Roll up of all my comments to what I missed by not being here the last few days.
Dang those Gojis are chunky beasts. I love how they look! Having only smoked but not grown it (yet - F2 run could happen anytime), this has me super excited. You were a very good caretaker of those plants (support issues aside lol) and it looks like they’ll reward you for it. But, it all comes down to how they smoke. Can’t judge a book by its cover unless you’re growing to sell.
For the purposes of F2, all strains deserve to at least make a few babies the first time you run them, but old and out of print strains are the best if you’re going to share the F2. (Mother’s Milk F2 are on my short list of next preservation runs after Good Medicine.) I’d suggest just finding a female you like and using any male as long as it’s not unhealthy. There will be enough variation in those F2 from just two parents that you’ll likely find a lot of good in the offspring. Sometimes the dad is dominant, sometimes the mom, but variety is the spice of life. If you don’t find out until after you’ve made F2 that you didn’t enjoy the cross, Johnny Appleseed them in rural areas or give them to a veteran’s organization.
Or you can do like I do and use all the males and females in a typical heirloom preservation using “open pollination” - I’ve read it’s still considered open pollination from a genetics’ standpoint even if you apply the combined pollen of multiple males selectively to only a few buds of multiple females. It’s the multiple males and females that matter. Collecting pollen isn’t hard, but it will spread easily so beware and have your spray bottle of water handy.
As for chucking vs. breeding, I don’t know that it matters. If the outcome is good, do we care if the cross came from selections of hundreds of plants or merely a dozen? People theorycraft about this stuff all the time and I contend that it’s almost all immaterial to the discussion because most of the legendary strains used as baselines are bagseed anyway.
Also, to dispell any myths propagated on this site and elsewhere, bodhi does a lot of line work on his males in most cases. The HP dad is up to F6 I’ve read, and most of the other males being introduced are multiple generations deep. Wookie is F2 or F3. Purple Unicorn is F3. Kashmir is F2 or F3 from seeds that were already multiple generations deep from @Barefrog. He’s working on the Iraqi dad. He tests the males across multiple generations for a lot of things and then uses them on well-established cuts, tests them internally before testing externally, and generally vets the whole process more than any other breeder or breeding program, aside from some hemp CBD places with venture capital. So he’s doing work and the results generally show it. And, doesn’t he say he’s a “magician” not a breeder or chucker? Again, if the outcomes are generally enjoyable and positive, how much value is there in arbitrary categories we put them in? My thought is not much.
Just a quick thought on lens coverings for your lights - don’t use them except when spraying IPM or other foliar. Generally speaking, lenses and reflectors for LEDs actually significantly reduce the photon output, regardless of the style or material used, as measured by people on other forums. They were shown to produce as much as 15% less PPF using the lenses and reflectors on COBs. Most light fixture companies no longer ship with them as a result. Turns out it was a great marketing gimmick - they got us to spend an extra $20 per COB engine on stuff that made them perform worse.
Dude, listen to The Pot Casts with Bodhi, the ones I sent you links to. They are inspiring and so chocked full of info that I went so far as to start a transcript of them because there’s so many gold nuggets packed in there.
More soil is more forgiving in organics. 7gal is a lot but if it minimizes the watering cycles and gives them plenty of room to spread out, I’ll opt for that every time. I’m all for simplicity and bigger pots make the grow easier. I think to get yields the same per gallon of soil, you just have to veg a little bit longer and grow slightly larger plants. An extra week of veg makes a huge difference in those big pots.
Can’t wait for the smoke reports, man! Hope those fresh buds are good to you. Great job this grow!