Can’t resist to digress on the stem rub, one stone two birds.
It’s not and never has been a reliable indicator for the buds terps/phenols. Except maybe with limonene that often finish in the right range, but it’s not a rational reason to generalize it.
My analogy will be disgusting, but it’s the more close explanation i can give of this practice : it’s like smelling armpit to determine the hormonal maturity of a plant. No joke ^^ And yes with cannabis it can smell fcking dank, and be equally disappointing too.
To best understand what is really “followed” by people using it rightly, it’s not rocket science and it take only one round.
rub the internode the closer to the top, before the plant reach its 5th node (apical shoot counted)
rub the 5th when secondary shoots/stems are fully detached from the trunk and are stretching.
rub two weeks after the 12/12 switch.
I repeat as disclaimer, it’s not collecting datas on the future buds or the future potency or anything reliable on the floral side directly. It’s smelling what is producing it and it give an information on the health of the plant and its manner to express it.
Stupid examples : some plants smell nothing, until they are hardly stressed. some plants do the reverse, and lose their scents while stressed. You smell a hormonal answer of the plant to a given situation, it’s a complementary datas to link with various leverages. Not a complete data on its own.
I began at the dispensaries. I would go buy several individual grams and test them. I would then go buy a larger quantity of what I liked. After I had settled on something I went after seeds of something I liked.
I’d also like to add though, the stem rubs seem tied to flowers in the way if you know what parent the stem rub smells like. For instance, If parent A stem rub smells acrid and parent B stem rub smells floral; when you look at the offspring of A+B, the plants with the acrid stem rub will likely have flowers/smoke like parent A, and plants with the floral stem rub will likely have flowers/smoke like parent B. Obviously can have some overlap with gene segregation, but overall I find this to be the case.
Nicely expanded; it show clearly one of the numerous reliable methods that can born from it. This habit will be less polemic if more often exposed rightly like this.
And it’s good to clearly remember also that without mapping the dominances in game at the same time, it’s just an olfactive ID.
And if you take by example the C91/SD/ECSD game on the terps dept … it become even more vicious imho ^^
I’ve learnt you never know until you flower it. Had one that was my least favorite in veg and turned out to be the best keeper. Never know till you smoke it
