A Cannabis Gardening Journey: The Discovery Of Foxtails

Teaching myself how to cultivate the flowers of cannabis has been a steep learning curve, to say the least.

Just When I Think I’ve Got This Plant Figured Out, She Throws Me Another Puzzle To Solve...Just Like Any Woman Can.

(Don’t worry guys, I can freely acknowledge this without reprisal because I’m a woman. I know how we tick, and I can tell you, this plant is just as complicated with her unique sequencing of needs. Lol!)

As you have seen (if you’ve been following me for a bit) I really enjoy growing all different types of plants and flowers...not just cannabis.

Gardening skills are transferable, but by far, cannabis has been the trickiest (for me) to learn to grow with any proficiency.

As I Learn, I Will Share So That Others May Learn too.

That’s my goal.

Yeah, open soured and archieved on Steemit’s blockchain too, which I happen to think is super cool.

At this point, I am currently growing 6 different cannabis strains in an indoor garden.

All are hybrids.

All are in soil.

See What I See: Diversity

The leaves are so coated with resin, that they look glazed and shiny under the CMH lights.

(As you can see in the photo below.)

In the next photo (below) you can see that I let this particular branch stretch too much. I shouldn’t have let this stem reach for the light as much as I did, and I should have taken different measures earlier on in this particular grow.

It’s a symptom of my inexperience, space constraints and plant genetics.

(I do have a few strains that are just tall plants.)

Irregardless, I shouldn’t have this much space between the flowers and I have already decided that I will be applying more super-cropping techniques in my next garden as a direct result.

I have faith that my cannabis gardening skills will continue to improve over time and with further practice. I will not give up.

Queens are worth it.

At least I am able to recognize areas of my growing skills that still require additional improvement.

What this particular garden has taught me is just how important the ambient temperature and humidity is.

I just learned about the phenomenon called fox-tailing thanks to @dajohns1420!

With some research, I have learned that foxtailing can occur when the plants get stressed within their growing environment.

Mostly if they get too hot near the end of their flowering stage. It can also be related to plant genetics.

Basically, the plants become stressed and grow more calyxes on top of each other. Foxtailing is either a result of an environmental stress load or its cause is genetic, a characteristic of specific strains.

In my particular case, I have been adjusting my lights all the way through this grow. As I understand it, the largest heat source in most indoor gardens is generated from the lights. I’m using Light Emitting Ceramic or CMH lights. They have been engineered to mimic the sun’s light spectrum and they do emit some radiant heat which the plants can feel on their leaves...as opposed to LED lights which don’t generally produce much heat.

I’ve grown this garden throughout the winter. The average temperature inside my grow room was 19 degrees Celsius.

Two weeks ago, the outside temperature spiked drastically to over 30 degrees Celsius and with this abnormal heat, came humidity.

This raised the inside temperature and humidity of my grow room too.

By the time I figured this out, the humidity inside the grow room was 73%! I have surmised that it was like that for about 12 hours before I was able to drop the humidity level back down to 50% by using a dehumidifier.

The results:

Some of my plants decided to grow more calyxes. These are the sepals of a flower and they form a protective layer around a flower in bud. Notice the yellow hairs of this new growth. What is also note worthy is the damage on the tips of the sugar leaves. This is a result of nitrogen burn which (unfortunately) happened earlier on in the plants’ vegetative stage due to a gardening error on my part. :(

Needless to say, I was surprised by this additional production.

I’d never seen this before and neither had two different growers who physically came to see my garden, upon my invitation. Each of these growers have been growing for over 30 years and neither one could offer any explanation as to why my plants had decided to present this way.

It wasn’t until I showed a bud picture to @dajohns1420
and he instantly suspected foxtailing. This put me onto learning all about this phenomenon and I am forever grateful that he was willing to share his expertise with me...all the way from a different country and for free I might add.

Go Steemit Go!

So in case you missed the significance of that, there’s a good example of a “gifting community” and the positive potential of the Steemit blockchain in action.

Thank you so much @dajohns1420! If you haven’t checked out his blog, please do so. :)

I welcome your comments and I invite you to follow me on my journey...we will always be growing something interesting in my gardens.

~ Rebecca