Durban Poison Feminized

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The little girl on the left is the runt of the litter - but that was the 5th seed that didn't originally germinate so I stuck her back in a glass of water until the taproot exposed herself, and away we went. That makes 100% germination rate from my first batch of seeds from Canada. WTFG Crop King! The 4 fast starters were repotted into 1 quart containers today and moved into the tent they will veg in. My Kind LED K3 lights are about 40" above the newly potted plants on the floor of my grow tent. They will stay that way for 48 hours before lowering. I'm already feeding these girls low quantities of veg nutrients in accordance with schedule.

Diluting nutrients with 50% plain water - but that will stop because these girls look great. I currently have a batch of clones vegging with my Durban Poison's and it's amazing looking at the difference. The DP's are from seed and they are all growing symmetrically. Clones defy symmetry and grow any which way. The DP's are NOT stretching to reach my LED lights in spite of the fact they're up there about 40" above the tops. The leaves are also quite broad (almost indica like) - but these are just babies. The bright side is that I'll have lesser inclination to top them more frequently if they continue to grow as bushy as they are starting out. Viva la Poison. Added photo looking straight down from the light vantage point for demonstration.

I love it when things start growing fast. The 4 big girls are mostly about 7" tall now and they look great to me. There is the runt that wouldn't be left behind but she's almost two weeks behind the other girls at 3". Out of an abundance of caution I'm going to stick with using only 50% of the recommended nutrients as shown for another week. The girls don't drink very much at this stage since they are just developing their root systems. Last week I only gave them fluid on Monday evening and Friday evening (last night) - and about 500 ml is enough to flood these quart containers presently.

Time to top these babies for the first time (except for the runt that's still only 4" tall). They're all growing pretty lush so it's not easy to get in there and top. They currently measure in at 9.5", 10", and two at 10.5" after topping. The weather this week has been cool and foggy... so a plus for growing under lights, but I lowered the listed temperatures because my LED lights essentially provide all the heat my tent gets if it's not winter... which is partially why the light cycle is at night. -------- I bought myself a 10 gallon water reservoir because I was tired of ph balancing my tap water (which is very alkaline at 9.5+) in one gallon increments - so that's part of this afternoons entertainment because the Preakness is a washout 😢.... and these girls will need feeding tonight. ------- The girls (except runt) will be repotted into their final homes later this week when I get my other tent ready. Eventually all except one or two will be moved outside before the summer solstice.

Another cool and foggy week. Summer is alleged to be arriving tomorrow with the sun coming out and temps going up 10-15 degrees. Can't wait and I'm sure the girls will love it. They're probably all still in a little bit of shock as I repotted them from 1 quart containers into their final homes about 36 hours ago. ----- I repotted the largest three (all between 13 and 13.5 inches tall) into 5 gallon fabric containers and they will eventually go outside in a few weeks. The smaller one (12") I put in a 3 gallon fabric container and she will spend the summer flowering in the tent. The runt of the litter is now 6" tall and will stay in the quart container for another day or two - to be repotted to 5 gallons since I now have the floor space in my 2nd tent. ----- I love how bushy these girls are compared to the clones I'm growing in another diary. This is the first grow I've made from seeds as opposed to clones and I see myself leaning more to seeds in the future. ----- Finally repotted the runt into her final home midweek and topped her at the same time; she was 8" tall when finished.

Yay... NorCal Cannabis Cup today & tomorrow up in Santa Rosa. Gonna load my bud buddy in the car and head up there this afternoon for the Phil Lesh show. One day is enough. 😎 It's only the 2nd ever licensed cannabis consumption event in California ... so come be part of history if you live anywhere in northern California. ------ The Durban girls are doing quite nicely. Leaving them out in the sun for 30 minutes today to do a little acclimating before I head up north. It's HOT today by recent standards but the wind is light. Three of the 5 gallon girls will be moved outside permanently in about a week. The 3 gallon container and the (former) runt in a 5 gallon pot will grow inside this summer.... and we'll probably flip the lights to flowering as soon as everybody gets moved outdoors. ------ For heights this week we have the 5 gallon girls are two at 19", and one at 18.5". The 3 gallon girl is at 15", and the former runt is up to 9". Fed all the girls today because I won't be home early from the show tonight to feed them then. ------ Updated to add some photos from the Cannabis Cup in Santa Rosa. It was a LOT harder to consume alcohol at this event than ANY form of cannabis. Big fun.

This is moving week - in terms of environment. Everybody goes outside... except one. Still kinda cool as we had fog all morning, which is good in that they're starting out with not quite a full day of intense sunlight. However, the wind right now is such (averaging 10-20 mph in the afternoons) that I've provided support for the plants at least temporarily, using inverted tomato cages. -------- Heights this week are 23", 25" and 26" in the 5 gallon containers. The former runt is now 12" (decided to leave her outside so I don't crowd the tent). The 3 gallon girl is at 19" and we will change the lights in the tent over to flowering tomorrow. -------- The outdoor 5 gallon Durbans were all topped on Sunday evening June 10. That will be the last topping. -------- Feeding this week is using ph balanced water only and no nutrients in preparation for switching over to flowering nutrients soon. All the plants were trimmed up at the bottom June 12 to remove fan leaves near the container handles and other small internal stuff.

I've listed this as the first week of flowering based on switching my indoor lights over to a 12/12 cycle one week ago when most of the herd was moved outside for the summer. 4 of the 5 Durban Poison's are now outside, and they're growing like wild.. We're basically at summer solstice week, which was my target for getting everybody outside... so mother nature will tell all the girls outside when to do their thang. ----- As a transition phase between switching from vegetation nutrients to flowering nutrients I'm giving everybody just straight ph balanced water this whole week. It's been pretty hot this week with a couple days near 80 and lots of bright sun. I'm trying to adjust to these new fabric containers... the girls seem to be drinking a lot... it's been necessary to give them water every day this week. Gonna be a long summer and these girls are still growing pretty fast. ----- I've been trying to figure out what to do about getting a bigger reservoir than 10 gallons because the girls I have wipe that out in one day - and the answer was staring me in the face. I bought a 35 gallon plastic tank a couple years ago to deal with the California drought (which has thankfully subsided in my locale for the moment)- and used it to get recycled water to feed my (non-cannabis) plants at that time at no cost. Free fertilized water - non-potable of course. So today the brainstorm came to me that I can use this tank with a hose attached to the base to deliver ph balanced water all the way to my babies outside. Necessity is the mother of invention after all. 😃

Things turned hot this week with daytime temps in the 90 range for a few days and bright sunshine all day. I've reduced the size of my crop by gifting a few plants to friends and will end up with one indoor and one outdoor girl here for comparison purposes. All of my indoor girls are starting to show flower pistils as they've been on 12/12 lights for 2 weeks now. The indoor Durban Poison is now at 27", but the outdoor girl is turning into a monster at 39" tall already. The indoor girl in the smaller pot is getting 50% of the prescribed flowering nutrients at present. The outdoor girl mostly just water until she shows more signs of starting flowering. The indoor girls in 3 gallon pots only need fluids every 2 or 3 days, but the girls outside need water every morning in these fabric pots.

Entering a nice stable phase of summer with minimal fog. Today is hot with temps near 90 but most of the week has been high 70's. ----- The outdoor Durban Poison is now about 43".... she's turning into a monster and getting close to flowering. The indoor girl is a more manageable 33" and well into flowering now. The difference between the size of the stalks at the base is immense. The outdoor girl looks like a tree. ----- Indoor plants are presently drinking about a half gallon every other day (3 gallon pots), and outdoor plants are drinking a gallon a day (5 gallon pots). Using 50% nutrients on the indoor girls which are fully flowering - maybe half that with the outdoor girls which are starting to show pre-flowers.

The outdoor Durban is now 47" tall and I came home twice this week and found her laying on her side. So with the help of a buddy I placed an inverted tomato cage over her for protection. Never tried this before so I'm not sure how this will work - but I've never had a girl grow this big before... and she's not even flowering yet (the indoor girl is the one that's well into flowering). In fact, I switched back to veg nutrients instead of flowering outside mainly because another plant I have outside was showing some yellowing fan leaves (Raspberry Glue also not yet flowering). I expect this wind to be a persistent problem and there's a lotta summer left for the outdoor girls.

Weather has been consistent this week with daytime temps in the low 80's and nighttime in high 50's. The flowers on the indoor girl (36" tall) are just starting to fatten up, which makes me salivate when I look at how large the outdoor girl has become (50" and not slowing down yet). There was some leaf discoloration that showed up on the outdoor DP this week, mainly on the older fan leaves lower on the plant, and I'm not sure if it's bug related or nutrient related, but I gave both my outdoor girls a coating of azamax as a precaution. Comments welcome. ------ The outdoor girl is actually on veg nutrients still at the same dosages as listed for the bloom nutrients, and the indoor girl is on bloom nutes. The outdoor girl (5 gallon fabric pot) consumes 1 gallon fluid/day. The indoor girl (3 gallon fabric pot) consumes 1/2 gallon every other day.

The outdoor girl is continuing to grow like the weed she is... she's up to 55" now and STILL not flowering as far as I can tell. The indoor girl's buds are starting to fatten up nicely and she's only 36" tall and that seems to be as tall as she's going to get in the 3 gallon pot. The outdoor girl still gets one gallon of fluid per day, and the indoor girl a half gallon+ every other day. Temps have been steady with morning fog and sunny days in the low 80s and nights in the high 50s. -------- One change from last week is in ph of my water reservoir. Somehow I failed to get my reservoir balanced last time I filled it and when I checked it was 7.1 when I thought it should be 6.5. Then when I went to replenish some nutes at my local hydro store I picked up a wall chart from my nutrient provider and some numbers had changed, including recommended ph level (5.8-6.3)- so I lowered my reservoir to 6.0. In any event I haven't seen any proliferation of the weird discoloration I noticed on some leaves last week... so I'll take that as a plus.

I'll be damned if this outdoor Durban isn't still shooting upward as fast as ever. She's officially 5 feet tall now - that's like 5 inches in the last week. The indoor girl has a lovely dense bud structure... can't wait for the outdoor girl to start flowering if she's going to look like this... yum. ---- Weather has been typical - low 80s daytime and high 50s night... no precipitation in sight for weeks. What's nice here is that I'll have harvested the indoor girl and she'll almost be done curing by the time I harvest the outdoor girl.

The outdoor Durban Poison has finally started visibly flowering, which probably puts it in its actual 2nd flowering week as it takes a week or so before the pistil clusters become visible... hopefully she'll finish before a planned vacation up north about 7 weeks from now. She is 63" tall now - yikes. Thankfully I inserted her into an inverted tomato cage after she fell over twice in a week awhile ago - but she's outgrown even that. I should be able to use it for functional support down the road. The indoor girl is about a week away from flushing and not that far from harvest. -------- I noticed when pruning the outdoor girl this evening that there are two significant cracks that have opened up in the stalk at the base of the plant (see photos). I'm assuming this is because she just can't keep up growth-wise. I've never seen this in a plant before (cracks like that)... but then I've never grown anything that got this big. I'm curious whether or not I should consider this damage that I might attempt to repair - but my insides tell me don't mess with it bro - let her take care of herself. I'll just keep an eye on it to make sure nothing weird starts growing in that crack.

The temps have been quite high the last couple days with daytime reaching low 90s a couple times. The outdoor Durban finally showed me that 1 gallon of fluid per day is not enough as she wilted slightly late yesterday afternoon. Size matters. 😬 Gave her a half gallon of water and she perked right up. The indoor girl will get her first primary flush tonight and no more nutes. The outside of the black fabric container is showing white stains at this point from all the feeding. She'll get harvested in a week or so after closer trichome inspection.

The indoor Durban Poison was harvested this week along with a couple other clones I had indoors. I had originally planned to wait a bit but the logistics of harvesting/washing/drying/trimming led me to move a few days sooner. The indoor plant was harvested Thursday morning August 16 and isn't quite dry enough for trimming on Saturday August 18. She'll be ready tomorrow for trimming and starting a cure. I'm assuming that if I chose this week as "harvest" instead of "flowering" it would end the diary so I'll just note the specifics of the indoor grow as we pass. The purpose was to compare indoor vs outdoor originally. -------- The outdoor girl is coming along quite nicely and now measures 5'-6" tall. Awfully glad I put that inverted tomato cage over her many weeks back. Even that has been blown over once. Going to have to add more weight to the bottom when the buds starts filling up.

Weather has been a bit on the foggy side this week helping keep things cool. The indoor Durban will spend the next couple months curing in CVault containers with 62% Boveda packs which I open once a day for a few minutes for air exchange. The outdoor girl is starting to load some weight onto the buds but still a few weeks away from anything serious.

Buds are starting to put on some weight... but still a few weeks to go. Haven't inspected any trichomes yet. Things are starting to cool off a little.

Getting pretty close now. Just harvested another plant (Raspberry Glue) this morning and boy there was a lot of morning dew this morning with temps in the low 50's. Going to flush the big Durban tomorrow morning as I believe she's within 7-10 days from harvest. Trichome inspection shows everything is pretty much cloudy at this point with very little amber showing - just a bit.

We flushed this baby on Thursday morning September 13. I expect she will be ready to harvest some time in the next 7 days. Starting to yellow up a bit, will be pulling fan leaves daily. Keeping an eye on the trichomes... I'd guess we're in the 10-15% amber range now. After completing the harvest on my smaller outdoor Raspberry Glue yesterday (and getting 10 oz.), I'm wondering if I'll have enough storage space for this monster. Tough problem to have... I'll muddle through laughing.

September 22 - Whew... time for a rest. Started at dawn, took about 5 hours total straight through. Not sure if she'll be ready to trim by middle of next week when I plan to disappear up north to play some golf and veg with friends for a few days. If not... the trimming will have to wait until I return. >> Turned out she dried fast. ------- I've been a proponent of washing buds ever since I had an event with spider mites and powdery mildew for indoor stuff. And after inspecting my outdoor buds this summer what I thought was cat hair was actually pollen from trees in my yard... so there's lots of stuff that accumulates on the buds especially outdoors. A you tube video that explains the process quickly and easily can be found at ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ8hJ5q4Wc0 ------- I'll weigh it all after she's dry and trimmed and ready for curing. I'm consuming the indoor version of this plant right now because she's been curing for 4 weeks already. She's pretty sweet and plenty potent. This will dwarf the indoor plant as far as yield goes. ------- September 25 - trimming complete, took the better part of two evenings. I was surprised she was dry enough to trim yesterday so we got down to it. Overall the yield was almost identical to my outdoor Raspberry Glue... within 0.1 ounces. Basically 10 ounces of trimmed bud. Trim weighs in at about 10.5 ounces total. PS >> I guess one thing that I didn't discuss a lot in this diary was how much this girl consumed fluid-wise. She basically got one gallon of fluid a day. The ONE thing I would do differently next time is a larger container. I couldn't leave town for 36 hours this summer or this baby would wilt on me, and we can't be having that. ================================================== The original intent of this diary was to compare an indoor vs outdoor grow, but being new to diaries I didn't know that wasn't part of the structural plan. Looking back at my notes I forgot to weigh the indoor Durban after trimming. I've been digging into it a lot the last week or two stashing away my other stocks of sativa (Strawberry Cough and Sour Tangie). I've still got 1.2 ounces from the new indoor Durban (already cured now)... but obviously the yield on the outdoor plant was almost 10x what I got indoors. These plants germinated at the same time from the same source and fed the same food. Primary difference besides Mother Nature taking on the lighting duties was a 5 gallon fabric pot vs a 3 gallon fabric pot for the indoor plant. The outdoor plant was moved outside at the summer solstice and at that time the tent lighting was switched to flowering for indoor plants. I harvested the indoor plant in mid-August, so the outdoor plant got about 4 extra weeks to veg. Makes me wonder what in blazes I'm doing growing plants indoors when I can get that kind of yield outdoors. Ummmm... probably because I enjoy it... but still. No more winter crops dude ... focus on the summer crop ... stick to seeds if you can. Happy growing folks! 😛0