Black Indica (2019) (II)

I grew this iteration of Crop King’s Black Indica from seed, in a peat pod outdoors. I grew Crop King’s Hash Plant alongside this plant in the same conditions and in the same way, and they are similar so it makes for a nice comparison. First off, I planted after frost but when it was still getting slightly cold overnight and so this slowed both seedlings down. In particular, the low temperature swings effected Black Indica early on - new growth came out in a closed leaf mutation, with no site for additional growth. I’ve had this happen before, and you just top the mutant growth. It makes for an interesting grow because topping happened so early. I topped once again much later and so this plant turned into a giant “V” formation with two main bud sites at each top. By comparison, Hash Plant did not suffer from mutation. I rated this grow as “Hard” for this an other reasons detailed below. Also to point out, Black Indica resisted pests more than Hash Plant in the two plant comparison. Rarely did I see much insect activity. Black Indica had slightly less light, and maybe a slightly worse spot in the two plant comparison, and this reversed my expectation that Black Indica would grow more than Hash Plant. The main storyline: if you follow this grow you would find out that I live next to an industrial mill which has a very strong floodlamp to light their storage yard. This light illuminates the entire rear of my garage minus the space shaded by the perimeter fence. I was concerned of light stress in flower all along and my plans were to top and train the plant to remain below the fence line. I have learned that outdoor grows are a bit harder to control, especially the timing of flower, so ultimately Black Indica stretched past the fence. At night the tops of the main crown bud was illuminated from a distance estimated at more than 50 yards. On rare nights the light was not on. I’m unclear if the horizontal light in the early stages, that is the indirect light, caused the plant to want to stretch further and ultimately into the light. The result of this tale is a stressed hermaphrodite plant full of seeds. Very disappointing. I have to imagine this effected yield in terms of energies expended by the plant. I’m not sure if seed production effects taste directly, but there are so many seeds that its hard not to get part of a husk or other plant material into the bowl, and this taste stands out badly in the vape. Overall, the taste is bland, herby, very few hints of sour. I would say potency is not heavily effected by seeds so this is good. Indirectly, the degradation of the bud may alter the power of the effects, but I can confirm THC contents are still fairly fine. This is clearly an indica, generally moderate strength. This isn’t a fault of Crop King Seeds, other than perhaps being a tad weak starting out as a seedling. However, I can’t give a good rating based on the hassle of picking out seeds and the bad taste. 5/10