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Sarge's 2013 - Sydney, Some extreme variations!

Alright to kickstart off on this forum, I might as well write up a glog where I can show you guys what I have started, what I have and where I hope to be.
 
I never used to be a fan of chilli. Couldn't tolerate the hate and the day after. After time went on I started getting an itch for it and started to like it more and more to the point I eat hot things just to experience the burn. Well I consider my self to have always had a green thumb. Ive grown many plants in the past, mainly fruitful like tomato's strawberries and other types of berries. I then tried Bonsai but with uni and other things in the way it was far too hard to maintain and after a year trying to grow plants from seedlings, it only took one bad day to wipe out an entire batch I worked so hard on; a scorching 43C summer day.
 
Now I'm starting my run with chilli's, namely the super hots. So what did I do? I headed over to eBay and bought some bhuts in reds and chocolate, some trinidad scorpions, morugas, naga x 7 pot just to get me started.
 
I started my seedlings as I did previous plants Ive grown, moist paper towel in a plastic bag behind the fridge or somewhere warm. The bhuts were the first batch I tried and I hit a 100% germination rate after 10 days. These were then sewn into the Scotts seed raising mix which I bought from Bunnings. They were planted in trays in those little mini greenhouse things and I kept an eye on them every day until they broke through the surface. I obtained a heat mat, a reptile grow lamp and built a box in my cupboard to house them in which is lined with aluminium foil to keep light and heat in. After the bhuts cracked the surface I tried a batch of 10 of each of the other seeds. The seeds were from different sellers on eBay. I had 70% with the naga x 7 pot, 70% with another batch and two other batches I had had completely failed on me. I'm not sure what happened, I didn't take pictures but the seeds seemed to change colour, some went black while others stained the paper towel in a yellow colour run.
 
I threw those bad seeds out and named it to a bad harvest of seed. The bhuts I germinated looked extremely better quality than the other seeds which failed. Most of the seeds had little cracks in them, some werent whole, and they looked overly dried out.
 
After the plants got their first true set of leaves I started feeding them, and this is where I request input. Ive been using seasol at half strength every other week and the other weeks between I have been using power feed. I have also got a bottle of Chilli focus but have not tried this out. I feed straight to the soil. I think as of late though I have been over watering slightly. The soil looks too moist for my liking so I have backed off the watering(please reference the attached pictures).
 
I have a couple of questions of things I have seen along the way and things I need cleared.
 
Firstly my plants are grown in my room up stairs in a cupboard, isolated from any other plants. I have noticed a flying insects in there which I have squashed whenever Ive seen them. They are smaller than a fruit fly and when I lift the cover off the seedlings the bugs either fly out or run and hide in the soil. Ive seen about 4 now and killed all of them. There is no point getting a picture, no camera I have would be capable of getting a clear image, these things are tiny as. Are these of concern? How the hell did they get there? The only time the cover is off is when I water.
 
Secondly, should I remove the cover off the seedlings now? A chap suggested I remove it while another suggested to keep it to retain humidity. Checking all the photos I see online, no one keeps their seedlings enclosed. Refer to the pix to see the housing.
 
Third off, and I have a pic for this one, two of the seedlings have strange patches on their new set of leaves, they look like dark spots but they aren't theyre actually thinner spots and the illusion of darkness comes from the fact its the soil being semi visible through the leave. There are no bugs or insects other than the flying ones that I have seen. Nothing leeching off the plant. The leaves otherwise are a nice green colour.
 
For now no more writing, here are the pictures. In two days these will be about 3.5 weeks old.
 
I will post pix and updates as necessary.
 
Hope you guys enjoy!
 
P.S if anyone here is in Australia and has some fresh seed to sell(or even in the US), please PM me. I'm trying to find some pure 7 pot varieties and depending if I can get my red bhuts to germ maybe some fresh red bhuts. The ones which have grown so far are chocolate bhuts.
 
These are the strange looking leaves. Its only the two plants at the front bottom corner of the tray. Any ideas?

 
I found this little bastard growing in one of the cells.

 
Bigger picture of the damaged leaves

 
This is my current setup

 
Soil moisture


 
Soil temp

 
Close up of soil moisture. Looks too wet.

 
 
 
Click to expand...
Nice grow going, Sarge.  The leaf curl you showed could be
nute overload or too much water.  Hard to say.  Any bug sign?
 
My plants sometimes go through weird gyrations growing out, but
once they are outside and in their final homes they tend to sort
themselves out pretty well.  The most critical things are good soil
and proper watering, and it looks like you have a handle on those!
Over fertilizing is another thing to watch for.  It's much easier to
spot under fertilizing - you will see yellow leaves with green veins.
 
Keep up the good work and good luck going forward!
 
PaulG said:
Nice grow going, Sarge.  The leaf curl you showed could be
nute overload or too much water.  Hard to say.  Any bug sign?
 
My plants sometimes go through weird gyrations growing out, but
once they are outside and in their final homes they tend to sort
themselves out pretty well.  The most critical things are good soil
and proper watering, and it looks like you have a handle on those!
Over fertilizing is another thing to watch for.  It's much easier to
spot under fertilizing - you will see yellow leaves with green veins.
 
Keep up the good work and good luck going forward!
Click to expand...
 
Hey Paul,
 
There were no bugs visible. It was really strange, leaf curling with damage to the veins, like they were collapsing. The plants have since made a recovery. I really did nothing special just turn the soil and water as necessary. The soil here is pretty bad, it won't hold much moisture at all and has alot of weeds which grow through so I constantly pull weeds out so there is no battle for nutrients.
 
One of my plants looked horrible. I'm gonna do a comparison photo soon. The turn around is amazing, its vibrant yellow putting on  big growth, good forking, new shoots from down low. Its great stuff.
 
Thanks for stopping by!
 
Some folk on the forum say that the plants will take care of themselves
and will grow and produce despite our best intentions   :rofl: .
 
I'm not sure about that, but they are a very tough and resilient genus/species.
A little care with feeding and watering goes a long way with these plants!
 
Looking forward to seeing the pics of the turnaround! 
 
A picture update this time round.

 
Choc Hab putting pods bigger than the plant it self!

 
DWC plant, looks good, unsure about the kink in the recent leaf growth though...

 
My bush is coming along well

 
Lots of flowers but they are all dropping, I don't think the plant is mature enough just yet.

 
My first super hot pod set! You could probably hear me cheering with joy from this one! I think its the yellow trinidad moruga

 
Nice and dense! This half of the garden got two treatments with Chilli Focus, the other half did not. Plants on this side are shorter but much denser and stockier.

 
7 pot x naga in an isolated location, this plant has massive growth, very vivid in colour. The soil here is MUCH better than the garden beds.

 
Not sure what this one is but very mild heat, typical red pepper, starts green goes black then red.

 
That's all for now!
 
I tell you what though, potted plants grow at half the pace of plants in the dirt! All my plants are of the same age, if you look at the plants in pots, they're so tiny compared to the plants in the dirt. Even my hydro plant has now superseded my potted up plants and it was the last plant to be potted up!
 
Just a little pic update!
 
Yellow Moruga, I think.


 
A little cluster of Naga x 7 pot peppers. Have a few of these plants and already seeing variations.


 
Aji Limon not holding back

 
Finally having a few super hots pop up. None of my chocolate bhuts just yet but hopefully soon. Also having to deal with a plague of aphids. When I saw the ants swinging by I knew aphids were here.
 
Looking good Sarge! Love the pod porn! Hope you can get the ants and aphids under control. Neem oil seemed to work for me for the aphids. Sprayed my plants before they went in the greenhouse and haven't had any come back yet. I've read ladybugs are great for them too if you can get some.
 
Looking good Sarge!  I had an aphid outbreak earlier, but with a little oil they dropped off quickly.
 
I'm not too sure where that choc hab is going. Its a store bought plant from The Chilli Factory. Its changing colour now, its a half yellow half green.
 
Just a little update. Its so damn hot outside I couldn't be in the sun for too long so pictures aren't too great. I'll try again tomorrow or later on. Not looking forward to the rest of this week, its gonna be a scorcher.
 
A little more text before the pics. Ive transferred all but 4 plants into the soil. Even small plants in 35L containers ran out of space. The size and speed the garden bed plants have grown compared to the potted plants is insane. The potted plants are tiny compared to the garden bed plants. Ontop of that is my hydro plant which was the smallest plant out of all my plants and now almost the same size as the garden bed plants in only 1 month. The growth rate of hydro plants is amazing compared to garden bed and garden bed is a huge difference over potted plants. The combination of heat, space etc of potted plants really does hold them back.
 
Alright the pics. Here is my hydro plant and root system. The roots grow white but once they become submerged in the solution, they take the colour of the nutrient mix which gives them that brownish reddish look. Plants are fed CalMax, GH Flora micro and flora bloom and now the plant is at 900 - 970ppm. I also give a sprinkle(1/4 teaspoon) of great white beneficial. Something to note here. This is my first hydro plant. The plant almost NEVER gets direct sunlight. It gets ambient light. It is growing very well. Also the water temps are never great. There have been scorcher days here(44+ celcius) and water temps have hit 35c. The plant is still very strong and looks to be doing just fine. There are no signs of brown slime or root rot in the water. I treat the water with h2o2 if necessary and throw ice cubes in there to help lower temps.
 


 
This here is the 7 x naga. This pod is spiky,  I mean mega gnarly. Another plant, of the same breed and seed harvest looks nothing like these, in terms of pod characteristics.


 
I've also got an aji limon which I picked about 12 peppers off. I had to taste one. Cut it open and it had that typical peppery smell. Gave it a lick and it tasted rather sweet with a tongue tingle. So I munched on it and it was sugary. It literally tasted like some sort of berry, that sweet. Then the heat became pretty high and my tongue and lips were on fire. Burn didn't last long but it was pretty damn hot. Seriously though if they had no heat, you could eat them like berries.
 
Sarge said:
 
DWC plant, looks good, unsure about the kink in the recent leaf growth though...
 
 
I tell you what though, potted plants grow at half the pace of plants in the dirt! All my plants are of the same age, if you look at the plants in pots, they're so tiny compared to the plants in the dirt. Even my hydro plant has now superseded my potted up plants and it was the last plant to be potted up!
Click to expand...
I dunno much about DWC, but were there any changes in PH level or did you up the nutrient strength at some point? I've noticed that my plants would get crumpled leaves when my nutrient strength was high for the plant. Again I don't know anything about DWC so this is all just a guess.

As to the hydro plants passing those in soil in pots, well that's been my experience with coco! They get what they need at the time they need it and simply take off! I've got very limited experience with hydro so far, but I'm seeing bigger plants in drastically smaller pots when you compare hydro to soil. No question about it.

I look forward to seeing how the DWC does over the length of the season compared to the rest.

Neil
 
That hydro plant is looking very good, Sarge!  I might have to try putting one together myself just to experiment with it.  The 7 X naga looks great as well.  You got the good traits in that plant!
 
Cheers guys. This is a quick reply as im on mobile. Ivplay I do agree. Those pods are exactly what I was hoping to see. Ill show you guys how the other plants look in comparison.

Blister the first set of kinks was almost immediately after my first nutrient change. The plant wasn't happy. Not sure what it was but I doubled the nutrients level and growth exploded. The second time it kinked was a ph level too high I then corrected it but I think the sudden change shocked the plant. Its doing really well now I just wish I could give it more light. The sun is far too strong it will heat the water to 40 plus in no time.
 
A little update here.
 
Some textual stuff first. I've harvested now about 40 aji lemon pods off the plant. Those things are great. They just keep producing and producing! Weather over here has been nice and mild. Alot of pods have set now with cooler temps but we had a few scorcher days which seem to have cooked some of the pods(they look sun burnt).
 
I've had an attack from Fruit flies. One of my naga x 7 had quite a few pods on it. I checked it one day and found a pod had fallen off, a big one too. I cut it open and it had maggots inside of it. I found two more on the branch which also had maggots in them. Damn those bastards!!
 
My hydro plant is looking great. Its not flowing though, I don't know what to do next. Do I need to give it more bloom to encourage blossom or will it happen automatically?
 
Here are the pix. I don't know what the order will be but its a mix of my yellow morgua, 7 pot x naga(the orange/red pods) and my choc bhut jolokia setting many pods.
 





 
Sarge said:
My hydro plant is looking great. Its not flowing though, I don't know what to do next. Do I need to give it more bloom to encourage blossom or will it happen automatically?
Click to expand...
 
Looking good, Sarge :)
 
Not sure about the lack of flowering on your hydro plant, especially if all other non hydro plants are flowering.  Maybe call up or visit a couple of local hydro shops?
 
LawrenceJ2007 said:
Hey man did you ever get my seeds? I hope the gov didn't get them!
Click to expand...
I was meant to shoot you a pm. I ordered about 8 batches from overseas all came except for yours. I didn't receive a letter from customs either :( I believe they may have been lost in post. About two weeks ago I got a chap to send me a bunch of tomato and organic butch t seeds and they came through quite quick.
 
Dang man! Want me to send it again? My post office here is HORRIBLE, I mean horrible. They have lost so many of my things it makes me want to move. What all was in it and i'll send another one to you! I'm sorry man! 
 
I had one guy on here, he was in the U.S I sent him 3 separate packages and only one got there, a month later...
 
Shoot me a P.M and I'll send another your way from another post office around here.
 
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