Sickmeds Chemical Wonder: Grow Report and Review

After growing out the Sickmeds Williams Wonder, and Green Crack S1, and posting reports on those (links below), the breeder Reddog and I were pleased with the results. So I asked Reddog if he had anything else promising I could test out for him.

He told me about a few things; one of them that really caught my attention was a new unnamed Williams Wonder cross he was working on, but hadn't had a chance to test yet. This was Williams Wonder x (Reservoir Chemdawg IBL x Cali Connection Deadhead OG).

CC Deadhead OG is '91 Chemdawg x SFV OG. So the full genetics here are Williams Wonder x (Chemdawg IBL x [Chemdawg '91 x SFV OG]). With that pedigree, I suggested this might be called "Chemical Wonder", and Reddog liked the name, so it stuck.

Anyway, with that genetic background of "old-school" heavy-hitters, including a "pinch" of OG kush, I was pretty excited to try this one. So Reddog sent me a tester pack and off I went. Full report to come, below.

Rules of this report at the same as my others: Feel free to post any comments or questions. All I ask is that you keep it civil.

Links to my prior grow reports:

https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/585422-sickmeds-williams-wonder-grow-journal.html#post8283313
https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/601519-sickmeds-green-crack-s1-feminized.html#post8410291
https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/584136-mexican-brick-bagseed-growing-out.html#post8268883

I'm going to keep this report concise, and try (when possible) to let the pictures do most of the talking.

Tester pack, directly from Sickmeds. He uses good stealth and sends directly from his facility in Spain. No fancy packaging for this, since its still in testing phase, but like his commercial se-eds these came in a small test tube with dessicant on top to keep them dry and fresh:



Here's one bean, the one used in this grow. Like his Williams Wonder beans, this one was large sized and has the "tiger stripes" that people like:



Bean was planted directly into soil in a plastic cup.

Nothing wrong with paper towels and the like (and I do use them sometimes) but the Williams Wonder beans I popped from Sickmeds last time grew so vigorously, I figured I could put this one right into soil with no issues.

Soil used is the same as my previous grows. Its a custom mix consisting of mostly Miracle Gro "Moisture Control" as a base, cut generously with peat moss, vermiculite, and perlite to create a more airy mix, with increased drainage. Note that the moisture control is already a low soil mix that contains coco-coir; its a lot better than the regular Miracle Gro potting mix (which I would avoid).

So here is the bean, right before covering with soil:


And here we are, on day 10 since adding water. The bean took about 4 days to break soil. You can see the broken off se-ed shell at the bottom left of the seedling stem. Plant was put under 16-4-1-4 lighting in my veg area under a 15(!) watt CFL. That's a regimen designed deliberately to keep plants as short as possible in veg, and seedlings really don't need more light than that.



For the sake of brevity, I'm going to omit most of the veg phase of this grow. I did have an issue with fungus gnats in early veg, but I took care of it, and I don't think it hurt the plant too badly.

Plant was topped once with simple pinching, and then trained the two tops out by repeated bending (aka "low stress training") to achieve a sort of "Y" shape. I did this in part because I've had good results growing the Williams Wonder this way, and also because as a new strain, I simply had no idea how much this might stretch into flowering. Knowing that some of the Chemdawg genetics can be a bit stretchy, I didn't want to take chances, so this is a simple/easy way to restrict height.

Amazing how we can go from seed through full veg in only three posts!

Plant was vegged for about 2.5 weeks in cup under 15W CFL, then transplanted to 3 gallon pot for veg under 40W CFL for another 3 weeks. Again, I deliberately used a low hours of light regimen to control height here.

Plant is about 12" tall and ready for flowering. Note the Y shape with two tops:

Here we are after 11 days into 12-12 flowering.

Note that as expected, there has been some stretching coming into flowering. This wasn't extreme sativa/haze like stretch, but its noticeably more than the pure Williams Wonder, which barely has any stretch at all. Again, the "Y" shaped training is partly to increase yield, but also a way of controlling vertical height.

Here is day 22 of flowering. There is good news and bad news.

The good news is that flower development is excellent. Individual calyxes are showing a more sativa/Chemdawg like structure, being cone-shaped and long (instead of more rounded like Williams Wonder). As expected from this genetic background, there is already significant resin production with resin glands noticeably extending out onto the fan leaves, which you can see in the slightly blurred picture, below. That's a good early sign.

Bad news? After two full weeks of making nothing but female flower clusters, male pollen sacs have started popping out at most of the internodes. Stress was undoubtedly a contributing factor (temps in flowering have exceeded 90F), but there was probably a genetic contribution as well. All of the Chemdawg lines tend to be hermie prone, that's just the way they are. I probably just drew an unlucky pheno here.

Ordinarily, I'd just kill a plant like this, but since this was the only one I had going, I decided there would be no harm in just plucking off the male flowers to see what happened. So I did this expecting the plant to go "full" hermie anyway with me having to kill it shortly.

To my surprise, I was wrong about that. After about another week, the plant totally stopped making male flowers, and didn't make any more for the entire rest of the grow, despite that fact that temperatures still got above 90F on a regular basis for several more weeks. So despite the hermie "scare", things seemed to turn out OK.

I'm skipping like 4 weeks of flowering here, but I'll give the summary of what happened in the meantime.

-Forgot to mention that I pruned off the lowest branches early. In my experience, those usually only give small "popcorn" buds, and aren't worth the effort.

-Absolutely no more male flowers appeared after week 4 of flowering; plant appears entirely female now. Not sure what "went right" but I'm glad I didn't kill the plant!

-As typical for kush hybrid, plant stretch stopped after a few weeks of flowering, eventually to finalize at about 2.5x the veg height. That's a bit more than the Williams wonder, but not bad at all. As intended, the horizontal training did moderate the overall height (see below).

-From week 4-7 there has been tremendous growth of buds, with clusters growing together into big fat colas. The smaller side branches are so heavy, they're going horizontal under their own weight. Resin production is high.

-With Williams wonder and Chemdawg parent genetics each known for high odor, I was fully expecting this plant to absolutely stink coming into flowering. Again, to my complete surprise, this plant was the exact opposite. Not only was it not high odor, there was barely any odor at all, just a light lemon/fuel scent sticking my nose right into a flower cluster.

Not much to add here.

Before starting, I sort of expected this one to run about 65-70 days total flower, but at day 65 it really looks like I've got about another 2 weeks to go. High temps may have prolonged the flowering time a little bit here. Also, I've been told that Chemdawg lines don't like to turn amber, so it can be a little hard to judge maturity sometimes.

Here's another look at one of the colas, plus a few closeups to show trichome development:

Into the final stretch here.

At day 75 of flower most of the trichomes have turned white. Although retrospectively, I probably "should" have chopped it here, I did try to "push my luck" to see if I would get any amber, and ultimately chopped it a week later at about 11.5 weeks.

Ultimately, I didn't really see any amber, and I think this is probably a "legit" 10-11 week strain. That's basically a week longer than the WiWo, which I've found to be reliably done about 63-67 days. Its also probable that high temps during the middle of flowering prolonged this a bit.

Here's some final pix for context. Closeups in the next post:

Here's the closeups from day 75.

Note trichomes are almost all white. Harvested about a week later; didn't really see amber, but the plant otherwise seemed "done".

Sickmeds Chemical Wonder (tester), grow summary:

-Se-eds were large and mature, and packed well with dessicant in crush-proof container. No issues with germination directly in soil.

-Plant had wide indica-type leaf structure during veg. No issues there.

-Total stretch during flowering was average, about 2.5x.

-Saw true male flower sacs at internodes coming into week 3 of flowering. These grew for only about 2 weeks and did not recur after being plucked off. Note that I did not actually pluck off all the male pods, nor did I really try to. I just went over the plant once and picked off whatever I could see easily.

I did find several old spent male flower sacs at harvest. I ultimately did find two adjacent buds on one branch that had a few se-eds in them, but that's it; 99% of the plant was seedless. I think that's pretty typical for a Chemdawg-derived line, and personally, I don't consider it a big deal. If I had been super careful about picking off all male pods, I suspect I wouldn't have found any se-eds at all.

Note that I've only grown one of these plants. Apparently, there are several other test grows of this ongoing on other forums, and so far I'm the only one to report pollen sacs. So either I'm a sh$t grower (possible!), or I drew an unlucky pheno, or probably both. Again, I did have unavoidable high temp issues early in flowering and that may have been a contributing factor here.

Also, in addition to above, I noticed a few early "nana" type hermies at harvest, when I hand manicured every bud. These were scarce, only involving a few buds, and I attribute them to the prolonged flowering time. These were fewer in number than with the pure Williams Wonder, and unlike the Williams Wonder, I didn't notice them until harvest.

-Flower production was good with noticeably high yield, somewhat like the Williams Wonder parent. Basically all leafy stem turned into large colas covered with buds. Individual flower structure was more Chemdawg-like, and so, as expected, final bud density was a bit lower than Williams Wonder. Resin production was good.

-Plant smell was surprisingly mild with a mild citrus/fuel scent. Not sure if all these plants are like this, or it was just my particular pheno.

-Harvested day 82; that's 11.5 weeks total flower. Forgot to mention that I reduced flowering time to 11-13 (from 12-12) at the end of week 9. Most trichomes were white, about 75% of hairs had turned brown. There was still new some emerging growth of white pistils. . .I think that's pretty typical for Chemdawg-derived lines. Lacking amber trichromes it was a little hard to nail down an exact finish time with this one, but I'm convinced it was done when I harvested it, and I probably could have harvested a bit earlier than I did. No issues with mold, though I did keep humidity controlled and air circulating.

-Smoke report and final impressions to come. . .

nice man! any pics of the final product off the plant?

urabus2005 said:

nice man! any pics of the final product off the plant?

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Thank you.

And thanks for posting. . .I was wondering if anyone was even reading this thread!

Yes, there will be pictures of the cured buds at the same time as the final smoke report. It shouldn't be too much longer for that.

In the meantime, if you haven't done so already, you might want to take a look at my Williams Wonder grow report, for some extra background here.

Here's the cured Chemical Wonder buds:



And here is a comparison of Williams Wonder (left) vs Chemical Wonder (right). Note that the Williams Wonder has been cured much longer, explaning the slightly darker color:

Had no idea this even existed until I just Googled "Chemical Wonder", but this is a pretty cool song by the same name from a Decatur Georgia based group called "Film" from 2003. Apparently the vocalist came in 8th place in the TV program "American Idol" in 2008.

Interestingly (but not surprisingly) it has a drug theme.

[video=youtube;HQPkceWRSuU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQPkceWRSuU[/video]

Lyrics here:
http://letras.kboing.com.br/michael-johns/chemical-wonder-film/traducao.html

Sickmeds Chemical Wonder, smoke report, and overall summary:

As usual, I'll try to keep this short. Since this is one of the few pure Williams Wonder hybrids out there now, I'll also concentrate on comparison with Williams Wonder. Unfortunately, I haven't grown any of the Chemdawg dominant parent strains, so I can't do that comparison. Another good comparison of this would probably be to the older and now defunct Rezdog/Reservoir Se-eds Williams Wonder, which was actually a Williams Wonder/NYC Diesel hybrid.

Smoke Report

Tried smoked and vaped separately.

-Scent: Again, not the easiest time describing these things, but the scent of the cured buds is mild, but sweet with light citrus, fuel and herbal/grassy components. Scent is significantly less intense, and noticeably different than the strong distinct sweet/sour "lemon candy" scent of the cured Williams Wonder.

-Flavor: Mild, same as scent. Even vaped, the flavor here is fairly mild.

-Potency: High potency. I'd say its roughly on part with the Williams Wonder and guesstimating, probably around 20% THC.

-Effect: Indica-dominant hybrid. No surprise there. This one is a less "couchlocky" and more "functional" than the Williams Wonder, but its definitely a 'night time' medicine. One small bud of this lasted for about 3.5 hours and effectively wrecked my morning. Again, my guess is that if tested this one would have less (but still present) CBD than the WiWo, and less THCV.

Summary:

Chemical wonder is a 50-50 hybrid between Williams Wonder and a Chemdawg dominant line with some OG Kush genetics. Overall flowering time of my particular pheno was about 11 weeks, with typical hybrid type stretch of about 2.5x during flowering, medium-high yield, and remarkably low odor. Resin production was good, with correspondingly good potency and indica dominant hybrid effect.

Compared to Williams Wonder, this one had slightly lower bud density, resulting in slightly lower weight/bud, but likely higher resistance to mold (which can be an issue with WiWo). Odor during flowering and of cured buds was noticeably lower than WiWo. Flowering time of my pheno was about 1.5 weeks more than WiWo. Effect was a bit less "medical" and more "relaxational/recreational".

Bottom line, Chemical Wonder did pretty much what you'd think it "should" as a hybrid WiWo/Chemdawg. It had a Williams Wonder-like plant structure with minimal branching, relatively low stretch, and huge colas, but with Chem-like flowering time and individual calyx structure. Potency was high, but qualitatively more balanced than the pure indica "head kick to sleep" effect of the Williams Wonder. Big surprise to me was the low odor here. . .not sure if this was because of high grow temps, pheno or both, but this could be a real advantage for some growers.

Bottom line, I think this could be a good choice for someone looking for a combination of high yield, low odor, and indica-dom hybrid effect for indoor grow. The overall plant was pretty easy to grow; it responded well to minimal training. Flowering time was a little longer than most of the kushes, but not that much longer, and I think ease of growth and yield offset that. Not sure if this one is going to make it to market, but I think if it did, it would be a reasonable substitute for the Williams Wonder, with similar ease of growth, but lower odor and potentially more favorable cannabinoid profile.

Any questions or comments, feel free to post.

Thanks for reading.

Quickest grow thread in history.......nice job, but I can't help but think they would have been a lot better with 2 more weeks (81 + 14= 95 days). Maybe you just got the "long-flowering" pheno????? Personally when I want something to finish, I reduce the light 1-2 hours (which u did), reduce the watering amounts greatly (really let them dry up) and raise the lights up as high as they go to reduce light intensity). Some strains react to these manipulations, others don't).

Nice job for the 1st time grow..........that's a big stretch (2.5X) and more than I care to attempt. My max is usually 1.25X or I won't bother with it.

Is it me or we you really trying hard to put a nice spin to it all but in the end, you expected more and were overall disappointed in the end.......... OK, maybe not disappointed- just not a keeper.

SSHZ said:

Quickest grow thread in history.......

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Well, obviously the grow was complete before I started the report. This has been done for a while; I just though it would be confusing to post a report on a strain that isn't commercially available, so I held off.

But since Reddog (Sickmeds breeder) told me there were several other reports on this one already up on other forums, I figured I might as well just post what I had. Again, I have no idea if this one is ever going to make it to market or not; I think it depends on how the other tests go, as well has what happens when Reddog himself grows it. I do think Reddog has been giving this one out as a "freebie", so there are people who have it, and anyone interested might be able to get it from him directly.

nice job, but I can't help but think they would have been a lot better with 2 more weeks (81 + 14= 95 days).

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Well, just to be clear, the last images I posted were from day 75; these were actually more mature when I chopped at day 82. Also, the pictures (especially the close ups) are really of the youngest outside buds. This one sort of kept putting out new growth, and kept growing from the inside to outside, with the inside buds being quite a bit more mature than the outside ones. So in fact, the plant was more mature at harvest then the images suggest.

The real issue is that this one pretty clearly had Chemdawg type flowers, and at least based on what I've seen posted, those genetics won't go amber, and tend to look a bit immature at their peak. Maybe this would have been better with another week, hard to know for sure, though I think two more weeks probably would have been pushing it a bit, plus there was an issue of personal convenience in harvest timing here.

Maybe you just got the "long-flowering" pheno????? Personally when I want something to finish, I reduce the light 1-2 hours (which u did), reduce the watering amounts greatly (really let them dry up) and raise the lights up as high as they go to reduce light intensity). Some strains react to these manipulations, others don't).

Click to expand...

It certainly looks like I did get a long flowering pheno. . .though I think high temps may have increased the flowering time a bit. In addition to reducing light hours, I did actually go to a low watering regimen towards the end. Not sure if that helps plants mature or not, but the idea is to reduce humidity, both to increase resin production and to decrease chance for mold.

Nice job for the 1st time grow..........that's a big stretch (2.5X) and more than I care to attempt. My max is usually 1.25X or I won't bother with it.

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Thank you. My goal is minimal count, maximum quality!

I think I should clarify the numbers here, because I don't think we're using the same terminology. Final plant length was about 2.5x (really probably closer to 2.3x) the length at the beginning of flowering.

In other words when I did the switch to 12-12 the plant was about 12-14 inches tall; at harvest the plant was about 28-30 inches overall length. It probably corresponds fairly closely to the 1.25x you use as your max. I did control the overall height with the training you see in the pictures, so total plant height was probably only about 20" at the end.

As comparison, I'd say the Williams Wonder by itself is about a 2x strain or maybe a hair less; it basically doubles in height from the start of 12-12 to finish. Unlike the pure Williams Wonder, this one did have a little bit of a "stretch" phase after being put into 12-12, just not a big one. You can see it a bit comparing the day 1 and day 11 flowering images, above.

Is it me or we you really trying hard to put a nice spin to it all but in the end, you expected more and were overall disappointed in the end.......... OK, maybe not disappointed- just not a keeper.

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You're basically correct. Perfectly good plant; just not a "keeper" for me, with two major caveats clouding things a bit:

The biggest caveat is that this was just one plant. I really don't know how typical this was, nor what kind of pheno variation this line puts out. I actually suspect that my particular pheno was a bit atypical, but until I grow more or see a bunch of other reports on this, I have no way to know that right now.

Second one was that grow conditions weren't ideal. Nutes/soil/light/water were all fine, but the plant had to deal with >90F peak flowering temps for a full month. The plant certainly seemed to do OK despite that, but I can't help but think that it prolonged flowering time a bit, and perhaps induced the hermies I saw early (though they went away despite the high temps). Maybe the temps also decreased terpene production, explaining the mild scent (though I've certainly grown stinky plants at 90+F before too!).

In the end, I have to report what I see, but unlike the other two I've grown from Sickmeds, I just can't say with a high degree of confidence that I realized the full potential of this line this time. I wasn't really disappointed, because I didn't bring in a lot of expectations here, mostly just to grow this and see what happened. Of course, I tried to accentuate the positives in the summary, but I think the report is pretty comprehensive and speaks for itself; I didn't leave anything out or try to hide anything. All the good is in there, as well as the bad. The real question is, what are you expecting from something like this? What would make you want to choose it?

If you're looking for the "best of both worlds", ie Williams Wonder yield, short height, and relatively fast flowering time, but Chemdawg-like flavor and high quality, I just didn't see that mix in my particular pheno. Instead I got a (probably more realistic) blend of WiWo-like yield, in-between height, Chemdawg flowering time, in-between effect, and unexpectedly mild scent/flavor.

Potency and yield were both high, and since those seem to be the #s 1 and 2 things that most growers are after, I think most growers probably would be happy with this. I'd probably be raving about this line IF it had a more interesting scent/flavor profile and/or a shorter overall flowering time. Maybe it does. . .I just didn't get to see those things in my grow.

Well done clarification........... much what I expected you stated. Kudos for your grow and skills. I can't say it enough.

To add, I find my winter grows always end up better grown, better quality and less issues. My rooms run around 82 degrees in the summer, and around 78 degrees in the winter. It's amazing how much those 4 degrees impact the final product. Temps in the 90's have numerous negative impacts for sure.

I try to flower when most of my plants get to around 20-22 inches and prey they end up no higher than 48 inches. So, I guess that's about double the height- is that 1X or 2X stretch- I guess I'm confused somewhat.

And lastly, our goals are quite different- for me, it's yield over quality (TOO A POINT OF COURSE).........I still want them the best they can be.