As the sun sinks into a hazy red and the air becomes cool, the autumn harvest is upon us. For cannabis growers this time of year is affectionately referred to as “Croptober” and is the culmination of a season of work. And aside from the six days and couple inches of rain nightmare that knocked everything flat, it’s been a fairly good October.
A new season meant new genetics and this is about Pineapple Upside Down Cake, bred by the Humboldt Seed Company in 2017 out of a large pool of cultivars. A newer cultivar with quite a bit of hype- not something typical in most gardens, especially mine. The breeders said they selected from a thousand cultivars to make this cross.
It is a mix of Pineapple Trainwreck x Monster Cookies for a sativa leaning hybrid with fruit and dessert sweetness in its terpenes and a uplifting yet balanced high. Perfect for the long PNW winter to lift spirits, it was supposed to smell exactly like the name it was given. I have grown all of these strains individually but not a mix and I honestly steer away from long flowering sativa crosses in favor of fast finishing and gassy indica types.
There was a 100 percent germination rate and vigorous growth in the seedlings, 4 went to patients and 6 remained in the garden with several experimental undertakings to detail. One of the first things was to germinate two seeds from one single soil cell and essentially sharing a root system. The other was to have plants in containers as usual, but also directly in the ground.
The difference between the in ground and container plants extends beyond the medium they are in an included the fertilizer program as well, although both were organic. The containers all get dry amendments from Down to Earth products found at Wilco, and the in-ground plants were fed liquid nutrients from Nectar for the Gods.
All of the PUC plants were healthy and vigorously fast growers and showed off the F1 hybrid breeding diversity: there were 3 that were much like Trainwreck with long slender leaves and open structure like a candelabra, 2 were like the Pineapple Express and similar to the TW in structure and one was like Monster Cookie with larger leaves that were darker and an overall more stout structure. Cool expressions of the cross!
The first of August had all plants pre flowering and stretching like crazy about 3x the height during growth. A male was culled. The plants in ground didn’t get as big as the container plants but they ended up at 8 plus feet tall and the others were just about 12 feet!
Either due to their shorter stature or being directly in the soil, the in-ground plants were incredibly impervious to the environment. The 12 footers fared well too, but had to be supported after the rains. Overall, these are hardy plants that have a lot of resilience.
As flowering kicked into full force these cultivars really showed off their true colors. My experiment with the in-ground root sharing plants yielded Trainwreck leaning plants that have very spear like flowers along the whole branch and an upright structure. One of them has gone a deep hue of purple while the other is light green!
The last in ground plant is similar but smaller than it’s container sister and both have Pineapple Express conical nuggets that are like fruity grenadines and leaves that have a magenta tinge as they fade.
The best lady, a Monster Cookie dominate cross has huge bulbous flowers that have a dark purple color. All of the plants absolutely reek of fruity pineapples and other exotic notes that is across all of the phenotypes expressed. This would be the pick to cultivate again.
The Pineapple Upside Down Cake turned out to be a really fun and surprisingly interesting plant to grow due to the several unique expressions that have evolved during flower. A true F1 cross that has us seeing a little bit of each genetic input come out in the offspring, they were easy to grow, beautiful looking and smells amazing. I highly recommend checking out some
Where do I obtain seeds or plants of this?