My next project, which is already in the works is to cross both the Mexican and the Bangi Haze to some f2s I made of Bohdi’s Prayer Tower sativa. Prayer Tower is a cross of Appalachia and Lemon Thai. Bodhi made the cross with two different Lemon Thai mothers, one a sativa leaner and the other an indica leaner. I got the Prayer Tower sativa as a freebie and it was discontinued pretty quickly. I had a lot of issues with it and that was probably why it was discontinued. A number of my f1s were hermies but I managed to make an f2 cross that is stable. The problem with my f2s though is that the top buds always get bud rot about a month and a half into the grow. It is unfortunate because the lower buds are really nice smoke. They have tropical fruit flavors and are very frosty.
My Bangi Haze keeper has similar but less pungent aromas as the Prayer Tower and Ace touts the strain as being very mold resistant so I am hoping that a cross of the two will fix the Prayer Tower’s issues while retaining its desirable traits.
I also want to cross the Mexican to the Prayer Tower just to see what I get, and I think its looser bud structure might help with the rot issues.
I already have Bangi Haze and Mexican clones going for this and planted the Prayer Tower which has sprouted in the last day or two.
After this grow I am going to grow out the seeds I just made to see how they are in terms of intersex traits and general quality.
Sounds like that prayer tower is gonna be fun breeding stock! Haven’t seen that one grown out, so I’ll follow along when it kicks off. Nice work stabilizing the f2 gen.
The Bangi Haze sounds similar enough to the Prayer Tower, and i have a feeling you’ll find what you’re looking for in the cross. What do I base that on? Just vibes.
Thanks for the update homie, see you next time
Some updates on my grow. This is going to be day 1 of flower on my next crop. I am going to be flowering three Bangi Haze clones and one Mexican along with however many males I get out of the Prayer Tower. It is going to be an open pollination.
After some thought I think I am going to get rid of my Mexican keeper clone after this grow and try to find a better one. When I was growing this line under HPS all the plants were very similar but now under LEDs I am seeing more peaks and valleys in terms of quality. The main attribute of my keeper is that it doesn’t hermie, but its potency and terpene intensity aren’t as good as some other plants I’ve grown, and it is really temperamental. Since I still have close of 100 of the f2s and 20 of the f1s I am going to look for one that checks all the boxes of potency, terpene intensity, ease of grow and sexual stability. I am still going to grow out the f3s I made this winter, just to see what I got and to assess the quality of the male and see how many hermies I get in the cross. I still have a clone dad of the male. I suspect that reproducing this line at its best potential may be a project that takes a few years.
Here is what I’ve got today:
The Mexican is coming out of a funk that it has been in for the last few weeks:
The Prayer Towers are still pretty small, but since I am only growing them for the males and am going to cull the females I think they are big enough to start flowering:
@Som I am super glad to hear that. I thought the same thing if I am honest. I was looking at that female and thinking “I know the line can produce much prettier girls than her”. I didn’t want to to be rude and say it, but we came to the same conclusions anyway. I think you are doing the right thing for sure.
I really wanted to use the other female I finished from that grow because it had good frost, good terps and was easy to grow but it produced one hermie flower a couple days before harvest. It was almost the one. I want to find one like that, that is more stable. But first I want to see what that sativa leaning male did so I know if it is worth keeping.
A random thought this strain has me thinking. I wonder if part of the reason it seems that most of the strains with old school sativa highs are gone is because we bred them to taste and smell good. Most of the old sativa lines had funky and weird aromas, and this one is no different. Fresh, it smells like Christmas wreath and cedar wood. Cured it smells like musty bay leaves. It is nothing you would choose in terms of flavor, especially compared to modern candy weed. A lot of the old sativas were similar - they would have black pepper, earthy, herbal or church incense aromas, maybe with a bit of mango or lemon on the edges if you were lucky.
When they were hybridized with central Asian indicas with more fruity flavors it was usually the fruitiest or gassiest weed that was kept as the keeper. Now as a result most of the weird tasting sativas are gone. If terpenes are partially responsible for the entourage effect, it isn’t necessarily a given that the ones that taste the best also feel the best. It is possible that among the terpene profiles that were left on the cutting room floor were some of the ones that gave us the distinctive highs that people are nostalgic for. Because this bad tasting weed does some things that the modern stuff doesn’t, at least for me.
I am thinking I’m going to let the Prayer Tower females go as long as they can. When I grew them for smokable flower the main colas all got bud rot but I want to see what happens. If any of them don’t get bud rot I am going to save the seeds from them. I see it as a freebie cross - no downside, while the upside is I might get f3s with greater mold resistance.
The Mexican is still being temperamental, all the other plants are looking great. I think there is some phenotypic variation in the Mexican in the way it draws nutrients and that is the source of the more difficult individuals. Some plants in the line require almost no extra nutrients and some seem to need tons. I am going to try to breed to towards the less nutrient side. The individual I am working with now is definitely towards the hard end of the lots of nutrients side. I’ve noticed that in the past when Ihave out crossed individuals like that to modern strains the seeds from that cross tend to have more normal nutrient requirements.
My AllStar is coming down Monday on day 70. Should be some good smoke for summertime fun. I will get some better pictures when it is cured up. I just stuck my phone in the tent and snapped a pic so it isn’t that photogenic.
It is day 36 of flower. This batch is going pretty well but there are a few things I need to dial in for future grows. I changed over from HPS to LED only a few grows ago. I have always tried to use a light hand on fertilizers. I am discovering that plants grown under LED seem to go through ferts more quickly. I am still learning how to calibrate this properly. My Prayer Towers that were from seed are fine but my Bangi Hazes from clone have some mild deficiencies that I have been playing catch up on for most of the flower cycle. On the other hand they smell great right now with sort of an anise/citrus thing going on. Although this thread is devoted to my Mexican projects I am really excited for the Bangi/Prayer Tower cross, there is going to be at least a couple thousand seeds of them.
Some phots from today. This is the garden as a whole:
I am at day 50 of flower, things are coming along well. All the plants are looking pretty good. I’ve stopped fertilizing the Mexican so it can progress with its fade, I will probably start the same with the others in another week or so. The Prayer Tower Sativa has a nice citrus lemon/lime thing going. The Bangi Haze has an intense orange peel and anise aroma this grow, it only hinted at that the last time I grew it. I am kind of regretting not keeping the mom. There are thousands of seeds, that is the important part.
I’m on day 60 of flower. The Mexican and Bangi Haze look almost done. I am probably going to bring them in sometime within the next week. The Prayer Tower sativa looks like it has a few more weeks left.
I just finished trimming. This was a seed run so I wasn’t too interested in a good trim but it still took me forever. I never give the old sativas a modern trim, it just takes too long. I feel like the old school lazy trim is appropriate for old sativas.
