Maui Wowie

Starting off the new grow! Seed are from Lumber Jack Seed Source (http://lumberjackseedsource.com/). The plan is hoping for both a male and female for seeds, and a female for flower. Strain Description: "Maui Wowie is a well-known strain native to the island of Maui in Hawaii. This regular seed stock is the result of a genetic preservation project by Vader OG and expresses full kolas with heavy tropical aromas. Growers can expect significant stretch in flower, as is common with traditional Sativa varieties."

The plants are doing well, though they showed some burning when I tried to add ~1/8 strength veg mix of the General Hydroponics trio. Two seemed to take it a bit hard and they seemed to have stalled a bit. The three plants are back to straight water @ ~6.5ph. The soil is re-used from other grows. There must be nutes left over. That's my hunch anyway.

This week went well. The plants weren't thrilled with a feeding attempt (~1/8 strength of veg mix), so they'll be on straght water for a while. The plants will be topped and defoil'd to get an even canopy.

The plants are doing well. They're on straight water still and seem to like it. The plants are being topped and defoil'd to get an even canopy for bloom. 2 clones from each plant will eventually be taken. The biggest plant may be moved to bloom soon since this strain is a Sativa and it'll stretch high. HST might be used in bloom if it's a female and if it's growing too tall. I later found out that my cheap PH pen was off by ~2 whole numbers.

Later this week I switched to liquid PH testing since the cheap electric ones aren't reliable. The plants seem happy about that! One plant is in bloom for sexing and the other two are still in veg.

After switching away from crappy PH pens, things are back on track. All 3 plants are now in flowering. One turned out to be a male, so it was removed. It's clones had their labels updated to include their sex. They'll be keep for making seeds later on.

Not much new this week, letting the plants do their thing.

The one plant is a female and it's being defoil'd and topped to try to keep the stretch under control. The plant was transplanted to a 5 gallon plastic pot since it'll be flowering for about 13 weeks. It's watered ~4 liters every 24 hours. This week is when I switched my feeding to the "Lucas formula" with the General Hydroponics nutes. it's to simplify the feedings.

The plant is doing good. One of the branches that wasn't topped might need to be super-cropped if it gets too high. My light has been raised ~1ft though.

Things are looking great. I'm somewhat wishing I topped the one branch. It's cool to watch though. If it keeps stretching I'll probably super-crop it so it'll be level with the rest of the plant. What's blowing my mind is that there should be about 8 more weeks left. I'm excited to see how it turns out.

The pics are from today (1/7) and I've noticed the plants are getting lighter colored plus the on-going leaf tip upward-curl. Some of the lower few leaves are turning yellow, and the upper leaves are starting to lighten up with an odd pattern. It's a little hard to tell from the pics though. Today it has been really noticeable. I think the plant took a hit from some of the extra water diluting the feedings over the last few weeks. The upward-curl of the leaf tips was concerning me so I usually had extra water in the mix. I can't find any references of what's causing the leaf tip curl. Today, I fed per the lucas formula instructions (8ml / gal micro & 16ml/gal of bloom). PPM per my cheap TDS meter said ~1100, when the previous few were ~900 per that meter. It seems like it'd be too early for the plant to start fading. The night temps get to around 63* F though I don't think that'd cause the yellowing or the odd patterns. The lower night temps caused other color changes if I understand that right (purples, etc) Honestly, I'm disappointed in myself for making the same mistake of underfeeding and being too cautious. Hopefully the plant likes the stronger feedings and pulls through. There should be about 8 weeks of flower left (13 week flowering time). There are some clones for a future round, though I need to figure this plant out. Any input on what the plant is doing would be helpful!

The plant is doing well. The full nutrient dosage seems to be helping prevent the yellowing that I was previously seeing. The buds are really starting to get big!

She seems to be holding out well. I'm wishing I topped the one tall branch, but it's cool to watch for now. The next grow with this strain will definitely be topped more to keep the canopy even. She's getting frosty at this point, and her buds are getting big. There's about 6-7 weeks left. 2 of the lower branches had to be tied to the tomato cage. Not pictured: One of the lower bud sites had some shockwave f2 pollen added to get a few regular seeds since there was pollen available from a different project.

Late last week I discovered that some mildew flourished from a cutting that was gifted to me. Sadly this Maui plant ended up with quite a contamination, along with everything else. ...So I started spraying down all the plants with water that has neem oil and eventually added potassium bicarbonate to the mix. I'm only keeping the plant for the seeds on some of the lower branches (shockwave F2 pollen). The tall cola seems clean on the tip ("just the tip?" XD ). I think most of the buds will either be tossed or used for bubble hash to see if that comes out clean for personal use. I did stop using Mammoth P and Canna Boost since I'm basically writing off the plant as a loss. The mildew seems under control due the potassium bicarbonate. It sucks they had to be sprayed this late in flower, so I'm hesitant about consuming the buds with some neem/PB residue, and hopefully no WPM spores. There should be about 6 weeks left, so it's hard to know IMO. Any harvested buds will be scoped quite a bit to check for anything funky. On a positive note, I'm really happy with the strain. As you can see, the buds are HUGE. I've also learned a ton about WPM over the last week. NEVER accept cuttings from anyone if you don't have a quarantined area and if they have WPM. It's not as easy to get rid of as I thought (with neem oil anyway...PB and a sulpher burner would probably kill it quick). If I was in a sealed room I'd grab a sulpher burner and keep up with PB spraying. Neem would mostly be used on veg and early bloom plants. I'll keep up with PB spraying for now.

Thankfully the potassium bicarbonate killed off most of the WPM that was popping up on this plant. In the future I'll add some wettable sulphur to the foilar spray with the PB and Neem. Any spot that was showing WPM got sprayed. The plant would get doused every other day or every 3rd day over the last week. I did spray the plant down once with regular tap water to try to get any PB off the plant. Nothing is visible though. The tap water turned most of the pistils brown :X The plant looks great for all that it has been through. The nugs are surprisingly dense. It's hard to describe the smell. it makes me think of something light and it's pleasant to smell. Roughly 3 more weeks to harvest. I'll need the few seeds, and I'm not sure what I'll do with the bud. Maybe trash it? Maybe RSO? Maybe Bubble hash? Maybe get it tested for contaminants/WPM.

Not much new over the last week. Occasionally a small spot of WPM pops up and it gets sprayed. A few of the lower seeds are getting close to finished.

This week I chopped the plant (~week 13). It could have gone for another week or two for the trichomes to get more amber. I chopped it since the mildew problem in the buds is ongoing and I needed the space. Not pictured: I did try the 3 bucket bud washing technique that some people suggest, but mildew is still visible. I'll let the plant dry and see if anything can be salvaged, though I'm thinking most of it is a loss. I did grab one of the nugs that was full of shockwave seeds, so it's not a total loss--along with learning about mildew and the sativa stretch! In a week or two, I'll post a few shots of whatever is left. Overall, this strain is amazing. The yield is huge and I'll be growing out a few clones. If there wasn't mildew, the harvest would easily be between 1/4 pound and 1 pound. Each top would be about 7g or more, once dry. The huge cola is probably an ounce itself. The nugs are more dense than I was expecting, though that may be from the mammoth P. Budrot could be an issue if humidity isn't in check.