My Dark Magnet Unicorn Journey

[Rasterman]

My journey has been underway for months already, but the journey's journal is just getting started now.

Many months ago, I popped a Chick Magnet and two Black Widow seeds. One Black Widow was male, one was female. I put the chick magnet on a flowering schedule way too soon, but it stretched like crazy! The cabinet it was in isn't very tall (5' outside height, so about 24" of plant height before light burn), so I spread it out like an octopus and it took over the whole closet. It happily threw up colas from every horizontal branch, like nothing I've ever seen!

Because it was a fem seed, I pollinated it with what I had available - the male Black Widow. In its offspring, I hoped:
1. To breed back to a regular Chick Magnet.
2. To get something intermediate between Black Widow and Chick Magnet, because the female Black Widow I grew was a bit delicate.
3. To pheno hunt the F2 generation and find a unicorn I could call my own.

I've been growing less than two years, and am very impatient. So I harvested the seeds too soon. I initially planted 10 F1 seeds, and two sprouted. One died. I heavily trained the other one and took two clones from the biggest branches. BCF1#1 was put on 12s a few days ago. This is her today:


I planted some more seeds, and one sprouted. BCF1#2 was born (not sure of the sex yet):



20 seeds and two plants. Frustrating, to say the least! So I put a handful of seeds (80 or so) into a three-gallon pot and one sprouted. Then a couple more. Every day another sprout or two. Today, there are 31 and counting. It seems my impatience struck again!

But this is great, right? I'm on track to creating the F2 generation. I have a 20 gallon pot to transplant them in and am going to let them open-pollinate for maximum diversity. Because they'll be so crowded, I doubt height will be an issue. My training will be limited to pulling them away from each other, and I'll cull as necessary. I'll also take cuttings of any promising females but I'm really more interested in the F2 generation. The two older plants will be part of the open pollination, as will this lady:

This is a clone of another chick magnet seed my son popped from the same pack of Chick Magnet fems-for the chick magnet-ish line. He said it's fire! - so there you go.

So that's where I'm at - I can only grow a few of the F2s at a time, but I hope to eventually find something special.

I'll update this log regularly, maybe too regularly.

 

[Hitch]

All those little sprouts in one pot remind me of sprinkling catnip seeds ?. But I’m high as gas. Good luck with the pollination my friend ?

 

[PlumberSoCal]

All those little sprouts in one pot remind me of sprinkling catnip seeds ?. But I’m high as gas. Good luck with the pollination my friend ?

Catnip

But seriously @Rasterman the wait is worth it or do you like relying on unreliable sources? Let the process play out and watch it closely. It's always something special to watch?

 

[Hitch]

Catnip
View attachment 109334
But seriously @Rasterman the wait is worth it or do you like relying on unreliable sources? Let the process play out and watch it closely. It's always something special to watch?

Plant it once and it will pop up year after year in the most unexpected places. ?

 

[thesunnyvalekid]

Nice, I will follow along your journey.

 

[Willie]

Plant it once and it will pop up year after year in the most unexpected places. ?

It's in my tent and world.chronically. But while it will pop up all over....it won't all be good. Yup.life is too short to be growing bunk catnip . I am dead serious though .there are pheno's to be found. That's why the catnip is in my tent right now....I know those cuts come from cat approved plants!

 

[Hitch]

It's in my tent and world.chronically. But while it will pop up all over....it won't all be good. Yup.life is too short to be growing bunk catnip . I am dead serious though .there are pheno's to be found. That's why the catnip is in my tent right now....I know those cuts come from cat approved plants!

Haha no shit? Well whatever cultivar the wife has is multi cat approved. Wait, is that a patch in my driveway? Yes. Yes it is.

 

[Rasterman]

Catnip
View attachment 109334
But seriously @Rasterman the wait is worth it or do you like relying on unreliable sources? Let the process play out and watch it closely. It's always something special to watch?

I don't like unreliable sources, but most of them are if you're talking about seed sourcing. I just want to create something cool. I have found that most of what I've seen since the '80s is mostly the same though. As strong as weed is now, there's always something missing compared to what I remember from the late '70s.

The wait is worth it, even if I don't find anything. I've learned a lot in my short journey so far.

 

[PlumberSoCal]

I don't like unreliable sources, but most of them are if you're talking about seed sourcing. I just want to create something cool. I have found that most of what I've seen since the '80s is mostly the same though. As strong as weed is now, there's always something missing compared to what I remember from the late '70s.

The wait is worth it, even if I don't find anything. I've learned a lot in my short journey so far.

It only gets better. There's nothing like knowing everything that went on or in a plant. I can't imagine what all I've smoked through the years when weed was mainly grown with only profit in mind. At least here in Cali they are supposed to test everything but I don't trust 'em and I don't need to visit the dispensaries anyway. Tomorrow morning I'm taking down a plant that's 6 months 3 days old. Worth the wait!

 

[Rasterman]

That's awesome! And I thought I was all alone in that.

 

[Rasterman]

I realized I won't have time to flower these before June so dropped goal #1. Besides, the chance of making a better Chick Magnet than Chick Magnet from these varied genetics isn't good. So I put the Chick Magnet on a flowering schedule today and put a 20 gallon pot in its place.

I am using Buildasoil. I'll add earthworms and mulch in a week or so and will sparingly topdress with composted chicken manure every couple of weeks. I have over 50 pounds composted and want to explore using that instead of purchasing more nutes. But if I find they need anything else I'll adjust.

I separated the seedlings I thought I could get away with but not all of them. After several hours, I'm pleasantly surprised that none of them appear to be suffering transplant shock!

This is the largest pot I can fit in the tent and they'll be all by themselves and isolated to prevent pollen transfer to the flowering room. So it's a perfect location.

 

[Rasterman]

I reused some soil from another grow and seedlings keep popping out of the new pot. I've been transferring them to a separate pot as they arrive... I think they're the original seeds from this lot that didn't sprout, but really have no idea. They've been outside in sub-freezing temperatures for a couple of months but still sprouted.

 

[Rasterman]

I pulled some of the latest sprouters because they were too short and I needed to start mulching. Because seed sprouting time was so variable, that's a good thing to do anyway. It's possible the slower starters were a different mendellian combination but I'm really happy with the pheno I'm currently testing in flower so that's ok. Besides the F2 generation will be a lot more variable and I'll probably be able to see whatever I might have missed through this culling.

I've been mulching with cannabis clippings as I trained other plants. The plant with a yellow leaf is because I mulched with green leaves and accidentally covered it.

I also dumped in a couple of handfuls of composted chicken poop. I have been testing the poop on other plants and it's working really well.

Today I dumped in some red worms - you can see them in the picture. I think I still have about 30 plants (at least 28 but I lost count) but some of them are clumped together because of how I transplanted them.



I didn't mean to crop the picture like that but I'm too lazy to go snap another one.

 

[Rasterman]

I was listening to a podcast about viral pathogens where they recommended cannabis leaves not be used for mulching due to the possibility of viral transfer from clones. I'm not going to take that advice because I'm growing for seed. In the future, the only clones I'll be using are my own clones anyway.

 

[Rasterman]

Here's the first sprout, BCF1 #1. She's stretching well, but not too much to handle. A perfect pheno for me, if she's fire.


Here, the Chick Magnet (a sister of her parent) is a week behind her in 12s and 6" taller (foreground).

They look otherwise very similar. So I'm thinking this is a Mendellian intermediate, which is what I was hoping for. In the ideal case, the BCF1 #1 will have fatter, well-encrusted buds from the Black Widow father. I might be an impatient person, but I'm also optimistic.

I have two BCF1 #1 clones waiting in the wings. One of them is for a mother if I think she's worth keeping. The other one I plan to self-pollinate - I trained her down to two mains: One for daddy and one for mommy.

 

[Rasterman]

I have been mulching with cannabis straw and roots and have built up a decent amount of mulch. Because this is a living soil grow, I'm worried that gnats will show back up so today, I ordered some rice hulls and will add that as a top layer when it arrives.

I planted a clone of the first sprout (you'll recall that BCF1#1 is in flower now). It's circled next to the yellow tape. I cut it back to keep it more in line with the size of the others.

I trimmed off some leaves to make room for shorter seedlings and in one clump I noticed it was so crowded that leaves were still wet 24 hours after watering so I removed a lot of leaves there as well.
Oh yeah, and I culled BCF1#2. I'm almost sure it's a male, and I didn't really like how it was growing.

 

[MostHigh]

I have been mulching with cannabis straw and roots and have built up a decent amount of mulch. Because this is a living soil grow, I'm worried that gnats will show back up so today, I ordered some rice hulls and will add that as a top layer when it arrives.

I planted a clone of the first sprout (you'll recall that BCF1#1 is in flower now). It's circled next to the yellow tape. I cut it back to keep it more in line with the size of the others.

I trimmed off some leaves to make room for shorter seedlings and in one clump I noticed it was so crowded that leaves were still wet 24 hours after watering so I removed a lot of leaves there as well.
View attachment 111321 Oh yeah, and I culled BCF1#2. I'm almost sure it's a male, and I didn't really like how it was growing.

i dont see many grows with multiple plants in the same pot like that...interested how this works out for u. is this something tried and true or new for u? wait is that a haiku? insert waynes world clip if i knew how

 

[MO_Grow]

I was listening to a podcast about viral pathogens where they recommended cannabis leaves not be used for mulching due to the possibility of viral transfer from clones. I'm not going to take that advice because I'm growing for seed. In the future, the only clones I'll be using are my own clones anyway.

Hey Rasterman, what's happenin?I've heard of this idea being tossed around in the past. And I refer to it as just an idea because I honestly believe it to be hogwash. I could see that happening if maybe you received a cut that already had a virus or pathogen and you mulch that, then that spreads to the rest of the garden. Sure, that sounds logical and very possible, but aside from that, I call bullshit. You're not gonna develop a virus for using your cannabis for mulching.

I've been growing for about 12+ years now, perpetually, around the clock/no breaks in-between runs. And since day 1 I've been using my clippings, branches, rootballs, everything that doesn't go into jars gets recycled and mulched for/on both current and future grows. And I've been using the same soil for roughly 6+ years. I've never had any kind of virus or pathogens.

Casualties get chopped up and over time, as it breaks down and/or gets eaten by worms and other soil workers you may or may not have present, become food/nutrition for future generations. While also adding organic matter to your soil. Win-win. Everything gets used and reused. Closed loop system for the win baby!?

Nice start to your journal and welcome to pH by the way, if I haven't already said that?

 

[Rasterman]

Leftovers from a FANTASTIC cold ethyl extraction... Drying out the residual ethyl under the hot light. I think it will make excellent mulch.


Of course, with everything covered with melted caramel right now (figuratively-speaking), I guess I'll figure out tomorrow how good of an idea it is.
?

 

[Rasterman]

i dont see many grows with multiple plants in the same pot like that...interested how this works out for u. is this something tried and true or new for u? wait is that a haiku? insert waynes world clip if i knew how

I'll let you know. It's just a seed run, so I guess a bunch of seeded skinny plants is the most I can hope for. Once the males have done their duty, at least there will only be 15 plants in the pot.