By Bill Gallagher
1175 Words
Well, its finally here, the New New Mexico, as I wrote about when I got back to NM 2015, in this very blog. I will tell you the truth, from what I see online, the New New Mexico is a whole lot like the New Texas, or the New California, or the New Massachusetts, and here is why: there are a limited number of things that can happen in the growing of modern marijuana, because there is a large number of growers, and a relatively limited number of strains, especially the "popular" strains that everybody wanted according to the fashion of the day.
So its relatively simple to see that recurring plant manifestations will happen, HAVE happened, and more often as time goes on. Some people like to play with all that, others do not care as long as the seed is viable and produces smoke that is good enough for them. These happenstance should also produce some interesting mutations in the future, hopefully something to facilitate real time travel, or maybe a biological ansible. We'll see.
These new hybrid strains are very generalized hybrids, and many are quite transient, here for a generation then gone, never to be repeated. These weird things come from second hand seeds mostly, the seeds of hermaphroditic pot which couldn't be sold at the dispensary. Tendencies toward hermaphroditism are the product of feminising, and they become more prominent as time progresses. I notice this about outdoor hermaphrodites: they are many times triggered into flowering as males because of stress, like hard weather. Over pruning will do it too, except first harvest, before the second flowering.These genetic generalizations are produced over time from the strains which everybody initially bought because they thought it would be awesome, or would sell well, or both.
A lot of early seed buyers wanted blueberry, white widow, northern lights, diesels...the look good smell good flowers. Because of female/hermaphroditic pollination among some of them, the seeds that come from these mixes will, down the line, and for awhile, have increasingly similar traits.
One such strain is being called "Puck Yeah" because its resin content is such it can easily be processed into more potent product (Pucks) by isolating the easily available resin powders. It is very very bushy in leaves, and later, when it gets its growth and begins flowering, it benefits from regular pruning of the excess leaves. When exposed to the sun the flowers grow faster bigger stronger.
In the bunch of seed I got which may be around ten years old or older now, it was second generation from white widow, ny diesel, blueberri and some gs strains. The government strains are almost viny in the way they grow, with thin thin leaves, and light wispy buds, sometimes very potent. I can see the differences, and smell too, one smelled just like bubble gum, others have a diesel smell but berry flavored too. There are lots of orange hairs when the buds cure, and there is one flavor I call night blooming jasmine, and another creme soda. They are pleasant and different and smooth and powerful.
This year began as another experimental year, year 7 of my outdoor growning odyssey, wondering if it is even possible to get a commercial grow going. Some things have fallen together well, others not. I still do not know about a commercial thing, but that is more based on legalities than the ability to grow, so there is positive movement at least.
I mixed a lot of last years soil with new from my 2 acres here, sandy as possible, along with new fillers and some composted produce. Ground up styrofoam helps break up the adobe soil here which wants to be bricks. Gravel works but of course is much heavier than styrofoam. There is a lot of odd chemical content in the western fill dirts too, including plain salt, so it is good to study the soil you add to your grow very closely.
Large styrofoam meat trays lining the inside of large pots are good insulation against excessive sun. Also the pads which wet things are packed on are full of polymers, and you know what they are if you ever bought them as a soil additive. Cheap diapers use polymers too, and they are very available. These type of pads can be processed for their polymers by soaking them new in buckets of water, they then break up easily and you can see the jelly like particles which make a good soil additive in most cases.
I hit everything with dilute peroxide solution, like a quart of 3% to five gallons of water, when initially watering new soil, before the seeds. I do that at later times too, twice during the season, with one half that amount of peroxide, a quart of 3% peroxide does 10-15 gallons of plain water. The bubbling aerates the soil and the chemical action of the peroxide/heavy water as it degrades into plain water takes out any fungus growing in the soil. It doesn't kill fungus spores though. It does not hurt the plants at one pint of 3% per 5 gallon bucket of water, they seem to like it a lot. I always smell the resin rise when I do this. I would not do it often though. As well, there was substantial rain this year, compared to the last two years, so that made some things better.
I tried to grow super roots this year and that worked out well. DL noticed that if a seedling fell over for whatever reason, you could fill the cup with dirt until just the leaves showed, and all that flimsy stem would become root and the plant would usually do better than others. I planted seedlings in 6 inches of dirt in pots 20 inches high, then, over the growing season, proceeded to fill the buckets slowly, a shovel or two a week, covering the lower stems and even the lower branches. By time the plants starting flowering the roots were abnormally long and the plants were abnormally large because of this. I used a little cheap nitrogen pellet fertilizer, along with sparing amounts of epsom salts/magnesium supplement at 3-4 months and the middle of flowering. I learned you can soak multivitamins in water and there is a lot of exotic stuff which is useful in that water. Test first, and don't overdo it, right?
The first pruning took place when some of the plants were 5 months old, and had been flowering two months. It was late summer. They were pruned heavily, and many removed. All the weed is very good, still curing.
No longer are any of these the strains what they were in the beginning, everything is crossed with something and the plants are heavily feminised. Certain traits are dominant, others recessive until another time I am sure. The New New Mexico is Not Heinz 57, but gettin' there.
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