Breeding techniques

Palm Reading

OK, I'll share.

I call it Palm Reading and it's used as an indicator for potency.

Use a jeweler's loop to look at the spot where the leaf blades meet the leaf stem, as if the stem was your arm and the blades were your fingers. Inspect the "palm" area for white, whisker like hairs. IME, plants with good calyx to leaf ratio will have hairy palms which can be detectable in early veg stages.

I like it because it's a precise, consistent spot to inspect when I'm comparing a group of plants to each other. I consider the observations more for male selection.

I wasn't able to get a good macro photo of this spot. You need L33t's gear to get a good shot of what I'm talking about but it's easy to see with a little magnification.

My apologies if this is common knowledge for you breedin' folk.

Peace.
 
Interesting...

^^^Interesting you say that, as im sure most of us have seen little buds/caylaxes form in this spot.
 
^^^^I never made that connection, good observation. You definitely know the spot I'm talking about. I personally have never had this happen in my garden. The E. Chinensis trait.
 
Cannatari, You might be on to something here. I am going to pay more attention to this area, as a matter a fact im gonna have a go look see now:D
 
LOL, Made 'ya look!

Wha'd you see?

EDIT: A little tip, some palms will be purple which contrasts the white hairs more than a pale green palm. Side views, contrast lighting and shadows are good tools to use to be sure of what your looking at. Just be aware that if you compare a purple background to a green one you're going to get different results.
 
Last edited:
:eek:
What do you know the male i first picked out due to it being the first with strong odors and visable trichs has the hairiest palms lol.

Could it be that easy?:confused:
 
Thanks for sharing Cannatari, this is interesting.

Do you find any particular stage of growth or position of the leaves on the plant are better for this test than others?
 
As all my growing is done outdoors in northern scandinavia my criterias might differ some from people growing indoor under more controlled environment.
We can call this "survival of the fittest"

A. Spots consists of 10-20 plants with at least 1-2000 meters in between, im fully aware of the fact that pollen can travel much longer then that but i also need to be able to get out there and check a number of spots during the day and get back.

- Any plant not showing good growth around midsummer gets chopped.
- Any plant where f:ex spider mites / other pest likes to hang out while the plants around it is not infested is chopped.
- Any plant that shows major signs of defiency while the others around it is healthy is chopped.

B. 3-4 weeks after midsummer i visit the spots again.

- All males that started to show preflowers i mark - usually with a small stick that i set in the ground a little bit away from the stalk.
- Any plants that shows major signs of not feeling to well is chopped - this is usually a "dry season" if one or more plants in spot is in urgent need of water while the others are doing fine they are not rooting good (deep) enough and are therefor removed.
- Any plants where i cant see any or few signs of trichs on them are removed.

C. About 4 weeks later i visit the spots again.

- Any males starting to show show preflowers now are chopped, they are to late maturing.
- All plants that shows female preflowers by now are usually chopped as they wont mature until november.
- Of the males still standing i usually choose 1 or 2 as keepers and a few is removed, the criterias is smell, trichs, general appeal, internode space, branching etc and so on.
- Now i usually have 7, 8 or 9 plants of the 20 i started with.
- I also look for if the ants seem to like a plant alot.
Its like a nice little army of insects keeping it safe, ive seen this a few times where none of the plants in a spot have had more/less pests like spider mites then they catch naturally from being in the forest but one of them is favoured by the ants even if its plenty of "food" on the other plants and none on the plant where they hang out. This i mark with 3 sticks in a triangle, if the plant is a marked male i put them on the opposite side of the first stick. If its a female her seeds goes onto a spot where i only put seeds from her, not from the mix. I have a bag of seeds from a female from last year that was very nice looking, very healthy, had very good smoke and was totally invaded by ants chilling al over her, will be interesting to see her offspring this year.
The more they smell the more the ants seem to like them but i cant define the smell its one of the vague undertones.

D. A few weeks later i visit again, the females are partly pollinated so i chop the males, and feed tons of PK 13/14 to the females. (a 75cm 4 inc sewer pipe i put down like 30-40 cm in the ground like 15 cm from the stalk, pull it up, clean out the dirt, down with it again and pour down 10-20 liters / plant)

E. 2 weeks later i visit and water with more PK 13/14
- Any female with signs of major infections, bud rot etc is chopped.

F. Roughly 2-3 weeks later is harvest time, again i check for pests, bud rot, etc

G. Plants are trimmed on the spot all leafs/trim goes on the same pile as where i put the chopped ones during the season (i use from this pile at the bottom of the small pits i dig to plant in the following year). I usually keep around 100 seeds / plant. All the best buds are dryed, cured and smoked, everything else hits the BubbleBags. If i notice while smoking that the buds from a particular plant is mediocer i throw away those seeds.
The remaining seeds from the different plots i mix in a bigger ziplock and next spring i grab my seeds for the season out of that baggie, the rest i always have a mate or two that dont mind some.

The result is strains that can manage here locally, that finishes before frosts sets in for real, that provide good smoke considering the conditions they are grown under and that wont rot away while trying to finish.
Way to many seedbanks sell stuff they claim "finishes in September", "finishes in October" well yeah maybe in the mediterranian area but sure as hell not here.
Daylenght is severly fucked up and we dont have luxuries like the gulf stream/whatever that keeps a constant flow or warm air/water coming in,
12/12 outside is reached in the end of September. First frost nights is usually in mid/late october.
 
Last edited:
cannatari said:
OK, I'll share.

I call it Palm Reading and it's used as an indicator for potency.

Use a jeweler's loop to look at the spot where the leaf blades meet the leaf stem, as if the stem was your arm and the blades were your fingers. Inspect the "palm" area for white, whisker like hairs. IME, plants with good calyx to leaf ratio will have hairy palms which can be detectable in early veg stages.

I like it because it's a precise, consistent spot to inspect when I'm comparing a group of plants to each other. I consider the observations more for male selection.

I wasn't able to get a good macro photo of this spot. You need L33t's gear to get a good shot of what I'm talking about but it's easy to see with a little magnification.

My apologies if this is common knowledge for you breedin' folk.

Peace.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I hope this is true. Great tip. I've got some Haze going I'm going to go stare at their palms.
 
BlueMicrodot said:
As all my growing is done outdoors in northern scandinavia my criterias might differ some from people growing indoor under more controlled environment.
We can call this "survival of the fittest"

The result is strains that can manage here locally, that finishes before frosts sets in for real, that provide good smoke considering the conditions they are grown under and that wont rot away while trying to finish.
.
Click to expand...
edited for brevity

BMD, this is essentially what i did religiously for 15 years. it work well. as long as you keep enough seed around. i didnt and lost all my work.

Great Post.
 
North said:
edited for brevity

BMD, this is essentially what i did religiously for 15 years. it work well. as long as you keep enough seed around. i didnt and lost all my work.

Great Post.
Click to expand...

I agree on the survival of the fittest ,

i also did a lot of breeding outdoors ,
for similar reasons ,
i theorised that indoor conditions many individuals are nurtured and probably wouldnt survive outdoor conditions , they are maybe some that are chosen to breed with ,,
but they are not naturally strong plants , and may not have survived in nature ,,
is this a good idea ??

the ones that survived my environment to go on to breed were strong enough to cope with many environmental conditions .
 
I think it's a good idea wally.

Outdoor plants need to have a ton of vigour whereas indoors, too much vigour is a bad things for many people.

I truly think taking genes that have been grown and bred only indoors for years and growing them outdoors results in small, weak outdoor plants, you would have to either cross them to outdoor lines or re-acclimate them to outdoors through a few gens of survivial of the fittest type selection.
 
british_hempire said:
I think it's a good idea wally.

Outdoor plants need to have a ton of vigour whereas indoors, too much vigour is a bad things for many people.

I truly think taking genes that have been grown and bred only indoors for years and growing them outdoors results in small, weak outdoor plants, you would have to either cross them to outdoor lines or re-acclimate them to outdoors through a few gens of survivial of the fittest type selection.
Click to expand...

I disagree with you on this one. Vigor is desirous indoors or out.

Also, while in my experience not all outdoor strains can make a good transition to indoors, there are plenty of strains I have found, that have been grown outdoors only, and do spectacularly well indoors without any need for acclimation.

I have also found in pretty much every case I have seen, that strains which have been bred and grown indoors for many generations, do very well outdoors.

As a general rule, I have found, that while most outdoor strains don't do well indoors, there are many exceptions to this rule.

Also as a general rule, most indoor strains do great outdoors.

I am not sure why this is, but I have my theories. I believe, that an indoor environment is very stressful and unnatural as compared to an outdoor environment. So while many strains can't handle the added stress of being grown indoors, most indoor strains, are actually very happy to go back outdoors to their natural environment.

I have found that outdoor strains, which don't need so much direct sunlight, do better indoors, then the strains which require many hours of direct sunlight

I am speaking from personal experience, Northern Cali, and this is one of my specialties.

Donald, if you are having trouble with indoor strains, taking them outdoors, and they are early budding varieties, it may have more to do with the natural daylight cycle of your equatorial lattitude, then indoor outdoor transition. I don't know cause I have only ever grown outdoors in Northern Cali, and have no experience with equatorial regions.

But in my experience in the more northern lattitudes at least, indoor early budding varieties, usually transition to outdoors with no problems. When you first take them outdoors, of course you need to acclimate them to sunlight, by keeping them in the shade for starters and then gradually increasing their exposure to direct sunlight over a period of 1 or 2 weeks.
 
Last edited:
this is an excellent summation mr. nute burn and has prompted me to buy a new printer cartridge this afternoon so i can do a reread in a more comfortable position. lol. this post with all of those quotations took a ton of time, i know, so thanks for the effort! peace-biteme
 
Well I stared at my Hazes palms. They all have white whiskers so it's hard to tell. Also looked at some good autos I have. Whiskers too. Am I hunting for snipe?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top