6500K and 1055 lumens while using my room fan to simulate wind for healthy stem growth. 22/07/20 The plants show slowed stretch symptoms but still not to the level I want, so I revamp the 'grow tent' with reflective material (crumpled aluminium foil for more reflective surfaces) and upgraded the bulb to a 100W output LED with the same temperature and a higher luminousity of 1350. One cotyledon on the SVG strain was broken but not completely sheared off, but I'll leave it to its own devices. 23/07/20 Columbian seed has yet to germinate so I added another from my backups. 24/07/20 Seedlings have shown normal rates of growth so I think the current grow tent is sufficient. When I took them outside they endured light gusts and rainfall for a half hour during their sun bask. I decided to add foil to the door of the tent to trap more light in. 25/07/20 Tropical Storm Gonzalo may make landfall today and the skies are set up for thunderstorms so I decided to keep the plants in their indoor setup for the full 18hrs of their light cycle. Since both Columbian seeds still show no signs of germination, I decide to go collect another strain. I got my hands on a 21 day old Dominican Republic strain that was grown in a seedling tray and left there; It was fed once with 20-20-20 and calmag. The cotyledons were white, the stem red between the top nodes and yellow the rest of the way down, the leaves a light green, and it was no taller than 2 inches excluding it's 1 inch sq root cube. I immediately transplanted it into my remaining half gallon pot upon returning home, dampened the soil with my spray bottle and left it to sit with the others and finish the light cycle.

26/07/20 (Sunday) Plants were starting to exhibit signs of light burn so I switched back to the 75W bulb. SVG never seemed to recover from having it's cotyledon damaged so I decided to take a risk and fed all of the seedlings 20-20-20 nutrients except the D.R. which I thought would've suffered shock, so I just watered it. 27/07/20 Decided to mist the plants with a homemade pesticide mix today because they're readying to be introduced as full time outdoor plants in a week or two so their sun basks are getting longer. 28/07/20 Noticed what looks like new growth from the first true leaves of the SVG, fingers crossed it's making progress. 29/07/20 The new growth from the SVG has split into two on both sides leading me to theorize that it's abandoned it's main stem (for now at least) and started two new stems. All other plants are working on new nodes and are showing a steady growth of .5cm a day. I've decided to revert to the 100W bulb because I believe I've misdiagnosed the light burn. 30/07/20 Today I left them outside for their longest sunbask to this point; 7 of their 18 total hours was provided by sunlight. The SVG now has two new 3-leaf true leaves on each new stem confirming my theory. Also starting to see signs of a minor mite problem on one of the leaves of my TT plant (Though it's new growth that wasn't sprayed with my homemade concoction.) 31/07/20 New growth has already begun sprouting from between the new true leaves of the SVG with no visible progress on the 'abandoned' main stem. Also had a power outage for 2 of the plants 18 hours. 01/08/20 Today the plants again stayed out in the sun for longer than previously making 8 hours in direct sunlight. I've decided to keep them in the grow tent for a further week because when I went to retrieve them the Jam was blown down flat by winds and had started to grow bent towards the light, so I doubt it's stem is ready for that daily beating. I raised the soil level and massaged it back into shape and it seems to be back on track. The D.R. is slowly beginning to bounce back from being stunted in the seedling tray and from it's third node (from the bottom up) of 3 leaf true leaves has turned into 5 leaf leaves. The SVG has made a major recovery and seems to be on it's way to even surpassing the others by the end of the week. The TT is officially the sturdiest of the younger seedlings and it's growing right behind the Jam in terms of node development. All in all this week was an overall success growth wise and I'm looking forward even more to week 3.

02/08/20 (Sunday) 9AM - Continuing off of the great progress of last week I decided to take the initiative and attempt 'repairs' to the photosynthesis of my plants with compromised leaves using surgical tape. Unfortunately after one too many readjustments on one of the first true leaves of the SVG I caused some minor lacerations on the leaf; it should be fine though. 11AM - All four plants were fed. 5PM - I decided that it would be more beneficial to just defoliate the first true leaves and start lst on the SVG so it'll have a little more energy to grow the tops. Left the top leaf on the abandoned original stem to help with photosynthesis and not over stress the plant all at once. 03/08/20 The SVG seems to have responded positively to the training and is growing rapidly. 04/08/20 Had an exhausting day yesterday and fell asleep before I could turn off the grow light leading to the plants getting 24+ hours of continuous light. None seemed to be stressed and were immediately put to sleep for 6 hours before continuing their light cycle with a shorter day so they'd fall back on schedule. 05/08/20 The plants enjoyed a new record of 10 hours in the sunlight and are starting to look ready to stay outside for the entire day. Noticed one fan leaf on the Jam had evidence of leaf miners and decided to remove it to free up wasted energy for the plant. 06/08/20 More leaves are showing signs of miner activity so I feel it may be time to start considering an early topping. 07/08/20 I decided to do an early top on all single cola plants at their third from the bottom 3+ leaf node to help control the miner problem. Considering keeping the plants as indoor instead because pests seem to be targeting them in my gallery garden, but none of my other species of plants. Took some advice and squeezed all the leaves on the Jam to kill the leaf miners. 08/08/20 All leaf miner progress seems to have been halted.

09/08/20 (Sunday) Plants were given their first weekly feeding, and at the rate the soil dried out last week, this week may be 2 feedings and 1 watering. 10/08/20 The tips of the TT and Jam began to yellow/bronze and I believed it was light bleaching, so I decided to switch back to the 75W bulb. The tent needs to be upgraded within the week otherwise I believe the problem will resurface sooner or later. 11/08/20 The SVG and D.R. have began to twist and droop and intuition is telling me it's a light issue so I decided to raise them to match the height of the taller plants and after a few hours the issue corrected itself. 12/08/20 Defoliated all leaves other than the fan leaves directly below the top main lines on the three recently topped plants to drive more power towards growing the main colas. Also defoliated the abandoned stem on the SVG finally to free up energy. 13/08/20 The main tops are beginning to veg out very nicely. 14/08/20 Transferred each of the plants into 2 gallon containers and matched their height; Also I began construction of a new grow tent since the old one had been maxed out, and the plants are currently in a very innefcient light setup temporarily. 15/08/20 All plants were transferred to the incomplete grow tent and had the light adjusted to the optimal level.

This was a very stressful week as there were too many variables at play all at once; even my camera refused to cooperate for the first few days. The freshly transferred plants were starting to droop and I was unsure if it was transplant shock, nutrient burn, or because of the incomplete grow tent. My first batch of nutrients were mixed into a gallon bottle and was weighed by a friend using his scale; this set was enough to last weeks. For this new batch however, I didn't have my scale and used the table spoon as my measuring tool; needless to say when my TDS meter finally arrived, both runoff and the remainder of the mixed nutrients read 2800. Fortunately my light setup seemed to be inefficient still and the plants weren't drawing much nutrients and only ended up with a very light burn on the older growth. All pots were flushed back to recommend levels and the light lowered until the lux values read appropriate. This week ends my daily comments and I'll stick to this end of the week format going forward.

The plants seemed to recover very well this week from the nutrient burn last week. I did a defoliation on some of the odd nodes of the Dominican Republic to free up some wasted energy. The ppm was still reading a little high on each so I didn't feed them and just flushed them back to appropriate values. My grow light was finally cleared through customs and I added it to supplement the light issues which the plants seemed to respond very nicely too. Halfway through the week I applied some foliar spray and it really improved the colour and health of the plants. Lastly I topped each plant to resume progress on the mainlining and they should each reach 4 healthy lines within the new week.

Very straight forward week in terms of progress. All the secondary lines of the Dominican Republic strain were trimmed, and the plants were foliar fed for the first three days. As an additional note I switched to red and blue light to prepare them for flower.

Topped each plant and defoliated all auxillary shoots at the start of this week. Noticed some droopiness so I didn't bother to water/feed this week and will leave it until it dries. Switched to a shorter 12 hour light cycle to prep plants for their flip. Kept them in the dark for 36 hours to force flip them as they didn't naturally pre-flower.

Plants came back out of their 36 hours of darkness and were a little droopy, so I made the decision to put them outside for the first day of light. Unfortunately they suffered from wind burn so I brought them back to the tent. Foliar fed the plants daily at 400PPM.

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Just a week of indoor recovery before returning outdoors.