If you are growing from seeds each time and never clones and they have never been exposed to any other varieties that it’s a bit more unlikely but HpLVd is becoming more and more common. However, it can be transmitted through seed.
Hop latent viroid (HpLVd), lettuce chlorosis virus (LCV), and beet curly top virus (BCTV) are all commonly found in cannabis but tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), tobacco streak virus (TSV), tobacco ringspot virus (TRSV), cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), and Arabis mosaic virus (ArMV) should be ruled out.
I understand that you think that it is damn near resistant but it’s good to know that a long time cultivar is free of fusarium, pythium, botrytis and powdery mildew as well.
Is this true or hyperbole? I am very pleased with my Herijuana. The yield is low. I was imagining I might cross it to improve node spacing and perhaps bud size.
I’d say fairly accurate. I’ve run tons of scant-yielding plants that had awesome bud. Many of the so called “elite cuts” are like that. Point is, they’re pretty easy to find. It is very hard to find an “all around 10” plant. Green Crack, Blue Dream, Golden Goat are pretty close and is why they’re so popular (or were before they fell out of fashion).
Yep. That’s it in a nutshell.
If you only had 2 plants to pick from, you could probably just try them both and see what you get. But going through a large number isn’t practical. I could probably only judge/evaluate 8 phenos in a bloom cycle.
During my crash course education in selecting males, I’ve seen males with clusters of flowers that are insane! They look like big clusters of grapes, or even more solid than the females. That’s definitely a trait I’d select for.
And I’ve seen trichromes on male flowers that were so dense you’d be tempted to smoke it. another trait I’d select in a stud male.
I always say that good herb may not smell great- but bad herb will never have a good smell.
And according to Shanti from Mr Nice- hollow stems are higher THC indicators, and avoid the 1st males to pop and don’t pick the tallest one because he want to make fibers and not yummy goodies.
Here is the Shanti quote that someone linked to above
“Male plants of this species need to be carefully selected to avoid a lot of laborious work, which means one will need to do a lot of testing of F1 seed made from a particular male to verify if the sex linked traits are real or not. Males that auto flower irrespective of daylight hours are normally eliminated to insure against hermaphroditism or unwanted male traits. Males that flower too quickly or too tall are also not the best for breeding since they put too much energy into fiber production which is not the trait one is looking for in a medicinal plant. Males that have large hollow main stems are sought out rather than males that are more pith-filled stems - the main reason are that large hollow stemmed males are better THC producers than other plants. Males that produce tight floral clusters rather than airy sparse floral clusters are usually better to breed with. Finally if you rub your fingers against the stem of a developing male and are able to get strong odors or aromas (terpines) you will be advised to use these males as trichrome production and flavor are directly related to plants that produce odors early on. There are several other traits to look for in a male but these are rather advanced and need microscope help which is not really relevant for the hobby grower/breeder.”
And a $10 or $20 jeweler’s loupe from Amazon or a jewellery supply place is a great tool. It starts at 10X magnification and allows you to easily inspect flowers. pollen, trichromes at 10 times their real size. And even has a built in LED light.
Oddly- under my 60-100X cheapie pocket scope, pollen looks like grains of salt. not all all what I expected.
@vernal
Sorry for the newb question - but is Blue Dream a clone only strain? I know it’s passe on the west coast, but I don’t have it locally and it’s in my top two new strains to learn- but I can’t find regular blue dream seeds anywhere- always crosses. I’d thing after 10+ years they’d be cheap and plentiful.
Same for OG Kush. That’s another strain I’m dying to try for pain relief. But I want the ‘real deal’. I’ve heard SFV is closest to the original OG, so that’s my back up plan.
@SCJedi
… These are always grown remotely. Very healthy plants. The leaves are always nice and clean, if that makes it easier to tell if they have disease. I’d only do a test at home. I wouldn’t risk someone else having the genetic code of my plants. Too distrustful of big business. Ny is a tough climate to grow in. I’ll snap some pics at some point
That was my favorite when I was in Petrolia. Nice buzz. Blue Dream I wasn’t impressed with. Boring high. I’m sure you can find seeds, but you would have to pheno hunt to find what is cloned out west. I don’t recall the name of the company that sold that, but seedfinder could help you out.
That’s cheap! I should have said before that the Blue Dream I had in cali was delicious, but was grown for weight, not the high. Imo, they pick way to late. Perhaps if i had some that was picked earlier(the way I like it) I would have enjoyed it more.
Grown till the hairs fell off plus 2 or 3 weeks. The calyxes get massive, but of course the amount of resin remains the same and degrades at the same time. Perhaps why the high didnt stand out on any of them, but for SFV and sour d. Always home grown for me. Haven’t bought weed in 25 yrs.lol.
Nice find! I was just looking at his La Confidential the other day after a couple people here mentioned him. Good prices and a good rep.
dang, Now what am I gonna do with another 50 new seeds.??
I think I need to wait til I have a little bit more room.
Good grief this is already out of control.
@Upstate I’ve heard that blue dream is one of the most popular strains in the tech areas and i want to see if the hype lives up to the claims.
I think Blue Dream is so popular due to the excellent flavor it has. The THC percentages are high, but it must be lacking some other cannabinoids in my opinion. I hope you find what you’re looking for. I was excited to try all the popular West Coast strains myself when I was out there. Personally, I think they’re too focused on THC percent. I don’t know what the percentage of my heirloom variety is, but only sour diesel and San Fernando Valley Kush were as or more potent, though my THC percentages are probably not nearly so high.
I think reversing a great female is the way to go. Especially if you are only looking for great personal smoke.
Tony Green was talking about how Tom Hill would always say, “males are a waste of time.” It makes sense.
You find a good female, reverse it…throw the pollen on another of your favorite females.
Pop the seeds and repeat. It would save years…if you don’t mind fem seeds.
I mostly breed for seed stock but in the past few years iv been pairing up genetics and traits i want. I like hybrids and indicas and tend to love stuff thats fruity skunky or gassy i tend to grow outdoors so mold resilience is a must. Having pritty flowers is cool to with colors that change before harvest.
Example i collected some raw & sour (mendopurp x sfv x gg#4) x sour grapes (sd x grape ape)
Hoping to pollinate some lemonskunk x m.a.c.
And humble hippie, hippie killer x (grapestomper x black head)
Bluedream x mawi wowi
The raw &sour is a nice hybrid fast flowering nice and bushy plant with purple colorful hints (started flowering around 2nd week of August)
Im hoping to breed something that is a nice enjoyable smoke but flowers earlier on. guess i wont know till i try like most pollen chuckers
I have enjoyed reading everyones comments. I threw this topic out there because I was interested in seeing what everyone is doing. It appears that we select males based on qualitative selection. I haven’t read anything yet that describes a quantitative method for selecting males, ie analytical analysis. I do find Shanitbaba’s theory on stem density very interesting for male selection. I have to admit that I have selected males based solely on what I felt looked like the best for my purpose. Specifically, stem rubs, node spacing, leaf structure, vigor, and flower structure.
I’ve been a lab rat for 20 years now. Flowers are a pretty straight forward analysis. THC, CBD, and terpene profiles, but male plants are a grey area.
I have a theory that all the stressing and selfing is leading to genetic instability in the gene pools. I think the downside to this genetic modification will be more seeds carrying hermaphroditic traits. Prove me wrong…
