In February 2021, we received a wonderful love letter from a gardener who had entered one of our sweepstakes. With his permission, we are allowed to publish this letter and share it with you.
We were very touched by his heartfelt words of love for our Grandma’s Punch variety. But read for yourself…
Grandma‘s got the hardest Punch
Yeah, Grandma can hit really good, let me tell you. How do I know? Well, I know because she hit me 6 times and I smoked 4 of her punches right to the face. In case that sounds confusing let me give you a little context: In February 2021 I won 12 regular seeds of the strain Grandma‘s Punch by the breeder Grandma‘s Genetics. The whole experience from winning the seeds to germinating them to growing the plants and finally harvesting them was a win in itself, however, I wanted to point out that I didn‘t buy these seeds but, as I said, won them. In fact, I did not buy a single seed from Grandma‘s Genetics to this day and still the company supported me in all possible ways. I will be growing lots of their strains in my next cycle. They are really passionate about their work and look out for their customers as well as for their genetics. I feel like their number one priority is not earning big money with cannabis seeds, but it is to create remarkable strains with thrilling characteristics and of top shelf quality. And certainly to spread love, just like a lot of Grandmas do.
Now for the grow: I put 6 of the Grandma’s Punch seeds directly into little pots filled Biobizz Light mix, watered them carefully and placed them under a humidity dome. I don‘t like the paper towel method or even soaking the seeds in a glass of water. It’s just not for me, I have always had the best results putting seeds directly into soil/potting mix. I also feel like this is the most natural way.
In this paritcular case all of the 6 seeds germinated within 4 days making for a perfect fast and easy 100% germination rate.
To be fair though, I have to say that the 6 seeds all produced very different looking plants, lots of diversity in these genetics, but if you are looking to phenohunt the best genetics of a given strain, diversity is just what you want. And it’s also what makes a strain survive in nature, so diversity is always a good thing in my opinion. Anyways, these 6 Grandma‘s Punch plants didn‘t have to survive out in the wild, but were lucky enough to enjoy the warmth and comfort of my indoor growing setup.
They spent most of their vegetative stage under a small 30 Watt Sanlight LED. For about 4 weeks I just let them grow naturally without any training or pruning, just to see how they would behave in the conditions of my veg-space. After 2 weeks I transplanted them from their little germination pots into 2l-squarepots using Biobizz Light Mix again. Root development was awesome and although the plants grew in Light Mix they never needed any extra fertilizer and still grew vigorously all the way. About 32 days into veg, I placed the 6 plants into my flowering tent in order to get to know their genders. It took them no longer than 10 days to confidently show their preflowers and I was really excited to find out that 4 of my 6 Grandma‘s Punch were females. As I am limited on space I couldn‘t keep the males around although they both gave off a very delicious, spicy and sweet kush odor when rubbing the leafs and stems. Just gotta move on sometimes, you know the deal.
For the 4 remaining females however, big things were to come. After showing their preflowers the female plants moved back into the veg space in order to switch from preflower to veg-stage again before having their clones taken. The plan was to keep the original plants, the ones which germinated from seed, as moms and send their cuttings into flower and that‘s just what I did.
Seemingly though, I did not wait long enough for the plants to switch from preflower to veg again. Nothing bad came from that, the clones rooted just fine within about 10 days, but once they started to grow again, they only produced 1- and 3-fingered leaves. I was a bit concerned sending these weird looking clones into flower but, spoiler alert, they turned out amazing. On a side note: the moms started to produce 5- and 7-fingered leafs again in no time. What I did was kind of an unintentional stress test, I guess and those old Grannys passed it with flying colours.
Once in flowering the plants stretched about 100% to 150% meaning most of them doubled in size while one of them even grew a bit taller than that. In the flowering tent they enjoyed 225 watts of high grade full-spectrum Sanlight LED light. For the first 6 weeks of flower I gave them really small doses of Advanced Nutrients ph-perfect flowering fertilizer. About 1ml/l with every watering so about once a week. In week 7 I began to flush with water only. Then after about 8,5 weeks the plants clearly began the process of senesence. No longer receiving any nutrients the leaves turned all kinds of autumn colours and the flowers got a purple hue to them. One more thing I want to be said is that the temperatures and humidity in my flowering tent weren’t anywhere near optimum all along the flowering stage. Temps ranged from 16 to 22 degrees celsius with humidity peaking at more than 80% late into the grow and never dropping below 69%. I was worried that these dense buds would begin to mold but luckily that never happened. So that’s another good thing to say about this strain: It seems to be mold-resistant and not to finicky when it comes to temps and fertilization. It didn‘t mind the cool environment and still produced good results regarding quantity and especially regarding quality.
All in all I can only say good things about Grandma‘s Punch and the same goes for its breeder Grandma‘s Genetics.
If anything, one could argue that the 6 seeds produced very different looking plants which might hint to an opportunity of improvement in terms of consistency in the genetics. But that could also have been a coincidence in my case and can really not be taken for granted. Ultimately, the outcome of the grow was very consistent. Way more important, in my opinion, is that none of the plants showed any problems with mold, diseases or even hermaphrodites even though they were met with rather tough conditions. A really vigorous and reliable strain with outstanding bag-appeal and sweet, spicy and fruity kush-aromas.
Love,
Tim
