Sickmeds William's Wonder: grow journal. review and all things Wiliams Wonder

Jogro

Well-Known Member
Very resinous, beautiful plants you got there. I just have one question: Is there a reason why you sometimes write 'ceeds' instead of seeds?
I was wondering that too lol. I am going to guess its because when you type the word seeds, it becomes a hyperlink...am I right Jogro?
Hitch is exactly right.

I've got nothing against the board sponsor, per se, and in fact, I hear its quite good.

I just don't like my posts being hijacked by the autolinker, so I just use "ceeds" with a "c" so my posts don't get full of ad links.

Does this ceem cilly?
 

Jogro

Well-Known Member
Great Job! This is definitely on my list of strains to grow, looks like a keeper to me.

What does it smell like?
See earlier in thread with reference to Hi-C "ecto cooler".

Bud smell started off as a sort of a sweet tangerine.

As the grow has progressed that's still in there, but there is a little bit more of a grapefruit like scent in there too now, as well as some good ordinary "dank" weed smell too.
 

steveat

Well-Known Member
I just placed my order for William's wonder myself. (10 Regular) Gonna try to breed them myself and having a lifetime of seeds 8-)

How much longer do you think it will take till harvest?
 

steveat

Well-Known Member
You can order directly from sickmeds website. They don't have their ecommerce set up so you have to email them and place a manual order. The guys name is Mike.
 

Jogro

Well-Known Member
I just placed my order for William's wonder myself. (10 Regular) Gonna try to breed them myself and having a lifetime of seeds 8-)
Its a true-breeding line, so unlike many so-called "strains" in this case, the offspring should all be similar to the parents.
Note that ceeds don't last forever, though if you store them cold and dry, they can remain viable for 20+ years fairly easily.

How much longer do you think it will take till harvest?
Breeder estimates 60-65 days, or roughly nine weeks. That's in-line with other flower times I've seen in other descriptions, and so far I'd say the plant is on track to finish on schedule.
Without giving the game away, I tend to harvest late, but it won't be too much longer before the grow part of this journal is done.

where did you order from if you dont mind?
As mentioned earlier in thread, I got my ceeds directly from breeder.
 

steveat

Well-Known Member
Would this be considered Williams Wonder IBL or not yet?

Also, from reading the description of WW, it says that you must grow it first indoors then move it outdoors. Sounds weird because the natural habitat of all MJ plants is outdoors..no? I guess through selection these things change..like the diff between wild and domestic dogs?
 

Jogro

Well-Known Member
Would this be considered Williams Wonder IBL or not yet?
To be clear, the term "IBL: (inbred line) means "true breeding"; in other words, like purebred dogs, if you cross two plants from an IBL all the offspring should have similar characteristics to the parents. Once upon a time, the goal of cannabis breeding was to create stable inbred lines. For reasons I won't go into now, that's fallen out of favor a bit.

Making the answer as simple as I can, the real Williams Wonder is an inbred line.

Not having grown a whole bunch of plants and crossed the offspring then compared them to the parents, I can't tell you from experience how this behaves, but since by every measure I have available to me this appears to be the "real deal" in seed form, yes, the Sickmeds version should be an IBL too.

Also, from reading the description of WW, it says that you must grow it first indoors then move it outdoors. Sounds weird because the natural habitat of all MJ plants is outdoors..no? I guess through selection these things change..like the diff between wild and domestic dogs?
Again, this is a potentially long discussion, but I'll say the following:

a. I've never hear of this particular issue with any other strain before, and bluntly, I don't believe its true.

b. I'm not growing it outdoors, so I can't tell you. What I can tell you is that the plant went quickly into flowering after going to 12-12. No issue there at all.

c. I know people *DO* grow it outdoors, and in fact, supposedly they still do up in Oregon where this one came from.
 

Jogro

Well-Known Member
Day 61 flower, major update, part 1 of 2:

Coming into the last week of flowering, I've done a little "lollipopping", stripping many of the larger fan leaves. This lets a little more light into the bottom part of the plant to help lower bud development, and also this late in flowering, the fan leaves start to turn yellow and die anyway.

Note the absolutely massive cola size. I pruned off the lowest branches early in the grow, and the rest of the plant has basically transformed almost entirely into giant heavy colas. The colas are so dense that I put an extra fan in there a few weeks ago to help prevent bud rot. Anyway, the reputation of this plant as a heavy yielder appears well deserved:

Day61flower (1).jpgDay61flower (2).jpgDay61flower (3).jpg


Weather has gotten a bit colder, with temps dipping down to about 62F in the grow room during the dark period, and I'm starting to see a tiny bit of purple on the fan leaves. Not nearly enough for true "purpling" and the buds are still green, but worth mentioning. This one probably would go more purple with colder weather. . .but I'm not going to bother. More important, note the resin development in the second shot of the large fan leaf:

Day61flower (4).jpgDay61flower (5).jpg
 

Jogro

Well-Known Member
Day 61 flower, update 2 of 2

Overall resin development, still impressive. Second shot was taken under "normal" light for a better look. Note that probably 80% of the "hairs" are brown and the majority of trichrome heads are now white, so we're getting close to finish. I'd say maybe a week, give or take.

Day61flower (6).jpgDay61flowerstamen.jpg


On very careful inspection of the plants, I also noticed a few early male "bananas" on the lowest buds. You can see a cluster of 2-3 of these in the dead center of the "green" image, above. I probably would never have noticed them if I weren't looking over the plant super-carefully with a magnifying glass looking for bud rot (which, thankfully, I didn't get).

At no point did this plant get light in its dark period, and the plant hasn't gone above 78F in more than four weeks. So I can't chalk this up to heat or light stress.

Lots of strains will put out a few male flowers at the end of flowering; this may be one of them. Also, being on the lowest buds, maybe its a case of "dark" stress. . .ie the lowest buds are getting less light than the top buds, and maybe this is the problem. I contacted the breeder about this, and for what its worth, he told me that he's never seen any of his plants do this before.

Anyway, there are just a few of these, they just popped up, and none of them have opened up or made any pollen. They may even be sterile. . .don't know, and I'm not going to find out because I expect the plant to be chopped and drying before they get a chance to mature. In short, this isn't going to pose any real problem, and I don't really care. I wouldn't do anything differently, and assuming the smoke is good, this wouldn't stop me from growing the plant again. I just feel obligated to mention this in the interest of full disclosure.
 

M Dogg

Active Member
Looks great man! That's my issue with "feminized" seeds though, that imprint (shocking by whatever method) becomes part of the genetic code and you never know when or how it will show itself. Hermies at week 9 is like you said no big deal, week 5 or 6 is a different story.
 

Jogro

Well-Known Member
Looks great man! That's my issue with "feminized" seeds though, that imprint (shocking by whatever method) becomes part of the genetic code and you never know when or how it will show itself. Hermies at week 9 is like you said no big deal, week 5 or 6 is a different story.
Agreed. Hermies at week 4 would be a deal-breaker.

Hemies during the last week? Eh. . .I struggled a bit about whether or not I should even mention these, since I think people could come away with the wrong impression, but I figured it was better to be fully honest and give full disclosure.

Its certainly possible that something I did stressed the plant, so I "made" this happen. All I can say is that I'm 100% sure it wasn't heat issues or light leak during the dark period. I don't think it was nute issues because I fed lightly and never saw any nute deficiencies of any kind. Again, my best guess is that if it is something I did, it was just not enough light to the bottom branches late in flowering.

To be clear, this particular plant was started from "regular" ceeds, not feminized ones. So whatever caused this, it wasn't feminization.

On that topic, some people believe that the process of feminizing ceeds permanently alters a plants DNA, but personally I don't believe that. There is no genetic reason that I'm aware of that fertilization of a plant with pollen from a female plant should alter the DNA of the offspring in any way. Said "feminized" pollen should be an exact genetic copy of DNA from the mother plant, the same as pollen from a true male plant. DNA is a fairly durable molecule, simple environmental stress like light or heat won't change it, especially since organisms have "proofreading" functions that fix most mutations. It takes exposure to "serious" chemical, biological, or radiologic mutagens to do that.

Meanwhile, its normal for females of ALL dioecious plants like cannabis to create some male flowers. They're basically ALL hermaphrodites, and you'll see this in most natural/feral cannabis plants too. In particular, the ability to make male flowers is a normal survival mechanism that all cannabis plants have built into their DNA to help perpetuate the species in harsh conditions. It just happens that this trait has been suppressed in most "drug" cannabis strains by selective breeding so that won't must do it under "normal" circumstances.

But all cannabis plants retain the ability to create male flowers "hardwired" into their DNA, and I think under the right ("wrong") circumstances I think any plant can do so. Many strains have a tendency to throw off a few bananas at the end of flowering, or if you let them go past the end of normal flowering. Also, given how common hermaphroditic cannabis plants are, I think its practically a "given" that in some point in its lineage, probably EVERY cannabis plant has some predecessor that was "fathered" by a female plant.

I think what many breeders/growers are worried about is that if you use plants that easily tend to go hermie as breeding stock, then you're passing off that tendency to the offspring. In other words, you're selecting FOR a negative trait that you should really be selecting against. Many breeders won't use any feminized plant for breeding stock believing that these plants are somehow "weaker" than non-feminized ones of the same line. This may be true, though I've never seen evidence that it is.

In this particular case, again, it just doesn't matter. If these male flowers are actually fertile (which I'd assume is true), AND I let them mature (which will probably take another 1-2 weeks at least), AND I didn't pluck them off or chop the plant, AND there were some other early flowering plant in my flowering area, then this could cause unwanted seeding and pose a real problem. But given that this plant is coming down shortly, and that I have no intention of doing any sort of serious breeding with this plant, it just doesn't matter. I'll keep my eye on this to see what happens, but I'm not even going to bother to pluck off the male flowers.
 

Jogro

Well-Known Member
cant wait for a smoke report! hows the smell?
I can't wait for a smoke report either. . .

On smell, see here:
https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/585422-sickmeds-williams-wonder-grow-journal-7.html#post8580986

Again, when this started flowering, it had a distinct sweet tangerine like smell that I compared to tangerine fruit punch (ie "ecto cooler"). That smell is still in there, but now there is a sour grapefruit like component too, plus a layer of generic weed "dank" smell.

Its definitely a good smell, and better than a lot of them (ie no pine, fuel, urine, skunk, etc), though at this point I'd say it doesn't smell like pure citrus, but rather like citrusy weed.
 

steveat

Well-Known Member
Hi Again,

Regarding the smell. I am quite paranoid of smell and I go to great lengths to get rid of it. How strong is it? I have a carbon filter, but it just dampens the smell and I need something extra. I was thinking of putting my plants through two carbon filters...a regular one and a homemade one, plus ONA and I also have an ONA Breeze and gel as backup. I was even thinking of two carbon filters and a cardboard box full of dryer sheets 8-) The problem is that I can't vent outside due to the way my apartment is designed. How much do you smell outside the tent or room that you have? You might vent outside (outside outside not outside the tent) which would probably mean next to nothing.

Regarding harvesting. At what point during the trichome development are you picking? 50% clear 50% cloudy or are you waiting for 10% amber or even 50% amber? I would want to grow this until 25-50% amber myself. What would be your best guess as to the length of flowering for this plant to get to my achievement? Assuming one plant under 250W HPS (4 week veg).
 

Jogro

Well-Known Member
Hi Again,
Regarding the smell. I am quite paranoid of smell and I go to great lengths to get rid of it. How strong is it?
Strain smell should be considered strong.

Smell outside my grow area is minimal, but I do have odor control measures in place and what works in my situation probably won't apply to you.

If you have the ability to vent into a closed/sealed area, you might be able to deodorize said area with ozone. But you don't want to introduce ozone into an area directly into the area with plants, or where people are going to breathe it, and you also don't want to vent the the smell of live ozone outside your apt, because someone might think there is an electrical short. Venting it outside might be an option if you aren't on the ground floor.

Regarding harvesting. At what point during the trichome development are you picking? 50% clear 50% cloudy or are you waiting for 10% amber or even 50% amber? I would want to grow this until 25-50% amber myself. What would be your best guess as to the length of flowering for this plant to get to my achievement? Assuming one plant under 250W HPS (4 week veg).
My target is 5-10% amber; basically any "real" amount of amber other than rare individual trichromes, but its situation dependent.

Some strains don't really turn amber, and some never get real milky white, just a bit cloudy (as this one appears to be doing). So you also have to look at pistil maturity and overall plant development too not just trichromes. IE, are the hairs all or nearly all brown? Have the pistils/flowers swollen? Are the fan leaves mostly yellow or dropped? Etc. (See my grow journal on Mexican sativa below for some discussion about a plant that never turned amber). Also sometimes you do your harvest when its most convenient, or even when you "can" not necessarily when the plant has hit its theoretical peak.

Some people like a really late harvest believing that the high is "stonier", but I don't subscribe to that. From what I understand once the trichromes start turning brown you're losing overall THC content and partly displacing it with CBN, which is an undesirable cannabinoid. So, IMO 50% amber is too far, because you're giving up quite a bit of potency.

Not having done it, I can't tell you how long it would take to get to 50% amber, but based on what I've seen so far, my guess is that 11 or maybe 12 weeks flowering would probably get you there. Depending on how this turns out I may play with extending flowering time a little bit next time.

are more pollen sacs popping up?
Well, there are a few scattered around, in multiple spots, though overall number isn't many. Not having gone over the whole plant with a hand lens counting, them, I can't tell you exactly how many or if the number is increasing, but I definitely don't get the sense the plant is dramatically "going hermie" with internodal male flowers as some do. Again, I don't consider this to be an issue because they're all immature and the plant will be chopped shortly. I suppose this might be more of an issue if I let the plant go 11-12 weeks (see above), but I'm not going to.

This plant is nearly done, and its coming down at 70 days no matter what.
 
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