MCS Purple Kush - Spring Grow Journal

[Daskahn]

Nice journal I look forward to the end

[Eigholte]

2020-04-21 (One day behind) 9 weeks from seed, 3 weeks from 12-12

Plants are trucking on.
Super-cropping was successful, it appears
One branch was lightly pollinated (and the others seem un-pollinated thus far!)

I'm kind of exhausted, so I am a day behind on documenting, and will keep this shorter.

But the ladies are looking happier.

[Daskahn]

Don’t you just love when things work out for the best.. way to grow

[Eigholte]

2020-04-27 10 weeks from seed, 4 weeks from 12-12


Got my updates back on schedule!

I think the buds are starting to put on weight this week, which is really nice. The scent on the plants is subtle, but ramping up. It's got this crisp scent that seems lightly lemony, fruity, hints of grass, and a little skunk. It's proving really pleasant for me - which I usually take as a good sign that I'll like the final bud product.

I've opened windows and closed vents, and ambient temperatures are down to ~14c at night with 18-19c with lights on. No purple color showing on the buds just yet, but I am hopeful that the slightly lower temp will bring that out over time.

RH in the tent seems to be in the 40-45% range, which is going well.

No signs of light burn as of yet, either.

The branch that was pollinated has a fair number of red/rusty pistils, which I am taking as a good sign that pollination took for a few seeds. The main colas are still mostly white, only a stray red hair here or there. So for the moment it doesn't appear I accidentally pollinated the whole crop, either!


I have high hopes for this crop. 4-6 weeks to go to harvest!

[SoOrbudgal]

Great job I wish you luck in your seed adventures, so nice to see folks turning to making their own. I was on Nirvana site one of my favs. anyway I always send $$ not anymore now staying in the states for seeds they are 5 wks out so site says. Way to long anymore. I got plenty was just curious.

[Eigholte]

2020-05-04 11 weeks from seed, 5 weeks from 12-12 (And May the Fourth be with you!)

So, things appear to be trucking along nicely so far this grow.

Each of my plants appears to be downing about a gallon of water a week.
Recipe for bloom has remained the same, ~6.5pH, around 710ppm and averaging 19c when I make the solution.
Ambient RH is around 40% still.
Temperatures have varied with the outside air, given the cracked window, but I seem to be getting an average range of 13-19c, with a low last night around 10c due to a storm moving through. No signs of stress due to the low temps. No real signs of purple on the plants either, but that may take a little more time.

I am now convinced that my buds are putting on weight, and the branch I purposefully pollinated definitely took, at least in some areas - some of the calyxes are large and cracked, showing what looks like an under-developed seed in there. SoOrbudgal Yeah, I can imagine shipping seeds right now being troublesome - everything's a little slower. I am not short on seeds, I did buy a nice order in the fall and already have my fall grow seeds (Durban Poison and GSC). But making more Kush seeds seemed like a lot of fun, and this breeder's White Kush was pretty amazing, so I hope they do just as good a job with this Purple Kush.


Promising! Just 3-5 weeks to go 'til harvest!

[SoOrbudgal]

Looking like your hopes will come true for the seeds. Best of luck, I do love Kush strains

[Eigholte]

2020-05-11 12 weeks from seed, 6 weeks from 12-12 (Harvest countdown, ?2-4 weeks?)


Only things to change this week is the temperature has dropped to a range of 10c to 15c or so over this week.
And also that the strange and twisted plant is beginning to show signs of purpling. Nothing from the more typical female plant yet.

Am getting excited for harvest time. The buds appear to be putting on weight and are intensely sparkly.




Normal Bud:


Purpling Bud:

[SoOrbudgal]

Beautiful and I bet those leaf will be lovely if they fade. Great job

[Eigholte]

Thank you!

[Eigholte]

2020-05-18 13 weeks from seed, 7 weeks from 12-12 (Harvest countdown, ?1-3 weeks?)


So this week the outdoor temperature has climbed, and with it the average temperature for the grow. We're up at about 16c-20c again for the moment.
Humidity was at ~40, but has spiked up to 50-60 in the last two days, so I've bumped up the ventilation to maximum and cracked the window again. Hope that helps! No signs of bud rot at present, so that's good. Just don't want to chance it.

Buds seem to be slowly putting on weight, and I'm seeing more and more red pistils. A quick check on the trichromes seems to show something like 40% clear, 55% cloudy and <=5% amber. Got a way to go on that, ideally, I think I'd like to end up somewhere around 80% cloudy and 20% amber. Since I'm being asked for stony, knock-out weed, may be best to err on the side of over-mature slightly.

This week, each plant got 6L of nutrient solution. I'm not sure if it's quite time to start flushing based on the trichromes, but it might be time to start considering it.

Not much more purpling on the 'normal' plant yet. (Did I somehow plant a WHITE kush?! I swear, my counts were good, and I never opened that other vial... so what gives? )

Both are pretty delightfully scented in my opinion. Should be really nice - and that trim! So much glitter, I suspect I'll get some really nice extracts out of this one.

So as usual: More photos

[SoOrbudgal]

Outstanding job i'm just loving all these kushies and those will keep you locked to the couch if you get a lot of amber so go easy LOL

[Eigholte]

2020-05-25 14 weeks from seed, 8 weeks from 12-12 (Harvest countdown, ?0-2 weeks?)


So, it's warming up out here, and the ambient temperature in the tent has climbed up to 17-21c now. RH is higher, too after the week of rain, closer to 50% now. Airflow is at max to try and keep that down.

Nutrient solution today was made a half strength to try and ease into the flush.

Color is still largely the same, and these two plants could not be more different. For supposedly being from the same batch of purple kush seeds, there's a lot of variation between them. (and then that whole curled-leaf thing, too.) It's been a strange grow! The plants haven't made the biggest colas I've ever grown, either, but they feel very firm and the trichrome content is high on both the buds and the trim.

So maybe it will turn out to be a moderate harvest of highly potent plants? We shall see!


And now, the photo barrage. First up, a trichrome close up. I think we've shifted closer to 70% cloudy or better. A little hard to tell in this photo, but looking mostly cloudy on the buds overall, with a rare hint of amber in there.





You can start to see the differences in foliage between the plants in this one. The rear plant is much more purpled.




Front plant bud close-up




Rear plant bud close-up. (This one with the twisted leaves also seems to have a slightly different bud growth pattern, too. But mad sparkle on the trim!)

[SoOrbudgal]

Almost finished Ragweed those look great and the smell is wonderful I bet. I just took down a small holy grail kush she looked green and curled full of frost like the last pic of yours one small plant she stunk up the house like lemon. She is hanging now. Keep them kushies going. I got 2 for my out door grow going.

[Eigholte]

I've been pondering an outdoor grow - not so much for the weed itself, I have no auto-flower seeds right now and the photos are unlikely to finish in time in my location, but simply to annoy my rather vexing neighbor. He has a bit of a history for campaigning against other people's rights to do as they please with their property. I feel like a (completely legal) outdoor grow right next door to him, visible through his awful, awful chain-link fence might just blow his little mind. So some of the CBD only Operation Overgrow seeds might be a good candidate, might be able to make some fiber out of them and spin myself a really hippie-tastic hemp bracelet even if they don't finish flowering outdoors.

[Eigholte]

2020-06-02 15 weeks from seed, 9 weeks from 12-12 (Harvest countdown, ?0-1 weeks?)

Posting late again. Let myself get a little lazy and failed to post an update the day after my birthday.

But the grow carries on! This week, watering with just ph'd and cal-mg laced water. We're into the flush. The trichromes on the less twisted plant are looking really good, and very close to harvest. I think another week might be sufficient, perhaps.

Temperatures are up again 17-20c, and opening the window won't help as the outdoors are largely that temperature now, too.

The gnarled plant is getting very purple now, which is nice. Though the trichromes on the bud on that plant are sparser and less full. Color is stunning though.
The other plant refuses to purple. I am getting very curious if it's actually a *white* kush - it does resemble that first grow of mine a little.

That or this particular batch of seeds is just a little unstable. Hard for me to say. Regardless, I think I am going to keep the buds and trim of these two plants nicely separated and see if there are notable differences in potency and flavor as well.

Hoping for a really nice harvest in a week or two!

[Eigholte]

2020-06-08 16 weeks from seed, 10 weeks from 12-12 (Harvest countdown, ?0 to -1 weeks?)

Back on track with my updates!

Temp: 17c-20c
Humidity (increased slightly) 45% to 55%. No signs of mold
Feed: 4L of Ph'd and Cal-MGd water per week.

I haven't seen any visible sign of increased bud size in a while, and no new pistils - things are nicely red and curled over. So the final judge of maturity on these plants will be the trichromes.

Right now, there's a good deal of amber on the sugar leaves, and a bit - depending on where I look - on the buds.

I could probably take it down any time. To be safe, I will leave it another week, I think. Can't quite leave it until my June vacation, sadly. That would be nice, I could have a whole day to trim and sample! Instead, I'll probably have to fit it in after work somewhere.

Still, it's been a good grow. If a confusing one - WHY? Why are these two plants so incredibly different from each other?! ... The world may never know.

[SoOrbudgal]

Why who knows is right. Well enjoy the harvest and have a relaxing vacation I hope. I'd love to try that white kush someday as a grow.

[Eigholte]

Follow up:

Well, I left of the updates for a bit.
Harvest happened the next week after my last updated. I managed to get some help with trimming and only had two plants, so it was the smoothest, least back-pain-inducing harvest I've had yet. High five to that!

The yield wasn't great - because it turns out my male plant got EVERYTHING with pollen! (very successful male, and a less-than-on-top-of-it grower, turns out!) All those early white pistils closest to the branch had seeds. The pistils that came out later were seedless, but it was obvious the plant focused on the seeds, and not the bud. I absolutely understand the focus on sensimilla growing at this point - I got plenty of seeds, but I lost at least half of my typical yield to do it. If you're not trying to breed, or trying to make a metric-fuck-tonne of emergency seeds, pollination is really not a winning proposition.

In my case, the outcome was fine with me: Getting 150 seeds from the "twisted" purple kush, and about 100 from the purple kush that refused to purple suits my purposes just fine. I now have an apocalyptic-level stockpile of regular indica cannabis seeds, just in case.

I also have two very different "purple kushes" to vape now. And I personally don't mind keeping an eye out for seeds as I do so - this just won't be gift-worthy bud. The final results were along these lines:

Twisted plant: 22g dried, trimmed bud, about 1oz trim.
Flavor notes: Has a bit of a fruity after taste, really smooth. The high is a euphoric couch experience, at least for me. If I get high enough, I do seem to provoke visuals, but maybe that's because this strain is something I've really enjoyed late at night before bed, while listening to music in the dark. Those are pretty good conditions for experiencing some neat minds-eye visuals.


Non-twisted plant: 20g dried, trimmed bud and about 1oz trim.
Flavor notes: This one lacks the fruity notes, and has a bit of a lemon-diesel-skunk thing going on. I could swear it reminds me of my first white kush I grew from this breeder. It's more potent than the purple, I find I get more stoned on less vaped bud, but for some reason, I don't like the character of the high quite as much. I can't quite put my finger on what makes the difference for me though.





I will be booting up a new thread soon for the fall grow - today I planted my cracked seeds into their solo cups, so nothing above ground yet. The fall grow, August-Dec 2020 will be 1 Girl Scout Cookies and 1 Durban Poison. Known feminized seeds, tent is all cleaned, so I'm hoping for a heavy harvest of sativa/sativa cross bud for the fall. I CANNOT WAIT to try the durban - this strain has sounded like a bit of a legendary sativa, and I am really excited to see how the experience goes. If I find a new favorite workout-strain, that would be awesome!