40degsouth
Well-known member
here’s an update of the (Blackdog X Golden Tiger) bx1 winter trial, about five weeks on, under a skylight.
These plants have been subjected to extremely low light conditions, about three direct hours a day when the sun’s out, water logging and over crowding. On the whole I’m very happy with plant health as can be seen by the cotyledons. Although they have been sheltered from direct inclement conditions such as rain, wind and frost they have been quite cold with soil temperatures below 10 degrees C.
You can see from the photos that some have really stretched for light, early on, fallen over and kept growing; these plants will be the first to be culled. You may also be able to see that some are greener than others signifying that particular plants ability to efficiently and effectively photosynthesise in low light and metabolise nutrients with wet feet and cold conditions, I’ll be keeping a particularly close eye on these.
Even although the leaf structures are very similar and displaying positive attributes, I’m expecting the more sativa leaners to start to stretch hard in the next few weeks as they go into flower. I will also be looking for purpling of the leaves and stems as they approach senescence, a bit of a giveaway for my desired pheno of the Blackdog mother. She also grows extremely vigorously in cold conditions so the purpling isn’t a sign of phosphorus deficiency when soil temperatures are below 10 degrees C.
So selection is a bit of a juggling act between vigour, in cold conditions, with the right amount of stretch along with plant health in adverse conditions.
Cheers,
40.
l do find this approach about as low tech as you can get but still extremely effective in its ability to assess individual lines or plants for the breeding objectives, l mentioned in the original post, without manipulating environmental factors to much. 
