I had the privilege to receive in 2008 a batch of Oaxaca '79 seeds from kaiki CBG, (thank you very much friend!).
The seeds are a S1 fem line coming from a single Oaxacan 79 female that germinated from old seeds from that era. Kaiki produced the S1 seeds from this female and he shared some seeds with me.
He will be able to comment more details about the origins of the line.
I usually don't like to work with S1 lines (especially S1 landrace seeds) as it's the highest degree of endogamy.
It's always preferable to start with healthy, more open pollinated landrace populations to have higher chances to find more vigorous and healthy genes and to have more variability to choose from.
But i knew this mexican line was very special and this was the unique genepool we had available to work with the line.
Lately i'm exploring new landraces, and i thought it was also time to germinate the old oaxacan seeds before they lost their viability.
I germinated a few dozens of Oaxaca 79 S1 seeds, and surprisingly most of them germinated correctly despite they were 7 years old. Seeds germinated quite fast, but had no much vigor since the start.
Around 40 seedlings born, we discarded 20 seedlings in the first 2 weeks of life due completely lack of vigour (seedlings don't grow from the initial stage of first leaves), undesirable mutations (runts), etc ....
Classic consequences of excessive inbreeding.
We discarded around 10 plants more after moving the rest of the plants to 12/12 flowering photoperiod (unhealthy, not well developed, lack of desirable response to flowering stage, etc ....) so we end up with 11 healthy females in early flowering stage.
The oaxacan 79 grows quite columnar and compact for a pure sativa (although there are no evident signs of indica influence). The node lenght is short/medium, with quite weak and thin stems (again, because excessive inbreeding).
Plants didn't branch too much, producing branches quite close of the main stem in early flowering. Initially, the plants grew with wide, dark big leaves and big leaflets for a pure sativa, but with the progress of the flowering the plants showed 100 % sativa traits in the last part of the flowering.
It was a S1 line (obviously feminized), so we only had the chance to work with females.
The flowering starts slowly (the plants were also flowered at a young stage) but after 1 month of 12/12 they start to define budsites, and interesting aromas and flowering traits.
After 7 weeks of 12/12 it's when the strain starts to show her excellent potential: the aromas are incredible: creamy, floral, incensey, musky, very deep, rich and complex terpene profile.
I haven't found such interesting aromas in a landrace line in years! The resin production is quite abundant at this stage of flowering, buds are very sticky and yummy.
Around half of the plants stretch significantly in the second half of flowering, with a more lanky branching and flowering structure (with reflowerings and foxtails), while the other half remains quite compact, producing dense flowers that develop surprisingly fast for a pure sativa.
In the 7th-8th week of 12/12, the most interesting females start to really stand out. 2 females seem to be less interesting in terpene quality and resin production, but the other 9 females are very very interesting.
5 females are very early flowering, finishing in 9 weeks plus of 12/12, while the others (mainly the more lanky ones with reflowerings) need 11 weeks of 12/12 to finish.
All the oaxacans have been harvested recently, so i'm waiting to dry them and cure them properly to evaluate them. I guess in early 2016 i will have an overall idea of the best parental plants, all have been cloned and preserved in the mother room, and i will send the best ones to analyze for cannabinoid and terpene profiles.
Only then i will be able to decide what to do with them.
Being a S1 fem line unfortunately we have no males to reproduce the line in the traditional way in pure form, without modify its original genepool. The only way to keep its original genepool unaltered would be to reverse all the best females and open pollinate them to make a next S2 open pollinated generation.
Of course, there will be a high degree of inbreeding in this next type of generation, but there are also good chances to fix the healthier and more vigorous genes, and the more desirable flowering traits.
Other option would be to pollinate the oaxaca 79 with other oaxacan lines, although this also means some kind of outcrossing. A friend visited Oaxaca past year and brought me back seeds of different oaxacan sativas, he told me some were very good, but i haven't had the chance to explore them yet.
Another option would be to outcross Oaxaca with other interesting and highly worked central american lines like Guatemala, Panama, Tikal or Honduras, test the F1s and check which ones perform better, then maybe backcross the oaxacan F1s back to the pure oaxacan 79 females and then select for the best and most representative traits of the Oaxaca line in the backcrosses.
Anyway, don't expect any Oaxacan official release from ACE in short term, guess we will have some seeds tested around 2017, but not before.
Meanwhile enjoy Mextiza, which seems to be a great oaxacan hybrid from Cannabiogen
Hey Fletch, how did these turn out? What's the flowering time on them and any chance of a smoke report
Hey Fletch, how did these turn out? What's the flowering time on them and any chance of a smoke report