I’ve always been curious about runts and unusual plants. I’ve always kept runts around in the hopes that they would hold some secret magic or smoke experience, or maybe it only needs a chance to breed and will eventually give way to lightning in a bottle in its offspring. This has never occurred for me, though. There’s never been a mystical, magical smoke experience, or divinely vigorous offspring. It’s only ever been disappointment at the end of that tunnel. Have there ever been any extraordinary success stories from exploring runts and their offspring?
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I honestly see no benefits of keeping a runt around if it doesn’t have any qualitys your looking for.as far as cross breeding runts are usually the ones you want for gorrilla growing or small indoor grows if hights an issue. Iv never really grown a runt that stood out to me just disappointment
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I had a purple NL runt that was real nice, i unfortunately didn’t clone it, but i know what it looks like lol, if i find it again
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If you don’t plan on breeding, you don’t have that many seeds, or you just have your heart set on one pack of beans, sure grow the runts out.
If you do plan on maybe breeding or have a lot of seeds, toss 'em. There’s a million things that could take up limited space.
They can be interesting to grow out but usually disappoint. I am a big proponent of heavy culling though. Might as well flower the best, not the 98 lb weaklings.
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yup only had a few seeds, was first run after mmj
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It’s weird, because I am a huge proponent of heavy culling, as well. Health and vigor is a population based measure, imho. It’s only with cannabis where that falls apart for me. I never worry I might be throwing away a magic plant if I cull a runt jalapeno plant or get rid of a poorly performing morning glory, for example. I think it is the artificial scarcity of cannabis seeds combined with the spiritual and magical nature of getting high. It’s this perfect storm of sentimentalism combined with being miserly that makes me go on goosechases with poor plants.
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100%. Trick is to have a seed collection big and diverse enough where you don’t care about throwing away half the plants you germinate before they even make it to sexing.
Price is a big one. I’d say most of the seeds in my collection were free/trades and not something I paid for. Then again, I’d never (and have never) spent more than $100 on a pack of beans. If someone buys a $200 10 pack they definitely feel more motivated to grow every damn bean.
But like you said, yeah, I mean most veggie seeds are basically free, shit I’ll plant 20 tomato seeds and just grow the first 5 that come up.
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I have absolutely seen a “runt” be the best of the pack. Sometimes short, squat and dense is exactly what I am looking for.
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I was just going to ask this question cos i tossed two runts this morning, just not enough room here.
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Yep, the nl5haze-sensi-star I’m running, my best girl/keeper plant was the one runt of the pack and she came out to be the best plant out of the pack by far. Almost exactly everything I was hoping for. She could just be a bit more stinky 
Seen it happen two other times too but that being said, I’ve popped maybe 40 seeds in my life.
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There are several factors they could of caused that one plant to be a runt early, but if it picks up growth or if the clones grow fine and the smoke is excellent, no reason not to keep it around.
Or for someone with limited space, a slower growing, no stretching plant may be better for them. In my current case, the one that kinda started as the runt of the 4 plants I have in the 16oz challenge, is now the one that’s taking center stage.
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I am realizing the joint I just shared of Space monkey kind of wrecked me lol… was going to hold off on posting but here goes.
I only ended up with one female Heaven Mountain from my remaining seeds and it is much shorter than every other plant. I had to put it on a 2 gallon pot just to get it to get up with the other plants. The only other plant close to as short or “runty” is a Tigers Milk (bubba kush x appalachia) but that is still bigger.
That one Heaven Mountain is stacking it on, has crystals all over the place already at 16 days… didn’t stretch a ton either, smells amazing already.
Yah I guess what does runt mean. I figure the seedling that takes 2 weeks to get going is def getting tossed out whereas the slower, vegging, smaller plant could still be amazing.
aaand damn im rippped hope that made some sense
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Yes I have, but I’ll be damned if I can remember her name…
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The second time NL has been mentioned. I am not very familiar with that plant. I’ve never smoked or grown NL.
Speaking of NL, I don’t have an interest in growing it (all the grows I can do are already planned out), but I wonder if it’s possible to get real NL flower to smoke anywhere in a legal market?
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NL is Northern Lights, #5 being the most popular and the backbone of many modern strains. Any dispensary worth a dam should have someone that grows NL for them.
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“Survival of the fittest” in my house.
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I have been smoking for quite a few years now (less than a decade, admittedly), and most of that time has been in Cali. I have never, ever seen NL on any club menu 
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Everything we smoke now a days has a little NL in it I’d bet. Great base for vigor and plant health.
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Yea, I may be cynical about that, but that to me means most places aren’t worth a dam lol. they prob try to carry the newest craze cookie n cream stuff. NL is in the lineage of most of the stuff people are getting now, but the old school stuff is overlooked since it’s not hip. You want something with effect and not just bag appeal or flavor, then seek it out. One of my all time favorites. Wont forget it. It’s from the time people didn’t have time to mess around with just fun names, looks and tastes nice. It was much riskier to grow the stuff, it better be worth it.
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I’ve had them go both ways, they have been the best of the batch and some not worth the time and energy. One I considered a waste was one that literally grew strings of calyx instead of a proper bud, but earlier this year I seen someone on ICmag looking for a plant with that exact trait.
So I guess it’s all in the eye of the beholder. One mans trash could be another’s dream pheno.
What I have noticed is that most early runts are more from a problem during or immediately after sprouting and will grow out of it.
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