06 Petrolia Headstash Repro

YardG

In Bloom
This is a project I've had a on the backburner for a few years that I decided I really ought to get to this year, rather than continuing to make excuses and push it off another year. I purchased these seeds from Reeferman Seeds (RMS) back in 05 or 06. It was a big investment for me at the time ($200 for a 12 pack, to date still the most I've ever spent for a single pack of seeds, and yes I really wish I had bought two packs) but I had a burning desire to have them - despite that Reef warned me that Petrolia Headstash was meant to be a breeding tool and that I shouldn't expect to get connoisseur level smoke off of them.

Jump forward in time a good 15 years (during which the beans sat in a mason jar in various fridges in cheap rental apartments, always too precious to be touched) and I reckoned it was time, so I came up with a scheme for these seeds... yes an outdoor field grow would likely be the best plan of action... but for pure get'er'done reproduction purposes I decided to grow them in a tent.

Anyway, started these sometime around the middle of April I think? 12 dropped, 9 made it through to emerge from the soil. Grew really poorly for a long time... I think they were super sensitive to low root zone temps perhaps? Sucks but an unheated outbuilding is all I had to work with. Funny but while they were looking like shit for the longest time other plants in the same tent were perfectly happy. Thankfully we got beyond the crappy cold weather and they perked up. I got a mix of the tall pheno plants and the short pheno plants (for those not in the know, despite Petrolia Headstash's reputation as a "pre-Soviet Afghani" there are at the very least 2 commonly found phenos: the short broader leafed Afghani leaners and a tall narrow leaf one as well).

Switched to flower lighting on June 7th and they immediately responded (several had alternating nodes already so not too surprising). I was worried for a day or two because I started seeing a few plants throw pistils, but I hadn't spotted a single male. I started to look at other starts outdoors for a male to use if I somehow ended up with 9 females. Thankfully I spotted a male among the tall pheno Petrolia plants this morning so I can at least rest assured they won't all be female. Ideally I'd like to have at least one tall and one short pheno male, but obviously you get what you get (the more the merrier).

Really hard to tell the difference in the crappy photo I took this morning (hard to get in there during lights on time), but there's an immense size difference between the tall and short pheno plants (nevermind the runt that finally grew out, a bit).

Besides this pack I also have a Nierika pack of Petrolia Headstash and a pack of Petrolia Headstash (both phenos) x Pink Kush from Green Rebel Farms. Given the low # I'm starting from my plan was to repro the 06 seeds, then repro the Nierika seeds, and then start working them together. Depending on how this reproduction run goes I may work on getting more packs from the Nierika release. I'll work on better photos moving forward, decided to do lights on overnight so as avoid the daytime heat which complicates grabbing photos (hoping beyond hope that we don't lose power overnight at all this summer, it would be unusual but you never know).

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YardG

In Bloom
Thanks! I bought the cheapo tent and light for vegging plants for outdoors, so it'll be interesting to see what comes of it for flower. It is indeed a 2x4, a Mars, with a Mars SP250, not sure about the pot size, I can check on that. Certainly not as big as I'd like (they were transplanted from smaller pots at the end of last week and given a few days to root a little). I'm not counting on this for smoke, I have outdoor plants for that.

Not gonna lie, I'm a little worried about how tall the tall pheno plants are going to get. Still lots of space for now. I should give that some thought and act on it now if it feels like I'll need to top. Hard not to notice how much floor space I could save if I strung the fan from the roof.
 

YardG

In Bloom
Are you planning to do open pollination with 2 diff pheno males? Or choose one? Never tried Petrolia, that´s a thoroughbred pure indica, right? Does it have a distinctive smell or taste?

Just to be clear, I've never smoked it. I've seen online reviews of dispensary Petrolia Headstash where people talk about how they love it, but it's unclear what the ultimate source was, and which version of Petrolia Headstash they were talking about, if that's what it was at all. Keep in mind RMS sold Petrolia Headstash, Petrolia Headstash 2 (a little hazy remembering back 15 years but if I recall correctly that one was crossed to one of Reef's other Afghan lines, and Reef always recommended that one for people looking for something nice to smoke in its pure form), then later sold them as Petrolia Headstash IBL and Petrolia Headstash Pure. Some of the distinctions seemed a bit hazy. The core story it was sold under was one of those true breeding Afghani Indicas that was inbred for generations in northern California (if Reef was good for anything it was coming up with a good story to market under), but it's been clear for a long time that it isn't anywhere near that simple. Specifically there's a tall narrow leaf in there. Some sources say look for the short broader leafed pheno.

As for what it's ultimately like, I've been searching high and low for information for years, and to be honest there isn't much... some people saying it isn't much to write home about. Almost no complete grow reports. People talk about earthy/hashy scents, which seems in keeping with what I've smelled thus far.

IMHO when you have old seeds they're worth preserving by any means necessary, with their ultimate value TBD at a later date. I'm keeping my expectations fairly low and hoping for a nice surprise. Unless I come across a herm I was planning on using any and all plants I got for the reproduction. At the moment I'm kinda curious about what the deal is with the narrower leaf plants even though that's not what I came looking for, I bought the seeds hoping for some interesting Afghan plants.
 

YardG

In Bloom
So far, after one week of flowering lighting, it's looking like four males, and possibly five females? The runt seedling seems to be male, will keep an eye on that one. One tall female, the rest are short. I keep raising the lamp and the tall plants keep closing the gap (note to self I should go out there after the light comes on tonight to raise it a little more). For simplicity's sake I might move the tall female into the corner was its tall male neighbor.


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InfiniteIndo

In Bloom
So far, after one week of flowering lighting, it's looking like four males, and possibly five females? The runt seedling seems to be male, will keep an eye on that one. One tall female, the rest are short. I keep raising the lamp and the tall plants keep closing the gap (note to self I should go out there after the light comes on tonight to raise it a little more). For simplicity's sake I might move the tall female into the corner was its tall male neighbor.


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Nice split of m/f best of luck on this
 

YardG

In Bloom
I'm feeling a bit allergic just looking at this photo. Figures the best looking structure of all the males is a tall plant. Would it make any sense to let him do his thing another week or so, maybe do a little painting, and then remove him and let the other males have a chance? Monday will be flowering day 21.

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MO_Grow

Underground Chucker
I'm feeling a bit allergic just looking at this photo. Figures the best looking structure of all the males is a tall plant. Would it make any sense to let him do his thing another week or so, maybe do a little painting, and then remove him and let the other males have a chance? Monday will be flowering day 21.

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He looks like a banger! He bangs chicks and gets around! Pimp Daddy:dancingsmiley"
 

YardG

In Bloom
I should've gone down the tag wormhole on IG or at least bothered to ask Green Rebel about his Petrolia source before he went offline... from what I found the other day it seems his source for the Petrolia he used in a few hybrids (the Petrolia Pink I've got plus at least one other) was Nierika stock passed on to him by someone else. I've always been a little confused by the Dread Pirate Roberts routine, but he is the actual original Mota, right? It gets confusing when people pass on their handle.
 

YardG

In Bloom
Removed the two large males today, the one I shared a photo of before just because, and his brother because there was pretty obvious mold growing on the dumped pollen on his fan leaves. I imagine that's "by design" actually, dispersed male pollen growing botrytis to help dislodge the fruit of his efforts?

This seems to be the week for "Huh" moments: I knew it was was crazy moist in the tent (it's limited what I can do about it) but didn't expect to find some full on fungi growing on the side of male #2s growbag and out onto the inside of the tent. Another thing I noticed a week or so back was that the roots were escaping all the pots... I tossed some medium down, not sure whether they prefer the medium or being wild and free... a peril of overly small pots a supermoist environment and Great White? I've never tried growing in a tent in this space, so it's a learning experience for better or worse. Gonna do some spraying to try to knock down any botrytis in the air, options are Dr Zymes which may help or Serenade which has always done me good. Maybe tag team them over the next week, start with Serenade and switch to Zymes. Besides the mold there was clearly something munching on leaves in the tent, though maybe an earlier Neem application got 'em because it was on relatively old growth.




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YardG

In Bloom
Transplanted the last few cuts I took around when I put the plants-from-seed in to flower and saw some good root development. I had up-potted their siblings 7-10 days ago and hadn't seen much root development at all (though the cuts looked happy). I had always used an old aerocloner but had mixed success in the last year or two, feels like I'm doing better just snipping, dipping, and planting in Promix HP... and waiting (x5).

All the males are gone now. Planning on taking up some of the newfound floor space in the tent with cuts I took from my outdoor plants. (would move the mothers around in the tent but some of them seem pretty firmly rooted to the liner tray) The Petrolia cuts are going to flower outdoors, just wanted to see how they perform outside vs their mothers indoors.
 

YardG

In Bloom
I was spraying BT on outdoor plants yesterday and it occurred to me I hadn't sprayed the PH plants for a little while, wouldn't you know it while spraying I found a (formerly known as a certain epithet for the Romani people) moth pupae hanging under an old fan leaf, alongside a dead caterpillar of the same variety. Took them both outside and crushed the pupae.

Plants are at 5 weeks of 12/12 today, seeds still developing. The plants look like crap, in part because of the lighting, but also because the pots are too damned wet. Even when I try watering a little bit it still seems to sit in the pots for a week. Double stinks because I'd like to run more nutrients through them but can't because no watering (of course now that I say that I'm wondering why I haven't been foliar feeding, also why am I mulching with old leaves when I have a wet soil problem?). I suspect running the lights overnight and the generally weird wet weather we've been having isn't helping the matter.

Kinda funny how much variation there is in this pack, for now I'm going to presume there's simply the tall pheno, the short pheno, and a hybrid between the two... but I'm going to keep an eye on the super tall needed-to-be-bent-over plant for finishing time: just a particularly stretchy tall pheno, or an errant seed that made it's way into the pack?

First photo is PH2-5 (clockwise from bottom right), second is PH1 (with some unrelated cuts chilling in the background), third is a close-up of #5 seeded.

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YardG

In Bloom
Decent if not spectacular air circulation, though I switched from blowing air up toward the vent last week to circulating air around at floor level, maybe I should switch back to an upward draft. I'll try that tonight.

I was leaving the door open for a little while at lights-on after I first noticed I was a problem with soil moisture, and for a few weeks it worked wonders... and then the weather went to crap two or three weeks ago and we've had multi-day rain events each week. It stopped working as well. We really need a few good 80 degree days with no rain to really dry things out. Unfortunately the forecast is for more occasional rain, only three out of the next nine days is forecast to have no precip at all. Thankfully none of them are soakers like we've been experiencing, so hopefully it'll be a little better.
 
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