Summer of 2021 Breeding project
This summer I sought out to preserve some old genetics I had gotten a couple years back. I popped an 11 pack of Bodhi seeds' 88hashplant/ChemD. I hunted out a couple males in the selection that I ended up using in an open pollination round outdoors.
I do all of my breeding projects outdoors. Living in Michigan we have all 4 seasons and the summer is the only Time that cannabis is able to do well up here. So we get one season and the rule of thumb up here is as long as your plants are in the ground by July 4th, you will be good to go! The reason I do all of my breeding outdoors is I truly believe that no amount of mimicry, no amount of technology we come up with will ever measure up to what Gaia has to give the plants.
It has been my experience that the seeds develop to be much larger when created outdoors. So in the off season I run genetics in my indoor garden to ultimately decide what gets to be tossed into the next year's Summer lineup. I am very fortunate to have soil where I can plant my cannabis and besides some minor pruning and cleaning out for air flow I can forget about them and nature grows them for me. The soil where I live is very fertile. I add a few of my own amendments in the beginning along with harvested fungus/beneficial bacteria to add to the diversity of the soil.
This year I dumped that 88 Hashplant/ChemD pollen all over my Purple Abazaba for the purpose of trying to stabilize her a little bit more. She was my first attempt at creating feminized seeds and even after two generations she has continued to show signs of hermaphrodite traits in the first 2 weeks of flower. It is so minimal and it stops after the first 2 weeks however I'd like to rid the genetics of this undesirable trait.
I also pollinated a Chewy Runtz by Kre8 Genetics which is Runtz X Gelato 41. I love the phenotype I hunted out of 10 seeds. I bought 50 with the intention to phenohunt them but didn't have the space and within the 10 I popped found a GORGEOUS phenotype. The buds are completely purple beginning in week 2 of flower. It smells like Grape medicine and mothballs but doesn't yield the thickest. Hoping this male will thicken her up in the next generation.
I had another pack of seeds my wife had been wanting me to hunt through and it was Bodhi seed's Trainwreck X Kashmir. My wife is a big fan of the Trainwreck and I've always wanted to grow it so I tossed in in the ground and it has been the most vigorous of all the plants I have out there. I don't know what this pollen is going to do tossed over this colorful girl I was really only hoping to increase my seedstock of preserved landraces and having this Trainwreck already crossed with an Indian land race its a double win! I didn't expect as much purple in this one but the array of colors she's giving off is pleasing. She smells like sour lime, with a hint of musky-ness on the back end. It looks like this one will be taking the longest to flower this season. Hopefully she makes it before our cold Octobers.
The last one that's getting pollinated is the female I selected from the same pack I chose the male from. So I'll be making F2's of the 88 Hashplant/ChemD. Growing the female out has been a joy! She is very squatty and has very dense tightly stacking buds that smell like pistachios and forest floor. Crossing my fingers this male adds a bit more KICK to the terpene profile she is exhibiting because currently she's only standing out for how quickly she is finishing off.
I will hopefully be documenting/blogging more of my journey through this medium. I also plan to make these blogs much more exciting and enjoyable to look at instead of it feeling like a text book like this one does. I created this post to merely get my ideas down and test out this new service that “Coil” migrated to.
Until next Time Growmies! The Silent Monk