I’m back with a new set of Work Sativa strains (News Joint Grow 9.0), including the longest delay in growing a sponsored strain that I’ve had. After a couple failures on my part, I finally finished a complete journal of a strain I’ve wanted to grow for more than a year: Sour Orange by Supernatural Seeds.

Sour Orange is a sativa-leaning (65%/35%) cross of Clementine, Orange Sherbet, and Tangie. I popped the feminized photoperiod seeds weeks after the other three strains in News Joint Grow 9.0 (see below), but it didn’t matter. This Sour Orange was the most vigorous growing plant I’ve grown. Sour Orange easily caught up to and surpassed the other plants in early vegetation. Fortunately, the plant loved being topped, which I had to do for all five major branches. If grown outdoor, this plant would have been a tree. Indoor, I had difficulty keeping the height of the plant equal to the others.

During vegetation and flowering, I used Nectar for the Gods nutrient line, SLF-100, Fishshit, and Cultured Biologix no-brew microbial teas (all sponsored by The Apple House in Terre Haute) and grew under a BlackBird light sponsored by HLG.. The point of Grow Journal 9.0 was to grow fruit-flavored strains, including two orange-flavored strains. Journal 9.0 included this Sour Orange, Blue Dream (clone) by Colorado Seed Inc. and my one non-sativa strain, Icy Grape by Copa Genetics. Sour Orange had a long-long stretch during the first three-plus weeks of flowering.

I have not been able to bring out a true candy-orange flavor in previous grows, so during parts of flowering, as suggested by Founder of Nectar for the Gods, Scott Ostrander, on The OCGFAM Show, I pushed the Pegasus and Triton nutrients. Throughout flowering, the buds had a sweet-orange citrus and sweet-piney earth aroma. Sour Orange grew huge bulb-shaped buds that started light green and eventually faded into purple with bright-orange pistils. The long stretch placed the tallest branches a little closer to my light than I wanted. I chopped the plant 68 days into flowering and harvested the largest batch from a single plant I’ve grown in my 4×4 tent. I lightly trimmed the largest leaves and placed the colas on one shelf and the rest of the buds on another shelf inside my Cool Cure to dry, which has been the biggest improvement I’ve made for my grow. After four days of drying in the Cool Cure, I trimmed the buds and placed the colas in Grove Bags and the rest of the buds inside a mason jar to cure for a few more weeks, while other plants dried in the Cool Cure.

Overall, Sour Orange was one of the most fun plants I’ve grown. Stay tuned to News Joint Grow Journal for Sour Orange Part 2, where I go over how the flower smokes.

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