Been out of town for the last couple days for work. Missed the garden and garden talk.
Things are looking nice there! I’ve never seen the infected worm but certainly the normal kind. Last fall, I was naive to them and left them alone. I’d see them on the tomatoes or cannabis, and leave them be. The pot grew aggressively enough that it never really caused much issues until…harvest. And throwing SO much away to bud rot. It was several learning experiences rolled into one. I’ve had a pretty healthy IPM routine as a result, this season anyway. Neem/rare spinosad/starting with the BT ocassionally. And when I spotted worms on my tomatoes, pulled them off. I took care of some aphids on my peppers just by washing them down and spraying with some soap solution. The damn squash beetles are the only thing thus far to evade the organic methods.
I’m curious about your auto crosses. I am often on long drives for work and listen to meet-the-breeder style podcasts where the question always gets asked “how should I start breeding?” The answer is universally, “use the things you like.” I have to say, despite the fact that I haven’t smoked her yet, my SAD Fast (Sweet Seeds) is my favorite plant in several ways, so far anyway. It started flowering mid June, so it’s nearing harvest now. It may actually be done before the Critical Kush Auto, which keeps throwing out new buds and white pistils. It’s the standard version of the SAD (Black Domina) crossed with the Auto version of the same to produce a semi-autoflower. It’s many times the size of an auto but still had a slow auto flowering start. It’s compact but generous size would be a good match to my minimal consumption habits, and will harvest before I have to worry about conventional harvest issues in my area (caterpillars, thieves, pollination by other growers). I’ve been keeping a log of dates just to see where things are at, and how they compare to the breeder info. This plant is on the top of the list.
Apparently, the auto genes aren’t probably going to largely expressed in the first cross. Like we’ve discussed, book learning isn’t always the best way, and experiments are more fun anyway. As I understand it, because it’s recessive, call it aa, an Auto(aa)/Photo(AA) cross “according to the book” will be a 1/4 auto expression in the F2 generation (1/4 AA, 1/2 Aa, 1/4 aa). F1 would produce uniform Aa expression. My F1 SAD half/half photo/autos are clearly impacted by the auto genes though, which would make “sense” to me in that you’ll have that mix of flower genes. But I haven’t spent nearly as much time researching breeding, my goal is learning to first grow a good crop, then I could pursue breeding. I’d also love to breed for a certain bag of weed I got almost 20 years ago, that is unidentified but vivid in my memory. Favorite bag ever.
Cheers guys, have a great day!