An Easy Outdoor Grow: RQS “Royal Medic” Autoflowering Grow Report
[Author and Medical Marijuana Grower Glenn Panik’s “How To Grow Cannabis At Home: A Guide To Indoor Medical Marijuana Growing”, is available on iTunes book here, or for the Amazon Kindle . You can also order the ‘stealth title’ of our information-packed ebook for the Kindle here. Protect your privacy!]
Grown in a one gallon pot on a windowsill with satisfying results: Royal Queen Seeds “Royal Medic” strain. This plant is always a pleasure to grow. We topped the plant twice, resulting in four main buds, and she remained low maintenance and a fast grower.
Flowering started like clockwork after 8 weeks from germination, and we let the flowering grow until September nights grew cooler and the fan leaves began to fall on their own. Not only is this a sign that the plant has matured, it’s a great way to let the plant naturally flush itself of chlorophyll, which leads to a smoother smoke, if that’s your goal. Even if you plan on oil or alcohol, etc. extraction – let your plants fully mature; your returns will be much better.
One thing that I have also noticed is that pests simply do not gravitate towards this plant! This is not to say that they’ll turn it down, but with several other plants suffering from thrips, and one thick-budded hybrid losing a few buds to mold after a heavy rain, the RQS Royal Medic was the easiest of the bunch to care for. A recommended grow, to be sure!
Here are a couple of shots of the finished plant before harvesting:
Obviously, this post is coming in late December, and harvest was several months ago. So, what’s the word? How are the results? This RQS Royal Medic will come to the rescue if you’re suffering from aches and pains, to be sure. It is on the scale of head/body effects far more “body” than “head”. So if you don’t like a dopey “high” feeling, yet want the benefits of a high-CBD plant, the Royal Medic may be the right doc to call on. Keep in mind, we are NOT affiliated with RQS, but for an easy to grow medical strain, they get the “Panik Seal Of Approval”!
best regards
Glenn Panik
[Author and Medical Marijuana Grower Glenn Panik’s “How To Grow Cannabis At Home: A Guide To Indoor Medical Marijuana Growing”, is available on iTunes book here, or for the Amazon Kindle . You can also order the ‘stealth title’ of our information-packed ebook for the Kindle here. Protect your privacy!]
UPDATE: Crossing Wild Cannabis Ruderalis with Commercial Seeds
[Author and Medical Marijuana Grower Glenn Panik’s “How To Grow Cannabis At Home: A Guide To Indoor Medical Marijuana Growing”, is available on iTunes book here, or for the Amazon Kindle . You can also order the ‘stealth title’ of our information-packed ebook for the Kindle here. Protect your privacy!]
In the last post, I put up some pictures of a Wild Cannabis ruderalis crossed with the commercial strain “Double Gum”. In this short post, I just want to update the progress with a couple of pictures to show you this beautiful plant’s progress:
Here is a long shot of the plant:
And here’s a bud close-up:
As you can see, the more Sativa-like qualities (thin leaves, long buds) are shining through, and the plant is a nice producer so far! Very happy with the results 🙂
Sept 7th, 2016 – FURTHER UPDATE:
Approaching harvest time. The buds are fattening up fairly well, considering the sativa-like tendencies of this cross. Here are a couple more shots for your viewing pleasure! best, GP
[Author and Medical Marijuana Grower Glenn Panik’s “How To Grow Cannabis At Home: A Guide To Indoor Medical Marijuana Growing”, is available on iTunes book here, or for the Amazon Kindle . You can also order the ‘stealth title’ of our information-packed ebook for the Kindle here. Protect your privacy!]
Crossing Wild Cannabis Ruderalis with Commercial Seeds
[Author and Medical Marijuana Grower Glenn Panik’s “How To Grow Cannabis At Home: A Guide To Indoor Medical Marijuana Growing”, is available on iTunes book here, or for the Amazon Kindle . You can also order the ‘stealth title’ of our information-packed ebook for the Kindle here. Protect your privacy!]
In our post about “Foraging for Wild Cannabis“, I showed some pictures of wild C. ruderalis plants I had found, and was lucky enough to find at the right time to gather a few seeds.
These smaller, harder wild seeds seemed adapted to the local climate, and made me wonder if the auto-flowering properties of this wild plant could be crossed with a more “bud-productive” commercial strain (I chose a personal favorite, “Double Gum”) to produce an early flowering plant suited to outdoor growing in northern climates that would produce significant buds. The ruderalis strain produced flowers, but they remained small and leafy, even in a controlled grow. They do have a wonderful orange/pepper aroma that I’d love to experience in a larger bud.
Foraged C. Ruderalis seeds.
This strain of ruderalis seems to begin flowering around midsummer night (June 21st) rather than the autumnal equinox (Sept 21st), leaving the plant plenty of time to flower and spread seeds before frost can interrupt the life cycle. How I love this adaptable, wily little plant! Probably the escaped ancestor of hemp cultivation before prohibition of marijuana, life finds a way, and these fine-leaved, short plants pop up along roadsides, gravelly riverbeds, and vacant lots in parts of northern Europe.
I’m happy to report that pollinating a female Double Gum plant with flowers from a male C. ruderalis produced viable seeds that grew vigorously. (That’s the title photo above). Even more interesting is that the plant has grown far larger than any of the wild strain, yet has retained the slim leaves and lovely peppery-orange aroma of the father ruderalis. I’ll post updates as the buds develop – let’s see if mother Double Gum’s beautiful buds gene expresses itself over the next 6 weeks or so.
Here’s another peek at the plant – if you click for a full-sized view, you can see the fine clusters of white pistils that have developed in the last couple of weeks.
best regards
Glenn Panik
[Author and Medical Marijuana Grower Glenn Panik’s “How To Grow Cannabis At Home: A Guide To Indoor Medical Marijuana Growing”, is available on iTunes book here, or for the Amazon Kindle . You can also order the ‘stealth title’ of our information-packed ebook for the Kindle here. Protect your privacy!]
Auto Blueberry – Windowsill Grow! and “How Do I Know When It’s Time To Harvest?”
Auto Blueberry grown in a windowsill box.
[Author and Medical Marijuana Grower Glenn Panik’s “How To Grow Cannabis At Home: A Guide To Indoor Medical Marijuana Growing”, is available on iTunes book here, or for the Amazon Kindle . You can also order the ‘stealth title’ of our information-packed ebook for the Kindle here. Protect your privacy!]
A while back I received some free seeds with an order, and decided to sow them in a windowsill box next to some spinach and lettuce, just to see what might happen. The window has southern exposure and receives plenty of direct sunlight, although with the limited soil volume and competition with neighboring plants, I was unsure what to expect. Here are the two freebie seeds after 8 weeks of sunshine and regular watering:
Auto Blueberry & Pineapple Express; harmonious neighbors.
I hadn’t grown an autoflowering blueberry strain before, and was curious to see if the “blue” traits would really come through. As you can see, I wasn’t disappointed. The sugar leaves and buds have developed a purplish tinge, although the aroma is Read More…
100 Watt LED Grow Results – RQS “Power Flower” Grow and Smoke Report
Royal Queen Seeds “Power Flower” ready for harvest. Almost too pretty to cut.
Thanks to all our readers for the great stats on our blog over the last months! We have been hard at work on new projects, and have not posted in a while, here are some new pictures of recent “small home grow” results. Read More…
100w CFL Grow: Results
Dinafem Critical+ Harvest Day
After a close peek at the trichomes with a 20x magnifier, I decided it was time to harvest these hundred-Watt beauties. Honestly, the DG x AK cross could have gone another week or 10 days, but I had the free time at that point. (Please note that this was about 10 days ago now, so I have dried harvest weights available below.
So now the payoff: What did we get for our gardening efforts under 100 Watts of CFL lighting? Read More…
100 Watt CFL Grow / Update#8: Catching up – Marijuana Pants Near The End Of Flowering
One Month into Flowering – Dinafem Critical +
Thanks for tuning in again, and my apologies about not sticking to weekly updates as I had hoped to do.
The plants are actually now harvested, and I am surprised at the results. You’ll soon see that 100 Watts (or a hair more) of CFL lighting can make you a rather happy home grower. But I digress… We first need to catch up with some pictures from last week showing our two plants in the final weeks of flowering. They fattened up nicely, although the Double Gum/Afghan Kush cross kept itself well hidden in a wreath of dark green leaves.
The above photo is from a little over 2 weeks ago – showing the Dinafem Critical + plant at four weeks of flowering. Below are some more pictures from last week (Nov 9th) at about 6 weeks into flowering. Checking the trichomes showed a lot of milky heads and even a few browned (oxidized) trichomes, so the time was coming for harvest this week.
Here are some pictures of the Critical + plant last week:
Not bad for an easy home grow/hardware tore/CFL grow! Be sure to pick up our ebook for all the right tips on getting these kind of results at home!
The DG x AK cross could have gone another week or more – the buds just weren’t quite as developed as the Crit+, and she looked like she wanted to make yet another stretch up for the sky! That’s how it is with some Sativa hybrids (the Double Gum genes) and crossbred plants are always unpredictable:
Up, up and away… the DG x AK cross-bred plant wants to keep going.
Alright – next week I will post the harvest photos. Be sure to come back and see what this project was able to produce! The Dinafen Critical + pictures above should give you a hint…
Best Regards,
Glenn Panik
[Author and Medical Marijuana Grower Glenn Panik’s “How To Grow Cannabis At Home: A Guide To Indoor Medical Marijuana Growing”, is available on iTunes book here, or for the Amazon Kindle . You can also order the ‘stealth title’ of our information-packed ebook for the Kindle here. Protect your privacy!]
What Do Marijuana Plants Look Like After 3 Weeks Of Flowering?
Here are some pictures from an LED Grow that we have running parallel to the 100 Watt CFL Grow that I have featured in recent posts. I thought it might interest readers to have a comparative peek at how buds look after 3 weeks of flowering under LED lamps compared to how they look after 3 Weeks under 100 (or so) watts of CFL.
I haven’t attempted to color-correct the raw images here – the LED lamps tend to create a psychedelic-looking deep red/purple light, whereas the CFL 2700k bulbs are more typical of what you’d expect in a room (soft white).
First of all, for those of you following our 100 Watt CF grow, here are pictures of the Dinafem Critical + (first) and Afghan Kush x Double Gum cross (second).
Dinafem Critical + after approx. 3 Weeks flowering.
Afghan Kush / Double Gum cross, after 3 Weeks Flowering.
The AKxDG has recently made a more Sativa-like turn (despite the early indications of Indica-dominance due to the wide leaves), growing taller and leafier at the top, and with buds along the stem, instead of a dense cluster at the top. The Critical + plant is doing very well under the CFL lights, and promises to be an excellent producer under low-wattage conditions.
The following are shots of an LED grow (multiple 125 Watt lamps are in use) where we currently have an African Sativa land-race strain that has been flowering for just under 3 Weeks (started them just after the 100 Watt CFL grow plants):
LED Sativa Grow, approx 3 Weeks flowering – Bud Closeup
LED Sativa Grow, approx 3 Weeks flowering – One Plant From Above
Although LED lighting may be too expensive for the budget home grower, I feel that the added expense may be worth the upgrade over the long term. The buds under the LED lamps show healthier, more robust growth in a slightly shorter period of time – compare the fullness of the buds, and density of pistil growth to the above CFL grow pictures.
On the other hand, the startup costs for the CFL grow are next to nothing compared to an LED lighting rig! Stay tuned and we’ll see what the CFL plants look like next week as we start the 2 week (or so) countdown to harvest time.
Best Regards,
Glenn Panik
[Author and Medical Marijuana Grower Glenn Panik’s “How To Grow Cannabis At Home: A Guide To Indoor Medical Marijuana Growing”, is available on iTunes book here, or for the Amazon Kindle . You can also order the ‘stealth title’ of our information-packed ebook for the Kindle here. Protect your privacy!]
100 Watt CFL Grow / Update#4: What Should My Marijuana Plants Look Like After 3 Weeks?
Today I would like to give you a before/after view of the 100Watt CFL grow cabinet. It’s useful to have a watermark with which to compare your grow progress.
Be sure to check out our Ebook here on itunes if you need help with all the details for starting your home marijuana grow (lighting, enclosures, choosing seeds, soil, watering and fertilizing schedules, transplanting, trimming/topping, and much much more). Now, on to the entertainment –
The first image is from a previous post, just a few days into seedling life:
In The Nursery / Under 75 Watts CFL 6500k
And this is how the plants look today, after 3 weeks Read More…
100 Watt CFL Grow / Update#3: Two Week Birthday of Crossbreed Plants
Here’s a short post to show you the plant progress under 100 Watts of 6500k CFL lighting. The third photo is of the Dinafem Critical+ plant, which (as noted in previous posts) is a few days older than our cross-bred plants, which sprouted two weeks ago today. We have culled one plant, and now have five in the grow cabinet. Of these five, we hope at least three will be female so we can show you each plant type all the way to harvest under 100 Watts of lighting – a very budget-friendly marijuana growing technique.
First, here is the Royal Queens Seeds “Royal Automatic” x Sensi/White Label Double Gum cross. There are two of these plants, and they are the most vigorous of the lot. If they turn out to be Autoflowering, they will be very impressive indeed!
Royal Queen Seeds “Royal Automatic” Crossed With White Label “Double Gum”, 2 Weeks Old
Next up is a Sensi Seeds/White Label “Double Gum” cross with Read More…
