Already have bro, I figure the best way to store these things is to put them to use, no point in
me just looking at em and they are getting old 
Refresh time.
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This is FAQ worthy material.
Do you employ different growing methods to achieve different expression when pheno hunting?
You mention environmental factors in your answer above but Iām not sure if this is purely academic or if you try to apply these factors in a practical manner.
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I guess I try everything in a variety of mediums and do a lot of vegging indoors and flowering outside, where I live atm I never get enough daylight hours to veg anything indica outside, any time of year it will just go straight to flower. I have discovered there are lots of benefits to this if you have the space because you are not limited by the amount of tent space you haveā¦ at some point; unless you run in full laboratory conditions and even then, if you have multiple males and females in an enclosed area you are going to get cross contaminationā¦ and thatās a real cluster fuckā¦
Whereas outside you can just pick them up and physically relocate them in groups far enough apart so they canāt cross pollinate. This probably does influence phenotype expression, but how is anyoneās guess.
I am not attached to any grow ideology; itās just a process is the way I see it. atm most of medium I am using is organic soil based, but I use dwc, hempy buckets, dutch buckets, thin film hydro, organic or chemical ferts or both. itās just a matter of whatās convenient and what the purpose is. I challenge anyone to outgrow dwc with any method other than maybe aeroponics (I have no experience, so canāt compare) if speed and production volume indoors is the goalā¦ but then I donāt think it tastes as good as whatās grown in the dirt, but some gear will be so stretchy with dwc that itās not practical etc.
I do reckon personally that you get the best out of the plants if they have developed and grown on a particular location thoughā¦ Iāve seen that many times in many peoples efforts
I guess if anything doesnāt thrive in the multiple environments I use then I donāt continue with it because itās not really any use to me.
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Iām curious now how much variation in expression one could achieve through environmental factors alone. I figure this is exactly where science and art blurs together.
And thus begins my breeding program for dank basements and spare bathrooms.
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Itās really fascinating how much variation is actually influenced by environmental factors. I know when I gift clones they always look a bit different when someone else flowers them out.
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Shitloads. Itās possible to grow two clones from the same mother, one indoors in dwc, the other outside and for them to look and grow like almost entirely different plants. Also there are numerous examples of plants in the wild occupying radically different adjacent environments and expressing in entirely different ways. This can be to the point that they are often regarded as a separate species or sub species often for ages before itās discovered they are in fact the same plant that has developed radically different phenotype expression depending on the place the seed lands and germinatesā¦
Some biologists consider all cannabis to be cannabis sativa with a wide variety of phenotypes influenced by the environment, and donāt even regard cannabis indica, or even cannabis sativa subspecies Indica to even exist.
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Botanists are pretty bad when it comes to Cannabis. Actually any plant species, as they classify plants according to the plant that is found and identified, first come first served. They do not take into account the genetics and ascendancy of strains, which causes confusion. Take the bamboo species Phyllostachys nigra. It is classified as the type form of Phy. nigra, but in fact it is a chimera of what is named Phyllostachys nigra Henon. Henon is the genetic mother species of all other nigras in the phyllostachys genera of bamboos. But the daughter species, a chimera (or sport) called Phy. nigra got the type form name, as it was found and named first. So its a stupid system from a genetic perspective. But historically they did not have methods to determine genetics.
As for Cannabis, when sativa, ruderalis and indica were named as the species of Cannabis, there was not a lot of agreement among botanists about them. And IMO, they are TERRIBLE classifications and names. For many reasons. If you look at the genetic studies of Cannabis, written more recently in several papers released in the last decade, from a purely genetic perspective, cannabis should all be one species with at most a few subspecies. At most there would be 2 species, with the ānon-drugā ruderalis and northern European hemp strains classified as one species, and the ādrugā sativas and indicas and drug-hemp (Manila Hemp) strains classified as the other. Those are the farthest apart genetically. What to name them? Hard to say. The common uses are sativa and indica for drug strains, and hemp and ruderalis for non drug strains. Legally the distinction globally is marijuana having THC over 0,3% and hemp having less than 0,3% THC. But this is blurred now in the US with federal law now classifying hemp as less than 1% THC and marijuana as over 1% THC. So we throw words around like indica and marijuana and hemp and sativa and ruderalis and auto flowering, yadda yadda. Sadly the botanists rarely change plant species and genera classifications, and these debates can rage for years and even decades.
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To add to this, Cannabis in particular will change phenotype in as little as 4 generations in a new environment from the one it adapted to previously. This is commonly called genetic drift, but it is not due to genetic mutations, as it occurs too soon for that to happen. What is happening is gene switching. Genes turn on and off other genes as a result of external growing conditions in order to adapt fast to new conditions in climate, altitude, weather and other changes. Cannabis has been around for a LONG time. Far longer than humans. Cannabis evolved in its modern form over 20 MILLION years ago. Modern Humans evolved all of 300 THOUSAND years ago. 20 MILLION years ago humans still had not diverged from any of the other great apes. Rapid adaptation of Cannabis to new environment has been known for a long time, and in some of the hemp books that I have farmers in the Colonial New England wrote about having to stay vigilant in selecting hemp breeding stock or the plants would rapidly degrade from what they were like in Europe and in early generations in New England. This has also been observed by many in growing exotic marijuana strains from seeds sourced from other locations in the world, myself included. Similarly when moving outdoor grown strains indoors, and vice versa. And from low to high altitude, high humidity to low, high heat to more mild climates, etc. Some strains are more stable. Others are more highly and rapidly adaptive. For this reason I only grow first, second and third generation strains. Then I go back to landrace seeds and make more second gen seeds to preserve the original phenotypes.
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When Iām growing with organics I donāt get deficiencies in my plants, thatās for sure. You donāt have to test the EC just add more materials before the last batch finishes rotting.
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Whew wee!! Man Iām glad I do not rely on anyone but myself, and what I read, and do for myself.
This is a click bait article, or should be. I started out, my first real grows after find OG, and replicated a NGB box. Cycled that for a couple of years making changes to it every cycle. Then built and ran, and lived with KFBās for a couple of years. Did a cycle with a HurtBack system, hated that one. Then went to soil 1 cycle hated that. Went to ProMix, and chems, got tired of that. Went into organics, learning to dose a 4" pot, then 10" pots, then started mixing my own organic medium. Been doing this for about 5 years now and love it!! And yeah itās some work, and I enjoy it. I also enjoy recycleing everything back into my outdoor garden also.
Hydro is easier, LIE just different stuff to do. Peat mixes are BAD, LIE. Chems are bad, LIE, OVER using them is just stupid. Bud 's taste better due to hydro or organics LIE itās the genetics.
This argument is such a waste of time. Just grow however your comfortable with. Such snarling and snapping about nothing but personal choices.
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Prior to a few years ago it seems, there was peace between the methods.
Lately the organic types have gotten a bitā¦zealous.
āSaltsā and ārockwoolā became a pejorative and organics became a weird arms race to see who could use the most archaic farming techniques. You need only read this thread to see it. Guys saying fertilizer makes weed not weed itās just so silly. Guys acting like sterile media is an abomination. Itās not about personal preference anymoreā¦itās all dogma and emotion.
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It doesnāt help that the topic asks āWhatās really the best?ā, thatās invitation to polarized opinion.
I received tutelage from a professional hydro grower a few years ago and one of the biggest takeaways was that rockwool mats are expensive. Disposing of several garbage bags of used rockwool discretely has itās own hidden costs.
I didnāt even realize no-till gardening existed until a couple years ago. I always had my heart set on building an aeroponic system but after an organic grow I realized Iāve been over thinking my life.
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Or 
Ozā¦
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What would be really neat to see at least from a sustainability angle is how weed does in aquaponics. Iām assuming itās not nearly as easy to dial in as salts or even organic soil but itās neat.
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Not to mention the guys acting like youre a dinosaur or a fool if you grow organicallyā¦different shit same toilet
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Weed does very well in aquaponics. There were lots of people working on that at Dalhousie University, I had a tour through the aquaponics lab once.
As for sustainability- nothing about university labs speak of sustainability. The sheer amount of equipment and infrastructure required to maintain the water at the facility puts their methods out of reach to the home hobbiest.
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From what I have heard dual root zone aquaponics may be able to rival DWC for yields as it is pretty similar, but in a living environment, no first hand experience so I canāt really say. Something to look into though.
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centralized production to serve large communities is different from home hobbiest cultivation though.
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Very much this. For anyone interested in aquaponics I recommend Growing With Fishes podcast. All about aquaponics, specifically with cannabis. The guy who does it was on an episode of the potcast as well. Very informative.
https://www.potentponics.com/category/growing-with-fishes-podcast/
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Obviously organics grows plants, I never said it didnāt. Itās just objectively less efficient and smaller yielding. Any ascribed subjective benefits to organic cannabis are dubious at best. Itās not about feelings, itās just the way it is. This conflicts with Vitalism, which is why so many people get their panties in a bunch over fertilizer. It does a better job without magic and I think that bothers people like you. The reduced growth and yield has to be justified somehow.
I donāt think anyone is a dinosaur or a fool for growing organically. Some people would rather grow shit in a big ol dirt bed and thatās fine. Itās acting like itās so much better and more noble and that fertilized Cannabis is bad that chafes me.
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