Mutant Madness?

[crunkyeah]

Hey there. Over the last couple of days I’ve connected with a couple of members on here regarding mutant strain cannabis plants. I figured at this point I should just throw up a thread where we can discuss and collaborate further and possibly seek out the next hype strain.

Before I throw up the pictures of what I got going right now I want to discuss why I chose the plant varieties that I chose. Most of it was timing honestly. It just happened for me. Anyways, onward!

BerryFreak F3 V2 - My angel. She’s my prized jewel. Big yielding loud berry smelling awesomeness. Out of 12 seeds she’s the only one that survived germination. To date, EVERY seed I’ve cracked has germinated except those 11. Still don’t think I did anything wrong. This is the girl I will use in my breeding project. Pictures to follow and you’ll understand why.
Supafreak - I picked this mostly due to the 40 day flowering time. Unfortunately I have not found the fast pheno yet. Mine are going to finish around day 63 I think. I also selected Supafreak because of the possibility of a male to breed to other strains, not knowing that Freakshow leaves are XX-linked (female) recessive traits. Now I know I will only keep the fast flowering female and that’s it.
Duckweb IBL - This IBL was bred to have red/pink pistils in the beginning of flowering. Obviously they change as the plant matures but at the onset they’re lovely to look at. Without knowing a whole lot else about the plant this is the quality I wanted to extract from the genes, as well as possibly something with a webbed leaf.
Drunken Bastard F3 - When I was looking at ABC strains a few really caught my eye before I decided on DB. A large factor is that an Aficionado French Connection’s Sangria is part of the cross. I’ve grown a couple of strains from them and all of them I’ve been extremely pleased with. Every plant I’ve grown from them will absolutely refuse to give up a dead leaf. Most strains have been absolutely awesome to grow and watch blossom. Anyways ABC was hybridized with a strain I wasn’t familiar with (sangria), but it added awesome purple coloration to the buds! With decent THC/CBD levels and purple buds with mutant leaves!?! I could not contain myself. I have to find a keeper mom, and a dad to throw some pollen at my BerryFreak.
Quack Bastard F4 - Literally just got these seeds in the mail today. If you google quack bastard f4 you can find the archived IG post I think which shows it. It’s absolutely beautiful with webbed ABC leaves! I have 12 seeds soaking right now. Again, looking for a killer mom and dad for breeding material.

First cross will be Duckweb IBL x BerryFreak F3
The 2nd and 3rd will be Quack Bastard & Drunken Bastard, can’t decide which will go first yet. Need to see them grow into plants before deciding.
Also, later this year I’d like to breed some long flowering sativas to my BerryFreak but idk I may want to flower one of those out before deciding whether I want to breed with it or not. My gut instinct just says to go for it though, so in all likeliness I may just seek out males for breeding. I’m not entirely sure I want to delve into this project this year or next. The mutants might win 2022.

Anyways, in the flower room I have 5 girls. 2 Supafreak, pictured at the top (smaller buds), 1 BerryFreak (huge buds), then in the middle there’s Imperium X (purple), then at the bottom GTR (hermed on me). Day 49 of flowering.

Be forewarned! I am not yet familiar with OG’s photo uploading so pictures may be all over the place.

[RandomHumanoid]

Be careful. I’m pretty sure growing mutants is like an addiction within an addiction. Its awesome that so many people are so interested in them. Which also incentivizes people to try and reproduce their oddballs, which will just add more new mutants down the road.

Those square bottom solos are pretty awesome hu? I got some too.

So you haven’t grown the red pistoled duck yet? I was looking at them at one point. I read about some other variety that has red pistols and it said they only turn red if grown outdoors. I wonder if these are the same way.

[middleman]

I’ll be watching your progress. I’m currently waiting on some seeds of ABC crosses to finish so I can grow them out. I also have grown Supafreak (very cool plant), and I have seeds of Berry Freak which I have not grown yet.

[crunkyeah]

@RandomHumanoid - I’m starting to understand this addiction within the addiction! It’s definitely caught me by surprise. And yes, I haven’t grown a red/pink pistol plant yet. One thing which may help is that my LED light spectrum also contains IR (735nm) and UVA. I’ve heard purple colors are sometimes tricky to show but I have no issues there!

Curious to see them flower either way! I’ve heard the bud structure is good, and the smoke is enjoyable. Either way, they’re beautiful little plants I’ve slowly gained an admiration for.

The solo cups have made a nice addition to my seed germinating techniques. I should poke holes in the bottoms of them but I’ve been too busy lately. I can’t stand those seed trays. My seeds always get stuck in there and I end up partially mangling them just getting them out. With the solo cups I have 0% transplant stress.

@middleman - Thanks for pulling a chair up! Between the two, BerryFreak is hands down the better version, in my opinion. If you have the V2 seeds those are really rare and contain some gems! If I could give a tip, make sure you use natural light for the seedlings. Mine didn’t like LED light until like the 2nd node was growing. If you get one like mine you’ll be extremely pleased with it. It has oily resin and the trichs just cover the plant.

I really wish I would have had a male out of my pack as well, but I’m happy with my 1 girl.

[middleman]

@crunkyeah

If you have the V2 seeds

Mine are the BerryFreak F2 V1, so not the same as yours unfortunately.

[crunkyeah]

Actually those are the same it’s just a different male I believe. I think V1 has a chance for pinnate leaves, it’s smaller than the V2 but you could still get one with some luck on your side! I’ve also heard the deeply serrated plants yield very well too. The leaves can be described as flame-like. Been wanting to see one of those myself! I’ll be curious to see them when you get them going.

[low_and_slow]

Does the quality of the finished smoke hold up against other non-mutant strains you have grown in the past? I’m always curious about these varietals because they strike me as likely sources for novel cannabinoids or other secondary metabolites, but I’ve never seen anyone post bud shots that looked like the kind of finished product I wanted to have around. Curious if you feel like the ornamental nature of these plants in veg creates a compromise in the flowers?

[crunkyeah]

@low_and_slow - Great question! This is the first time I’ve flowered out a mutant so I don’t know what the effects are yet. Potency, taste, etc all will be coming in a month or so!

I think the thing to remember is that there are a lot of different bud structures, even in normal cannabis. Some are dense, some are airy. Some are the perfect mixture in between. Some buds will foxtail, and some just expand into super-huge calyxes. Some have insanely large pistils and some are short and stout. The thing with mutants is they’re relatively new to the breeding scene. Some of the well renowned strains around the world have already been cultivated for decades to get where they are today.

I think it’s entirely possible that using selective line breeding we can introduce new bud structures/flavors/aromas/terps/etc to the mutant lines. Of all the mutant strains I can successfully say Freakshow seems like ‘normal’ bud to me, except with a different leaf. In my last round of flowering I had a strain called Big Bazooka. Obviously it was a high yielding strain. The way Big Bazooka stacked buds is very similar to the way BerryFreak stacks buds. The Freakshow seem to be a little different oddly enough. They both (BerryFreak and Freakshow) seem to grow like any other strain I’ve flowered it’s just a little different.

I can’t comment on ABC and Ducksfoot but they also seem like unique structures too. From what I’ve seen, I could honestly agree with you on the bud structures. I haven’t seen an ABC or Ducksfoot hybrid that makes me go “DAYUM!” but a lot of poly-hybrid strains do. The thing is, we could take any desired strain, & cross it to our freaks. In the F1s you can select phenos matching the new bud structure, so that by the time to get to F3 and beyond you’ve essentially changed the finished product. Breeding in the higher thc/cbd/etc levels while also maintaining the unique leaf shape.

I think it’s just a matter of time before we start to see modern hybrids showing up in mutant form. I know the potency isn’t quite where most people would like it to be, so I think we’ll see this a lot more in the next 5 years or so. I’ve seen there’s a GG#4 x Freakshow cross going out there and from what I read the potency is more normal for a modern strain. Once more people do this and stabilize those hybrid strains I think we’ll see more adoption of these mutant genes into the mainstream.

EDIT: As far as secondary metabolites go, I too am curious about these mutant strains and unique terpenes. I plan on working with Malawi Gold into the mix down the road simple due to the THC-V levels that strain has. I will also look at some point at making a CBD/CBG mutant line. I have a strain called Imperium X which is rumored to have high levels of THC-P. At some point we’ll get all these unique terps in the mix! Just a matter of time

[HappyTrees23s]

Dude ! I’m so happy you started this thread, I love freak’s!

[Alaskagrown]

I’ve always took it a bit personally growing out mutants/runts…like it was challeng or mission to get them through…lol

You got my attention

[RandomHumanoid]

its good to know your freakshow turned out normal. I’m curious if anyone has found a freakshow male whos flowers aren’t mostly unsheathed because thats what all the pictures I’ve seen look like. Are there other varieties that do that? I pollenated a freakshow and it had naked seeds. Then I let its sister get lightly pollenated outdoors and the seeds had covers. Now I’ve pollenated that 2nd plant again heavily indoors and the seeds are naked again. At least I got some pics this time. I grew my first F1 seeds out and they had normal bud. Now the f2 freakshows have weird uncovered flowers again. Still waiting to see what those females end up looking like.

[crunkyeah]

You know, from my GTR that hermed and tagged my other flowering ladies I did notice both my Freakshow and BerryFreak had “open” seed pods. Actually I was able to pop a seed out of a top colas on a Freakshow girl without harming it at all. The seed practically fell out on its own!

I think this quality might be the reason my Berryfreak seeds were white. They weren’t immature they were legit white/beige. They also seemed to have a funky shape. I think this quality comes with the bud structure. If we had a Freakshow with different bud structure/resin profile maybe that trait could be bred out. I have a Freakshow male but I’ve considered dumping him since I have a keeper female to work with.

This trait only shows up in the Freakshow-showing phenos right? Seems linked to the leaf type.

[RandomHumanoid]

The F1 males had the weird flowers even tho they only have the X-linked recessive showing. Moving forward I’m going to keep an eye out for plants with more cover on the male flowers and the females seeds.

[crunkyeah]

I hope the seed is easy to see. Is this what you mean by an “open” structure?

[RandomHumanoid]

its hard to tell for sure, but it looks like its naked. But it also has bud swelled up around it hiding it. I pollenated hard and early so everything is more exposed.

[crunkyeah]

Are your seeds on the heavily pollinated plant even more exposed? If so, I will also select for ‘covered up flowers’ if possible. It’s not a trait that I think would lend to the long term survival of the species in nature. Gotta protect them seeds from the elements!

I have a curious question for any readers/followers. Does anyone know where to get their hands on a BerryFreak male? I would LOVE to make F4 seeds of BerryFreak but unfortunately she’s the only one I have. I have actually considered cubing BerryFreak much like Cinderella 99. At least once cubed, I could find a male BerryFreak that theoretically is 97% of the mom’s genes. Is this road worth going down or should I just keep her and use her for breeding material?

[RandomHumanoid]

The pictures where of the “heavily pollinated plant” I was referring too. Outdoors a clone of the same plant had covers on the seeds. That outdoor one was pollinated very lightly(accidentally).

Space and time management can get hectic if you let it. Just look at it all as part of life that will yield results some day, and until then pick whats most important to you to finish fastest. If you want to stabilize and recreate your mutants individually, as well as cross them, and stabilize the crosses it might quickly turn into your lifes work. I would say self her, but I lost track of how many times I failed trying to reverse a freakshow. 5+ now. I finally gave up. My last 2 tries went well and should have worked imo. Lotta flowers with no pollen. But they were the same unsheathed flowers on a reversed female. I know its possible because they released fem freaks. Might just be that plant.

[crunkyeah]

@RandomHumanoid - That’s good to know about reversing! I have not delved down that road yet as I’m more traditional in my approach. I would rather have regular seeds than feminized seeds.

The space/time constraints are very real too! They only grow so fast and I want to breed them together yesterday.

As far as the naked flowers go, I’m fairly confident that with enough poly-hybrids being crossed to the mutants that it’s just a matter of time before one of these strains fixes the traditional flaws that these mutants have(slow growth, difficult to germinate, small buds, weak potency, etc).

Onto some updates for my stuff if anyone cares to see!
First off, 12x Supafreak seeds & 2x Quack Bastard F4

Quack Bastard #1

Quack Bastard #2

Veg tent. All mutant strains except Blueberry Muffin and Imperium X in the middle

Closeup of freshly transplanted Drunken Bastards

Onto the flowering girls (Day 53):

BerryFreak colas just keep leaning harder under the weight they put on. Moving forward I will definitely remember that this lady needs help late in flower. I will try to breed strong stems into the mix somewhere (I like plants that don’t need help). All the flowering girls are bulking up quite a bit. I’m real curious what my harvest weight will be. Would love to hit 1g/w on this run.

[crunkyeah]

Well, some unfortunate news. A good portion of our main crop (8x4 setup offgrid) molded just prior to harvest. A good bit was salvageable fortunately. It looks like the canopy was too dense. Next time, we’re downsizing (4x4) and upsizing the light intensity (1300w). We had a problem with the plants stretching too much, as well as some pretty intense fox-tailing. We’re thinking the massive size of the canopy and density is really what made it difficult. Watering was difficult, pruning was difficult. Overall this run wasn’t as smooth as previous runs, but it wasn’t for nothing!
Here’s a cardboard flat of buds needing to dry out more. Everything else was larfy and moldy which was easy to pitch. Gross.

Beginning of flower:

Chop day:

I’m hoping next run will be a lot more successful! Downsizing to a 4x4 and putting both of those lights together for a really intense 4x4 light. I will also be doing something in the way of watering automation. Might make the switch to hydro/NFT as a previous run I did like that went really well.

Onto my plants onsite!
First we have the Supafreak seedlings I couldn’t bear to destroy and 3 Quack Bastard seedlings plugging along. I’m not sure what to do with these as I actually need to take some clones from the veg plants going. They’re currently sitting on top of my cloner. Food for thought…

Here’s the veg tent: (as you can see Drunken Bastards are taking their damn time, not much new growth in a week)

Day 60 girls:

Knocking on wood that it’s a nice sunny day on chop day. If so, I’ll take the ones coming out first out in the sunlight so we can see them more properly. Sometimes my bright ass LED light is just too bright lol. Maybe I’ll experiment with turning it down for photos.

Well, moving forward I won’t be able to delve into my breeding projects just yet. I need to find a way so we can consistently harvest a bumper crop in the 4x4 (for daily smoke, edibles, etc), so I can focus my attention on breeding and finding the next keeper plants. I recently stumbled across the bonsai sultan method which I’ve ordered roughly 300 some odd pots for haha. Long story short, you can manipulate the plants with LST so much that you’re literally controlling where they grow, which shoots will be allowed to grow, etc etc. Then, when you have very large amounts of plants you can take 1 select male (this is why it’s called a sultan method) and breed to every female. Apparently it’s a cost effective way to harvest thousands of seeds in a very small amount of space. I’m in! It’s just going to take me some time to get some clones going and then I’m thinking the clones will become the bonsai mums/dads. The current mothers will then be flowered in the 4x4 offsite.

Anyways, next batch of photos will be chop day! Exciting!

[middleman]

@crunkyeah

Drunken Bastards are taking their damn time

To me that is the most frustrating thing about the ABC leaf types. They take forever to grow.