Sometimes I wish I had space to run large pheno hunts but then I wonder how on earth I could smoke 100 samples of the same seed line and determine which had the best high, highest potency, best flavour, best smell etc.
I think it would take me the best part of a year and I’d still be struggling to discern between #19, #42 and #71.
Especially since to properly judge the high you would need to leave a good few hours between samples.
How do people do it?
You don’t…I’ve seen folks just have a handful by the end from many.
cull relentlessly for form or other developmental traits.
You won’t have that many make it
Personal selectivity… only you can know what you are looking for. Once you have determined what you consider a keeper, you just trash everything that doesn’t fit your target.
I cull stretchy/larfy/lame looking budded plants that don’t do well indoors, including those that don’t appreciate light or wet feet, as well as anything that takes over 10 weeks to flower… I may smoke them dried, but they aren’t considered for propagation/keeping. Some people only keep the stinkers, or the tastiest choices… Its all a personal decision.
It is no easy task. You have to have strict parameters on what you want. It really helps if you have run the line in the past and know exactly what you want. Especially in growth habits, disease resistance, taste, and high. If you are growing out 100 plus plants. Hopefully you can narrow it down to your top 10-25 plants and only compare out of your top selected plants. Also helps if you have homies to help taste test them after you have narrowed it down. Just get some fresh perspective on them and then make your decision.
Another idea is breaking the project up over multiple years. Do 50 one year and the other 50 the next. Slows it down but helps it be more manageable. Maybe you don’t have the space to pull of that many plants, but can do multiple runs to compensate.
Right. Whole crews working on these things
If you start with 100 seeds, at least 10-20% of seedlings will be runts. Those get snipped 
pretty early on. Now your down to 85ish plants. 50% will be males. Now your down to roughly 44 plants.
If your growing a strain for the first time, that can definitely make the process more demanding. If thats the case, I would only sample the plants that have breeding potential. It honestly doesn’t make sense to sample the plants that have low vigor, because they are terrible for breeding.
If your working a strain that you are familiar with, then you should know exactly what traits/effects your selecting for.
These responses are interesting and make a lot of sense. I’m doing my first ever F1 pheno hunt and decided I would only select purely on smoke but I imagine the more experience I get I might start culling for other reasons.
Also I’m primarily after a finding amazing smoke that I can regrow from cuttings rather than trying to inbreed a seed line so I don’t have to be as concerned with other traits because whatever weirdness the plant has I can just dial that in when I want to regrow that smoke.
My day job is pheno hunting. blessing and a curse id call it.
I usually only pop about 50 seeds of a strain at a time but multiple strains and what the folks above me have said all rings true.
-Some seeds wont germinate
-some seedlings will lack far behind.
-if your lucky half are males.
-After that I’ll flower out most things even if they are a bit wonky. Then I spend a lot of time scouting for herms, there are usually a few.
-Some flower doesnt look/smell like much so those I dont always even sample
Take your own notes, but also crowdsource for opinions on the smoke. Sample packs with a half gram nug of each phenotype. That’s assuming you have thinned it down to your favorite dozen or two
Your F1s will likely be vigorous and similar, perhaps with one or two phenotypical differences.
It is in the F2s and beyond that the diffences and weaknesses will start to show up.
By smoking with your circle 
… whatever is the popular choice will often be picked as one to run the next season 
Selecting for high is by far the hardest to hunt. There is no real way to decide besides smoking them. You can’t cull anything until you have smoked it. Which means keeping copies of everything for months after harvest while you cure and smoke them all.
To find your real keepers, make your smoke judgements on them all. Then save the best 10% of them. Then from there figure out a way to do a “blind taste test” on your best 10%.
If you are selecting for high type for yourself, I find it best not to outsource testing or worry about what anyone else thinks about it.
Its a tough job- but someone’s gotta do it
I have a very small mutant that was in my bagseed from my Cookies Kush X 1963 LSD
I almost culled it but…
It smells so freaking good … like chocolate, kush and coffee
And the buds are foxtail type that are typical of the cookies kush
I sampled the bud and I love the effect so… im breeding her with a vigorous male to see what happens. If I can get that Cookies Kush leaning terp w that foxtaily bud and get her bigger. Id think she’s an excellent candidate for outdoor grows because she’ll have no bud rot.
@Blue_Star_Seed_Co could have some input on this one lol
There’s been some interesting variation so far.
You can follow along here if interested
Personally I don’t, you usually cull a lot before you get to smoking stage, you might only end up with 4 or 5 that really stand out.
You will cull some based on how they grow, how they flower, their smells, amount of obvious trichromes, structure etc. You get a good eye and nose for it over time . 
Yeah this is what I’m thinking, you start with a blank slate just smoking each one and deciding which is best but I’m guessing once you have more hunts under your belt you can start to predict the winners with greater accuracy.
Yep that’s it, honestly the amount of trichrome coverage and terps profile is a pretty good indicator,
Some people say they only select for effects, but my experience is that it’s usually not a zero sum game, meaning, effect is one of the traits you look for along with others. We can walk and chew gum at the same time lol.
You will find yourself culling the ropey pheno’s instinctively, if you have grown and smoked for a while, you will know what has potential.
I mean there is always the possibility of missing something that has some freak effect but isn’t very potent, but it’s unlikely, or at least you would have to do loads of work testing potentially for no gain.
It does also depend a bit on how uniform the plants are, F2’s are a crapshoot so a lot of plants is the go, as you go into f3, f4 etc, they will become more uniform so you can reduce the number of plants you need to pheno hunt.
I group them by their structure initially and try to cross the males with the females that look most similar.
Yeah ive thought about the gact its deffo no zero sum. Like for me effect isnthe most important but if the plant with the best effect literally tasted like human shit I wouldn’t wanna keep that 
.
I think inwould rank traits accordingly:
Effect
Potency
Taste
Smell
Flowering time
Yield
Bud structure
Theres a few im missing here but you get the idea