I’m always working on something, and enjoy preserving lines, as well as, making new hybrids.
My latest project is called Silk Road. It is a Tom Hills X-18 preservation that also mixes in several landrace and heirloom genetics from along the Ancient Silk Road Trade Routes.
A few of the things in the mix include Uzbeckistani, Iranian, Vintage Packistani, and Cherry Queen. I have a couple other non regionals in the mix including Ciskei to match the Apple/pear/citrus of the x-18, and Mango Thai. My thought here is the X-18 will be a nice pure strain to somewhat tame the Mango Thai, and will have good turpine/flavor matching.
Flipped them to 12/12 a couple weeks ago. Here’s a group picture from before the flip.
@StocktonT here are the two Mango Thai plants. Both are confirmed females. If they don’t stop growing tall soon, which I don’t think they will, I am going to need to hedge them!
Cool to see your project @Comacus those plants look very happy and
healthy. Interesting to see if any of the shorter types will tame the
south east asian dragon…
those two plants look happy to bro, don’t worry too much about the rather
wide leaf pattern as it will narrow and I predict you will see a lot
of side branching growth. Did you put them into flowering at the same
time? Did they react slower or about the same as the others?
@StocktonT I put all of them into 12’12 at the same time, and the Thai are just showing their first preflowers. They are definitely behind the others in their flower cycle.
Ideally, I would run a pure satty like this on 12/12 from seed, and maybe even reduce to 11//13 or 10/14 like you suggest. With the equatorial strains evolving under basically a 12/12 growing season their flowering is much more time dependent than light time dependent.
I did start some LST on the tallest one last night. The top was very pliable so I bent over the top 8-9", and tied it down!
We’ll see if it can be tamed with some X-18!
I think you are right on the branching too, and these will probably end up being big pine tree shaped plants!
The Ciskei is an interesting strain, and I love the structure on it. It is a South African sativa strain so doesn’t really fit into the Silk Road theme but it is said to have a spicy, green apple flavor, that should pair well with the apple, pear of the X-18!
It is a short statured sativa with a shorter flowering time. I am looking forward to this one!
These seed were F2s were Bushman’s Ciskei created by Bodhi.
@Comacus I totally agree that they seem to have a time delay in them. To me it
became obvious when I saw it the first time living here. It’s so
different from back home with the sun going down between 6 and 7 and
coming up between 6 and 7 in the morning. The sunsets are so quick
this close to the equator too. If they didn’t have some sort of delay
or lesser sensitivity to the photo period trigger to flower (or
whatever you’d call this theoretical thing) they would start
flowering pretty fast. Same as if you’d bring an indoor seed here and
try to grow it outdoors it would probably react as if you started it
under 12/12 indoors and start flowering after just growing enough to
carry a few bud sites. I have seen this when doing the 12/12 from
seed experiment indoors.
I don’t know if changing the period to 11 light hours will do much with
regular indoor poly-hybrids but (never tried it myself) it could be a
good thing to test out with the almost pure or pure NLD types. I
never saw much difference when I tried it on some polys indoors but
then again they are pretty much “used” to the 12/12 indoor
flowering fixed schedule. I have seen some lighting systems that can
be programmed to mimic the sun up and down and changes over the
season… would be interesting to see data from such tests too. There
might be a better system than just fixing the timer on 12/12, but
that has worked damn fine though for me with indoor hybrids but with
landrace outdoor types it might be a good thing.
Yea, I know the other Tom Hill that was an Afghani, what was the name of
it… damn, never mind, it was supposedly pretty dominant in crosses,
Deep Chunk is the one I think about. I don’t know much about the
X-18. I have seen Thai crossed to NL1 first generation that didn’t
look anything like NL1 but much like a Thai. Some of the landrace
types can be pretty dominant.
I pollinated the Cherry Queen, Vintage Pakistani, Ciskei, and Uzbekistani this weekend. Also chopped down the males after collecting pollen for a couple weeks.
Never like the watery eyes, and sneezing when the males are dropping their pollen so if is nice to have them chopped!
I was out of town for a few days, and came home to some very wilted Mango Thai plants. They really drink a lot of water.
I thought I might lose them but they, for the most part, came back. I think even just a few more hours, and they may have been goners. Good stress test I suppose.
I can be gone upto 6 days, 7 I’m pressing it.
I use those clear plastic bowls for under house plants.
Mine are 3" deep x 14" dis.
I like to give them a nice top water before I leave and I fill that bowl about all the way full.
When I get home the bowls are dry and plants still looking good.
And by the feel of things they’re ready for a slurp.
One of my favorites this run is the Ciskei. It is also one of the stinkiest in the room.
The Mango Thai are completely out of control! They have finally started to flower so if the stretch is done I may have a chance of finishing them. They did recover nicely from their drought experience.
hope all is well. Some interesting stuff in the mix. 
