(TLTR: this is a seedshare)
Hi, I am Arnold
and my passion is growing plants.
I love all plants but growing cannabis under the sun has a special place in my heart.
When growing at 52 degrees North it is very important to have the right genetics at hand. Go for guaranteed success instead of a gamble.
When I started growing 18 years ago there were a few Dutch crosses that were early enough for our situation, but the best stuff came from Denmark. Shout out to Hybrids from Hell and froebanken. A few years in, I discovered that there was a big Canadian outdoor growing culture. I was able to learn from the best at the UnleashDaGreen and SeedShare forums. I can’t name them all but eternal thanks to krk, BreederBrad, Da’Shadow, Zygote and all the others showing us youngsters the ropes, sharing knowledge and genetics.
Over the years I grew almost any early outdoor variety I could find.
I distilled a few goals for my own seedmaking out of that.
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Main goals:
- Keeping terp heavy smells once dried
- Compact buds
Bonus points:
- Ultra early finish: mid September harvest @52N
- Keeping color when stored instead of turning brownish.
If I was reading that, I would think: “you’re selecting cannabis and your goal is not the effect?!”
10 points if you had the same thought!
The answer is: I am comparing highs of the plants that I selected based on the main goals. So smoketesting definitely is a step in the process, but it comes after the main goals.
I have a whole other project where the high is the only goal. You can read about that here and here.
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The genetics used for early finish can be divided into
“Earlies”
…is how I call them, but light sensitive varieties would be more accurate. They start flowering when the days are still long.
You can keep them as motherplant. It’s not always easy, but it’s possible on 24/0 and with enough root space.
Most of them will start and finish flowering under 18h of light. Some of them on 20h, 21h, …
When I call something “Ultra Early” I mean finishing mid September or earlier.
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Autoflower
or dayneutral plants. They will start and finish flowering on 24h of light. You can not keep motherplants.
99% of the available auto seeds are descendants of lowryder. But there are other known autoflower genes. When I mention auto I mean lowryder auto unless stated otherwise.
This gene seems to breed recessive when crossed to a photo parent, resulting in fairly straight forward Mendelian Punnett squares. When crosses to an early other rules seem to apply. You can hit 50% true auto’s in the F1 cross or even 100%. In the F2 generations it gets even more bumpy. (sidenote: this also seems to be the case when crossed to equatorial sativa’s)
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Photoperiod
All the other plants. The majority of the known varieties. They start and finish flowering at 12h/13h/14h of light. They can be kept as motherplants. Short “photo”.
Most of them finish too late for outdoor growing in the North. Especially if you want compact, frosty buds. More is possible when growing for your own jars, especially if you don’t mind the risk of not harvesting that particular plant.
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This is good visualization of why we need light sensitivity in the Northern latitudes:
A few Northern growing area’s as reference:
Denmark 54N to 57N
The Netherlands 51N to 53N
Canada 45N - 49N
We all reach the equinox at the same day: the 22th of September it’s 12h light and 12h dark. But the more North you go, the longer the longest day of the year and the bigger the daylight swings are.
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For outdoor genetics it is useful to know what the advantages and disadvantages are of the different finish times. In the following I will share how I see those. I grow at 52N so when I say Mid September finish it may not correspond to your situation.
As a general rule of thumb you could distract 2 days per latitude less North. For example a 20 October finish @50N is roughly a 10 October finish @45N. It depends on too many factors for a simple rule like this, but you get a rough idea…
Before we go into this a disclaimer: there will be exceptions to the patterns I see. Loads of them! I write this to tease your thinking about outdoor crosses. Not to spit universal truths. Bear with me.
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Before Mid August finish
Auto’s
This is only possible with autoflowers. In my opinion auto’s are only useful for people who really want a (first little) harvest in early summer.
Auto’s are finicky, often end up ugly or moldy. They hate cold soil. If you can grow them in pots in a greenhouse they can thrive. If you can plant them outdoors in soil that has been turned and heated by the sun, they can do good as well.
I am not saying it is not possible, I am saying other genetics tend to be much easier.
In my experience earlies or early x auto are much more adapted to the outdoor living. They grow bigger, healthier and nicer under sub optimal conditions.
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Mid August - Mid September finish
Auto or Ultra early x auto
Better suited for outdoor growing. A tad bigger and more resilient. But most of all: much prettier! They know how to make nice buds. Something autoflower have difficulties with.
You should transplant them early, keep them max 3 weeks in small pots. When the roots get rootbound they will start to flower and they won’t be able to recover from that.
The disadvantage of the warm temps as described in the next category also greatly applies to this one. It’s a bit of a gamble: harvest primo quality or lose harvest to botrytis.
Leaf septoria tends to do more damage late in the season so when that is a problem you can try your luck with these faster finishers.
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Mid September finish
Ultra early, (Ultra) Early x auto or [Photo x (Ultra) early] x auto
This is the area where I want to make a difference. These genetics are very difficult to find.
They come with a big advantage: they finish when the sun is still shines bright and long. They can transform this energy into building nice frosty buds.
Not only the light hours thaw when reaching October, the intensity of the light does too. As does the angle of the sun and the day/night temperatures. Cannabis thrives on temperatures above 15C (F) and with high intensity light and it shows when growing these ultra early varieties.
It’s not all rose colored though. The higher (night) temperatures come with a disadvantage as well: it’s also what molds like best. So when you are growing in spots where the dew keeps your plants wet long or in years with prolonged periods of rain or mist in September then botrytis will find its way into your grow.
For the best chance of harvesting great looking bud you’ll need luck with weather + an open spot that let the morning sun and air circulation in to evaporate dew and rain. Growing these in poorly ventilated hoop houses, for example, has often proven unsuccessful.
So in short: Sun starred quality, but only for superb spots!
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End September finish
Early, Early x auto, [Photo x (Ultra) early] x auto or some Photo x Ultra Early
These might form the most all round category. They do still benefit from the advantage of the light intensity and long days, resulting in shiny buds.
They are more forgiving and resilient than their quicker counterparts. They grow big and provide nice harvests.
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Mid October finish
Photo, Photo x Early, Photo x auto
When the intensity of the light drops, the days get shorter and the temps cool down, the plant metabolism slows down as well. This results in leafier buds, sometimes more lose, often not as terp heavy as the same genetics could have been.
The advantage is that botrytis has it even more difficult. The result is that October finishers tend to be less hit by that type of mold. Unless you hit very bad weather of course, which is totally possible this time of the year.
Plants were able to veg longer so grow huge providing big piles of harvest.
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End October finish
Photo, Photo x Early, Photo x auto
Pushing the boundaries. You lose quite a bit of the looks, you lose a bit of terps, you lose a bit of potency. But for some varieties the genetics totally make up for it. If you start with awesome potency you can afford losing a bit of that and get piles of harvest in return.
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Comparing harvest
More days of light = more energy stored = more plant = more harvest.
That means that as a group the harvest of auto’s is not comparable to the same harvest a October finisher will give. That is for each planted square meter, not even for each plant.
If productivity is your prime goal then you should opt for late season finishers. I would argue that if your prime goal is quality in terms of looks, terps and potency you have better chance of finding that in September or early October finishers.
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I love to see my brain marriages play out in gardens all over the world. So if you’ve done some sharing of your outdoor garden before and you’re up to doing it again I am eager to share some of my crosses with you.
I had a looking-back moment this year and wanted to focus on what stood out as my best outdoor crosses so far.
This is what made the list:
Mextiza x UEL F1 aka. MexKing
Ghost OG x Maverick F1
Erdbeer x UELearly F1 aka. SwissKing
UEL x auto F1
So I then decided to cross those with auto fem pollen in the hopes to get them earlier, frostier and add more terps as well.
I am thinking about remaking some of the F1’s as well.
All the seeds I am offering are untested in this form. The initial crosses were many times by many growers, but the cross to the auto is not. I, however, have enough experience with them to have confidence in the outcome.
Since writing the full genetics is a pain I came up with some silly names. You will find my strength lies more with crosses than with comming up with names haha 
There is a whole lot of years and selection effort boiled down in these offerings.
The OCAP auto is a housemix mostly from NightOwl, Mephisto and RocBud genetics. The female pollen donor was chosen out of 17 reversed females.
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olilo
Ultra Early Sativa S1 selection x OCAP auto 
Mid to End of September @52N
Pics of UES:
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siWis
[{Erdbeer x Ultra Early Love ‘ultra early S2’} F1 selection] S1 x OCAP auto
Mid September @52N
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Pics of the F1 mother:
Pics of F1 x auto by a Polish friend:
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voHov
{Ghost OG S1 ‘purple expression’ x Maverick ‘red type’} purple F1 selection x OCAP auto
End September @52N
Pics of mother
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xelex
{Mextiza x Ultra Early Love} F1 x OCAP auto
Begin to Mid October @52N
Pics of F1 by a Canadian friend:
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ThaiMav
Maverick red type S1 x WildThailandRyder (auto)
end August - Mid September @52N
Pics by British and American friends:
Northern outdoor growers unite! We go for indoor quality under the sun.
Much love
Arnold.
