Exploring lunarcy phases with Apollo 11

[Highlighter]

I'm starting this thread to document my hobby breeding with Brother Grimm's 'Apollo 11'.
When I found the online canna-community in '01-02, I was elated, and studied up on the various strains available.
I'd bought seeds from the Seed Bank & SSSC in the 80's and other sources from HT's in the 90's, but this was a whole new ballgame!
My 1st purchase was Apollo 11, via Heaven's Staircase.
As the Brothers Grimm were a dead entity @ that point, I did not want to lose out on their description:

Apollo 11: This indoor hybrid has a high calyx/leaf ratio & finishes flowering in 7 weeks or less. Our big-yielding, lemon-scented female clone named "Genius" because of her CLEAR, energetic, thought-provoking high was crossed with a robust Cinderella 99 male to create Apollo Eleven. Expect some variation among individuals. The best females are short, heavily branched plants with multitudes of dense, resinous bud sites - perfect for SCROG. The smoke has a sweet citrus flavour. The high is UP & HAPPY.

Those three words they capitalized, CLEAR, UP & Happy, were key selling points.
At $150 a pk. I was looking at this as an investment, and made F2's. Unfortunately, I used only one male and one female.
Here's what they looked like.


I've worked with these F2's ever since. This fall I popped the last of them. This coincided with the offering of an Apollo cut that's made the rds. since '04. It's a Genius-leaning pheno that yields well and carries a good lemon flavor. Seemed perfect to introduce to my Apollo genetics.
I'm calling this cut A11-GPC. (Genius pheno cut)
Here's one @ 12 days into 12/12.

I have another one 3 wks into flower with my selected Apollo males.
Here's some shots of the 3 males I've selected. You'll notice that all these plants have the zig-zagging branches carried over from the Genius.


Today the Apollo girls I have going are @ 32 days. I selected 4 females to make F3's with, and they will be done with cuts.
Due to space limitations, I had to kill off two of the Apollo's.
The smallest A11 (#6) I left alone, while the #10 plant received some LST work.
Here they are today.
Apollo 11 #6

Apollo 11 #10

Be back in a bit with Apollo's Trip.

 

[Ottoman]

Nice work HL, it'll be sweet to watch this thread go from a project, to actual breeding, to watching the offspring grow up. I give you a lot of credit seems like you're making killer crosses all the time, seriously more than your growing actual buds, lol... Also a $150 for a pk beans that long ago too, there must be some special genetics in those beans.....Also how does that genius pheno cut smoke, is it anything like the description from brothers grimm?

 

[Highlighter]

Apollo Trip

Apollo Trip

Rez did a one-off cross of his Apollo genetics with Dutch Flowers' 'Apollo 13 TRIP'.

Apollo 13 was the precursor to Apollo 11.
Grimm cut & paste:

"Apollo 11 & 13 are from the same mother plant (Genius). The father of Apollo 13 was P.75 whereas Apollo 11's dad is Cinderella 99.
Apollo 13's mother was bred from a mysterious hybrid of Jack Herer crossed with an unidentified male which seems to have given it an unusually SHORT flowering period. Its scent is a pungent “Lemon Pledge” citrus with an undertone of acrid skunk. You really taste lemons when you smoke a joint. The high is STRONG, and starts hitting you while you're smoking it, rather than being a “creeper” high. It's easy to grow, matures rapidly, and manicures easily." MrSoul [QUOTE/]

"The potency of A13 and Cinderella are "on par" in strength, but the character of each high is unique. A13 is a more "happy, social high" although seriously potent. Cinderella has a bit more "paranoia-inducing" high. Neither one has the "couch-lock" effect -they give the smoker an "up", energetic feeling... good for doing something physical, as opposed to lying around comatose." MrSoul

Apollo 13: This skunky girl will make your eyes water with her pungent perfume. The delicate balance of Indica/Sativa makes Apollo 13 perfect for growers limited to a single strain.
The long, fat colas and sparkling, sticky side branches really weigh in at harvest time. This is the type of smoke you can't hold down; it expands and "blasts off" from the lungs.
The high is clear and cerebral, without a hint of paranoia. Her citrus flavor and happy high make Apollo 13 very popular at parties! Two hits and you can leave your own footprints on the moon.

Apollo 13 has a MINIMAL amount Shiva Skunk in its composition, only about 10%. Its mother was bred from a mysterious hybrid of Jack Herer crossed with an unidentified male which seems to have given it an unusually SHORT flowering period. Its scent is a pungent "Lemon Pledge" citrus with an undertone of acrid skunk. You really taste lemons when you smoke a joint. The high is STRONG, and starts hitting you while you're smoking it, rather than being a "creeper" high. It's easy to grow, matures rapidly, and manicures easily. Cinderella 88 is shorter & more resinous, but yields about the same as Apollo 13.

The flavour is like tropical fruits like pineapple, mango, tangerine... but with an "evil" undertone a lot like certain Thai weed has. I consider Cinderella superior to Apollo, but everyone's got an opinion. Neither of these strains are true-breeding but their offspring would be good -just lots of variety. MrSoul

What Dutch Flowers did, was to cross a selected A-13 male with Haze #19.

Haze #19 gave our A13 Trip its notable hazey edge. Even hard-core Haze aficionados admit that our Haze #19 has on occasion caught them off balance and threw them into a cold-sweating experience they rather not repeat. Dutch Flowers

Haze seeds were bought from Martijn, the heir apparent to Wernerd´s genetics of Positronics fame.
The reference to #19 in this case is just the number this particular Haze seedling is known under, its "Haze #19", no connection to Peak #19. The original Haze cutting (according to Martijn) was super-strong but in order to develop a seedline it had to be crossed with some male and reportedly today has 13% indica in it.

This "Haze #19" plant is definitely NOT what you would expect phenotype-wise (looks indica), but on the other hand the high is trippy and has almost NO body, the color of the leaves is pale green, has no skunk odor at all (fruity when growing, spicy "Vicks vapo rub" when cured), it is finicky about its feeding regimen (it immediately goes yellow)... all traits that one does not associate with Indica.

Not a "wonder" plant, I would rate it 7.5 overall, but its a compact plant, short in height and flowering time, and you still get a sativa-style of high with an agreeable, non-skunky taste. Good
breeding material, good structure and flowering time, with a respectable high. -Adam Tripper

I grew my pack of Rez's 'Apollo Trip' in '09, used pollen from two males to selectively pollinate individual branches on my 5 females.
This fall, I germed all 38 seeds from the #7 plant. Here's what she looked like.

She had the narrowest leaves of all the Trip's and was sweet pineapple compared to the other's rotten pineapple.

So here's the offspring. I whittled them down to 7 plants, and only ended up with one male.
Here's the four I kept to flower out. These 1st shots are Trips on the left (red), A11's on the right (black). Plants were a few days into flower, and all the Trip's were soon LST'd.


Here's the four Trips today @ 32 days.
Apollo Trip #1

Apollo Trip #2

Apollo Trip #3

Apollo Trip #4

 

[TacomaComa]

awesome post! thanks for sharing my friend

 

[Highlighter]

Otto, good to have you here! That goes for you too TC!

I have not smoked the GPC, I'm doing this on blind faith!
I have smoked various "elites" and get why most are held in such high esteem, but there's just something about Apollo that makes my heart sing!
My long-term plan is to use it w/ more tropical sativa's to bring flowering time down.
My last rd. of F2's in '09 I picked some males that were used on my keeper F13's. I sent around 1,000 seeds to SB and documented it in this thread:
F13 x A11
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=187736

These were grown OD and resulted in my best OD grow!

Within the next few wks, I will start more of these, with the plan to look for males to B/C to the A11-GPC.

Also in '09 I grew out ACE's 'Golden Tiger' and selectively pollinated various branches with the same Apollo pollen.
Last month I started a bunch of these and now have 18 "Flying Tigers' (Tip 'o the cap to The Pablos for that one! )

These are 40 days old, root-bound in beer cups, but I have to wait til the Apollo boys get their initial job done, before I can up-can them and put them in that room. A few wks.
The plan w/ these, too, is to choose males to B/C to the A11-GPC.

The small seedlings in the background are ACE's Vietnam Nah Trang X Meao Thai. ACE gave these out as freebies, as they were more "jungle-y" than the other Meao Thai crosses.
When I read the ACE description, all I could think of, was the possibilities crossed with Apollo.

Vietnam Nah Trang x Meao Thai -> Spicy lemony se asian aromas, very up clear and motivating high. 16 weeks flowering time. Leafier than first 2 hybrids.

Lemon & CLEAR, just what I want to hear!

These are getting close to 3 wks old. Right behind them is a lone seed I found in a jar of Chaco's 'Magic' haze. (A Nev. Haze pheno)
I will cross this one w/ Apollo regardless of sex.

I popped a freebie 5-pk. of Fairlight's 'C-99's' and have 4 a few days older than the 'Flying Tigers'. They will figure into the mix too if time and space allow.

Fun Ahoy!

 

[kaneboy]

wow alright highlighter this project is off the richter ,ive grown apollo 11 only in crosses and had a genius pheno that was a heads cross with cindy99 well what a plant never seen a plant structured like that but turned out male and silly me killed it ,sorry for rambling but its so unreal to see grimms true beauty beautiful work

 

[rasputin]

I'm tagging up for the show. Happy hunting, HL!

 

[Midnight Rudy]

You know I'm up for this!!

 

[hydroclops]

sup bro, cool tread I will have to get a few shots of my mom, before I take some clones.

 

[Bi0hazard]

I'm pulling up a seat for this one. I've been waiting for this for so many years. The A11 (g) Males, the A-Trips, and also the FLT C99's, (those have been showing incredible results) are perfect matches for the GPC. I think getting some Apollo 13, maybe the TGA A13 Bx into the breeding mix could produce some incredible new specimens. I'm always looking for as much variety of breeding within the Apollo/Princess gene pool as possible. I've never had the pleasure to smoke A13, but I've heard it is a much trippier effect than A11. And as I've probably said ad nauseum, but hopefully someone can chemically Reserve the A11-GPC to a male so it can be bred to Pre-98 Bubba, Chem D, ECSD, SFV OG etc... I would be all over A11 crosses for life =]

Much respect Highlighter.

Just wanted to add-in some of the information behind the Princess genetics that led to Cinderella 99, Apollo 11 and Apollo 13: to help people with a general knowledge of where the strain comes from and possible breeding ideas. There was a lot of work by Mr Soul that went into Cinderella 99 and the Apollo's. Enjoy...

Cinderella 99 (Mr. Soul) Princess X Princess 88
Apollo 11 (Brothers Grimm) Genius X Cinderella 99
Apollo 13 (Brothers Grimm) Genius X Princess 75
Genius = Pheno from the same bagseed batch that Princess, and Cafe Girl came from - The Beans came from a bag of nug labeled "Jack Herer" in Amsterdam, although the father of the JH is unknown. Genius is a very thought provoking, deep conteplative high - known for provoking scholarly thinking) Has a Zig-Zag growth and Lemon pledge smell.

-- More background into the Princess breeding that led to Princess 88 (The Precursor of Cinderella 99)--

∙Princess - A special pheno from bagseed - the herb that was purchased was labeled Jack Herer, but the authenticity of it is still not certain. Princess is very thought provoking and somewhat racy.
∙Princess 50 (Mr. Soul) Princess X [Shiva Skunk X Jack Herer]
∙Princess 75 (Mr. Soul) Princess X Princess 50
∙Princess 88 aka Cinderella 88 (Mr. Soul) Princess X Princess 75

And thus the original Princess was crossed with Princess 88 to create Cinderella 99. Then C99 was crossed to Genius to create Apollo 11. Apollo 13 was then created by crossing Genius to Princess 75 rather than Cinderella 99, and is supposed to have a trippier high than Apollo 11.

Dank Regards,

Bi0hazard

 

[The Hummus Monk]

 

[Midnight Rudy]

Bio, it is my understanding that the original princess and genius were bag seed from a "supposed" 8th of jack herer bought at the sensi shop in a-dam. Nobody knows who the daddy was and Mr. Soul even seemed to question if it was jack herer. Saying it is a "rare pheno" is off base imho. not being confrontational brother just anal. Ha!

 

[Midnight Rudy]

I also posted this in Darwins A11 thread a while back.

Here is the quote from the man himself, Mr. Soul of Bros. Grimm:

I’ve been seeing a lot of posts from people asking for the “Cinderella Story”, so here it is:
In 1997, I discovered a few seeds in a bud of Jack Herer I bought @ “Sensi Smile” coffeeshop in Amsterdam while there to buy seeds. I didn’t expect much when I grew them, but one of those seeds from the JH bud produced a very special female that I call “Princess”.
Therefore Princess’ mother was a Jack Herer (IF we can believe what Sensi Smile printed on the package) and her father is a totally unidentified mystery plant.
I also got 2 more females (Genius & Cafe’Girl) & several males from those seeds. I used pollen from one of the males on a heavy-yielding, dense, resinous ShivaSkunk (from Sensi Seedbank) female, then grew the resulting seeds to get males to produce pollen to cross Princess with, beginning the cubing process.
The first generation of seeds from Princess were called P.50 because they were 50% Princess. I used males from the P.50 generation to back-cross to Princess to get P.75 and again back-crossed with the P.75 pollen to get P.88 and again with the P.88 pollen to get P.94 which is “Cinderella 99″, a cubed version of Princess.
The name “Cinderella” was chosen because of the parallels between this story and the well-known fairy tale in which Cinderella becomes a Princess despite her humble beginning. It’s also VERY similar to the story of the “Morgan Horse”…go Figure
I ALWAYS see preflowers between the age of 4 and 6 weeks. Node 6 is commonly where they start, so I’d say you’re probably seeing them. The plants that show first are usually males. Look over each plant carefully, using a loupe. If you see a preflower at such an early age, it’ll most likely be male, but be SURE before culling it. If you can’t find a preflower on a plant, while most of the others HAVE shown… it’s most likely a female. Isn’t that uniformity NICE? Cinderella 99 is a STABLE strain. Cinderella 88 was close, but this generation is there.
(Cinderella needs odor control?) I don’t know if it helps you, but the scent is very sweet and fruity. It won’t “fool” anyone who’s familiar with MJ, but the average person might not recognize the scent as pot. They start to smell after 3 weeks of 12/12 and they’re harvested 4 weeks later, so the SHORT flowering cycle helps a bit by lessening the amount of time your garden “stinks”.
Yields are highly dependant on the methods used. Pruning style and number of plants/area make a BIG difference. I get about 2 lbs every 50 days under 2kW. I grow a combination of bushes and single-cola clones (about 12-20 of ‘em) in 2 gallon pots of organic soil, feeding them “teas” of dissolved worm castings, PSG, high phosphorus bat guano and kelp meal. My yields are average at best. Professional growers write me saying they get 2lbs/kW, which I’m sure is true.
The scent given off by Cinderella is NOT the typical “pot stench”…not at all skunky -she’s sweet and fruity. Someone passing by the flowering room MIGHT not recognize the scent as pot and mistake it for tropical flowers. When you rub the resin you can definitely smell it. C-99 is more “psychedelic”… I think that’s what you’re looking for eh? Just be sure to smoke a LITTLE, wait 10 minutes, then think about whether or not you need any more…it’s easy to over-indulge and become paranoid.
Haze is my favourite high. Very “trippy” C-99 is has more of the Haze type of high because the mother (Princess), has that kind of high and each time I back-cross to her the next generation gets a bit more of it. Smoking PURE Princess buds is a bit scary… it’s too “speedy” and paranoia-inducing for most people. But she’s so RESINOUS (see photo) and her flavour is just so delicious and fruity that I knew back-crossing her to her offspring over several generations would create a strain which is actually BETTER than the original mother in terms of a more PLEASING high. It was successful beyond my expectations.
The progression I went through was:
P.50 = Princess/(ShivaSkunk/Princess’Brother)
P.75 = Princess/P.50
Cinderella 88 = Princess/P.75
Cinderella 99 = Princess/Cinderella 88
Each generation exhibited a MAJOR jump in potency: P.50 was rather mellow, P.75 has a well-balanced body/mind high with a citrus flavour, Cinderella 88 is cerebral and paralyzing with a tropical fruit flavour, and Cinderella 99 is “TRIP WEED” with more of the fruity flavour and speedy effect from Princess.
C-99 will be a bigger yielder and faster finisher (than D/T) – which I personally think makes more sense to begin a grow with. If you’re growing under 1000W lamps, you should easily get a pound of C-99 per lamp after a 7 week flowering period. When you have all the weed you need and can take your time waiting for a long-flowering Sativa, THEN start those “extra” beans (included in your order)… I don’t know what the Bros Grimm sent you, but it’s NOT Durban/Thai. I’m still developing it, so they won’t see it for about 6 months.
Thanks for noticing her she IS beautiful! Cafe’Girl is a sister of “Princess” – Princess is the mother of the Cinderella series. Cafe’Girl smells like a combination of ginger, orange and cream… kinda smells like a “Creamsicle” -you know those ice cream bars? She has the highest YIELD of the 3 Sisters (Princess, Genius and Cafe’Girl). Cafe’Girl makes HUGE, DENSE, SPARKLING buds with a lovely high. A really sweet high, in that you never feel paranoid and it continues to “creep up” over the first 15 minutes after you smoke, leaving you feeling warm and at peace with life. Bros Grimm may offer an hybrid of Cafe’Girl when enough testing of her offspring has been completed.
Sure, I’d be glad to answer your q’s:
1. I flower clones when they’re about a foot tall and they double in height during flowering.
2. They clone SUPER EASY.
3. Crossing Cindy 88’s will you a variety of phenotypes… they’re not stable. Cindy 99 IS STABLE.
4. The seeds are small, tan in colour and “speckled” not striped. If you ordered from either Bros.Grimm or Heaven’s Stairway you WON’T get ripped off…but I’ll describe the plants: As seedlings they’re fast-growing, Indica-dominant with fairly wide leaves. They show preflowers @ 5-6 weeks old WITHOUT FAIL. They NEVER herm, so if the preflowers have pistils, it’s FEMALE forever. They flower RAPIDLY – you probably won’t believe how fat and dense and frosty they’ll be @ 4-5 weeks 12/12. The flower/leaf is EXTREMELY high; the tops of the colas go NUTS at about 5 weeks into flowering, sending braid-like floral cluster projections out in all directions without any leaves. Just before that happens, hundreds of SNOW WHITE pistils make the tip of the colas look like they’re wearing fur caps! The resin production is HEAVY (again, you won’t believe it), a HEAVENLY scent of tropical fruit and berries begins to fill the room @ 3 weeks of 12/12 and just keeps getting more overpowering ’til they’re done. The finished smoke is the type of high that keeps you UP; it’s very cerebral – the only body effect is the “jitters”. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to anyone looking to “mellow out” on the sofa, BUT if you wanted to smoke before going running or cycling – PERFECT!
I smoked C-88 one eve after trying Silver Haze and the C-88 buzz cut RIGHT THROUGH the high of the Haze so badly that my wife asked me, “what did you do?… smoke too much?” The flavour is just like the scent; fruity and sweet…not at all hashy (not that there’s anything WRONG with that!…heehee.
Outdoors, Apollo 13 and Cinderella 88 will finish before October 15th at 43 degrees north lattitude.
If you liked NL#5/Haze, you’ll like C-99 too. It’s got a sweet, fruity taste and some of that “paranoia inducing” effect, very cerebral and speedy. The major advantages of C-99 over the old Haze x NL#5 from the original seed bank are rapid maturation and bigger yield. The highs and flavours are “different” but in the same class.

 

[MeltingPOT]

You got some great stuff going on there, HL. Apollo's Trip has a real wild look to her.

 

[bocil]

Looking very nice thats Male Highlighter , best vibes Bro.

 

[Kant C Shyt]

Hey Highlighter, pulling up a seat to this 1 early. Take care 1

 

[Bi0hazard]

Midnight Rudy,

Thanks for the response. I'm always looking to be as accurate as possible, so none of this is ever taken personally =] Being anal about accuracy is fine by me - I changed the descriptions to be more open to the possibility that it wasn't Jack Herer, although the bag of herb the beans supposedly came from was labeled Jack Herer - (It could have easily been a JH hybrid of some sort) or mislabeled.

 

[Highlighter]

...and it will remain a mystery. All I know, is it works for me!

Peeps give me grief for breeding with a polyhybrid, but that's my trip.
As a hobby breeder, I have only myself to please. Having variations of a strain I love is very appealing to me.

Thank you all for taking the time to post and show your approval!

Midnight Rudy, feel free to post up any of your Apollo experiments.
That goes for anyone else out there that has done any Apollo crosses.

Here's my 1st Apollo cross, to Hillbilly Dreams' Trainwreck.
Back in OG daze, we called it "Rocketwreck".

 

[THE PABLOS]

I'm tagging along HL. So glad you are threading this project. It amazes me the stuff that can get done with a little space, time, and perseverance.

There is nothing like breeding your own plant expressions....for your own tastes and visions. You know this already. The real juice.

 

[Midnight Rudy]

Midnight Rudy,

Thanks for the response. I'm always looking to be as accurate as possible, so none of this is ever taken personally =] Being anal about accuracy is fine by me - I changed the descriptions to be more open to the possibility that it wasn't Jack Herer, although the bag of herb the beans supposedly came from was labeled Jack Herer - (It could have easily been a JH hybrid of some sort) or mislabeled.

Point was more about the mystery dad. Maybe the grower was mono-cropping but who knows. In my world that is just a JH bag seed!

Highlighter, thanks for the invite. It is slow going for me because my op is so small. If something ends up being awesome, I will post about it but it isn't my intention to be any more than a pollen chucker and preserve some of my purchased genetics if ever I need to shut down again. I'm leaving the big-boy breeding to you and Darwin and I KNOW you guys will work to preserve this very special poly hybrid. I especially like that Darwin is NOT selecting for the zigzag pheno and you are. That makes both projects special.

For those who don't know, I grew out my last 4 Joey Weed a11 f2 beans from my 10 pk and got 2 of each m&f and let both males go to work on the A11's, 1 Aurora Indica, 2 satori's, 2 blubonics, and 1 ww x tw bag seed... wait, a ww x tw pheno (ZING Ha!!!). All seed plants and nothing selected. I didn't keep either of the A11's because I ended up getting my original and far better keeper cut back, so I'm not overly inspired to pop any of the f3's I've made at this point since I didn't really care for the two moms. I did keep pollen from both males so I will continue on at some point, but it will be small batches on selected fems. Next run of my keeper A11 I will polinate a few branches just for preservation. I have a couple of the A11 x AI going now and one of the blubonic crosses finishing up but the blubonic cross is not happy in my system so likely will not be run again. Smell is off the charts berry though so who knows.