Breeding With Early-Flowering Males?

so what's the consensus ladies? do any of you like a male that prematurely blows his flowers ?
Ha! Indeed, that is the question. Or I guess it's not so much whether they like them (they seem to like them just fine), it's whether their kids are any good.

I'll drop a note this weekend with a pic or two, but the growing is slow, and the number of happy seedlings is not high.
 
I can only tell my very limited info.

I was always selecting faster flowering males for my homebrew seeds

And in my trials, I worked Widow from DP.
Original plant was like Christmass tree (male was one shot sturdy guy), next gen was bit uneven in looks, and flowered slightly faster yet very airy - not so much nice buds, then I selected two plants that looked exactly same indica bushes male (preflowers in veg) and female - made cross and ended again with christmass tree, but the germination problems arrived, from 10 seeds only 2 germed..

I have also tried some Devil with Shit, again preflower Devil male selected (had nice pinky male flowers) crossed with Bushy Orangy Shit.
The outcome is, from 10 seeds only one germinated.

I wonder what Iam doing bad, can be anything actually, but in other crosses where i selected normal male (that doesnt preflower in veg stage) there is no such germination problem occuring.

May be bad luck, may be it is that preflower male ?? I dont know... Yet all those plants were in some kind special, pretty and good plants to say.

That is all info I can trade with you...

Will see this interesting topic. ;)

Hi,
If the seeds are fresh, they dont germinate so easy.
I dont exactly know the science behind this phenomena but I believe has to do with the surviving of the plant in nature.

It will increase you germination rate if you let the seeds at least a month maybe even two in room temperature to dry and then put in refrigerator for another month at least.
This is a practical way to do it as I said not real science behind. .:)

I dont believe has to do with the selection of the early flowering male the germination problem you described.

Also I would like to add to the discussion that Traits like early or late flowering are not the only one to look at or they will effect the out come of the cross.

If you take the Mango Haze Ibl as an example ( 18 seeds price reached more 400 euros per vial at auctions)

I copy paste the following to my notes from Mu that did a post about the origin of Mango Haze Ibl )

Originally Posted by shantibaba 12/12/13
saw this thread and thought to dispel any doubts. The male S1 seed i used to go back with the MH mother select was broad leaf faster flowering similar structure to his mother...resin production was very quick on certain parts of the male...all positive traits.

So he was kept as a inter generational breeding partner.
The MH ibl is this beginning of the line i just described...you can go many places from here depends what your selecting preferences are for...


Save The Brains
 
Hey @SaveTheBrains, thanks, and I tend to agree that the early male is probably not the cause of most of the slow going in @PtreeCi garden or mine, and yea, my seeds were dry, but not yet vernalized (I think that's the term for the freezing or "over-wintering" you describe). In the future I'll give seeds more of a chance to get cold, which could very well have upped the numbers of successful plants. I touch on this below, but I also need to pollinate earlier to give the beans a better chance to mature fully - almost all of the seeds germinate, but a lot of them just stall out after poking out a tail, which I attribute mostly to a paucity of internally stored resources.

First, the current (ever-changing) situation; second, some more background context; third (and doubtless) ramblings, musings, open-ended tangential questions, etc.

Seedlings, a small number good, a large majority not so much.

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This F3/BC1 generation is proving very problematic, and characterized by slow growing, poor rooting, and a lot of mutants. There is likely a variety of causes for this: 1) It seems generally understood that F3's are going to be fraught with issues as alleles will here be recombining in wonky (technical term) ways that bring out the best, worst, and most mediocre potential of a gene pool. Point being, to some extent these problems are typical for the stage of breeding, but methinks the problems are exacerbated by other factors. 2) For instance, Goldi's fast finishing time presents a challenge in making fully mature seeds, and the general slowness to germ and failure of many to thrive after a promising germination may stem from inadequately made seeds on my part. Nothing about them appeared problematic, but I would have preferred to give them another week or two to better fortify them with carb/nutrient resources.

3) Furthermore, backcrossing to Goldi has proven to NOT be a reliable way of locking her down in seed form. Backcrossing (similar to selfing) is a very straightforward sounding way of collecting/concentrating a given plant's genetic material, and indeed that is what happens, but this is an advantage only if the plant in question is homozygous dominant for her or his most desirable traits. If, as seems apparent with Goldi, a plant is recessive or heterozygous (with a lot of recessive alleles hiding behind the expression of desirable traits), backcrossing and selfing continually remix the allele soup in unproductive ways. This can make for fun pheno hunting for one-off moms, but will not lead to stable inbred varieties. There are notable instances where the BC or selfing approach worked to great effect, one well-known example is Mr. Soul's Cindy 99, which he derived through a series of backcrosses to "Princess", which was (is?) homozygous dominant for what made her special, the somewhat more obscure Santa Maria was arrived at similarly. Chimera (whose given name is Ryan Lee, if memory serves, and his PotCast interview is worth hearing), makes note of this from a much more learned place than I occupy, and it would be worth looking up his explanation for a deeper take. Selfing in particular is no guarantee of replicating a mom, but has significant diagnostic potential in hypothesizing about her homozygosity vs heterozygosity, and thus helping to identify her potential as a breeder.

Here is a really informative link on the subject of backcrossing. It refers to corn, but other than the Genetically Modified aspect the breeding strategies are transferrable to weed (or plants generally).


4) Of course, these F3 problems may also be influenced by the early-flowering Kashmir male, but the conditions I'm facing here are somewhat exaggerated forms of problems one expects at this stage. The real test will be in the performance of the F4's, providing I can push through the moment's mutant morass.

As can be seen on the left side of the tray, there appear to be four seedlings advancing pretty well, and there are another half dozen or so in another space that just broke ground, and I'll know in a day or two whether any of them appear viable (I held back about ten beans before, but decided to just use them - I don't plan on remaking this gen with this male if things flop, regardless of the reason).

I mentioned a previous attempt with this Goldi X Ennio II, and out of a few dozen beans this is the only plant I kept around, and for all the issues I'm facing this one provides some reason for optimism.

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This is a stable plant with good vigor, and of equal importance is its resemblance to the mature Goldi. This includes the overall shape of leaves and growth pattern, but also an aggressive attitude/"stance" that says "give me more f-n light...now...! You see these wicked serrations? You know what these can do to a man? Word to the wise buddy...more...f-n...light, last warning!". So yea, I try to comply so as to avoid a "Little Shop of Horrors" kind of scenario ("...feed me, Jagged-G, feeeeed me...").

I'll add the following background, for sake of interest.

The small plants elevated on the left are the original GMO X Kashmir f1's.

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Don't ask me which, but one of them is Goldi and another is Ennio. Noteworthy is their general consistency but more so is the resemblance of the single F3 above to its recent ancestors; of course they are all young cannabis plants that have yet to differentiate into maturity, but other than being a little more "upward" in its bearing, the consistency of the F3 is encouraging.

So from here, the plan is to line breed these F3/BC1 survivors to F4, at which point the viability of all of this will become a lot clearer. Just how this will look remains to be seen, and relies heavily on how many plants will actually show up. At minimum I need two good plants, and a male/female pairing is my preference, but I would consider reversing a female if two really good gals show up. My feeling, however, is that there will be around a half dozen viable plants in total, which will open other possibilities such an open pollination of all males to all females (this might be the the ideal way to gather a lot of seed stock to hunt through), or if F/M numbers allow, perhaps this will be the beginning of two more or less identical lines that could be brought together after a couple gens (this is a more forward thinking approach that would lay groundwork for solving vigor problems typical of advanced filial generations).

Anyway, thanks, all, for working through yet another long update/stream of consciousness ramble, and any input is appreciated, as always!
 
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i like the ideas and questioning that is going on here.

the comment i want to make is in line with what has been mentioned of selecting a single trait, like height or quickness to flower, or quickness of the flowering cycle.
while in any random population of plants, selecting one plant out of the group based on 1 trait, does have the possibility that you are unwittingly selecting poor examples of the other traits,
it is not a certainty that that will happen, and in fact the special plant that you may be looking for is exactly the plant that has the 1 trait you select for, and you luck out by that plant also possessing positive qualities of some or all other traits you could compare to the rest of the population.
so if you want tall, select tall, and if possible, make a selection from multiple tall, but dont shy away from tall because you THINK that is all it has to offer, if that makes sense.

From my observations on early males, some of the hesitancy may be of a more practical nature of production rather than any bearing on the outcome of progeny.
males that are early, just flower easier. sometimes even in veg.
now the hard part can become keeping the male from flowering, trying to keep the male so you can continue to use him.
if you dont have nice vegetative branches to cut as clones, what are you going to do but watch the male flower and eventually die off, despite your best efforts.
this creates a higher pressure/demand to take cuttings more often/sooner in order to keep the vegging going strong, to clone before the flowering sets in.
so in summary, they can be more difficult to work with and more risky to a long term breeding plan.
 
So I'm waaay overdue for an update. About a week ago my laptop went caput, and I just managed to get into a new (used) one today. I'll get an update together tomorrow (there is some interesting stuff to report, mostly pretty good, actually).

@Throwback, thanks for the note, and what you are saying totally makes sense. It is especially true that keeping a dad could get complicated, and one that continuously or even occasionally sheds pollen is a poor candidate for keeping around. For the most part, these males seem to toss a little as "teenagers", but tend to be more reserved as mature clones - sacs stay small, and don't seem to develop, even under some stress. They're still not ideal dads as they take some extra monitoring, but interesting and informative to watch at different points of maturity.

Having said that, neither of the extant males is likely to be around for much longer. I have Ennio (the F1/brother of Goldi) in a couple other crosses that are showing some of the problems of the F3/BC1 generation of which he is the grandfather, and Ennio II just hasn't produced much progeny worth working with (I'll report on several notable exceptions later).
 
well one of the points i was trying to make is that despite any of the negative aspects of a given plant, there is always the possibility that it is exceptional when it comes to the offspring it produces.
so jump whatever hurdles are necessary, or just use them to make a large batch of seed before they are gone.
while a plant like this may not be ideal for a breeder that would like to continue production of a particular cross,
that does not mean that it is not a great plant to use to make seed with while you can, and a great plant to come across for a hobby breeder or someone just looking to make a nice stock of seed to go through for future efforts.

i am currently fighting this issue with a male that i have kept for the last 10 years.
it is heavier into flowering than ever, considering it is in a vegetative light cycle, 24 hrs of light.
there are two copies of it, and one older father that i moved outside.
i took some clones but the clones did not seem to like the dirt i planted them in,
so they puked out.
i took a cutting off the outdoor one, and stripped all the pods off it, as i feel that helps.
the more they grow flowers, the more they feel the need to grow flowers.
it is certainly a bit unnatural for them to revert backwards from flowering to vegetative.
i should collect all the pollen i can from them while i can, in case i dont get successful cuts this time,
and cant get them to pull back out of flowering enough to give me some good branches to clone.
usually the cloning process helps spur them into new vegetative growth, and the trick is to clone them again soon, before they start leaning towards flower again.

basically just trying to relay the fact that flowering time may have very little to do with quality, so selecting away from certain plants based on that trait may make you miss out on something truly special.
 
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Yes! Agreed, and points to the need for patience and time in testing male progeny regardless of a male plant's morphology. I have a pet notion that in cases where some desirable and elusive traits appear to be lost from the modern weed gene pool (RKS is an obvious example), that we are looking for it in the wrong places; perhaps a given trait exists in association with other attributes reflexively deemed undesirable in the context of today's "middle of the road" breeding strategies and gets culled along with the "bad" stuff in a baby-out-with-the-bathwater kind of way.

And I agree that flowering time alone is likely not a predictor of overall quality, and the male you describe is super interesting, and illustrates the benefits of a little extra attention and nurture.

I spent quite a bit of time looking at several forums before deciding MNS was a place I could open this can of worms without the elemental questions I am interested in deliberating through invoking bro-science backlash, and so far I'm pretty happy with the decision to work things out here.
 
Update time… beyond…

So quite a bit has gone on since my last installment, and here is rough summation of the project up to where we left off, starting with a quick summary:

The F1 generation was initially a half-dozen seeds of the original GMO X Kashmir cross, more or less just a germ test, and finding something special was not really part of the plan given the low numbers. Nonetheless, Goldilocks elbowed her way into my garden anyway. I haven't mentioned Goldi's sister, Skullvice (or, "Skully" as we call her around here); she is really excellent vape, but less vigorous, longer flowering, lower yielding, and less dense bud-wise. Skully's terps, however, are richer and more complex. I have a couple hundred Skully X Ennio beans as well, but haven't germed any as there is way to much going on as is.

Here is Goldi on 5/30 (second gen clone, revegged and reflowering):

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Here she is currently:

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Her stretch is done, and she's starting to work on flower. Her pace is faster than anything else I've grown.

The ultimate goal is to find Goldilocks in seed form, or at least a good approximation, while simultaneously remaining open to whatever else may arrive along the way.

She made a decent batch of F2 seeds with her brother, Ennio – who is no longer with us, RIP – and two much smaller batches of beans with one of her sons, Ennio II. Out of a total of +/- 80 seeds from the latter, most germinated, but very few had any “umph” at all, and most either just stalled out or were badly mutated with cruciferous looking growth or very lopsided development; inbreeding depression is at play for sure, but there is some issue with mutations to begin with, I think. These were some survivors as of a couple weeks ago:

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The group is beset by mutations, mostly involving distorted leaves and uneven growth. The one seedling outside the tray is not actually part if the generation I'm working here, it's a Silver Mountain (Bodhi) X Ennio grown out to cross-reference with the BX1/F3's so as to hypothesize what traits Ennio reliably brings to the table. At its third node it began growing from one side only, which is one of the major problems with the BX1's, and so strongly suggests that Ennio is the source of that particular issue. That is interesting, because I had more or less assumed that Goldi with her fasciation and split meristem was the culprit - still could be, but looks more like the now deceased Ennio was/is the problem.

Needless to say, the worst of the mutos have been dispatched (a couple I may grow out, but not include in the project) one Goldi-ish pheno, and four very nice-looking broad-leaved plants that I will use to take the line to F4, where I expect to find either a resurgence of mutations or (more likely I think/hope) a fairly consistent generation of plants within a generation or two of uniformity, if perhaps shy of true IBL.

The Goldi-leaner:

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Here is the other bunch as of a few days ago, then pictured as they are now:


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And now:
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The four that will carry on are the larger ones on the left. I had hopes for the small one occupying the prime real estate, but it began that lopsided growth thing. Top right will be culled shortly, and the bottom right looks great now, but its first two sets of leaves looked more like DinoKale than cannabis, and it won't be included in the F4's, but it it proves female I'll probably grow her out just to keep tabs on what does what in this line.

Phenotypically these are incredibly consistent, and it is my hope and (tentative) expectation that the aggressive culling of this F3 gen has scrubbed undesirable traits from the cross and focused the line’s energies on a more productive contingent of this gene pool. I’ll veg for another couple weeks, then flower to see what these can do, and hopefully at least one male shows up to the party. The largest has developed a stem rub similar to Goldi (it’s an vinegary/umami sort of smell like dill pickles and Slim Jims), and previous plants that have this trait have had effects similar to her. Hopefully, this is some predictor of final product, even though these survivors and thrivers are otherwise morphologically quite different than their mother/grandmother.

Lastly, here is a Goldi-A clone just in light dep for the S1 project. Branches indicated with blue zipties have been treated with STS for pollen, which will go on both this plant and another clone of her other half. I swear the two halves grow just a little differently, and a comparison between Side A X Side A and Side B X Side A will be interesting.

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If she produces enough pollen, I'll backcross her to one or more of these Kashmirs, they are half siblings, same dad.

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Thanks, all, and I'll try to keep the updates a little more regular!
 
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Quick update:

Pictured rear left quadrant are the four F3/BC1's re-situated in their new veg home for a couple weeks, and near left corner is a mutant of the generation that has straightened out a bit and I'll see through if it's a female, but as far as I am concerned not a proper candidate for making F4 beans for use in this breeding program. The other stinkers have been, shall we say, removed...with prejudice.

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On the right are a couple plants of marginal interest. They are Kush and Cookies X Ennio, that similar to the Silver Mtn. X Ennio I've mentioned is helping to give a better sense of what the males I'm working with bring to the table. The K&C was a plant I kept around for about three years, and until Goldi came along was unmatched in my garden, but unfortunately I lost her just a few weeks ago. She smelled like a bakery inside of a Persian spice shop, equal parts savory and sweet, and the richest aroma I've found. She was a bullet proof female, and it kills me she is gone, but it's no one's fault but mine. Point being, I'm on the hunt for her too (both with these and in another unrelated cross I have her in).

Thanks, all, and be well!
 
Yesterday, the four F3/BC1, back left:

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I have to say, these plants are killing it, and I'm super happy to have found some vigor at F3 among phenotypically very similar plants. There are obvious differences in size (although this is getting less distinct), a couple have red petioles like mom and the other two are light pink at best, and there is slight variation in the angle of branches/petioles to the main stem. Having said that, I'm stretching to find phenotypical differences, and the overall similarity is remarkable particularly given how problematic the generation as a whole has been. We'll see how they develop, and of course all dimensions of flowering and eventual effects remain big fat question marks...but I am optimistic.

One interesting thing is that none of them are showing as male, so either I have four females or the reliable tendency for males in this line to show early has been weeded out (ironic given the topic of the thread). I need a male...although I am not opposed to a fem line, which can always be reinvested with a Y chromosome at some future point for regs.

There is a log jam in my flowering areas at the moment so I'll have to figure something out before these outgrow the space they are in. Up potting may buy me a few days, but I expect them to be in flower within a couple weeks (gotta remember to take cuts!).

Thanks, everyone. More. Will. Follow.
 
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Hey all.

Here are the four F3/BC1's, back left. They have been in light dep since Monday.

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It looks like (fingers crossed) there is one male, which will save me the trouble of reversing a female. It's the smallest of the bunch, front right, and although I would have preferred one of the middling-sized selections to be a dude, I'll take what I can get. Of course, another one or two might show as it is still early in 12/12. The goal here will be to line breed in a semi-open pollination, meaning I'll dust a branch or two on each female rather than fully seeding the plants.

Recall also that there is another plant of the same generation (Goldi X Ennio II, for the F3/Bc1 gen), from an earlier batch that is the only Goldi-leaner worth keeping around. After about a week in light dep it looks like it is showing as a male as well, which will allow for another backcross to Goldi. I expect this will make another problematic generation, but I want to see the results nonetheless.

Meet, Ennio III (the previous "Ennios" are deceased):

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He's a good plant overall, with nice structure, and I haven't really attended to him beyond feeding/watering and general IPM protocols.

While we're on the subject of males, here is a distant satellite in the Goldi-project orbit, a male Kashmir that will contribute to the next generation of the Kash line I'm working:

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His structure is representative of the Kash structure I'm going for, and it appears that they are reliable in passing this on in an outcross; excellent vigor, dense branching, tight nodal spacing, vinegary/umami stem rub, and aggressive serrations often with double teeth and that "crimped" upward look.

The next couple weeks will probably be a little boring as the F3's stretch and show before getting their heads into full flower mode, but I'll update with progress in a few days.

Thanks all, and be well!
 
Ha! Know-it-alls indeed (I resemble that remark...!)

My thinking is similar to yours in terms of September outdoor harvests. I've never had a chance for an outdoor grow, but I live in the NE US and am trying to develop a couple very early flowering lines to work outdoors when I eventually have the chance. Funny, there is some Early Queen waiting patiently in my cart for my next paycheck to arrive...sounds like destiny, methinks.

I've been growing for only about four years, and am not inclined to toss out whole bodies of knowledge given how much there is to learn from manifestly productive old school growers, but at the same time I'm feeling the need for more empirical evidence for some established practices.

Anyway, let's hope we can find some great early flowering varieties!
I’m in Mass and Ive been playing around with early finishing strains for awhile.
September finishers are out there. But in my opinion caterpillar control is most critical. Spray 4TSP every few days of Bacteria BTK
Or, if you can afford it Pure Crop1
In the northeast bud rot stops us before cold where I live every time.
 
Hey @BuzzardsBay - caterpillars indeed. We're not seeing too many this year exactly where I am (WNY, Buffalo-ish), but I have family in the Southern Tier NY not far from Corning with trees nearly defoliated from tent caterpillars. Hopefully they missed us, we'll see. And yea, BTK for the win. What early varieties have you had success with? I'm deliberating between Critical Mass and Medicine Man for my next venture, and leaning toward MM. Any advice on these two? The aim would be to add weight to some dimension of this set of breeding approaches I'm documenting here without adding too much to the flowering time.

Pic of the four F3/BC1's as of a couple days ago.

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They are up-potted and getting situated in their new digs, I'll get some pics by the weekend.

I'm interested in hearing what some more seasoned eyes see in these. Outside of a general sturdiness and a recognizable stem rub on a couple, they bear little resemblance to either direct parent or grandparents GMO and Kashmir. Definitely "indica/Afghan" leaf morphology, and the rate of fan/petiole growth to branching is also redolent of Afghani influence, but I can't theorize beyond that. Furthermore, it's not 100% clear on whether the Kashmir is a centuries-old landrace, or more of an heirloom hybridized a few decades ago and stabilized in the Azad region of northern Pakistan; point being, this could be a throwback to something presently unknown.

One interesting feature of these is their symmetry, which is remarkable particularly in light of how many of their mutant siblings showed lopsided growth. These have reached at least the 12th node, and are still expressing perfectly symmetrical branching at the main stem, and also in their side branching which is even more interesting. Other siblings, even the mutos, began alternating branches on the main stem as one typically expects. I don't think I've grown anything else that has not begun alternating somewhere around nodes 6-8. Has anyone grown plants that retained symmetrical branching throughout sexual maturity? We'll see what they do when they stretch...but who knows, maybe they are the fountain of youth....

I noted before that none of these showed male bits during veg, which was a concerning departure from literally every male in the lines stemming from the original Kashmir male (he was used in both this project and as a basis for continuing my version(s) of the Kash line). This had me wondering if I had inadvertently selected out the early male quality that drove this thread's originary question, but after just over a week in light dep here is what the only male out of the four is looking like.

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Looks like the fast flowering trait is still present, which I'm pretty happy about. Furthermore, the density of flower and rate at which this male is putting on "weight" is really impressive, but we'll see how fast he spills, but at this pace I expect some dust by the end of the weekend. Fast male indeed!

Also, here is where the Goldi S1 project stands.

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After about two weeks in 12/12 preceded by an application of STS about 5 days prior to flip (then one app every 3-5 days) male bits are definitely appearing. Hopefully I have staggered the pollen production enough to not make a mess of everything, and yes, these are isolated from the gals and the F3 male, so I think things are just fine.

Lastly, and just to keep abreast of where the Kashmir line is, here is a pic of the Kashmir that will hopefully become a mom. A couple fans have been removed to better see her structure.

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I really love these plants, they have a quality about them that is hard to describe. Their structure is reliably good-to-great (this one is ideal, at least to my eye); they have excellent vigor, tensile strength, pest/mold resistance, and survive my hackey growing with ease; their high varies a little, definitely leans strongly sativa, but induces a beautifully powerful warm upper body "glow" along with a crystal clear long-lasting (and sometimes pleasantly dis-associative) head high.

This one is about 2-3 nodes ahead of her siblings and so far is flowering the fastest. There are four other females and one other is in contention, but is a shorter, fatter phenotype, and so may stand on its own as a mom. We'll see.

Thanks all for reading, and be well!
 
Hey @musashi - sorry to bother with a tech question. The "attach files" link has seemed dead a few times over the last week or so; is this a known issue with the forum software or more likely a problem on my end? Thanks!
 
There are no problems on our end. Using the “attach files” (with paper clip icon) located outside of the text box, I am able to load a pic that is under 1mb in size. I am using my phone now, selecting the photo and clicking “add”. The picture loads in a box that contains a delete feature. It also has an “insert” feature for thumb or full image. Select either to combine pic with your txt. Hope that helps.

D1717AE5-8336-4AF7-9A36-244507CB108E.jpeg

mu
 
The meme pretty much sums it up, weird. I've uploaded plenty of pics and have more than the gist of it, but for whatever reason it just won't budge (even now). It's not urgent, and I'm sure it will work later.

Thanks Mu.
 
(Restarted Chrome, seems to be working now)

Just a quick note - plants are in their final digs and developing nicely. They are not huge, but very sturdy, nicely structured, and with only a short stretch so far. Here is a pic of one top.

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This is one of the two taller gals, both of which are working on node 14 or thereabouts, and still expressing symmetrical branching...weirdos.

But seriously, I find this really interesting, and not something I've seen before. Anyone with some notion as to what is going on? Probably nothing of consequence, but this line (and Goldi herself) keeps doing these just slightly odd things, almost like begging for attention. Divas.
 
I'm currently testing the conventional wisdom that favors late-flowering males on the opposite side of the early-late flowering spectrum. Last year I found the latest-flowering male I've ever run across, and I popped some seeds a couple weeks ago to test his progeny. He was an outback haze x (NH21 x MML) that was vegged outdoors until September, them moved indoors under 12/12. It took him almost four weeks to show sex from there. I used him to make F2s with his 21-week sister, and I put him to a 16-week Vietnamese. If any of the progeny are better than the mum then we'll have some anecdotal confirmation of conventional wisdom on this issue. I'll update this post in 2023 and let you know how it went. 🙂
 
@Marcus_in_the_Darkus
Awesome - and yea, please feel free to update here whenever, I'm super interested in how things turn out. The very late male question is just as interesting as the early, and another way of exploring the possibilities at the fringes of conservative "down the middle" breeding; not knocking proven methods or diminishing their results, but I do like poking into corners where there hasn't been much (documented) work, or where assumptions were made under given conditions many moons ago that have become de facto canon law.

For instance (FANCIFUL SPECULATION TRIGGER WARNING, WARNING, WARNING), the phenomenon of transgressive segregation (or plants considered as such strictly via observation), in which around 3-5% of a filial population will express traits either overwhelmingly lesser than or greater than either parent. This is generally framed as a randomized quirk with mutations, environmental factors, unpredictable recombination of alleles (etc) tied in, but what if these extreme oddballs are influenced by male input that misses the female's ideal pollination window, but where those males spilling too early or too late nonetheless sneak a few viable bits of their DNA into the next generation. It seems implausible to me that early/middle/late males differ only in flowering time, and more likely that other heritable traits may typically be linked to the rhythms of their maturation. This is 100% speculation, but what if the outliers, both hideous and extraordinarily good, are partly from developmental extremes on the male side? No idea, just spitballing.

Looking forward to updates!

So far as the early male question is concerned, I collected first pollen from this guy yesterday:

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It's first full cycle of 12/12 was on either the 11th or the 12th, and he showed preflowers in about three days, so this is what he's managed to develop in about a week - fastest pollinator I've grown, and he didn't show at all in veg. And to think I was worried I didn't have a male.

Thanks all, and let the experiments with extremes commence continue!
 
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