Sensi Seeds- Mother's Finest: Indoor Organic Soil Grow

Alright boys and girls, so my spouse and I will be posting pics of our new MF grow from seedling to harvest. First some backround. We chose MF many years ago, around when it won the cup, as one of the first three strains to try growing after we moved in together. Between Sensi Star, AK and MF, Mother's Finest won out as our choice for long-term growing and quickly became our all-time favorite strain; both to grow and to smoke. We had it for a long time until one day we lost our last mother to root binding. We stopped for awhile and then started looking for new seeds early this year. After some seeds we had stored for a few years failed to grow, we ordered some from a popular online retailer that we had never tried before. I won't mention any names in this thread since I have already posted my grievances in others. Nine out of the ten seeds did not grow while all of the freebies grew fine. The one seed that did germinate, took over a week to do so and turned out to be the one MF pheno we don't like. Since no one else wanted it either, we just cut it down when the next seeds we bought germinated. After our bad experience with the one company, we tried WWS and finally got ahold of some viable genetics. We received four MF seeds plus two freebies from WWS. As of the starting of this thread, one was just planted in seed starter soil while another is still in a damp paper towel and just started poking its root out. The remaining two are being stored in the refrigerator.


Info on Mother's Finest by Sensi Seeds:

Mother's Finest is a cross between Haze, Jack Herer and a third parent that Sensi tries to keep secret. They have called the third parent, "a Juicyfruit relative" which many growers have speculated to be Russian Kush. It leans more toward the Jack and Haze genetics. MF exhibits three primary phenotypes. While other people who have grown it have spoken of a fourth pheno, in my experience this is just an exceptional version of one of the three primary phenos which I do not believe should be considered as separate.

First and foremost is the pheno that we call the "standard" one. This is the plant that Sensi was trying to create with this strain; a short, high-yielding sativa. When topped twice, flowered at about 8" tall and grown under a 430w, it grows to about 2' and yields about 1/4 lb per plant. The buds are made up of many thin stems that grow upward and are covered all around with calyxes. There is very little leaf in the buds and each cola on a 6 cola plant weighs half an ounce completely crispy dry. The high is a soaring, functional, crystal clear, feel-good sativa high that is the perfect all-day smoke. Roughly 90 days of flowering time. It has a beautiful hazey smell throughout its life and isn't too strong in flowering. It has enough smell to be concerned if you want to avoid it but not alot.

Second, we have the Haze pheno, slightly more dominant than the other two in our experience. It grows just like original Haze and therefore isn't a great choice for indoor. Flowered at 8", the Haze pheno will immediately skyrocket in height. By the time the initial stretch is done, it will be over 5' tall grown directly under a 430w, even topped multiple times. The stems grow so thick so quickly that training it is almost futile. The yield is poor, especially considering its height, with each stalk growing two little buds at each node with a long stem in between. The main colas on a 5-stalk plant are each no more than 1/4oz. It takes forever to grow, also. The buds will not reach their full potential for 110+ days. The high, on the other hand, is unbelieveable. Truely one of the best buds on the face of the planet. It's every bit of the strongest Haze with just a hint of the "clarity" seen in the high of the standard pheno. It's power is too much for everyday activities, though. While we smoke the standard all day long and still get work done, one or two hits of the Haze will leave us giggling on the couch. It is stronger smelling than the Standard but it's an even better version of that beautiful scent. The flavor is classic Haze with all of the subtle notes telling you from the first hit that this stuff has everything your body and mind want. Because of its height, I wouldn't reccomend anyone growing it indoor unless its right under a 1000w so the light is strong enough to reach most of the lower budsites. There should be no fan blowing directly on them to try and keep the stems soft enough to train. There should be a trellis and careful attention should paid to training the plants every day. The shortest I've been able to keep them was in a spiral trellis, which managed to supply enough light to most of the nodes.

Finally, we've got the indica pheno. It grows short and has virtually no smell, even in late flowering. Though the buds are covered in crystals, they taste like grass clippings with a crappy high. It's hard to believe this one's related to the other two. I won't go further except to say that it's a shitty plant for whatever type of high you're looking for. Some examples of this pheno have virtually no high whatsoever while others are better but still mediocre. It is the least dominant phenotype in our experience.


So those are the types that we might get. I'm hoping chance will decide that since we just got one of the indica phenos, it should be less likely for us to get another. We want the standard pheno and will probably keep trying until we get it. We will grow the first two plants until they are large enough to determine the type. Their appearances in veg are different enough to tell which is which. The Haze has an obviously more sativa appearance in veg than the others and the Indica has broader, darker, more indica-like leaves, is shorter and has reddish leaf stems. Usually even the seedlings of the Indica will have reddish stems but the red main stem will eventually turn mostly green and only the leaf stems will be red. The Standard looks just like the Indica in veg but without the red leaf stems (very slight reddening in small areas of the leaf stems is often observed, but this is different from the completely red leaf stems of the Indica) and over time will get just a little taller. Both the Haze and Standard have a lovely hazey smell in veg, somewhat more pronounced in the Haze, of course. The Indica has no smell beyond the slight greeny grassy smell of its vegitation.

Once a Standard is discovered, four clones will be taken and placed under a 400w HPS for the minimum three months of flowering. I'm still debating on whether to grow a Haze or not but I'd sort of like to, just to include pics of another pheno in this journal. Since we haven't been growing these for awhile, there's a chance that a deficiency will pop up, requiring us to adjust the ferts. That said, please do not make suggestions in this thread. We have our method of growing and it works well for us. The first purpose of this journal is to create a public, photographic record of this wonderful strain. There used to be three amazing MF grow journals on the old OG site and we'd like to make one available to the people again. Secondly, there are many new growers that need an explanation of an entire soil growing process. For inexperienced growers using our techniques, please do not cut corners. Unless said otherwise, there's a reason for everything we do for our plants and leaving something out will likely cause a problem. Pics coming soon.



We'd like to dedicate this thread to all of the old Overgrow people who put so much work into creating records of various strains, only to have it lost.

Here is the second little one in a paper towel wet with a roughly 1/3 strength Maxicrop solution. All water is from both distilled & filtered gallon jugs that have shown a Ph of 7. It was soaked for about 18hrs before the towel. The foil keeps light out and the PC it's on keeps it warm. A few pieces of paper between the foil and the PC keep the temperature at or slightly lower than where I want it. The regular sized paper towel is folded 3 times. Using too many layers causes it to hold the liquid too well and not dry out at the right rate. The roots should reach out for the water as the paper towel dries. This one started poking a teeny speck of root out 10/30 midday but the paper towel was getting too dry and needed to be re-wet. It slowed down the seed's progress as it was just starting to reach out for moisture. I'm hoping the root will be far enough out for planting tomorrow.




Here is the first little one to germinate. She fell to the bottom after soaking only a few hours with occasional stirring. She was allowed to soak a few more hours after sinking and was put in the above paper towel. Four days after the soaking began it was ready to plant. Definately a strong baby. She's in a cup filled about 2/3 of the way with seed starter soil wet with the same 1/3ish strength Maxicrop solution. Most of it is soil we used the previous time and had a little mold on it when we got back to it. It was heat sterilized and allowed to fully cool before we used it again. Really only inert soil mediums like seed starter soil can be heat sterilized without negative effects. With normal rich soil, you want to keep the beneficial microbes alive. I made a hole with a toothpick and put the seed's root into the hole. I very gently pressed the soil around the root with the seed shell just a hair under the soil surface. The plastic wrap with holes in it protects the little one from drying out. Healthy seedlings can grow a little faster without the plastic, having more air, but we're being as careful with these seeds as possible. The extra humidity also helps the seed slough its shell. This little one is already standing up on her own and should be ready to have the plastic off tomorrow.

Here's lil girl #1. She's just big enough to remove the plastic wrap but not big enough to turn the fan on or move her closer to the light. Until the seed shell comes off, the light is only there to tell the plant which way is up.

Today the little one started getting rid of her shell and so I helped her out. First I saw that the shell was coming off.



Next, I carefully pulled the hard shell halves off, one by one, while being careful not to bend the stem or apply pressure to the plant.



Finally, all that was left was the membrane, which just slid right off.



The pics will get much clearer once the plant is bigger. This camera just won't do closeups. The pod leaves have just a hint of purple on them, which is encouraging. While I don't have any notes on purplish pod leaves, the Haze plants in veg are decidedly without purplish colors. They are typical, light green sativas. Since this one didn't have the reddish stem that the Indicas are born with, I'm thinking it might be a Standard.

I don't have a camera able to take close enough pics for you to see the tiny things going on, so I'm going to do my best to explain.

The last update regarding the first plant said that the single-bladed leaves in between the pod leaves looked whiter than they should. It turns out that these leaves never grew out of their fatty state. You see, inside every live seed is a tiny plant with two pod leaves and a little root folded into a fetal position. Before the seed sprouts, the plant inside is made primarily of fat, just like most nuts we eat. This fat is what supplies the growing plant with energy before it is mature enough to absorb significant amounts of nutrients from the soil. When certain problems occur, like if for some reason a part of the plant inside the shell becomes cut off from the rest, some or all of the plant may not change from this fat into normal plant tissues. This is what happened to the single-bladed leaves on our plant here. The pod leaves opened and in between was a tiny piece of white fat instead of the beginning of the first leaves. This presented a major problem. Unlike if only one leaf remained in its fatty state, the entire growing shoot had the problem. The plant couldn't grow taller because there was no growing shoot.

By the time she had been growing for about 18 days, I tentatively decided that she'd been growing for too long without any nutrition. I figured that some of the fat being cut off from the rest of the plant would decrease how much time she could survive without nutes. I gave her a half strength 0-0-1 Maxicrop Liquid Seaweed solution with roughly 1/4 strength Fish Emulsion added. The Fish Emulsion was a little hard to measure in such a small quantity due to its foamyness after shaking. I think I'm going to add some sort of marbles to the container to help mix it without shaking as much.

The day after I lightly fertilized her (the 12th), I noticed a teeny tiny something sitting next to the tiny piece of fat. At first it was just a dot but by the next day it grew big enough to see that it was a pair of little fuzzballs. Really, the best way to describe it is as two very little, spherical growths covered in trichomes and pressed up against each other. It almost looked like two calyxes and I watched for it to sprout little hairs. I also noticed what appeared to be a little fertilizer burn on the pod leaves; some yellowing in the middle and a tiny, slight browning at the mid rib. Even though there was some burn, the ferts seemed to finally get it to sprout a new shoot and I think they were worth it.

Today the growth was much bigger and has been growing noticeably all day. This afternoon, the fuzzy nutz finally uncurled somewhat into a pair of gnarled leaves on top of a thick stem. The stem appears to be a hair thicker than the main stem underneath it. The growth rate is incredible for its size. If all goes well, it should be big enough for better pics tomorrow. I expect it'll need a watering then too.

thats a curious sprout you've got. Hope it turns out to be an ideal example of the pheno your looking for!

Thanks. She's doing much better and healthy leaves are finally starting to form.

As the little one matures and begins growing normal leaves, more purpling is setting in. I'm starting to worry that it's just another Indica. It does look lovely, though. The tips of the leaves as they grow in are purplish in a shimmery way, typical of the Indica. They look more green from certain angles and more purple from others. Reddish streaks are forming on all stems. I have notes about slight reddening on the Standard when young that goes away as the plant grows, so there's still hope. At the moment, I'm planning to flower her regardless of the suspected phenotype.

She was watered this evening since the soil was bone dry most of the way through. I mixed some very weak high-P Guano tea into the water since she hasn't had any real Phosphorus. I've used this particular weak tea for germinating seeds in the past with good results so it shouldn't burn this little one at all.

So here's what's happening. We've been out of town for a few weeks for a family emergency and had to leave the little one behind. While we've still been on the forums, we haven't been able to care for the plant. We just considered her a lost cause and went about our business. We got home almost a month later and amazingly enough, she's still alive! She went for over three weeks with no water at all and is still doing well. It makes me think of all the overwatering issues I've seen. So many novice growers watering so often, some more than once per day, and this one takes almost a month with hardly a scratch. There's so much you need to do to care for the plants but sometimes you need to just sit back and let nature take it's course.

We actually got back a few days ago, so these pics are after having two good waterings that she eagerly gobbled up. I went ahead and took a clone to get the cloning setup ready. It may or may not survive because it's a test run to make sure temperature and humidity are alright. I don't have pics yet of the cloning pot but it's already been hit by a slightly low humidity. We'll take new clones in a few days or so. Anyway, here's the Mother's Finest and her first clone after 3.5 weeks without any water and a couple days rehydrating:

Glad to see you back. I hope everyone is ok! It's great to see your girl survive, shes bound to be a good yielder.

Thanks a bunch G. Yeah we're hoping. If she's the pheno I think she is and a female, yield won't be a problem. We should get 3.5oz per 26" plant with no problem. Come to think of it, I don't know that I've seen a male version of that pheno.

So here's the clone, doing well:



It's in a peat puck. It was given a fresh cut while in the liquid rooting hormone. Damp perlite is covering the puck. Everything is wet with Ph 5.8 water. Usually we put about 4 clones in the pot at a time. Aside from being taken out for pics, it's under fluorescents and on a heating pad.

The first clone finished rooting today and was planted. It took a good long time, two weeks, but I was still setting up the cloning process so I expect the next four we took (not posted) to be done much sooner. Those four went in about five days ago. Here's the first rooted clone of our latest Mother's Finest mother:




As I said before, the pot was set up on a heating pad and we used this first cutting to make sure the temperature was perfect. We'd pick up the pot from time to time and see how warm the bottom felt. When it got too warm, we'd stick something in between it and the pad. The heating pad is now keeping the next four cuttings at just the right temp. Btw, a heating pad works best for this type of cloning because the heat comes up from the bottom, warming the pucks and perlite first. This increases humidity unlike typical warm air heating and gives the roots a nice, cozy environment to grow in. How far the lid is spaced away regulates humidity. The pics show it spaced with layers of tape but the lid is usually spaced from the pot with little wads of tin foil.

Seeing the leaves turning yellow and the bottom ones dying was a sign that the roots are growing. The plants use nutrients in the (usually lowest) leaves to grow roots with. Some time after the leaves yellow up, the whole plant will suddenly stop drooping and perk up. This tells the grower that the cutting has rooted and within about a day afterward will be ready to plant. These yellowing or dead leaves should be left on the plant until the clone has settled into its new soil. This will minimize the shock when planting and lets the clone continue to feed on the damaged leaves until its roots reach out into the new, fertile soil.

So after much work, we finally have a Mother's Finest plant ready to flower. We won't actually do so until we have a second clone. The plan is to always have a vegging clone available in case something happens to the mother. We'll probably start flowering under fluorescents, at least until it shows sex, at most until it shows pheno. I'm still debating on whether to top this one or just get it into flowering asap.

After her clones got all of the attention this evening, the mother herself needed some care. When it comes to caring for mothers, nothing's more important than the roots. A mother plant's roots will keep growing throughout its life, so they need to be cut back from time to time. This one was pulled from its container and laid on a clean cutting board. A very sharp and sterile knife was used to cut off the bottom half of the root ball, followed by four side cuts, giving the root ball a cubical shape. Fresh soil was already mixed and was added to the same 3-liter bottle it has been growing in. It was replanted with fresh soil on the bottom and sides. The bottom is most critical when root pruning since the roots grow mostly downward. The sides need to be cut as well but how much isn't that important, as long as they get cut and fresh soil is packed into the sides.




Because it won't have the root system it once did, the soil will need to be kept very moist for almost a week after transplanting. Once it recovers, it'll get pruned some more. It's ready for pruning now but the roots come first.

In this week's update we'll be talking about the end of the cloning process, vegging the clones and veg area design. Four out of the five clones taken have rooted well and were transplanted into the vegging soil. The fifth seems to have rooted in its peat puck since it won't come out when pulled gently. It's looking perfectly normal and perky so was planted this evening, despite no roots sticking out. It'll be left in the cloning area for a day or two because without strong roots, the fan and lights may dry it out. Three of the other four were topped about two days ago and are doing well with new shoots getting bigger at each node.

Our vegetative pruning is made up of three cuts. We accomplished the first cut on most of the clones when we topped them. Two nodes were left on each plant. The two shoots at each top node should grow fastest since they're closest to the light. The topping should also cause the lower shoots to grow but how much depends mostly on light strength. As soon as the top two shoots on a plant have each formed a new node, they are both topped. The one node is left on each of the two shoots. Each node has two new growing shoots on it. By the time the total of four new shoots really get going, at least one of the two shoots at the very bottom node will start to catch up. As much as a week after the last two cuts, the plants go into flowering with 5-6 stalks. If it's the pheno we hope it is, each stalk will form a cola that weighs around 15g trimmed and dry.

We've been working on the veg area over the past few days so our rooted clones can have a nice place to grow. Power strips with bulb sockets plugged in were used vertically. Only two strips holding four bulbs are in at the moment but we're planning to add four more later on. The bulbs are 26w GE Sunshine 5000k. As previous stated, the vegging plants prefer these to the GE Daylight 6500k bulbs we tried and grow quite well under them. A crappy fan is being used for now but I'm hoping to find something better tomorrow. Most of the work on the vegging area is the reflective material.

There's been some debate over using tin foil to line grow room walls. I'll admit that using it normally can cause hot spots but that can be avoided with the right technique. We first take a piece of heavy duty tin foil



Next, crumble up the foil. Try to take note of how it folds as you ball it up so you have a better idea how to unfold it. Don't squeeze the ball too tightly. The tighter you squeeze it, the greater the chance it will rip when uncrumbled. It's better to repeat the process more times using less pressure than try to cut down on the steps by squeezing harder.



Unfold the crumbled foil carefully. Even the HD foil will tear very easily as it's unfolded. I don't think I've ever done this without tearing the foil a little. Re-crumble the foil again and unfold it again to make the little ridges smaller and more abundant. This should be done a third time to really get a nice sparkly surface.

Uncrumble the foil the last time on a hard, smooth surface with the shiny side down. Make sure it's completely covered in tiny facets. Once it's mostly unrolled, go to the edges and unfold them. If you try to stretch the foil back out with the edges still folded, the edges will certainly tear. Be extra careful at the edges as you stretch out the foil by smoothing your palms apart in different areas & directions. Once it's completely stretched out and smooth, use something like a paperback book to further flatten the foil. Be careful as even the corners of a paperback book can tear a hole in the foil. It should turn out something like this. I'm pretty sure the first two are before flattening with a book.



We use this sparkly foil to line the walls of our grow areas like in the following pics. There's still much work to be done. More foil needs to be layed and the reflector in the pics is just temporary. The fan is also a piece of crap and will be replaced soon. It's coming along though and the flowering room will be next. I expect a couple of weeks before needing the flowering area ready. The mother plant is in the pics, along with four of her clones, three of which are topped. Some of the leaves the clones fed on while rooting are still attached because topping them was more important during their first pruning. The damaged leaves will be removed next pruning.





That's it for now. I'll put up more pics before they go into flowering.