Johnny Purple Seed's quest for the next big purple strain

Hello all,

Johnn Purple Seed reporting for duty. My mission is to create the "next big purple strain," from seed, of course. You see, where I'm from (NorCal), everybody wants them grapes. We've got Purple Kush, Purple Erkel, Purple Elephant, Grand Daddy Purple, Grape Ape, the list goes on. People here appreciate dank of all colors, but for some reason, they all jock the purple bud.

For genetics, I chose the strain Purple #1 from Dutch Passion because the description says up to 90% of the plants turn purple. Most of the other strains only said 50%. I'm sold!


I purchased a five pack of feminized seeds from Dr. Chronic. Payment was made with an All Access Visa gift card in order to remain anonymous. Even though I have my club card, receiving seeds through the mail is still an iffy matter. Better safe than sorry.


I received the seeds on the fifth business day. I promptly chose the finest looking seed (they were all fine, in fact) and put it in a cup of distilled water overnight. As you can see, this seed was VERY viable. The tap root has already begun busting out of it's shell and I didn't even get a chance to put it in soil yet!


I filled a small pot with EB Stone Organics Seed Starter Mix (aka We B Stoned Organics). According to the label, it has Canadian sphagnum peat moss, perlite, dolomite lime and gypsum -- a pretty solid mixture.


I gave the pot a good watering and placed the seed, pointy side down about 1/4" deep in the center of it and covered it up with soil.

I let the seed sit in darkness for 6 hours, then finally put it under my light (a 26w CFL). Two and a half days later, we have a sprout.







There you have it, folks. Hopefully, with all of your help, this grow will be a success and this thread will be the fabled beginning of another legendary Norther California purple strain.

I plan to post regular updates with photos documenting my quest (daily even, if the mods allow). You all will be my guides as I undertake this mission to create the next amazing purple strain!

Also, if she is worthy, I plan to donate cuttings to all the local dispensaries as well as fellow Prop 215 patients. Hell, I may even plant a few in some random spots, like a true Johnny Purple Seed!

When I removed the seed shell from my baby, I failed to remove a thin layer of this small filmy material that was keeping her leaves pressed closed. I thought it was just a birth mark or something at first.


But upon closer inspection, you can kind of see the filmy seed residue.



I know that I didn't have to intervene and remove the shell or the filmy layer, that eventually she would bust free on her own, but I figure, why waste the energy? What took me a second to do was taking her days. Better to let her open up her leaves and start soaking in the rays.


Here she is immediately after I removed the film.


And here she is 4 hours later, taking in those rays. You can already see a little bit of growth on her first true leaves.

Here is my baby early in the day.


I was able to acquire a handful of clones today from a local grower and decided to throw them in with my purple mother. I will probably end up finding a spot to plant these outdoors, or I may just keep them as mothers or flower them. I haven't decided yet.

Anyway, the clones are Durban Poison x2.



Sour Ol' Grand-Daddy


Holland's Hope.

Dynamite.


With 5 more clones in the mix, a 26w CFL by itself just wasn't going to cut it any longer. Therefore, I added a 150w HPS to the equation. Of course, this shot my temperatures up bigtime. While before I was stable at around 77 degrees, with the HPS, I was pushing 90 degrees. I solved this heat problem by replacing one of the 2 80mm fans that I was using with a 120mm fan. Now my temps are in the low to mid 80's, which is good enough.


At first I had only the HPS by itself, but then I noticed my seedling stretching a little, so I put the CFL back right up against her. It might be a little too close in this picture. I may back it off a little if she shows signs of stress.

I didn't like that my sprout seemed to be stretching, despite the fact that I had the 26w CFL up almost close enough to burn her. In fact, I', pretty sure this burning on the edge of one of her main leaves might be from having the CFL too close.


Whatever the cause, I knew I wanted to get a MH into the equation in order to stop the stretching, but the only MH ballast that I own is 400w. I tried plugging it into my existing set up, but the temps were in the mid to high 90's.

I found a used 175w MH high bay light on craigslist for $25. I gutted it and tried it out, but it was a little too loud for my tastes.


Finally I decided to just construct a grow tent. I still had a new box of black/white poly and this was the perfect chance to debut it. I purchased 5 stud length 2x4's at home depot for $1.40 each and slapped some poly on the sides. A zipper door on the front finished it off.


As you can see, the zipper itself is not light proof. No problem. I just cut a strip of poly and created a little curtain down the center.


Total cost for the tent was:

(5) stud length 2x4's = $7.15
25 sq ft black white/poly (purchased in bulk 1000 sq ft for $40) = $0.88
3" gold screws ($6/lb, used less than half pound) = $3
Total = $11.03

I will probably end up taking it apart and tweaking it again before everything is said and done. There's a lot of wasted vertical space and the light trap I made for intake can be improved. Right now it's just a cardboard box with 3 zig zagging tunnels.

My girl is responding nicely to her new environment. Here she is, day 8.


It's almost time for a new pot. Roots are starting to come out of the drainage holes.


I think in about 2 more days or so, I'll put her and all her step sisters into some 2 gallon nursery pots. I'm still trying to decide on the exact soil mixture, but I know it will include Fox Farm Ocean Forest, coco coir, and perlite as the main ingredients.

The hardiest of the clones, Holland's Hope, was overgrowing her pot. I could see her leaves drooping. I knew it wasn't because of overwatering, for it had been 3 days since I last watered and the soil was already drying out, so the only other alternative was that she beginning to get rootbound.


I decided to repot all of the plants at the same time. They are going from their starter pots into 2 gallon nursery pots.


I decided on a 50/50 mixture of Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil and coco coir. I originally was going to do 50/25/25 (FFOF/coco/Perlite) but I figured the Fox Farm soil already had good drainage and coco is pretty impervious to overwatering, so additional perlite wasn't really necessary. This is my first time growing with coco, so I wanted to see it in full effect.



Here is my girl after transplant, day 9.

It may have been a little bit early, but I decided to feed by plants today with some good old Alaska fish emulsion 5-1-1. I really like this stuff. It is inexpensive, au naturale, 100% organic and available pretty much anywhere. It also contains a good amount of micronutrients. I have used this fertilizer by itself during veg with pretty good results. I used only a 1/3 strength mixture for this initial feeding.


I also added a splash of Superthrive, something I should have added when I first transplanted them, but I didn't have any on hand. I only meant to administer one drop, but a little more came out than expected. I don't think the extra will have any adverse effect. I'm hoping this will help out the droopy Holland's Hope clone.


I will probably suppliment or alternate feeding with some high N guano during veg. I originally was going to try out Fox Farm's Grow Big fertilizer, but I think for this grow I want to stay organic all the way through. I may experiment on the 2nd Durban Poison clone, just to mess around.

Anyway, here's a couple shots of my girl, day 11 from when she first saw light.


Under the light.


Family photo.

Here a couple of shots of my girl, day 15.




And here is a group shot. Note the Holland's Hope in the close left of the frame. She's recovered nicely from being rootbound and has resumed outgrowing the bunch, although the Dynamite (close middle) might have her beat for overall leafiness. She's short but already sporting the most full size leaves.

A few of the lower leaves on my Purple #1 were starting to show a faint signs of Nitrogen burn, as you can see in this pic and the previous post.


A lot of people say you don't need to add ferts within the first month of using FFOF soil, but for this grow I wanted to test the boundaries a little bit and give her as much as she can handle, so next time I'll know exactly how much to feed her. Next feeding I will still give all the plants the same 1/3 strength dosage of fish emulsion. I think they should be able to handle that same amount without any yellowing next time.

I am going on a trip for four days, so I chose this last day to water all the plants thoroughly. I have confidence that the coco mixture will be able to retain enough moisture to keep the plants thriving in those four days. Even after roots were coming out of the bottom of all the pots, the coco with still moist at the bottom for days.

My canopy was starting to get very uneven, so I chose this time to also tie down all the plants that were getting too tall. This included the Holland's Hope, both Durban Poisons and my Purple #1.

The Dynamite was already growing very bushy and the Sour Ol' Grand Daddy is growing very slowly compared to her sisters, so they didn't need any tie down yet.

Here is a shot of the Purple #1 after being tied down.


And here is a family photo after the tie down and watering.

good work johnny! so you gonna cross the dutch passion with all of them? purple poison sounds catchy and durban poison is a nice toke. i was thinking the same thoughts as you id like to have a wicked purple strain so i got a couple of reg purple seeds n am hoping to get a male to cross with a few of my girls cheisel ( cheese x nyc diesel ) and the original uk cheese, ill be watching this closely!!

good luck dude

I LOVES DA PRUP

Man, I get back from my trip to find my car was broken into. They stole my sub and face, but left the rest of the deck as well as the amp.

As for my plants, they seem pretty light and I really should water them, but I have to wake up early tomorrow, so I dunno. I'm trying not to let it get me down, but I still feel kinda bummed. It's not so much the material value of the stuff I lost, it's just the feeling of violation.

Anyway, forgive me if I don't get into a detailed post tonight. I'll just leave you guys with a group shot. You can see they've grown a lot in the last 4 days.

I needed to practice my cloning, so I decided to take a few cuts today. The Sour Ol' Granddaddy was still too small to be cloned and I already had 2 Durban Poison clones, so I ended up only taking cuttings from the Dynamite, Holland's Hope and the Purple #1 mothers.

The method I chose was Dip 'N Grow and rockwool.


I like to choose a cutting with at least 3 nodes, preferably from the top of the plant. Because I had tied the tops down, many of the branches were growing even with each other. In this case it is possible to take your cutting from any of these branches with similar stellar results.

Each cut was taken at a 45 degree angle about an inch below a growth node. This node was then peeled off. Additionally I scarred about 1/2" skin from the bottom of the cutting and dip it in my cloning solution. Each cutting was then placed in 1.5" rockwool cubes that I had soaked for about 24 hours in distilled water.

Each cutting was then misted, slapped in some double-stacked tupperware domes and squeezed them into my tent. These tupperware containers are opaque, so they do a good shielding most of the light intensity of the 400w MH. This much light would normally be enough to kill a cutting.

Out of the 3 prime cuts, I was able to salvage 4 mini cuts from the scrap pile, so I decided to snip 'em and dip em as well and see if they spring roots. They'll each be mystery plants, but eventually, if they grow, I should be able to identify them by appearance.

Here is a group shot showing the domes.


And here is a shot of the canopy, after the cuts were made.

???pics

im having a bitch of a time trying to get the hang of cloning i followed the faq verbatim and my clones are just going yellow but they seem to have rooted a bit just reeeal slow. think i need to practise too... plus side my purp beans came through the post

I didn't snap pictures during the process since it's best to take the cut and dip it in the solution and place it in the rockwool immediately, but here is a pic of the 3 choice cuttings.


And here are the scraps that I'm trying to salvage. One is in rockwool because I soaked an extra cube thinking I was going to clone the SOG, but she was too small.


Here is a shot of the canopy. You cann't even notice the missing branches.


And here is a group shot showing the domes nice and foggy.

purple purple purple.

yes yes yes.

omg i so hope to see purpel.. yum.


ahhh as a matter of fact i hope to see purple buds as strain pheno rather than like my urkles that change at the end.

ugh still on the hunt tho.

Good luck on those fem seeds aswell my my friend,

It's been a while since I've posted individual photos of each plant. Well here they are:

Sour Ol' Granddaddy - she's finally starting to pack on some weight, although she's still a runt compared to the other plants. I'm expecting big things out of her. I know her previous owner didn't clone her for no reason. Not when he had 3 other plants that are growing so vibrant.


Durban Poison A & B - I've kind of neglected these twins, even though they seem like nice growers, because I have two of them. I've just shoved them both in the the back corner of my box where they get minimal lighting. Still, they are growing nice and bushy.



Purple #1 - You can see on the left side where I topped the plant and took the clone. She's almost ready for another tie down session. That branch on the right is getting especially tall.


Holland's Hope - I really like how fast this girl is growing. She would easily be the tallest of the bunch if I didn't tie them all down. Despite her length, her lower leaves are bushing up nice and full.


Dynamite - This girl has been a beast from the minute I transplanted her into the 50/50 coco/ffof mixture. She is the bushiest and leafiest of the 6 plants. The only knock on her is her stems are somewhat thin, but I'm sure she'll pack on some girth eventually.

Nothing much to report today. Plants seem to be doing well. One thing I did notice is that my Purple #1 is drinking a lot of water. I weigh the pots after I water them and each pot weighs roughly 7.5 lbs after watering, give or take. Well today the Purple #1 is already down to 5 lbs 5 oz. The Holland's Hope and Dynamite are both in the high 5 lb range.

So far I've just been watering them all at the same time, but I may need to think about watering each plant individually when it needs it.

Anyway, here's a group shot.


Here's a shot of the domes.


And here are a few pepper seeds that I'm germinating on top of my hood. Two of them are Serranos and the other is a Thai Dragon Pepper. The hood is acting as a heated propagator and the poly acts as a humidity dome. Hopefully I can get these seeds to pop. I have the darnedest time germinating pepper seeds.

what the fuck johhny, why didnt you finish your grow??? you are dishonorably discharged.

id completely forgotten bout this. hope you aint in the clink johnny.

prob just done with this forum hype,
grow and grow no need to explain and give reason to get busted.