Greetings, MNS compadres! Always good to hear from my friends Fish and Musashi. I'm going to pull the plants out tonight and take some pictures of the puntodorado girls at 16 weeks which I'll post shortly. But first I wanted to share some pollination / seed-making techniques and then some thoughts on the puntodorado smoke tests I've had the good fortune to perform.
About seed making. It's nearly impossible for non-professionals to control stray pollen when you pollinate selected branches indoors, even if you use a tiny watercolor brush to apply the pollen. When I make F2s I generally don't have a problem with this since I'm stuck in the past growing '70s weed, and I don't mind a few seeds in my sativa colas. But in the case of the '78CG pollen I received, I had precious little of it and I wanted to make sure that the seeds I made with that pollen did not get mixed in with seeds from other fathers. So here's what I did. I had a tiny bit of '78CG pollen left after I made the F1 seeds. I kept it in the freezer and wanted to make a few seeds from each F1 plant I grew. Early in flower, a couple weeks after pistils started showing up in abundance, I used the '78CG pollen to pollinate the lower buds of one branch on each plant. I waited about 2-3 weeks before doing any more pollination, then I pollinated three branches on each plant with three types of Colombian pollen. About 5 weeks after I used the '78CG pollen I harvested only the branches that had the '78CG backcross seeds. This was about 11-12 weeks into flower. I let the branches line dry and carefully went through the buds to harvest seeds. The seeds I wanted had been ripening for ~4-5 weeks and were nice and mature and dark brown. There were a few whitish, immature seeds also. These were the imposters, and due to the difference in how ripe they were, they were easy to separate and remove. I have 100% confidence that the '78CG bx seeds are the real McCoy. A couple weeks later I harvested the remaining seeded branches. Harvesting a total of 20 branches from my crop really improved light penetration and air flow in the tent. The overcrowded tent became much more manageable, especially after the 12.5-week pheno was harvested. Because the upper buds of each seeded branch were (relatively) seed free, I was able to do some early smoke tests of the crop starting around 12 weeks.
Some musings about the smoke tests and my general impressions of the potency and quality of effect, subject to the caveat that these are very early samples of dried but mostly uncured bud. The aromas and flavor will greatly improve with a long cure, but I think I can make a fair assessment of the quality of the smoke and of which plants are likely to be keepers.
Holy shit this is surprisingly potent landrace weed. The potency is significantly better than the other Colombians I've grown. It tells me that we've really lost something special from the landrace sativas of 40-50 years ago, because the '78 Colombian Gold really brought the goods to this sativa hybrid. I was expecting the usual Colombian bright, euphoric, energetic high, short-lived, with no crash. It is not short lived...it goes on for hours. Also, overindulgence results in nap-time late in the afternoon. And I'm still high when I wake up. The effect is still energetic, euphoric, and electric. But it's potent. Best enjoyed in moderation. Fucking awesome weed. The GF loves it (especially PD#2), and I've had the pleasure of turning younger folks on to it and watching their expression when they try their first old-school Colombian sativa. Focused, long conversations, laughter, floaty euphoria. Truly outstanding old-school herb. PD10, the 12.5-week plant, is every bit as potent but a bit more dreamy. PD1 is downright fucking electric, intense, and long-legged. Trippy. PD2 and PD6 are right up there, and I haven't tried PD9 yet. As the cure starts to set in the aromas and flavors are beginning to show up, and they are outstanding. PD1 in particular gives off a citric scent that is closer to fresh grapefruit than lime upon grinding of the bud. Then woody, peppery incense smells take over. Peppery earthy taste is evident on exhale, and it's wonderful. I can tell that this is going to have that classic peppery, earthy Colombian aroma after a good cure. PD1 is the 20+ week plant with massive colas of stacked calyxes; the best yielder of the bunch. It sure looks to be a keeper.
Finally, the story of a serendipitous seed. After harvesting the '78CG bx seeds from PD2, I rolled a joint with some of the de-seeded bud. When I went to smoke it a seed popped into my mouth on the second toke. I spit it out and looked at it...it was a nice dark brown seed that I had missed when I harvested the seeds. Looking over at the Ángeldorado seed plants, I saw an empty planter from one of the AD seeds that had damped off. Just for shits and giggles, and because I'm curious about a backcross from one of my best phenos, I popped the seed in the empty pot. It's now up and hanging with its step siblings. Male or female, I don't care. Really interested to grow this one in particular out.
