I am happy to meet another grower, hobby breeder, and seed preserver. I must apologize for I do not trade seeds any longer. I had recently got taken for over 150 seeds of over different strains, some of which were my own personal crosses. I decided after this betrayal to never do such again for after several trades and empty promises from those I shared with, this last one was the final attempt to try to trust other so-called growers. I say so-called for this person had little if any experience in growing, after leading me to believe otherwise, and did not even use cannabis, just grew for commercial profits and cut down those who do use cannabis. Unfortunately the person, and his so-called partner are both members here so I do not post as much as I should.
I work on aquiring more and more genetics, but not through commercial resellers or seed bank sources. IMHO, over 90% of those which offer seeds are misleading customers and often not even selling the true strains which are claimed. I trust MNS, HGS, Serious, Jordan Of The Islands, TGA,THC Laboratories, other than that, I have found too many variables which prove most places are just throwing seeds in breeder packs and claiming them to be something they are not. Some examples are; GHS, 30 seeds, 3 different strains: Strawberry Cough, Lemon Skunk, and Train Wreck. Germ rates were excellent, 100%, however, once I got down to my 5 or 6 females of erach strain, they shgowed very noticable differences, some looking very Indica Dom, some showing a more Haze like pheno, out of the 4 females I kept off each strain, it almost seemed as if I was growing 10 different strains and I had no idea which was which. This experience has been found by myself and other growers from places like World Of Seeds, G-13 Labs, Barneys, etc... So I wil not waste money ever again on unreliable genetics. In breeding and working to preserve strains, we must know the true origin of the strain and to me, this shows that places are just throwing seeds in breeder packs. I trust Shanti, Simone, and some others, hiowever it is hard to get these through direct sources and one must depend on resellers which IMO can be less than ethical.
It is sad our world is in the state it is in, the popularity of drugs like Herion and Cocaine have truly had very negative effects on some very good true line lines, terrorism and war have made it dangerous to travel to regions well known for some of the worlds best strains. I feel it is on people like myself, and others which truly respect and appreciate cannabis to keep these lineages going for future generations.
I hope to see some positive reform in laws which may open up communications to trade and share without the worry of legal issues and imprisonment.
Sorry for the rant, but my views are very set and my passion and respect for cannabis is great.
As for Auto-Flowering, I worked a little with Ruderalis; Russian, and Mexocan varieties mostly, and found them to be interesting, but worthless when it came to psychoactive effects. I have a Purple Erkel X Purple Skunk which I had crossed outdoors and after several inbreeding runs found a few plants which seemed to go into flowering a few weeks earlier than the majority of the plants, so I began tro watch for males and females showing this and would take cuts and selectively pollenate them for this specific early flowering trait. After several years, and several inbreedings, I now have a strain that will show sex after about 2 weeks of veg and will go into flower and mature in 7 weeks. To me, that is close enough for me to an auto-flowering plant. Runderalis has it's place in science and breeding, I'm sure, just not in any of my projects or grows. As for female seeds, to me, they are a joke, they are perfect for those that never want to learn the true art of growing and for those which have little rerspect and/or appreciation for the cannabis species, they just want instant bud and nothing more. For me, it is much more than just buds and smoke.
I always to this day want alot more than I have now, but I know that everything outside the MNS lines are just remakes or copies of the originals. This pretty much keeps me in line, but if {Brothers Grimm} were still around I probably would go the extra mile and Buy from them as well. I hope you can get a grip on this, and you should just buy some Mango Widow, or ASH from MNS and stop all this madness. peace, resinbud