In the beginning around 1975 Skunk #1 was RKS as hell, almost every plant regardless of where grown, by whom, or how. In other words the RKS was in the plants not how they were grown or by nutrition or by whom. It took me basically a decade to remove most of the RKS smells from SK #1, then I took Skunk #1 to the Netherlands and reproduced the variety from selected sweeter clones that seldom if ever threw out any RKS smelling Skunk#1's.
FYI, growing methods and nutrition can alter terpene profiles both yields and profiles but the basic contents are still the same just the profile can be altered a bit, no new terpenes are created by using different nutrition or growing methods. Terpenes are controlled by having the correct terpene synthases in the plant. Terpene expression is modified by methods and nutrition, but no synthase, no terpene of that synthase.
I always found great plants were even better in an organic soil that encourages massive roots with zillions of very fine roots. I have grown bio-dynamically, organic, in the ground, most of my life.
Most of the Cali-O seeds I made and sold in Calif and here were not pure Cali-O most were Cali-O X Skunk #1, very few pure Cali-O seeds were ever sold, while kilos and kilos of Cali-O X Skunk#1 were made and sold here and there. Pure Cali-O is not RKS at all.
Most people are strongly influenced by their own experiences, which may or may not be the reasons in this case. I have seen Skunk #1 every year for 4 decades, by the thousands, the first decade by seeds, then by clones, I have a pretty good idea what it does. I have grown the same Skunk #1 clone for several decades so many places around the world I can't even remember them all, literally zillions of plants, most from the same clone, every soil, every climate, indoors, outdoors, greenhouse, even hydro a few times.
I do still have maybe 50 Kg of Skunk #1 seeds left that were made here after a decade of selection towards the sweet side in the USA, but the parents of the 50 Kg were from USA seeds and they did still have RKS smelling individuals in the acre of plants from seeds I made in the USA and brought with me, I remember walking through the field and killing any plants male or female that I considered inferior, there were lots of RKS Skunk #1 in the field. I did not kill or remove any by smell alone, I wanted potency, smells were not so important for that crop of seeds. The seeds are now more then 25 years old but I did a germination test last month and got 17% to germinate, they have been under cold storage at 4C.
I do not really have an interest in recreating my RKS Skunk #1 but sooner or later I will maybe sell the 50 Kg of seeds to a breeder I respect, to work with the seeds. Even at 17% 50 Kgs has 2,500,000 seeds or 400,000 viable seeds, so I am sure there are RKS individuals in them, but it does take a lot of work to grow them out to find the ones to keep. That is 200,000 females to judge, and then to get a male you need to select out the best males, keep them alive, and test progeny to find the best males to combine with the best females, females are much easier to find and keep. Or just make all female seeds it requires much less work then finding, trialling progeny, and keeping and using males. That is part of the reason so many make all female seeds nowadays, that and they sell for more, and you can reach goals faster. But Cannabis is a dioecious obligate outcrosser plant, it does not like small populations which can bring on loss of vigor from inbreeding. If you self a single plant and make seeds, grow those, self one of them again, etc for more then 3 selfed generations you end up with wimpy plants with no vigor that have trouble even producing viable pollen when transformed to male, many recessive deleterious genes pop up. It is similar to why Monoecious hemp varieties are inferior in yields and quality, they are just to inbred.
When I see folks doing this work, as I have many times, I tell them to work with more plants, that is how to make fast progress toward a goal, or away from a smell in my case. With clones I selected the best 10 females and 10 males out of many thousands, and then made 100 trial populations from the selected 10 Females times the 10 Males so I could grow out 200 seeds of each of the 100 populations, 20,000 in a single grow just to test the progeny. That way I knew what parental combo was closest to my goals. I still have those clones but they are sweeter Skunk#1, that was my goal.
Good luck, the goal is not an easy one, I would not try without starting materials that are appropriate to reach the goal.
PS I do not retail seeds, you can ask, but the answer is no. For the last few decades I only sold wholesale several kilo minimums, and now I am all but retired, I have been cataloging my seed collections, thousands of hybrids I have never even grown, almost a ton of seeds, most I made myself, a few from others I collected overseas, but maybe to many for me to grow? 50 million seeds, if they were all viable, I say 5-10 million females that need to be trialled and evaluated for use.
-SamS
FYI, growing methods and nutrition can alter terpene profiles both yields and profiles but the basic contents are still the same just the profile can be altered a bit, no new terpenes are created by using different nutrition or growing methods. Terpenes are controlled by having the correct terpene synthases in the plant. Terpene expression is modified by methods and nutrition, but no synthase, no terpene of that synthase.
I always found great plants were even better in an organic soil that encourages massive roots with zillions of very fine roots. I have grown bio-dynamically, organic, in the ground, most of my life.
Most of the Cali-O seeds I made and sold in Calif and here were not pure Cali-O most were Cali-O X Skunk #1, very few pure Cali-O seeds were ever sold, while kilos and kilos of Cali-O X Skunk#1 were made and sold here and there. Pure Cali-O is not RKS at all.
Most people are strongly influenced by their own experiences, which may or may not be the reasons in this case. I have seen Skunk #1 every year for 4 decades, by the thousands, the first decade by seeds, then by clones, I have a pretty good idea what it does. I have grown the same Skunk #1 clone for several decades so many places around the world I can't even remember them all, literally zillions of plants, most from the same clone, every soil, every climate, indoors, outdoors, greenhouse, even hydro a few times.
I do still have maybe 50 Kg of Skunk #1 seeds left that were made here after a decade of selection towards the sweet side in the USA, but the parents of the 50 Kg were from USA seeds and they did still have RKS smelling individuals in the acre of plants from seeds I made in the USA and brought with me, I remember walking through the field and killing any plants male or female that I considered inferior, there were lots of RKS Skunk #1 in the field. I did not kill or remove any by smell alone, I wanted potency, smells were not so important for that crop of seeds. The seeds are now more then 25 years old but I did a germination test last month and got 17% to germinate, they have been under cold storage at 4C.
I do not really have an interest in recreating my RKS Skunk #1 but sooner or later I will maybe sell the 50 Kg of seeds to a breeder I respect, to work with the seeds. Even at 17% 50 Kgs has 2,500,000 seeds or 400,000 viable seeds, so I am sure there are RKS individuals in them, but it does take a lot of work to grow them out to find the ones to keep. That is 200,000 females to judge, and then to get a male you need to select out the best males, keep them alive, and test progeny to find the best males to combine with the best females, females are much easier to find and keep. Or just make all female seeds it requires much less work then finding, trialling progeny, and keeping and using males. That is part of the reason so many make all female seeds nowadays, that and they sell for more, and you can reach goals faster. But Cannabis is a dioecious obligate outcrosser plant, it does not like small populations which can bring on loss of vigor from inbreeding. If you self a single plant and make seeds, grow those, self one of them again, etc for more then 3 selfed generations you end up with wimpy plants with no vigor that have trouble even producing viable pollen when transformed to male, many recessive deleterious genes pop up. It is similar to why Monoecious hemp varieties are inferior in yields and quality, they are just to inbred.
When I see folks doing this work, as I have many times, I tell them to work with more plants, that is how to make fast progress toward a goal, or away from a smell in my case. With clones I selected the best 10 females and 10 males out of many thousands, and then made 100 trial populations from the selected 10 Females times the 10 Males so I could grow out 200 seeds of each of the 100 populations, 20,000 in a single grow just to test the progeny. That way I knew what parental combo was closest to my goals. I still have those clones but they are sweeter Skunk#1, that was my goal.
Good luck, the goal is not an easy one, I would not try without starting materials that are appropriate to reach the goal.
PS I do not retail seeds, you can ask, but the answer is no. For the last few decades I only sold wholesale several kilo minimums, and now I am all but retired, I have been cataloging my seed collections, thousands of hybrids I have never even grown, almost a ton of seeds, most I made myself, a few from others I collected overseas, but maybe to many for me to grow? 50 million seeds, if they were all viable, I say 5-10 million females that need to be trialled and evaluated for use.
-SamS
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![[m8]](/data/avatars/m/28/28733.jpg?1649695533){kind=avatar}
just joking.
