Best blueberry?

[Guest]

I see no purpose of producing an IBL from a small gene pool to
produce plants so that each individual is similar.
I prefer to search for the landrace variety for similar plants.
that have been produced with a large gene pool.
The growers & producers of landrace varieties are the "Breeders"
that deserve the respect IMO.

well said

mutations are a product of inbreeding and sustaining an IBL, so while leaf misformation etc. may not be regarded as a problem in itself by some, it is indicative of genetic degeneration, failed DNA transcription etc.

this can also entail loss of vigour, loss of seed viability, low yields, weak structure etc., low disease resistance etc.

these observations are not intended as a knock at Blueberry or DJ Short, simply as a statement of fact - most of the observations made about present Blueberry stock by posters above are consistent with it being a long established IBL

pure-breeding stock with desirable characteristics is obviously a fantastic thing to own, nobody is disputing that -

but I think there is a lack of balance in the cache given to some "Western" inbred lines -

the reality is that quality smoking cultivars have existed in Asia, Africa and areas of the Americas for centuries before Dutch and North American breeders got their hands on them and created the modern tastes and visual criteria a lot of people seem to judge herb by

I personally think that the way out of the smoking low point of the 80s and 90s lies in expanding the gene pool of strains employed in breeding

IMHO that is the real business of the "breeder" - who should be as much a collector as a selector

the great highs are already there in the great landrace cultivar strains - and crucially in the correct techniques of preparation of herb and hashish

I am not aware of how new Blueberry strains now being made available are being produced, but clearly the ideal situation would be that each Blueberry breeder was creating them from scratch from authentic landrace stock of diverse origin - i.e. genuine and personally sourced Central Asian hashish lines on the one hand, and on the other some kosher sativa stock such as he employed originally

blah blah, Namkha

 

[zamalito]

I can agree with that!! My breeding goals are probably more similar to yours than dj's. Mostly my humble goals are just to work to make landrace compatible to my environment and the preservation of original landrace. But I have to admit that I see just as many if not more mutants occuring in seedlines in the first generation from landrace growers than I do from ibls from various dutch and canadian breeders.

I will say (this is the only criticism I have of djshort) that I personally believe dj probably did create blueberry in too few generations. Though it is quite impressive to arrive at the blueberry lines from straight from region of origin landrace in 5-6 generations it sounds a bit quick to me. I don't believe plants are meant to change that quickly.

 

[TORC]

A-pips, what are you calling a small gene pool exactly? DJ's selection for the latest line started with 400 plants. That is 400 plants growing at the same time. Can you do this to make selections? What variety have you bred? Not buying seeds from people to sell or crossing plant to plant, I mean bred from scratch. Size of seed makes no difference to anything at all. Some varieties produce small seeds(Mexican, Columbian,etc..) and some produce large seeds. How do you come to the realization that seed size matters at all? Dj's BB line was started this time, as always with the original F1's and taken to F5 to get the characteristics that he wants. I do not see the chance for genetic deterioration when done like this.

 

[afropips]

Zam,
Please post pics of the mutant landrace varieties
& name them & from where you obtained them.
I have never seen the malformed mutants in all the
varieties I have tested except the latest BB seeds from DJ.
I also saw some pics of a G13 BB cross that were mutant
in the forums.

Cool Runnings........

 

[afropips]

Hiya TORC,
What DJ is doing is exactly what I refer too as a small gene pool.
Your questions & assumptions have no bearing on producing good cannabis.

Size of seeds Definately matters to the grower.
Yes, it is common knowledge that different varieties have
different sized seeds.
The seed size of the chosen variety definately makes a difference to the
initial vigour of the seedling. Larger seeds produce more robust seedlings
that are easier to cultivate thus ensuring a greater success rate
from a pack of seeds.

Did you take Biology as a subject at school
& gain a University Entrance grade?

The Mutants are testimony to the genetic degradation
caused by bad selections.

Cool Runnings..........

 

[TORC]

Size of seed makes no difference to the intial vigor of the seedling. That is purely genetic as is the size of said seed. No I do not have a biology degree, but I have been growing for 20 years and smoking for 25. I've seen many seed/pollen chuckers come and go, all claiming that they know it all. Guess what? They are no-where to be found. My questions go the basic fact that you really are no breeder. My questions were simple and straight forward. You come across as a know-it-all. When this happens I am intrigued. You are questioning DJ's breeding skills. Show us what you have bred, not the seeds you or your associates pick out of cobs. Not the seeds you make by taking a female and throwing pollen at it. That is not breeding, that is seed making. Big difference which you don't seem to comprehend. I want to know how you deem yourself an expert when you have bred nothing?

 

[zamalito]

I only just recently had gotten a digital camera and the pictures from my most recent grow will be posted in a few days and most of the deformed plants I come across are culled early on anyways. In my most recent grow I'll have a picture ghanaian plant that grew a petiole that reattached to the main stem causing the stem to grow in a circle. Also in my most recent grow there's a 303 that showed some weird calyx deformity I'd never seen before. In past grows I've had flat stems causing seriously deformed buds on a different ghanaian line. I've grown a brazilian amarelo plant that showed calyxes on a leaf. I've grown a malawi line that on occasion showed double tipped leaflets. I've grown an afghan line that would sometime produce leaves with two rows of leaf blades on one leaf. The most common deformity I've seen among landrace is where the plant will grow a misshapen leaf instead of continuing the growing shoot so the plant ends up growing as if it were topped at that node below continuing growth out of the lower branches.

 

[afropips]

Torc,
Your idea of what breeding is &
what it should be are 2 different things.
I never intended or claimed to be the "Breeder"
Thats Canabian Canna Politics.

Yes - you are correct I am a seed producer of various varieties of Ganja.
produced with strict quality control utilising pollinating tecniques to ensure
maximum sized seeds per bud.
Seeds are idividually pressure tested & packed for
best quality & value for money.

I never deemed myself an expert but I apply what I have learnt
with 25 years ganja experience specialising in African Varieties.

Cool Runnings.........

 

[zamalito]

I'm blown away that you've never come across deformities among landrace. I've always gotten the impression that many traditional growers grow in decently large quantities and aren't really concerned about leaf anomalies that are typically cosmetic in nature. Also sometimes the deformites occur simply because of differences in growth conditions whether its temperature, light cycle, or a micronutrient that occurs in high levels in the indigenous soil (the ghana gold has very high micronutrient requirements but very low macronutrient requirements).

I respectfully disagree about seed size. The deep chunk seeds from ogbub were about as large as they get but the seedlings produced from said seeds aren't very vigorous especially when compared to acapulco gold and zamal (two very small seeded varieties) though I do believe it has some bearing on shelf life. The deep chunk seeds I bred outdoors were noticeably smaller than ogbubs indoor seeds and seem indentical as far as vigor is concerned though mine haven't gotten past early veg.

 

[TORC]

Just for the record Afropip, I am not Canabian, I am from the US, just like DJ.

 

[afropips]

hiya Zam,
I have seen leaf deformities & other annomalies
that I have noticed with landrace. One plant out of hundreds
planted,
This is completely different from the severely malformed mutants that occur
in a pack of the BB in question where most of the plants exibit deformities in a range
from not so severely deformed to some that are so severely deformed that they do not grow properly & wither before harvest.

There are various reasons why mutants occur & mutants
can be induced with chemicals.

Please read my post on seed size again as I state within a specific variety
& not comparing between varieties.

Cool Runnings.........

 

[Capt. Crip]

I never deemed myself an expert .

Cool Runnings.........

Smartest thing you have said in this thread....
I've come to the conclusion that you are just a f*****g i***t !!!

Seed size has nothing,read this,NOTHING to do with vigor!It has nothing to do with anything other than the genetics and the time the plants were pollinated..Early pollination equals larger seeds later equals smaller seeds...
Both will have the same germ rates,ease of germination and grow into the same plants they would have whether the seed was big or small...

You talk of college and how people should get schooled on the subject...
Just where in the fuck is your degree from...

Why can't you let it go???Why do you feell like you need to let everyone know how DJ's techniques are bad and what you are doing is the way it should be done???
Is that backpack getting heavy???
You act as if everyone needs to be growing your gear and in the same breath make excuses why it will not be as good as it would be if you were growing it in it's native climate...No shit Sherlock!
DJ's genetics grow excellent in all climates...From cold to hot and everywhere in between...He never comes online to talk shit about anyone!People like you come here and talk shit about him and he never responds,why?Because it's not needed!His gear does the talking for him....Why don't you do the same?

Noone here would have anything negative to say if you would quit bashing others...
Instead you call everyone Afro-haters..
We don't hate you,just that big mouth of yours...
How in the hell can you call people haters when you feel the need to pop in to Blueberry threads and bash the creator....
Is this not hating in it's truest form?
If you came in and just gave you opinion that you didn't like it then OK....But you have to tell everyone that his practices are wrong and his genetics are not any good for the future of breeding...You have to keep fighting with everyone to get your point across...

How would you feel if we came into every one of your threads pertaining to your gear and trashed you to the members here?And told folks that you breeding was killing the quality of cannabis??How would you feel really?

You have a shitty way of doing things bro! You need to take a step back.....
Your gear will be grown and you better hope it's not all hype!
No,I don't need your 2 or 3 flunkies to tell me it's great,I will see for myself and make my findings availible in the Grow/Smoke forum....

Take care ..................................CC

 

[JLP]

Do you have any data to back up your "bigger seed,better plant" thoery?Do you have a Botany(not biology) book from your extensive education that states this?

I grow almost exclusively from seed and I've never noticed a difference.Natural instinct may tell you to pick the biggest best looking seed,but you're not going to eat it,you are going to plant it,and Mother Nature will decide the rest.For all the technology we have they still find much of what a seeds does to be a mystery.About the only thing you can tell from a seed by looking at it is if it's immature and even then it requires a pinch test.You can't look at a seed and tell if it's a male,a hermie,a runt,or a mutant(obviously).





Anyone who has researched the BB line in the last 5 years should know that they have mutations.Sometimes the mutants snap out of it during the flower period.The mutations occur only sometimes and range from mild to extreme.Most people accept this fact and don't care,myself included,especially if the mutant turns out to be a male like this one.





The other plants more than make up for it.

JLP

 

[TORC]

Thank you Capt and JLP.

 

[Octavian]

Crabs in a bucket.

TORC baby, you sure do fight the good fight. It's fairly obvious that Afrocrabs is just trying to raise opinions of himself by standing on DJs shoulders. I don't know why he feels that he has to break someone else down in order to raise himself up, but it's very unappealing, no?

In my opinion, IBLs exist for the sole purpose of creating outstanding F1's. The sheer number of Blueberry crosses that exist speak volumes more for the quality of the genetics than some self promoting hater spouting off to the contrary.

Now, I'm off to smoke some Mental Floss that I grew from seed...a Blueberry cross of the highest caliber, IMO.

Octavian

 

[Guest]

Seed size could be a factor in the initial vigour of a seedling as the bigger the seed, the more nutrient is contained in the seed shell for the young seedling to use.

However, Columbian Gold produces tiny dark seeds, I just made a Columbian x Thai cross and the Seeds are twice the size of the pure Columbian ones. This does not mean that the hybrid beans are more vigourous in the first few days after germing or have higher germ rates.

One thing i will say about landraces is that the ones I've grown are more robust, hardier plants than a commercial hybrid. Columbian Gold is a good example, it is an extremely tough strain, not sensitive to nute or water levels, handles both hot and cold temepratures without flinching, I had an exhaust fan failuire a few months back that wiped out my crop due to the cabinet reaching nearly 50 celsius for about 5 hours. The two Columbians in that crop survived fine, they didn'y even wilt, whereas thing like White Widow and Pluton had shrivelled up turned brown and died.

It's the same with animals and other plants too, to use dogs as an example, pedigree dogs that are the result of breeding programs suffer more from disease and ill health than mongrels.

My grandfather used to grow potatoes, he always planted the same old variety he had grown for decades, they weren't as large or impressive looking as the commercially developed strains of potato but never needed any pesticides or other special treatment, you just sowed them then harvested them months later, they were so reliable, never rotted in the ground or suffered from pests. My grandfather had tried a dozen or more commercial varieties and he still stuck with that old reliable variety as all the commercial ones were less hardy and less reliable. True, if well cared for and treated with TLC, they could produce bigger, more impressive potatoes, but my grandfather didn't want to risk ending up with a load of rotten, malformed potatoes, which was also a possibility with the commercial ones.

The same thing goes for cannabis, Haze is a wonderful, comples high, but to grow is a real bitch, picky about nutes and water, a very touchy, sensitive lady indeed, you have to grow it with care and skill to produce good Haze buds. However, Columbian Gold, a landrace, is the opposite, not picky or touchy in anyway, so simple to grow, you just pop the seed in the dirt and let it does its stuff, providing water and nutes along the way, easiest to grow strain I've ever had.

Now, Columbian Gold has lower yield, longer flowering time and more stretch than a lot of commercial sativas, it may be a little less potent and has a fairly low ceiling to the high, but those downsides are more than compensated for by the ease of growth, toughnessand stability (at least for me).

I read all these threads about Bubba Kush and Og Kush and other elite cuts and how some of them are so lacking in vigour (Bubba) and slow growing, how some are very picky and need careful treatment. Bubba and OG Kush maybe great smokes, but I don't want either of them, however I would give a kidney for a pure landrace Kush.

Oh, and for those that say Afropips comes across as a know-it-all, I have had a fair few South African friends over the years and they all can seem a little arrogant, it's a trait of South Africans to be highly confident and sure of themselves, it's not arrogance, it's just the way they are. Anyone remember Gary Bailey, the South African goalkeeper who played for Man Utd? When he was still only 18 he walked into Man Utd's training ground and announced he was their new goalkeeper. The Utd players thought he was an arrogant kid, they soon learnt that he wasn't arrogant at all, he was just very confident and sure of his own abilities, within a few weeks, he did become Utd's first-choice keeper.

 

[zamalito]

Columbian landraces especially golds are nutrient vaccuums and quite unlike other landrace sativas which tend to have very low nutrient requirements especially when compared to most indoor varieties. Celestial temple sativa (ecuadorian but basically columbian genes) holds my personal record for the highest nutrient concentration. Someone said that Zamal typically isn't even fed in its native homeland.

 

[Guest]

I have female Seeds' Zamal x Haze going at the moment and their is a Zamal pheno that is a truly wild weed, side branches like nothing else and very vigourous, incredible growth and I've not had to feed them yet, just put them into 12/12 after 6 weeks of veg.

I haven't noticed the Columbian Gold I have being a nutrient hog at all, never had any nute burn on any of them but they do suffer overfert, look at the curled leaves on this one, I gave it too hefty a dose of ferts. It doesn't seem to have any adverse effects though, the leaves just curl.

By comparison, Thai is a lot more picky about nutes than the Columbian, I tend to think the columbian is just insensitive to nutrient levels and will grow fine with or without.

I gave a Columbian clone to a friend who grows hydro along with a Grapefruitbowl clone. GFB is a well-known nute hog, so he is running it at 1200ppm, the Columbian is also thriving at 1200ppm, when he ran a Thai it wouldn't handle 800ppm.

 

[Red]

I think JLP said it best by just showing the results. This thread was called "Best Blueberry" not "opinions on DJ Shorts breeding practices." Once agian Afro please keep it in your pants or at least in your own forum-this is getting old........

 

[Raco]

Hi Red,
A couple pics of Johnny Blaze...Nevil´s Haze x Blueberry male...
Foxtails w/o purple or blue colors