Bay Area winter/spring crop experiment 2018

I have too many good seeds to wait until long season, so I’m running an experiment with short season plants in my hoophouse.

I started 2 packs under t5 indoors first week of January: Pakistani Chitrali Kush from Cannibiogen and Alenuihaha (Maui Wowie x Kona gold) from Pua Mana Ohana seeds. I’m hoping to make some seed using Paki males into the Hawaiian...provided I like the genetics. I’ll also use the Paki pollen on Paki females, and clones of my killer Bay 11 cut, my Jack Herer f2 selection, and a gorgeous Chemdog cut (harborside.)

My hoophouse is simple 3/4” pvc 10’ wide by 25’ long. It’s covered over the hoop with good 5-layered greenhouse plastic, with the ends open and simple fans moving air through the top. My soil is worked now for ten years with ever improving organic amendments. I’m using water only with a couple of compost tea applications and plants look amazing in it.

The fun started when a mouse came into my closet and ate 6/10 Hawaiian sprouts and 4/10 of the Pakis when they were just opening first set of serrated leaves. So, selection began early

I did some rough calculations based on day length and flowering times and came up with early February as my planting outdoor time...to hopefully mature buds in April before re-veg starts. The clones went out on Feb 3rd, and the seedlings went out on Feb 7th into days about 10.5 hours long. I had some really warm weather for a few days, followed by weeks now of cold cold nights between 28-38 degree lows. Hoophouse does it’s job and surprisingly the plants look awesome. Growth is slower than long season for sure, but things are progressing really nicely.

Pics to come.

Clones on the right: Kona gold in front, bay 11, 2x chemdog, and Jack Herer. Seedlings on the left in #5 pots for first few weeks to show sex. All 4 Maui x Kona are female, And 4/6 PCK are female. Looks like 2 green and 2 purple. The two most vigorous and least leaf-tweaky are the males. One green and one purple. It really worked out great...the mouse left me enough to work with!

In the pics above: the #5 containers are 4 Maui x Kona on the left (lighter colored containers,) and 6 PCK on the right (darker containers.) The 8 females are, as of yesterday, in the ground, and I’ll get some better pics when I can.

Of course in the cold weather, certain characters thrive, and what would a Bay Area grow be without some powdery mildew showing up? So I sprayed everything down with Dr Zymes today as a treatment for the spots, and preventative for the rest. I hope I can control it this way.

You should be able to let them go well into May at that latitude. I am at 37 degrees latitude and i have to wait until the last week of may or my plants will start flowering when i plant them outdoors.

That would be nice because the Hawaiian genetics are probably at least 10-12 weeks flowering to finish strong.

I’m at 38 degrees latitude here. I can put out most hybrid clones safely mid-May. My experience is that only the most predominantly Indica genes I’ve had tried flower that early.

You are looking good. I did a Spring crop in 16-17. Dropped seeds on December 1st, went outdoors on January 19th, and ran into reveg issues before everything was finished. Especially with the sativa leaning crosses. But I am down here in NW Florida {30.5N}. Our sunlight hours are different.

It was a good crop though. I made some good crosses and am still smoking off the bud.

Thanks too larry. Sounds like I may run into re-veg with the Hawaiian genes. If so, at least I can see/smell who they’re becoming and run the best ones again for long season.

Here are the 4 Alenuihaha females as of yesterday. The bright green one on the left was eaten off all but completely by the mouse when it was tiny, just cotyledons and first serrated singles. Literally it was left totally leafless and I let it go just to see what would happen. I wish I had taken pics. There was apparently enough cells left to shoot up the first 3 leaflet sets...albeit very slowly. I did not know that was possible.

Here are the 4 PCK females in the ground. 2 green on right, 2 purple stems on left.

1 of 2 males of the PCK. I know purple is just a color, but I do like how it looks. I’ll mix the pollen from both the purple and green males for the crosses. These two plants luckily have good vigor, thick stems and normal leaf formation.

Here’s the green male. Stem rub of this one is strong sweet menthol/eucalyptus.

El Sobilly said:

View attachment 4103306
1 of 2 males of the PCK. I know purple is just a color, but I do like how it looks. I’ll mix the pollen from both the purple and green males for the crosses. These two plants luckily have good vigor, thick stems and normal leaf formation.
View attachment 4103309
Here’s the green male. Stem rub of this one is strong sweet menthol/eucalyptus.

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Just my 2 cents, but I would keep the pollen separate. You can use both on the same females. You just have to use a little care. If not your sprouts will all be asking each other, "who's your daddy?"

You’re right. I’m trying to justify keeping it simpler. I’ve got two kids under three and gardening minutes are precious indeed!

This is a interesting thread in regards to changing daylight hours. They are loving your dirt dude. Keep it rockin look forward to updates

@El Sobilly, even if you do run into re-veg, if you are growing in your yard, you could just cover it in the late afternoon to keep the light hours short enough to finish flowering. You would be pretty close by then anyway.

I found some comments in a couple of places here about Pua Mana seeds. It seems that they may not be who they say they are. I doubted I could get real Kona gold, Maui Wowie, etc, but I really wanted to believe it. So, clearly, I got a couple of packs from them. This is the second test run, albeit a small sample group, and I’ll see what comes of it. It wouldn’t be the first time seeds did not turn out as I had hoped. They may yet be good plants. So far healthy, vigorous, and smell great on stem rubs. Definitely not pure tropical Sativa. I grew one small late planted Kona gold last season, and I really like the effect...it’s not tasty though. I’m looking for lip smacking flavor and an upbeat daytime effect, mildew resistance, and a nice open structure. We shall see.

too larry said:

@El Sobilly, even if you do run into re-veg, if you are growing in your yard, you could just cover it in the late afternoon to keep the light hours short enough to finish flowering. You would be pretty close by then anyway.

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I’d love to light dep these to finish, but I’m not sure logistically how I could darken my gigantic hoop house completely. Maybe just a huge tarp...but it’s really windy here coming up soon. Then I’d be out fussin with it every night and morning and my wife would be wondering why I’m not helping w the kids....

This is cool as Hell. I'm in the east bay so I am looking forward to seeing what happens with this. Thanks for sharing!

RetiredGuerilla said:

This is a interesting thread in regards to changing daylight hours. They are loving your dirt dude. Keep it rockin look forward to updates

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I gotta tell you... We do' have a excellent soil here in the bay area. I pull 40+ pounds of Brandywine tomatoes off of a single plant in this soil. It's amazing!

Good clay loam here in my hood. Soil test showed ph is all the way down at 5.02, so I’ve amended w recommended amounts of gypsum and limestone. Every year the beds get yards and yards of organic compost and grape pomace, plus rock dust etc...
Plants look perfect in it, vegetables as well as herbs