French Touch seeds

[Baron Greenback]

Well, so far so good. 4 out of the 5 that germinated have just gone into their first pots. Lots of nice health white root poking out of the rooting cube - I've been foliar feeding with a very dilute solution of Canna Rhizotonic and that seems to kick them on really well.
If I have't killed them in the next few days, I'll get some photos up.

 

[earthwyrms]

I've just started 5 K1 from French Touch seeds. I germinated 6, 5 came through with no problems and are looking healthy with first true leaves just appeared.
They are an uncrossed landrace from La Reunion - there seems to be a few strains, there's a Mangu Carotte, the Zamals and these. Flowering time could be a bit of a long one, 130 days plus
The service from Victor at French Touch was great, emails answered quickly and seeds nicely packaged.
If I can get over my paranoia, I'll try to work out how to post some pics (tbh though, the likelihood is I'll kill them, I seem to be the angel of death for seedlings at the moment).
Fingers crossed then eh?

i hear you on that. i had started with ace china yunnan before i realized ace specialized in sativas! i lost them all in sprouting/rooting from my improper soggy technique (and have been crash course-ing on micro herds since). then i found out about jamaican lambsbread (*and have been searching/asking, since, about acquiring it). i ended up being able to get 10 double jam and lost them all before i realized they need 80 something degree fahrenheit heat to sprout because they are tropical. now they are not carried anymore.

i too am trying to get double zamal and k1. double zamal has a 80s reunion mixed with a mauritius strain (from on this forum). the kalite tizane k1 is old too, (i read on the forum somewhere) and so seems to have also avoided indica hybridization (because of something i can't remember. on the forum it said reunion island was shielded from the indica hybrid wave somehow, but i guess not indefinitely).

i read soa zamal seems to have indica in some but the growers accounts are hard to gather data from and mostly everybody on the seeds of africa thread are focused on swazi and the one with an m (edit: mozambique) and malawi gold.
the consensus from a couple/few is, about a pack is needed to find a keeper of zamal. i don't know what to make of it, i'm not discouraged, i just want to secure double zamal and the kalite tizane k1 first.
i recently lost my money in the mail, it seems. i recommend going for the vip club and getting the double congo like i tried. it is their congo point noire with a congo black. their king congo is their ciskei and their congo point noire and flowers 65-75 days, similar to the ciskei. it is currently out there but perhaps not for long. the f1 is still available at the zon. i still need to retry aquiring
double zamal
kalite tizane k1
double congo (with vip access, which currently has a voucher, which got me the double zamal, if i was successful) from tropical seeds company
and sudafrica
ghana (seems great)
columbian mangobiche (would be interesting to cross with coljam!)
and double jam from cannabiogen

THIS IS MOSTLY OFF TOPIC, SO YOU MIGHT WANT TO SKIP FROM HERE


it (the king congo) smells a little skunky
(edit: more like piney, limonene with some slight musky/heavy smell) on the stem (new art for me so i don't know if that is normal), unlike a kerala krush (closest to pure kerala i could find, in my discovery of pure sativa), which i managed to not kill one of. the kerala krush smells more i don't know, floral/fruit-ish but not, kind of pepper, slightly. i had kept a dwarf king congo female alive and have a male which i removed all flowering stems and put them in water. i was going reproduce them, after the kerala sexed, but only 2 popped from 5 i attempted, while still learning about it (still am of course).

i popped zamaldelica from ace (4, 3 popped) , and possibly jalisco ibl from eskob@r
(only 2, still not popping and i wan't to save the rest for a pure reproduction, 23 in micro, with high genetic variance
[edit: both popped, one, kind of popped, i had messed with it so it's survival is questionable..
edit: too much info, unless your troubleshooting,
i had messed with it so it's survival is questionable. if i left it be, it may have popped naturally with the other. with half a shell removed in a warmed wet tissue, it started extending the taproot, i took it out from the other half shell and it unfurled, like stretching out from being compressed in a fetal position. the skin cover of the cotyledons was still cemented to the tap root and the cotyledons pulled free from the skin sheath. i planted it in soggy soil with a small clear plastic saucer spaced over it with 3 equal sized posts of broken pencils. it is directly under (but not too close to the) light, with hopefully enough shielding from air. i don't know if the skin sheath (which has a fleshy reserve by the base, under the lower cotyledon) is a nutrient pack for sprouting, so hopefully enough light activates the cotyledons and rooting suceeds]),
and apollo 13 BX from subcool (i saved 3 through all my bean rotting madness, and 3 popped). now hopefully, they survive the soil.

while i have been after zamaldelica and pure sativas for awhile, i had the lone survivor kerala krush going, and she has skunk in her, so is already impure so i decided to roll with it and reproduce king congo, after kerala was sexed female, in micro, to further the indica kerala experiment. kerala goes 60-70. king congo goes 65-75 days flowering.
this was before i got the seed soaking technique mostly down and 2 out of 5 king congo popped.

the ciskei that tropical seeds company used for the king congo is an extraordinarily fast sativa landrace (55-65 day flowering). so extraordinary, i wonder if it had indica mixing from traders in it's habitat.

http://www.tropicalseedscompany.com/ciskei-pleasant-sativa/
it is confusing, a little, the story doesn't clarify where they got the seeds from so it seems that they got the 10year old seeds from a breeder, (bushman?) rather than the ''drakensberg mountain range''. (i'll quote the whole article at the bottom).

it is impressive, and i wonder if indicas from old traders mingled in the genes at an early time. the stem releases a skunky
(edit: i don't know if it is skunk, but some thing like piney limonene and a slightly 'heavier'/musty scent tinge to it. the kerala doesn't show this and is 'lighter' and funny enough has a base odor of a palo santo stake i put in the soil when planting, i think palo santo has mainly d-limonene in it.)
smell when rubbed and also the flowering female smells sweet normally, with a tiny hint of skunk when undisturbed, if that helps you more experienced sativa people.

i read the genealogy of apollo 13 (BX) and noticed it seems to have similar flowering properties (and has very little indica in it) and i was not sure when i'd reproduce the 3 i had, previously deciding to devote myself primarily to preserving/breeding the best landrace sativas,
so i popped the 3 apollo 13 BX to regenerate (ha haha (ツ))
and, because i am part anxious and part curious,
have ace seeds zamaldelica and
eskob@r seeds jalisco ibl,
to experiment with subcool's apollo 13 BX
(55-60 day flowering mixing with the 120ish day flowerings of the ace seeds zamaldelica and eskob@r seeds jalisco ibl.) (and the 65-75 day king congo)
i figure, if the kerala attempted pollination from the king congo* shows/works, than the product could be mixed with the reproduced apollo 13 BX or it's mix with the king congo.
i wan't to wait to reproduce the king congo with my remaining seeds because i don't want to contaminate it.

(*non dwarf, female is a dwarf and i am curious about what a human helping it live will do, in contrast to how genetically unfavorable it might seem. actually, subcool mentioned something about shorter plants being better cultivars for psychoactive activity, sort of, i don't think he meant dwarves but i'm gonna try it anyway hahahaha.)

if you are starting like me,
(edit: i now realize you didn't recently start growing, only having a recent seedling problem.) i find that once the beans pop with a taproot out of the case that putting it in
a tiny pot/container with a drain on bottom
with premoistened soil
with a hole poked with fine tip tweezers
with the seed top barely covered over with 3mm soil
with a clear container/tray/thing on stilts over the the pots so
they don't get wind dried by venting if the in and out ducts are above it.
is good

after a day of light and a night, i check them.

if i planted them before watering, the sprouted seed gets buried to far.
then i have to carefully excavate like an archeologist with
my tweezers haha

then the next light period, if the seedlings pop up or not, i then use my fine point tweezers, they are my most important tool, to very carefully pinch off the seed "helmet" and/or the skin sheath

the cotyledon skin cover removal needs more care than pulling off a stuck on seed. there is usually some frazzle or loose part of the skin to grab with the tweezer towards where the cotyledon meets the neck (fingers can very carefully support the cotyledons and neck and where the cotyledons meet the neck when you pull.)

it seems to help, so the cotyledons can breath and get light immediately and root/grow immediately.

it seems the longer waited,
the medium rots them if it doesn't drain and is wet a few days
or if it is uncovered to air flow, the seedling dries out.

i was using yogurt cups but finding difficulty, so instead of half filling them i used a tiny square garden pot that i found outside that just fits in a yogurt cup.

then i took tinfoil squares that have sides as high, and folded up and counterclockwise (or clockwise)
then i took a compass point (drawing kind) and poked holes in the floors.

8 of these fit in a italian coffee biscuit / biscotti tray for a flood tray. (a rigid board/plastic under that will help because those trays are flimsy
i used another one inverted to regulate humidity loss and allow light through. i used improvised stilts to give an 'air sandwhich' so it can still breath and grow strong with enough headspace. the stilts were from pencil/tinfoil but it was on the fly, and you can do better with pencil and glue.

i didn't mention, that i use a hotplate because i don't have a heatmat but they are ideal i think.
i float the seeds in a cup of water on the right setting untill they pop out taproots and grow a bit. with zamaldelica and apollo 13 BX, they took 1 or 2 days i think (i forgot), and the jalisco took 2 days longer.

i also used bap (benzyl amino purine) and aspirin in the water when soaking in the cup. i used a 2mm cube sized aspirin piece chunk and about the same amount of bap power, i didn't really measure, because bap isn't very water soluble and i havent started experimenting with ethanol solutions in water yet, i don't have ethanol.)

if they sink, but don't pop i don't know what to do, so i got the jalisco that sank out with tweezers and cracked it carefully and since i don't have paper towels, i put it on tissue paper clumps in a deep cap on the incubator surface and put enough water in that it soaked the tissue paper and just rose up to the seed so it rested on the water.

with the king congo i did this. i think they popped in the cup and sank (with the zamaldelica, apollo 13 BX and jalisco, they floated). then i put them in an upside down peanut butter cap kept just above the water with tissue paper. i think i was then getting used to buffering the hotplate temperature with a sock over a thin cloth. i found a 94 degree fahrenheit temp in the morning and two popped and had growing taproots. those are the male and dwarf female. the other 2 didn't make it despite my efforts (there was also another strain seed that remained frozen as well, after popping the tap root. also my last 2 martian mean green beans that i got to sprout damped off. oh, that was it, i had 2/5 landrace athina start sprouting and i botched them with the potting. one died from rot, the other was healthy but i repotted in case to new soil and it died from stress.)(edit again: hope this fixes the last of it; the 2 king congos at 83-86 degrees fahrenheit in cup then lid, 2 sprouted and continued in the lid. the landrace athina sprouted possibly all but only 2 out of 5 kept going in th lid, the temperature was 94 degrees fahrenheit by accident in the lid.)

hope that helps you or anyone in the seed phase.




TO HERE

if you are having rot problems caps benniegs og biowar (root pack) (brew the tea) is supposedly a treatment. it seems to be phenomenal, i'm hoping to get it, an air pump and a airstone soon.



i bet it would be phenomenal (ツ) to mix the kalite tizane k1 (or the legendary best of reunion, which is still kept a secret) with a pure kerala (sativa), which is also frustrating to find pure in my experience

also mixing that mix to a jamaican lambsbread would be something i'd want to do.

also mixing the k1 and/or double zamal with seed from the mix of the oaxacan 12 finger (that elchicas found) with charlie from cannabiogen's oaxaca 1979.

maybe
{k1 x (12 finger oaxaca x oaxaca 79)} x
{(double zamal x (12 finger oaxaca x oaxaca 79)} x
(k1 x double zamal) x
{(12 finger oaxaca x oaxaca 79) x double zamal}

you could have the (12 finger oaxaca x oaxaca 79) pollinate females of k1 and double zamal and breed those products together. maybe with the k1 part pollinating

then you could take double zamal and pollinate k1 and (12 finger oaxaca x oaxaca 79) females and breed those together.

then breed those two together and lastly breed it to double zamal. and then maybe to lambsbread (ツ)
knarly

edit: it also may be interesting to mix kalite tizane and double zamal together and in combonations with
ace seeds: zamaldelica
cannabiogen seeds: ghana (from the description on one of the two ghana pages under breeders forums, cannabiogen)
i recommend checking it out!

 

[earthwyrms]

Damn right man.

There's so many cool hybrids you could make with those genes. I'm not huge on indicas but they can unlock interesting flavour and effects. Everyone's so worried about the yield and speed I say they should forget sativas and grow indicas then... it would be neat to see what crossing to a old school skunk or a chem or og...

Or cheese. That would be funky as hell. Zamal x cheese would be very interesting flavour wise. Though if it came out to short or cheese dom my first thing I'd do is bx it to the Zamal.

This is all a theory thing. I'm high and should be going to bed but I'm bad for that lately not sleeping enough. Lol lately I've been interested in how some hybrids would come out crossing some old school to some new stuff, and some old classics too...

you might want to check out xocolope and jalisco jaze from eskob@r.
xocolope = jalisco ibl x chocolope
jalisco jaze = jalisco ibl x amnesia haze



i was thinking of growing herijuana for instant sleeping and dreams

 

[Multifarious]

Curious to know how and if this grow is still ongoing?
I'm about to pull the trigger and order Old Congo TSC and maybe Kalite Tizane K1 FTS 12/12 straight from germ.

I've just started 5 K1 from French Touch seeds. I germinated 6, 5 came through with no problems and are looking healthy with first true leaves just appeared.
They are an uncrossed landrace from La Reunion - there seems to be a few strains, there's a Mangu Carotte, the Zamals and these. Flowering time could be a bit of a long one, 130 days plus
The service from Victor at French Touch was great, emails answered quickly and seeds nicely packaged.
If I can get over my paranoia, I'll try to work out how to post some pics (tbh though, the likelihood is I'll kill them, I seem to be the angel of death for seedlings at the moment).
Fingers crossed then eh?

 

[Baron Greenback]

I had 3 eventually come through nicely, one damped off and died, the best looking one was unfortunately male and culled.
I'm waiting for the third and final one to show sex, been a while now, 5 weeks under 11/13 and no sign at all. Probably male, but we'll see.

 

[Baron Greenback]

The other thing I must say is that from the seeds I planted I had almost 100% germination, I think one didn't make it, so if you have the inclination, I'd say do it, if it's anything like the as good as the Zamaldelica from Ace it'll be great.

 

[Baron Greenback]

Just a quick update on the one female that is still going - she finally showed sex after about 10 weeks of 11/13!
Proper flowering is ongoing, but minimal. I'd say that we are around 12 weeks of flower with absolutely no end in sight - at a guess, at least another 10-14 weeks to go. She's a nice size, 1m30 or so, really thin tropical sativa leaves, nice looking plant - looooooooooooong wait