Iām usually walk away from this debate, because itās very biased for both sides. When Iāve saw this product becoming more popular (around 2003/2004) than i was expecting, an entire universe was falling down for me. It was the sign that people no longer was buying genetic, but obviously promised buds. Iāve to write a kilometer of explanations to explain why i was hating that, why iām hating that more now that before and why STS is for me only a good experimental tool for very advanced studies of specimenās phenotype. Not a tool of production. Donāt get me wrong, Iāve produced fem seeds myself for Spanish growshops (the cheap ones with multi-label). And actually, i like this little period for the incredible access i had on these times on famous cuts to work for the purpose. At one point you have to accept the flow, then trying to get the positive from the negative over to just give up. Iāve give up a little later ^^, when Iāve finally understood that my time and my manner to see the things was done for good on a large scale. Itās why i love Overgrow, itās a bit of everything like it was previously.
Most of people understand that iām hating the growers of feminized seeds, itās not true. Iām hating the consequences Iāve saw coming a long time ago, as a whole. Add to it that iām a seed ogre and that i love to grow males as much than growing females. For me it was a game since the very beginning, so the nostalgia count also. Iām growing for seeds first, then the weed expressed by the females is a all-in-one companion : a judge on what Iāve done, a book of a strain/line to read and understand ā¦ well the weed is not so a finality for me. So yes, iām unable to understand the fems users. Iām just understanding their logic about space.
And yes for me, feminized plants are sub-product i will not lie by diplomacy or whatever. And iām still dreaming to a serious semi-private cup where everything is āadmitedā, not categorized and tested blindly for that reason. But it will not be popular and not sponsored like hell, so useless to chock people.
I will try to expose you quickly what i think, but you have to remember who write it (Iāve exposed honestly my bias now). Fundamentally, i put on the same table twos methods : backcrossing and STS (reversing, selfing, voodoo whateverā¦). And generally itās where i lost the audience ^^
These twos methods have something in common in practice, and for the output : youāre ābrute forceā a phenotype. The hard way. Youāre not juggling with traits and alleles in different sequences (generations) anymore, youāre crushing the code with an unique phenotype. And, trust me or not, at its times the intensive use of the backcrossing by a breeder was seen like i see the STS.
More disturbing : my second favorite strain is an insane backcross, the Sweet Tooth #3. And iām suffering on it since near twos decades. Iām not even at the point to have stabilized it and iām only in F8. The seeds are germinating in front of me atm, and itās always a big stress for the hell that is coming in selection ^^ To give you an idea, to obtain 9 finalists with this line i need around 700 liters of medium (soil actually).
Pancake-scientists will turn white in reading that but the output of a backcrossing and a STS offspring are washed specimens. Of course, you canāt compare the level of pressure (insane for the STS) but on a conceptual level itās the same. Iāve explained in the big line, what kind of hell is it to work a backcross on long term to remove the necessity to work with the referenceās cut (blueberry and SPG in my case) ā¦ in making the things worst each time. Now with STS, try to figure out with a pressure that is a thousand times stronger and with uncontrolled denatured DNA portions. Within twos generations itās simply the chaos, even if you backcross to the P1 (not reversed). And yes the occurrence of herms are drastically increased, these seeds are not made for that at all. They are made to be used as final product directly.
Now, iāve nothing against the people that are working with herms. I personnaly love the ECSD as a weed and as a cut to work also, big fan (but i known what i get genetically). You see, itās complicated.
But using a feminized offspring to launch long term project, itās like cutting your feets just before doing a marathon. No sense, itās already hard enough.
By extension, for pure growers only, i donāt see any problem to make a motherplant etc ā¦ thatās not my point at the moment youāre fair and responsible for all of us in saying itās a feminized cut in sharing it, or maded with a fem as P1. Iāve nothing against that fundamentally. You will just change your mind instantly if you share a blunt with me from the initial P1 not reversed, and maybe ask me a fem bag of that on the fly, and complain that itās not at all at the level of what youāve smoked with me.
Itās an interpretation, but i donāt blame you because my horrible grammar. In fact iām strictly thinking, practicing and promoting (in vain) the reverse. Without inbreeding it, iām no longer interested in cannabis. Not even to smoke it, it lost all my interest. I prefer dogs if I compare, they will revive my passion to play with the gears of the creation ^^. But itās another game.
I really want to show you how much youāre irrational to think it, but with good intentions. Not to convince you in any way.
First important thing to get out from the grower perspective, is to have empathy for those playing with breeding. And for that you have to see others things that only the most bankable reality (fairy tales, buds and enormous females that have so much nutrients in their vegetal mass that they can send you to a clinic lol and of course the shiny catalog āproduced in gigantic greenhouses under 100KW HPS with 200 employeesā.
Iām feeling that I donāt have to explain to you, that selecting a motherplant to smoke daily is not the same that selecting eventually P1 for years. Itās not a matter of a 10-bag you get from website, but a matter of your own seeds because youāre eating them at an insane level. I let you try to evaluate how much will cost this germination with an average of 50ā¬/ten seeds. By the way, i love these seed sprouter and i hardly advise them. You can change the water often quickly, fast, without touching the seeds. They are comfy, get never dry. And itās cheap as hell.
So just at this point, itās easy to imagine that you have to plant this bunch of seeds. Individually. But also giving them an ID code and start to take notes at the moment youāre sowing it. By example, when at the end, you have to choose between twos identical specimens ā¦ you will choose the one sowed first. Just an example. But multiply that by an average of 25 to 50 traits under intensive watching all over the life of EACH plant. No matter how you do it, like an obsessionnal fool, like a hippie, more on tortures and darwinism (like Breeder Steve / father of ST#3) ā¦ it doesnāt matter if the concrete results are there.
And itās what happend to the slower ones generally ^^ The other being in veg since a while and barely ready to switch in flowering phase. Just to figure out that these plants are not machines, code or any other automated thing. You have to face the unexpected each time youāre germinating a single seed.
Now itās more how it look like when you have to put the bread on the table with it. Donāt miss the plastic cup on the background ^^
Itās where iām quoting the most important, and ambivalent, input of your opinion on that matter :
They are advanced theories that doesnāt really get you anywhere if you donāt actually know wtf you are doing already.
Absolutely. 100th true. But i think that your error of empathy and consideration is considering the whole work as a rush, not as a marathon. You miss also the experience on strains accumulated.
Today, with hundreds of seeds launched on this line and a good dozen of failed parallel lines (iām not a pancake-scientist able to see trough the DNA code like Neo, that never fail) ā¦ i can select the Sweet Tooth #3 in any type of context, with any number of specimens and in any context ^^ Within one week of vegetative stage, i known allready the specimens iāve to kill. Iāve saw them allready, many times. And i known the ones iāve to keep until the hormonal switch, because itās a the point to known the exact taste of the weed they will ouput without a single flower on the specimen. Male or female, they are just sisters and brother. They are the same plant with the vast majority of same traits.
Thatās the role of the human in this game. Be the memory of the lines, with a notation system or not. You have to known them all like your own childrens, and itās only possible if you aim at long term.
And you canāt start directly in knowing everything from the F1, you have to live it.
So iām expecting in secret that you realize that using the pollen of all males and testing on the fly all the lines donāt have any sense in cannabis breeding. Make the maths with the pics in mind (very little labs, the ones considered as āchunkersā by the big ones), how many lifespĆ¢n to output a decent hybrid like that ^^ A fews.
Methodism, no matter what style, permit to reduce drastically the lenght of time and to never roll the dices. You want to drive your plants from the start, not the reverse.
Now remember the table with cups in background. All these specimens was culled (+ another round) to obtain twos finalist specimens, that ouput that :
ECSD x Skywalker F1
Without the cut, multiply by twos the needs for specimens and dead-early-culled-seedlings, plants, budding females, herms, mutants ā¦
And yes this plant is why i love/hate the herm ECSD. Iāve made it the bad way by obligation. And itās my biggest frustration. A stupid one, itās not even a weed i want smoke daily. Iām hooked to something simple, classic and not hyped at all : the JH for life lol
