Beautiful plants, and reasonably consistent in their overall “vibe”. Looks to me like the cross (probably F1?) for the reasons you note – in my experience the WCKash tend to be pretty reliable in passing on leaf structure (particularly the aggressive serrations), a stem rub with a minty/menthol/slightly pickle-like effect, and a general sturdiness of structure. The long inter-nodal spacing doesn’t reflect the Kash though, and I think you are probably right that what is pictured is the KXOax. On a side note, one complaint I have is that for all of the value they add in a cross so far as effects go, the terps tend to be just a little muted, at least in the small segment of the total Kash gene pool I’ve worked with.
So, the following would be more fitting in the Crowdsource thread, but that is closed so I’ll just drop it here with apologies for its length (…if I had a nickel…).
Part of the issue is that we are talking about two different “problems” with the product from WC’s grow. One is the variegation, the other is the damping-off pathogen – these are two separate issues, but appear to be very carelessly mushed together in the rhetorical drive toward denigration of all things WC. Maybe I’m just lucky (doubt it), but the damping off has never been an issue even in my hackey garden. Humor a few thoughts on the variegation.
First of all:
This is variegation from Generic stock consistent with that expressed in seeds from WC. (Am I the only person to have seen this?)
As for the “viroid jumping” thing, WC points only to that tiny mottled patch on a single non-Kashmir plant in his grow; can anyone point to an instance of a non-Kashmir or non-Kashmir cross acquiring the variegation via proximity or reused media? Over the last 2-3 years or so I personally grown three generations of Kashmir Azad, and as I’ve noted above, at no point – not once – did any non-Kash genetics express the unusual leaf coloration. And throughout that time I regularly had plants crammed together, and I reused media to an obscene extent, and if there was a transmissible pathogen in the mix it would have been everywhere. I don’t find his speculation of jumping at all compelling. Grow enough plants for long enough and a little mottling will show somewhere, that’s not what we’re talking about.
My personal experience aside, lets please pay attention to what the former member actually said. This will keep us from behaving like religious fundamentalists cherry-picking verses from their scripture to build theological arguments.
This whole hysteria begins with Diggy’s extremely problematic hypothesis that (nearly) all mutations in weed result from viroids – he refers to this as pure speculation and likens it to a conspiracy theory, the latter being an obvious tongue-in-cheek confession that it is at best a fringe idea; nonetheless, from that point of view it is a foregone conclusion that the variegation is pathogenic. It is thereby a given that Diggy would believe in the viroid explanation and say so, and thus quoting him saying so is irrelevant because his assertion is not fundamentally that it is pathogenic, but that all mutations are from viroids.
That’s what this conversation should have been about from the beginning, and all of this fearmongering could have been avoided.
Let’s play this out - if we are willing to accept his notion, then it follows that ALL varieties with any abnormality that might be a mutation (AKA: viroid) have to be treated with the same paranoiac response, as does every other product emerging from the facility producing the viroid ridden variety (Can’t be too careful! Maybe the whole place is contaminated!).
It’s entirely plausible that some mutations stem from viroids, but there are other well-known reasons for badly or unusually copied genetic material and its expression – it could be from heavy concentrations of unwanted recessives via inbreeding, it could be chemically induced (such as in Colchicine), it could be a stress response turning on a problematic gene, it could be a numbers game and mom made a mistake in the mad rush to make 5000 babies (and of course dad was no help at all…), etc.
Point being, Diggy was simply wrong, and whatever he said extending from that false premise can’t be granted any real significance.
If we had actually read what he wrote more carefully and followed how problematic (although interesting) his thought process was, we would not see beans he distributed through the dirtied-up lens detractors of the genetics are shoving in our faces, instead, we would be far more attentive to the fact that these were almost uniformly intriguing plants with overwhelmingly good qualities, and that in fact the variegated plants were often among the best of the bunch – hardly symptomatic of a virus, let alone a deleterious one.
I’m not claiming the variegation is a good or a bad thing, and breeding away from it when possible makes sense so as to avoid this kind of kerfuffle. And of course too much variegation could be bad, but the same goes for any other trait – a short variety, with tight internodal spacing. for instance, might have phenos that are too short (Oh no! Could be a virus! Get the torches and pitchforks!).
I don’t care at all about Diggy’s reputation here as he apparently did plenty to earn his OG-RIP status – by all means, hate away, but to trash the 1000’s of beans that were distributed when practically all reports of their performance are glowing is just ridiculous, especially in the face of how transparently flimsy arguments to the contrary are.
To those that are most vocal on the subject, please stop declaring “these seeds are infected!” That level of certainty is as irresponsible as Diggy’s own shenanigans.
Yes! - in addition to just getting our thinking straight, this is why dismissing the 1000’s of WCKash beans on such shaky grounds is such a problem. @firehead’s increase will be a deep contribution to our members and I’ll be in line for some like everyone else, but they are not standing in for the former gene pool - they will be different, and productively so, although doubtless complementary.
As for the fungal pathogen referred to, sure, keep an eye out, but do that regardless of the seed source.
fin