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trichomechaser

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Everything posted by trichomechaser

  1. https://www.loudcpt.co.za/shop/reversa-privada-sts-reversal-spray-100ml/
  2. The guys from Marijuana SA sent in a sample of the Freedom Farms Classic for testing a few years ago, there's a Youtube video on it. But most interesting from the results was the low calcium levels in relation to other elements, not that there wasn't calcium present, but just not very balanced. I've been following a few of your threads about your use of BioBizz and Freedom Farms, as you seem to have that down. I might pop you a DM if you don't mind, you seem to be nailing it. Feels the same from my side. It's almost as though regular feeding is creating an additional imbalance where some elements are being uptaken while others are locked out. Picked up some new bags recently, so will see if anything is different. I don't want to rule out human error on my side though and throw full blame on FF - it just feels different to work with, and not behaving like I'm used to after all these years.
  3. Hey guys, I'm hoping to open a dialogue and gauge whether there are others experiencing the same issues as I am. I've been growing primarily with Freedom Farms Classic since 2018 and I while I have encountered some mild magnesium deficiency through my own errors over the years, the past 3 months I've been seeing mg issues pop up across the board on almost every plant I run. My mother tent, my flowering tent, but clone tent, veg tent - everything is having issues with mag. They're all fed/watered with pH 5.5-6.5 water, and even using different meters cause they're in different rooms. It's almost as though the pH is drifting back up too high in the medium. I initially thought it was a bad batch, so I went and grabbed 5 new bags and have the same issues with it. I've been far more careless with pH balancing in the past without noticing these symptoms. Not sure if it's possible that the tap water is somewhat involved - the Helderberg area has been increasing chloride (apparently). Anyone else seeing anything similar?
  4. In my opinion, I agree it's an early magnesium deficiency. That interveinal chlorosis looks bang on the money. Remember that while magnesium can be absorbed at lower pH it's most available from pH 6.0 onwards. I'd suggest aiming towards a pH of 5.8 to 6.3. I've noticed some issues on my side in the past when playing too close to the 5.5 range when it comes to magnesium uptake. That said, you can bypass the root uptake by performing some Epsom Salt foliar sprays. When I see a mg deficiency pop up on my side, I like to start making sure the soil can provide it properly, but also then do a weekly Epsom foliar. This tends to correct issues a bit quicker. The comment regarding genetics, I always support the idea of better genetics. But in cases like this, some of the more sought after genetics are actually more prone to issues like this, as some of the elites can be quite tricky plants and very magnesium hungry in many cases (I've found a lot of OGs tend to be picky about their mg) PS: Nice profile name. CSGO enjoyer?
  5. I'd second this. Both myself and my girl have had our accounts removed at one point or another. But there's no ban against cannabis posts, only about posts that revolve around the sale of it. All you'd need to do to get your account back is reach out to their appeals and state that you're a cannabis community forum based in South Africa, where cannabis is decriminalized and that your account has never engaged in selling cannabis. They'll more than likely return the account.
  6. 100% - and sometimes you even just end up with genetics that together create something special to run through. Each combination is so unique, depending on how each plant breeds. Sometimes you run an F1 population even, and find some really unique expressions that weren't really too prevalent in the plants used. But I do like F2s for their recessive traits. When it comes to flipping seed vs clone - it depends at which point in the project we are. When we are running testers we will run them from seed initially and flower them out, because we want to gauge what the average grower would get out of them. No good having plants that thrive from clone but grow terribly from seed. But you're right, we typically run plants from cut for quite a number of times before ensuring it's worth working with or sticking around and we do still take cuts of our tester runs, as you never know when something special pops up. It's not uncommon for me to have 50+ cuts rooting at one time. This can be a bit of a pain, but with just 2 of the regular clone domes (large ones) you can typically fit around 36 cuts. So just two of those is typically enough. To help minimize the requirement of cuts at one time, I take 2 cuts off each pheno just before flip and then if they haven't rooted by week 2 of flower, I take 2 additional cuttings as backup. Usually, 90% or more of cuts are rooted in the first phase. Backcrosses are good, but they are also best used when you really understand the genetics and the way they breed. BX is typically used to re-enforce certain traits. The plant you backcross to will be re-enforced by bringing more of those genetics back into the line. But this can also go really wrong if you backcross to a plant that has negative traits (stretchiness, low yield, etc.) I personally think it's important to test out a few beans of anything before gifting them out even, just so one can give them an idea of what to expect. The impacts of someone getting a tent full of herms can permanently impact your reputation and those people won't remember whether they were free or not, just the experience. Or just make sure they are aware its untested. If one isn't breeding with particular goals in mind, the other option that is good for just running through beans to find something special, is to do an open pollination with multiple males pollinating the same females at the same time. While this means you can't really reuse a male, it does mean the resulting seeds will have more diversity. If the goal is simply to find something special.
  7. The topic of this post is something I spend a lot of time investing in. Because there is certainly truth to the idea that people are growing 'fake strains'. BUT, it's also quite easy to find out who still uses the real thing and who doesn't, so long as you know who to trust - or at least who has proven themselves over the years to be focused on legitimacy. Because holy shit, there's a lot of guys that should be selling used cars. They can convince their audience of anything, regardless of how removed from fact it is. Unfortunately, if one gets real about this topic, feelings get hurt as well. People see their favourite breeder being called out and they think that because they found good plants in their seed pops, that the breeder is trustworthy. I've even seen guys get offended when they learn the cut they think is X is actually not. Because this is such an important topic I feel, I just want to share my experience as someone who spends a lot of time researching breeders and have worked for a couple seedbanks in vetting genetics suppliers and breeders. These are the main problems when it comes to 'fake seeds' and 'untrustworthy breeders/sellers' The Rename Game / White Label The Fall of the Dutch Replicas Authenticity of breeding stock The clone market The Rename Game In cannabis genetics it's often a case of trying to establish provenance. In other words, what is the true genetic lineage of a strain. Unfortunately, websites like Leafly popped up a few years ago and made the problem even worse. Because lineages that have been shrouded with elements of half truths and mystery suddenly get replaced by incorrect, but authorative statements on what is in a cross. Girl Scout Cookies is a good example of a cut that has a somewhat mysterious lineage and while some parts of the puzzle are out there, they aren't exactly on display on some popular website, they're discussed by guys who were close to the crews, on old forums and in small communities of people who are passionate about this stuff. The way a lot of the big seedbanks work is not like people think. They aren't all these passionate breeders walking around their facilities making selections all day. In many cases, a lot of the Dutch and Spanish genetics (will touch on this in the next topic) are outsourced. There are 2 or 3 really big breeders in Europe, who supply the same seeds to a number of 'breeders' - it is a massive white label industry. The breeder then packages, brands and markets the product. In many cases what they sell it as is something that's popular and currently desired, but what people get is just a renamed seed that may share some expressive traits. This has been common practice for a number of years now and it's one of the reasons I haven't dug into Dutch genetics for the last 5 years. Though there are still some guys there doing things legit, I don't want to take that away from them. I also don't want to make it sound like it's only these countries where this is practiced, there are a number of shady breeding practices that occur across a number of countries. But because of the legalities, Spain and Netherlands tend to be the most common locations for these companies to set up. The Fall of the Dutch One of the biggest challenges, especially in South Africa, is that there remains this idealistic view of Dutch genetics. Back in the 90s, breeders in Amsterdam had a lot of freedom. They weren't getting raided or shut down for large grows and were able to conduct large pheno hunts for their breeding. This was the era where a lot of seedbanks/breeders started to establish themselves and also do some unbelievable work. At the time, Americans were looking to the Dutch for what was hot. These days it's the complete opposite. What happened was, over a decade ago now, the Dutch government started to seriously clamp down on what one could and couldn't do with cannabis. And in the process, they raided a number of large, popular breeders at the time. In those raids, a lot of elite genetics were lost. Cuts that had been held onto for decades. A lot of people aren't even aware of these raids, because a lot of those companies never stopped selling the strains that they did before. But those that grew both the old and the new variations were able to tell the differences in the plants. What tended to happen here is that they would simply replace the cut they used with a sister or hybrid of the plant. But it's hardly ever going to be the same, especially when bred with. Since then, the Dutch have started to focus less on their traditional Hazes that made them popular in the 90s, but instead they often seek to release US varietals, things like Cookies and OG hybrids - despite the plants not representing these cuts in most cases. I smoked Dutch 'OG' for a while before I finally popped some real OG hybrids, and the differences were astounding. Since then I've popped dozens of OG hybrids and can safely say all the stuff I was getting from EU around OG was not true to the original thing. Replicas So what happens when the Dutch and Spanish breeders see Girl Scout Cookies surge in popularity? Since it was an American cut and was held pretty close, those seed banks in many cases aren't going to get hold of the cut - so they dig into their vault, find what looks the closest and maybe shares some similar traits and then they cross that together and give it the name Girl Scout Cookies and then people buy it, knowing none the wiser. This is somewhat similar to what the guy in OPs video is talking about. White label is still a more common approach than replicas, but replicas still do exist and they are a big problem. I've even seen some local breeders suggest they are working with OG Kush for instance, when there is not a single cut of the original OG Kush in South Africa (I'm pretty confident on this). Sure, you may have an OG hybrid, but even then in most cases the OGs that I see being popped are blatantly white label or replica. If you're looking to work with a particular genetic, source it from where it was found. Just like you probably wouldn't look to the US for a Haze historically, you probably shouldn't look to Europe for real OG. And this then ties into the next topic... Authenticity of breeding stock Not everyone is malicious, in many cases people are just uninformed or mislead themselves. Say for instance I hop on these forums and post a picture of a Chem 91 looking plant (of which I've found several in the S1s), if I were to tell people "Hey I've got a Chem 91 cut available" - I could even post pictures showing the same necrotic leaf traits and 'dog tongues' in the flower. Say guys got some from me and did some breeding work with it, they wouldn't even be aware that I had just given them a similar cut, but not the real thing. This is a massssssive problem, and I've seen it often. Guys who have been told that what they've got is this or that. And they will fight to the death that it is what they think it is. So as a breeder, it's really important, if you want to do things honestly, to try and have as best of a knowledge of how specific cuts express, especially if one is looking to use clone-only cuts. There are probably 50 different cuts of Cheese that go around, from 10 different breeders, but so many of those growers are convinced they have 'the Cheese'. This problem is bigger than people often like to admit, and no one is void from the impacts. There are well-respected breeders who have had to backtrack on what they claimed was in the line. This is particularly common with the Chem/Diesel/OG family, where a lot of similar, but inauthentic cuts exist. I spend a lot of time listening to The Breeder's Syndicate podcast, as I know the guys involved are pretty anal about provenance and establishing a history, as well as having been around for long enough to know the real thing from the fake. Some of the breeders that are typically associated with that circle as guys like Archive and CSI:Humboldt - two breeders I really trust when it comes to authenticity.' The Clone Market Finally, there's the clone market. Good god... The clone market... So similar to the above, with the authenticity of breeder stock - one can't understate the importance of authentic stock from clone banks. I won't mention names, but a rather popular local clone company imported stock from Europe and was advertising their new stock - but the stock they were advertising was clearly fake. The Girl Scout Cookies cut that they claimed to have looked like a classic Dutch, donkey-dick green plant. It was clearly not the real deal, and I don't think it was malicious, but I think that if you run a seedbank, it's worth making sure you can ID your cuts and have open communication with reliable growers who have grown the real thing, that can help you authenticate it. Not all cases are so benign though. There are clone companies who hunt packs of hybrids, select a cut from that pack and name it the parent it most looks like. And many guys think that because it comes with certificates that it means its legit. Certs are easy to fake and require a few minutes in photoshop to setup. Additionally, people assume that large companies with big websites and who sell themselves as leading clone experts can be trusted. Not only do many of these clone banks give you fake cuts, but they give you diseased plants that can wipe out your entire crop over time. One needs to be really careful about the clone market, especially when it comes to world renowned clone-only elites. Some of those cuts sell for tens of thousands of dollars - if someone is selling you big names with certs for pennies, that's something to raise your eyebrow at. Sorry for the rant - but I hope it proves useful, as things aren't always as cut and dry as one expects. When it comes to international genetics... I am still a huge fan of them. I want to source my genetics from those doing the largest hunts on the most authentic genetics. And in our current time period, that is the American market. But again... Know your breeders and do your research... Some international breeders I feel I can trust (just a few of many) - CSI:Humboldt - Archive Seed Bank - Swamp Boys - Jungle Boys - Bloom Seed Co - 707 Seedbank - Crickets & Cicada - Exotic Genetix - Lucky Dog - Riot - Kingdom Organics - Clearwater Genetics - Bodhi - Karma - Prolific Coast - The Source
  8. Appreciate the love guys. Haha, didn't know that was you. But yeah man, I'm always keen to chat genetics and breeding. That's not a bad way to start the breeding journey in my opinion. For us the first step was establishing a library of females that we really loved over the years. Some of the cuts were found over 5 years ago and have kind of been waiting for their time to shine. The biggest challenge is running through enough seeds to find the things you're looking for. I used to grow 6-8 plants a run when growing for smoke, but now that I've been focusing a bit more on breeding, I'm scaling down the pot sizes and yields and focusing on just looking through as many genetics as possible. I'm fitting around 25 plants into a small tent at this point to run through, out of those there will probably be 3-4 females that get a second run from cut before narrowing down selections. For me, I love hunting through F1 and F2 populations, especially F2 for the recessive traits that become exposed, if you're able to look through enough plants to find them (or get lucky).
  9. I partnered up with a friend a couple years ago to start our breeding journey. While we'd both played around with some pollen chucking, with Loud Chasers we wanted to do things properly. So far we're about 2 years into the work, but we wanted to make sure we created something we felt was truly our own before selecting a male to work with for when we hit our keepers and dig into the progeny. We started the process by hitting a few of our best females with a gassy lemon OG male that had some of the most potent sisters we've come across. We then ran through about 50 beans from the resulting crosses and made two selections to take further. One was a very special Sour Power OG cut and the other Death Row, a CSI:Humboldt strain that has Black Death in it, a lesser known cuf from Bodhi. It is a selection of Sterling Skunk. Above: Death Row x Champawat #8 We then ran these two select cuts several times to get an idea of how they express in different environments. I'm now in the process of crossing another OG dominant male into the mix. I want to retain the dark hues and stank of the Death Row #8 we ended up keeping, but also add some pure OG fuel in. I don't mind doing a bit of an incross here to strengthen the OG traits. Above: Sour Power OG (CapeTownLoud Cut) In the other (SPxCH) selection we made, we're also looking to add some of the resin that the Race Fuel line tended to exhibit. We're still a good while out of our final crosses for release and stuff, but at least at this point we're quite far into finding something that feels ours. Hopefully we'll have our final stud selected in the 6 months or so.
  10. Firstly, I feel like I may need to start this by prefacing that CSI:Humboldt has no relation to Humboldt Seed Organization or Humboldt Seed Co. Since I know some people get these breeders confused. Where HSO is a budget seed company, Humboldt Seed Co being a bit more pricey and CSI:Humboldt being a long-standing, legendary breeder who's family has been working with the plant for generations. "The Nspecta" as he used to be known on some of the older forums is mostly renowned for his genetic preservation projects and his thorough testing of lines (something that is sadly not as common as it should be). Because he's been in the game so long, he has been entrusted with a large number of elite cuts which he preserves in S1 form, to ensure that the genetic line isn't lost (as happened with the RKS for example). In turn, when I was able to bring in CSI gear, I copped a whole lot of it. The first run I decided on was some of the Chem 91 S1 (SkunkVA cut) and some Obama Kush x Zkittlez. Growing environment and medium/feed Having grown in soil for years, I wanted to make sure I got the truest representation of these plants' potential and while some soil growers are good enough to do that with soil in small pots, I find pheno hunting in 5L pots with soil is always a real challenge, so I opted to try coco with Mega Solutions. They were flowered out in a 1.4x1.4m tent using 3x 240W Quantum Boards, which is a fair bit of light for the area. Obama Kush x Zkittlez Obama Kush is a select cut that was found in a pack of CSI's "Mendo Purps x Bubba Kush" (despite what you may read). What drew me to this cross is that the Obama cut has some unbelievably good looking aesthetics. I'm not one to grow just for visuals, but the Bubba Kush is something I certainly enjoy as well. The Zkittlez on the other side would theoretically bring some amazing terps to the mix with that long lasting mouth-coating flavour, at least that is what I'm looking for from these. Zkittlez in itself has some issues with growth traits, typically growing extremely small and bushy, so my goal was also to find something that perhaps carried the Z profile but with strongest, taller growth structure from the Obama side. Seedling Stage Out of the 7 beans, 1 didn't pop. So I ended up with an initial 6 female plants. They all grew fairly standard, nothing too noteworthy to point out in this stage. Veg Stage The #3 and #5 both looked good in veg, fast growing plants. There was a single outlier pheno which was growing much slower than the rest and also extremely squat and branchy. Immediately identifiable as Zkittlez traits to anyone that's grown a Z cross. I ended up vegging them out for around 6-7 weeks before flip. Flowering Stage These girls really started to shine around day 30 - they are some fast flowering plants! The #3 and the #5 stood out again in flower, with the #5 being a clear early favourite for me. It carries a rich combination of zkittlez and purp terps - with a musky grape flavour layered under a sweet initial blast (at least from rubbing some lower sugar leaves). The #5 was also the quickest, looking basically done by day 50. What I really love about the #5 so far is that it shows the same dark leaf colouration that makes the Obama so beautiful, while also carrying the stronger Obama side of the growth structure. The outlying pheno continues to be wider than it was tall, I was fully expecting Z aromas from her given her structure - but as genetics go, just because you've got one parent's trait doesn't mean that parent is going to pass along the rest. Instead the squat pheno carries an earthy, musky low scent to it and lacks that sweetness the Z carries. The #3 pheno has some really good looking flowers on her as well and is absolutely covered in trichomes. In fact, most of these Obama Z seem to have really good trichome coverage. As of posting this, they are now in day 52 of flower. Obama Z #3 around day 42 Obama Z #2 around day 42 Obama Z #5 around day 48 Chem 91 S1 Generally, it feels like there are a few types of growers. Those who are die-hard chem and OG fans, those who love the GSC hybrids for its aesthetics and then African landrace & Haze-lovers who are looking for those classic old school highs. I've always gravitated towards the chems & OGs. When it comes to the SkunkVA cut of the 91, man the story around it is so unbelievably deep and enthralling that even if you don't smoke, you'll want to grow some 91 after listening to it. The problem with the 91 is that it's a clone-only and also heavily faked by breeders. Not only faked, but just mistaken. There are a few 91 cuts around now from S1s that have been run through, but the SkunkVA cut remains the most esteemed and 'original'. I had a hard time popping these beans even just because I knew I wouldn't have the pack in my collection anymore. What I really love about the S1 is that it's potency is often considered second to none, but it is not good looking flower - most people would probably toss it out by today's standards. It's one of those "if you know, you know" kind of cuts. Though it does tend to hybridize well and carry a lot of the potency, while also not breeding very strongly towards its structure. Seedling Stage When it comes to the seedling stage, the Chem 91 were vigorous with all 7 germinating without issue. There was only really one immediately unique pheno which was the #3, a plant with variegation straight out of the seed. This wasn't too surprising as the Chem D, considered by CSI to be a cross of the 91 (there is a fair bit of consensus these days that the #4 and D are crosses of the 91 rather than sisters, as originally believed). Veg Stage The Chem 91 S1 really shined in veg. They grew huge, with their textbook style glossy curled leaves starting to show well. The curled, glossy leaf trait is well known in the 91, but I am interested as to whether this is perhaps an aggressive genetic uptake of N in the plants or whether it's just simply an expression. What got me even more curious is the sensitivity to N that the 91 has. I was feeding according to the Mega charts and never went too hard on N, but the Chem 91 definitely got some N tox in addition to the genetic tendency to curl and shine. I did more reading and spoke to some people who had run the SkunkVA cut in the US and the biggest take-aways was that it is notorious for being a light feeder and is very sensitive to overfeeding (wish I had those conversations a little earlier). Flowering Stage Another important lesson I learned a little too late is that Chem 91 does not like a lot of light. I started noticing foxtail/airy bud formation, which isn't too strange for the 91, as that is its primary growth style, but this was a bit exaggerated. Also through chatting to some people that had grown the SkunkVA cut, they found that the plant did best almost in the indirect corner lighting of their rooms and tended to spazz out a bit when pushed hard with the light, and here I was at 720W. So I dimmed the lights a little and they seemed to start a bit more bud formation, though it's still not where I want it to be. I'll be taking the winning cuts from this hunt and running them again, most likely in soil - and use the lessons learned this previous run. Overall, the Chem 91 look like they're going to go quite a long time! I imagine day 75-80 at least. They still have a lot of filling out to do. But I am seeing traits that align very nicely with the original parent cut, there's 3 phenos I have my eyes on quite closely, with one particular cut really standing out from a terp perspective. Mostly the smells are leathery, antique bookstores, with a touch of light citrus and fuel. All pictures around day 42 for these I believe. Chem 91 S1 #1 One of the most vigorous of the cuts both in veg and rooting as cuts. The #1 has a mild leathery fragrance with some musk. Nothing really to write home about when rubbing some lower sugar leaves, but it is starting to colour up quite decently. Not the worst looking so far but not really impressing toooo much. Chem 91 S1 #2 The #2 cut is by far more favourite so far. Even early on into flower there was something unique about her. She's got a bit more of a dense (comparatively) nug structure and the terps coming off of her are absolutely mind-blowingly alluring. There is a strong lemon cleaner/lemon fuel coming off of her. There is also better trichome production on her. Overall she's really impressing over most of the others. It's still far from a good grow this round, but I'll definitely run her again and see what she does with less feed and a bit less light. Chem 91 S1 #3 The #1 had aggressive variegation since the first true leave came out from the seed. Regardless of the feed, it retained pretty aggressive variegated leaves along the one half of the plant. The lack of chlorophyll in the variegated parts caused them to quickly become damaged by windburn after it grew into the line of the oscillating fan. This individual cut seemed even more sensitive to feed than the rest, as evident by the even more than normal leaf curling. The buds themselves aren't too bad looking, a bit more solid than some of the other phenos, a bit more trichomes and just less aggressive foxtailing. Smell on her isn't as strong as the #2, but in the same ballpark, also with a slightly leathery/musky element. Chem 91 S1 #4 The #4 is another slightly more impressive pheno, quite similar to the #2 in a lot of the growth traits but it doesn't have those same mindblowing sugar leave rubs that the #2 does. Will be monitoring it though and seeing what she puts out as she matures. The leaves are slightly different from the #2 though, the #2 had a very unique look to the leaves in the first few weeks of flower while this looked more similar to the other cuts in that general expression. Chem 91 S1 #5 This one looks like an extremely long flowering pheno. You can see how far it is behind the others, this is the cut that took a month before it really started to throw pistils. So far I really don't get much off of her. She's a slightly smaller plant but also very leafy. Chem 91 S1 #6 An absolute monster of a plant. The #6 cut is about 6 inches taller than everything else and just had a massive vertical stretch going into flower, though it still has relatively close internodal spacing. A bit similar to the #5, being a much slower flowering cut and also very leafy, which isn't really putting much out there for me to smell yet. Chem 91 #7 The #7 is one of the airiest of the bunch, with some really whispy buds so far. On the nose, she's also just got a leathery and musky scent with maybe some gas in there, but nothing like the #2 which opens up the sinus. Nothing much to report on her.
  11. These are a few of my latest pickups over the last couple months.
  12. That's quite a claim. With all due respect, being a respected grower means little when it comes to this topic. The guy who was growing and selling Hitler to the Cape and across country isn't some enigma, he is (was more so) well known in the Instagram community and was posting the flower long before and after the market hype reached peak. He is one of the biggest suppliers of high quality indoor to the Boland area, and responsible for a lot of the strains that took off here. If it were stolen flower, there would not have been 2-3 years of Hitler on the market, and I've had the flower at varying levels of freshness between 2019 and 2021. I am also not at all sold on that lineage, as I never got any expression of Exo in the flower. What's far more likely is that someone else started selling flower renamed as fake Hitler, which no doubt happened in some areas. Especially since I saw people buying clones of Hitler. I've heard every story in the book from people on Hitler, guys in Jozi have their own version, guys in Durban have their stories... But for locals, it's really not as mysterious - the lineage perhaps, but not the source. I don't think anyone will really know the whole truth outside of the collective that it came from, but claims that it was stolen flower is nonsense. Given that this same grower is very well known locally to those who move big numbers, and he has supplied a LOT more than just Hitler over the years. I also have evidence of this. Here's a screenshot of a video my buddy sent me last year of an old Hitler nug from his previous stock that he held onto (2019 - left) compared with some of the newer stock (2020 - right). You can see how much of the THC has converted to CBN already on the left nug, while the right is clearly fresh. There were dudes out there getting charged R250 a gram, when the local prices were R160. It just goes to show how many hands it went through, and how many false narratives probably got pushed in the process.
  13. Used to run autos extensively and have flowered them at all light cycles (12/12, 18/6, 20/4 and 24/0) An autoflower is an autoflower. Fast flowering photoperiod plants are not autoflowers. If you're buying an auto, assuming the breeder hasn't fucked up in the process of creating them. They will flower regardless of light cycle in 99% of times. I've heard of a few isolated cases where people found their auto wasn't flowering so they lowered the light cycle to induce it. This is often anecdotal though, as the grower may simply have triggered the flowering response in a photoperiod seed accidentally sold as an auto. PS: I've found 20/4 to be the best flowering cycle for autoflowers.
  14. Just wanted to give some input here, as there's a lot of misinformation about Hitler and a lot of it is still kept very close to the circle that it originated from. I want to share some information without pissing anybody off, because the reality is that the grower who supplied most of the country doesn't want the lineage out there, understandably so, sometimes these things are worth holding close. But the short of it, is that it's likely a clone-only pheno which is held by a couple of people at most. There's been a lot of fake Hitler cuts sold and some people are still convinced they have it when they don't. I've handled a fair bit of Hitler through friends who were getting supply directly from the grower for bulk resale, and it's quite a unique flower that is easy to identify, both visually and just by the taste profile. Having smoked a 20+ grams myself, I can't say there's anything in there to suggest Cheese. Structurally, the bud resembles a lot of OG cuts, and I'd venture to guess that it's an OG hybrid. The terpenes also seem to suggest it with earthy, lime, gassy notes mostly prevalent. Again, structurally it looks a lot like OG, or even perhaps an OG x Cookies cut as there is a resemblance to some Animal Cookies phenos, and the level of trichome coverage and smaller nug size is a little atypical for most OG cuts. A buddy moved several hundred Gs of it also seemed to think it was likely an OG dominant cut as well. Smoking some Hitler hash rosin from the grower, it also seemed to carry those same muted, earthy, lime notes. Again, I've heard at least 10 versions of what Hitler is. But I think there's probably only a handful of people that know the answer to that. This type of thing is common in America, where cuts are found from seed and then renamed for marketing purposes and also sometimes to conceal lineage. Once lineage is out there, others can try and refind the pheno and take a chunk of the market for themselves. So the way Hitler was handled, was definitely very smart from a business sense. But also incredibly frustrating for those of us who love digging into lines and seeing which traits come from where. Here's an image of one of the first batches of Hitler that hit the market here around Cape Town circa late 2018 / early 2019. Just to close, I'm no authority on the details of Hitler and I respect the desire for the lineage to remain hidden, but these are just my thoughts from smoking a fair bit of it.
  15. +1 on these. These are my go-to choice. I even stocked up on a few of them in case some break. Can't recommend them enough.
  16. How close is this plant to the fan? Looks a lot like what I get with mild windburn
  17. How didn't this make it to the voting?! Probably the most insane image I've seen through all these comps.
  18. Understanding Genetics/Breeders: Starting out I was under the impression GSC was GSC and Chemdawg was Chemdawg... I wish someone had explained the importance of breeder cuts used in the genetics. Having the same name, doesn't mean it's the same cut. I wish someone had told me that just because I see an awesome picture of a strain it doesn't mean that the breeder is good. The death of Dutch Genetics: I wish someone had told me earlier how so many of the popular Dutch seed banks that built up a reputation in the 90s, were fucked by government back in the mid 2000s, and that they lost most of their genetics in the process. I wish someone had told me that most of those breeders started selling Spanish bulk genetics as their own to replace the cup winning strains from the 90s. The US breeders are years ahead of EU genetics now days (sans 1 or 2 high end breeders), there's a reason why the stuff being sold now have completely different terp profiles to what that same strain carried a few decades ago. IPMs: I started out thinking that you treat a pest when it's there. Preventative IPMs are so important. Explaining Phenotypes: I long lived with this idea that a strain was what one is after, and once you have the strain you're good. I wish I knew that the strain is really only such a small part of the grow. Finding the pheno that you want from that lineage is far more important than the strain itself. Just because my buddy grew a fire Spumoni, doesn't mean I'll get a good one if I pop a pack.
  19. This definitely appears to just be a marketing ploy for a product that in all likelihood is not very accurate. The real cost of mass spectrometers is painfully high - I don't trust anything in this products price range. There are products after products offering claims like these. I'd like to see these kinds of tools being marketed by having them have their tests put up against a large industry spectrometer and see how similar they are on a variety of samples.
  20. Orange Kush Cake after 4 months of curing Another girl in late flower Bubblegum Extra autoflower by Bulk Seed Bank Trichomes of a Ripper Tropicana Cookies cross Tangie (Capetownloud cut)
  21. It's that time of the season, time for another run. Ironically about 6 hours after I started my germination, Eskom came through with their new start of load shedding. This run is heavily dominated with GMO and Chem with a little bit of something sweet in the Brown Sugar. But I'm definitely looking for some strong chemical and garlic terps in this run. I've popped 15 beans to take into account potential males, I'll be hopefully picking out the best 9 females and placing them into 25L pots for flower. They will be started under 240W of QB, then flowered under 480W of QB. Freedom Farms will be the soil of choice, but I haven't completed decided on my nutrient schedule yet, thinking of trying more organic living soil feeds than usual, maybe some compost teas, cover crops, kelp etc. - 3x Thug Pug - Mule Fuel (Reg) - 4x Archive - Face on Fire (Reg) - 3x DVG - Absinthe (Reg) - 2x Cannarado - Roasted Garlic Margy (Reg) - 1x In House - Garlic Sherbert (Fem) - 2x Cannarado - Brown Sugar (fem)
  22. Cheers brother. I don't have mother space myself but I gave out a few cuts to friends who will hopefully keep her genes alive - I know at least one is keeping a mother. In total my run weights were as follows: Alien Wedding: 30g Orange Kush Cake: 39g Sugar Cane #1: 43g Bananium: 26g Gorilla Breath: 25g Strawberry Banana: 50g Green Crack: 20g Sugar Cane #2: 23g Mandarin Cookies: 33g Holy Grail Kush: 25g+- Orange Kush Cake ^ Bananium ^ Sugar Cane #1 ^
  23. You can use Amblyseius swirskii mites which feed on the young stages of Thrips. I've got some on the way from Livingseeds.co.za, but they do take a while to get here once ordered, about 15 business days. So if you're in late flower it's probably going to be too late. Otherwise you can also find some Stinkwoods and try bring in some Lady Bugs from it. I sometimes steal a few of the young ladybugs to help control a bit, but other than that - yellow sticky traps can help as we as BioInsek (Beauveria Bassiana) which can be used in flower (it's a biological insecticide). Thrips are pissing me off at the moment too...
  24. The problem is a lot of people don't seem to know what makes a good breeder. They think that throwing together good looking cuts and doing some S1 is what makes a good breeder, "Looks fire so it must be a great breeder" on the other side there is the "Oh, this guy is running classic heirlooms, he must know what he is doing". The real good old school breeders are actually typically the guys in the US who were trading cuts in the underground long before any of the dispensaries started showing up. There are a lot of good podcasts out now by highly respected breeders, and just listening to them discuss the source of their cuts will get you in tune with who is really doing good work out there - and give some insight into the breeders which are publicly praised but were shady fucks in the industry who screwed over other breeders. People see hype more than they do anything else. There's also unfortunately a lot of people still stuck in the 90s, thinking that breeders who were putting out hype strains back then must still be doing good in the game. And because South Africa was quite limited in its exposure to the US underground breeding scene, not a lot of growers here are actually aware of the 'real OGs'. The problem here is that we see European genetics as superior, thanks mostly to the fact that they were the ones who controlled the foreign genetics market here for decades. Look at SkunkVa from Lucky Dog Seeds, that dude was part of the group of travelling 'dead heads' who basically just followed The Grateful Dead around America, and in that community you had some of the best growers of that time sharing cuts between each other, and creating fucking legendary strains. SkunkVA is known for his Chem '91 cut ( worth listening to how it came to be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zizcd3O92ps ) - but there is very little interest locally in these guys who originated classic cuts. If you're looking for quality breeders that have a good balance of old school but without being stuck in the past look at: - Riot Seeds - Archive - Lucky Dog (he almost exclusively works with his Chem cut though, so not much variety) - Bodhi - Duke Diamond etc There's a lot of other guys doing really good work and still actually breeding with males and females and not just seed making (silvering fems), but the above are some of the more respected guys who typically have the best connections to original cuts. With the Chem '91 mentioned above, SkunkVA himself has said majority of people claiming to be working with the cut don't actually have it (and its his cut). So one can't simply just look at a lineage or cut and take it at face value. To find the best breeders, listen to the originators of legendary cuts and see who they vouch for. You'd be surprised by how small the list really is. Granted my list is a little US leaning, but that's honestly where I see most of the quality coming from - and it makes sense given that the new legal infrastructure there offers such a good platform for breeding development Locally, I do like the work that Jay does. He has an interest in heirlooms, but isn't afraid to throw in some killer genetics from more 'hyped' breeders like OG Rascals (a personal favourite if you're into OG lines). As for which strains I've grown that I liked the most... My favourite strains haven't typically come from the "best breeders" and in some cases were even from dudes whose breeding practices are hated by 'real breeders' - Colin from Ethos has what is considered some terrible breeding methods, but the flower (assuming it doesn't herm) can still be really satisfying to grow if you're doing it for bag appeal or flavour. It's been difficult to get high quality breeders genetics here, so most of the strains I'm looking forward to running have only just made their way into my collection, but I'm definitely looking forward to my: Archive, Dungeon's Vault, Cannarado, Swamp Boys, Thug Pug Just give this a watch before you buy more Dutch genetics (addresses both Reeferman and Sensi mentioned by Chris above):
  25. Thanks dude There's 12 plants in the tent (1.2x1.2), and lots of empty space between the "canopy" so I'll be happy with a 350g average for the tent. I gave some cuts to some friends and asked that they keep them going and spread the genes (I have no need to be greedy since I grow for myself). I'll probably get a proper mother going soon though if I can sort out the space. She's a hell of a keeper
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