Hiya friends,
I'd like to open a thread at what happens to be a rather auspicious moment.
Firstly, I have been smoking the flowers since 1984, and I was turned on to hash in 1987 by a piano tuner. That one was no test drive; he shared what we could only estimate as eleventy-five hundred bowls of it.
I am in an area that is not represented in the U. S. subforum, at about 35 degrees north, in a 7b climate where it is unlikely to freeze until at least November. Have been doing bagseed grows since about '98, starting plants outside to reach only two or three feet tall, and force flowering indoors using lights that would be considered a travesty by any serious person. Although it works. So I've built all the basic chops around things like pinch off, taking cuts, hermaphrotism, and that sort of thing.
I'm pretty inexperienced about strains, and I finally decided to pursue this as a tangent to a much larger "herbs with benefits" project I do, with things like Valerian, Licorice, Ashwagandha, and so forth. Around here, you can only get what you can get, and usually no one has any clue what it might be. I think a lot of it is grossly overestimated; for instance, once, a friend shared "some kind" of sinsemilla with me, and I told him I thought it was midgrade and he said midgrade has seeds.
Well, I've had plenty of seeded stuff that seems to have blown away a lot of sinsemilla or named varieties. As the "nameds" started going around, someone grew an AK47 or 8 that wasn't too impressive. One time another guy was trying to settle an unrelated score and offered me a dime bag of Strawberry Cough as part of it. I looked at this little corner of a bag and was like, ok I'll take that. Oh, no, you can't have all of it! I wound up with like two bowls and I can't say it was particularly impressive either. Right now, I can get something that smells like perfume, it kind of hits, it kind of creeps, it kind of goes to the head, it kind of goes to the body, but it doesn't do very much of any of those.
So, in looking at my cultural interests, it includes that tract of earth which goes from the Pamirs, across North India, down towards Southeast Asia, and from what I am able to research about genetics, it sounds as good a starting point as any.
I understand about the Afghani types of smokes, and I like that just fine, but, right now I'm trying to experiment with mostly other things whose roots range across that area beside it. I almost bought a ten pack of "something", but once I realized some places would be willing to let me get two or three seeds of different things, that's the route I chose. I kind of tried to span the spectrum from the skunky to pure "sativa" and from basics to poly-hybrids, in hopes of forming any kind of taste or opinions about these things.
The reason this is an auspicious moment is because the final strain in this menu just sprouted. The different thing I am strongly considering now, is to use the sun for flowering; so, more or less looking for input from anyone who knows these particular ones, and/or perhaps outdoor growing.
Edelweiss. This is a skunky one with "something" from North India. I was intrigued that the Swiss grew it outdoors all over the place. This one is perhaps best indoors? No Alpine climate here, I'm sure of that.
Kiss Dragon. A Nepali sativa crossed with Black Domina, which itself is a blend of about four skunkish kinds.
Orient Express. Researching this is what led me to IC, already a great thread on it. The difference for me here, is that I mistakenly ordered regular seeds, but I got three of them. As long as there's at least one female, I might put it to seed--I don't think this strain is going away any time soon, so perhaps it's not a bad idea to try using this as an actual breeding stock here at the homestead?
Mekong High. A mostly sativa blend from Laos and Vietnam. I believe I saw somewhere around here that it is discontinued, and there were only feminized seeds available when I checked. I can understand that large sativa varieties are less viable on a commercial basis.
Sex Bud. No, it's not from the same area at all, and no, I don't think it's a terrible name, and this one is a serious poly-hybrid of Cinderella 99 and White Grapefruit. If in someone's experience, those two strains are somewhat aphrodisiac, I'm willing to toss it in as a comparison.
The last two seem superficially the same, Nemesis and Himalaya Gold. Indian Sativas crossed to Nepali Indicas. Not saying their origins are in the same village, valley, or wherever. So far, the three things that have some Nepal in their background all have thicker, harder seed hulls for "shoes" and then they have "socks", a second layer of mucilage or something that binds the cotyledons together. The Nemesis was the last one of those to come up today, and it did something I've never seen before--it popped up looking like the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. Took a little adjusting, however, I've heard that a spiral shape makes a sturdier support than a root that goes "properly" straight down.
Yield is not that important to me. I understand that if I take a two week old Mekong or Himalaya plant and force flower it indoors, it will still reach five feet tall. Given the time of year, latitude, and climate, what would one expect from leaving them outside?
Thanks for any reads and replies, looks to be a good board to discuss these things.
I'd like to open a thread at what happens to be a rather auspicious moment.
Firstly, I have been smoking the flowers since 1984, and I was turned on to hash in 1987 by a piano tuner. That one was no test drive; he shared what we could only estimate as eleventy-five hundred bowls of it.
I am in an area that is not represented in the U. S. subforum, at about 35 degrees north, in a 7b climate where it is unlikely to freeze until at least November. Have been doing bagseed grows since about '98, starting plants outside to reach only two or three feet tall, and force flowering indoors using lights that would be considered a travesty by any serious person. Although it works. So I've built all the basic chops around things like pinch off, taking cuts, hermaphrotism, and that sort of thing.
I'm pretty inexperienced about strains, and I finally decided to pursue this as a tangent to a much larger "herbs with benefits" project I do, with things like Valerian, Licorice, Ashwagandha, and so forth. Around here, you can only get what you can get, and usually no one has any clue what it might be. I think a lot of it is grossly overestimated; for instance, once, a friend shared "some kind" of sinsemilla with me, and I told him I thought it was midgrade and he said midgrade has seeds.
Well, I've had plenty of seeded stuff that seems to have blown away a lot of sinsemilla or named varieties. As the "nameds" started going around, someone grew an AK47 or 8 that wasn't too impressive. One time another guy was trying to settle an unrelated score and offered me a dime bag of Strawberry Cough as part of it. I looked at this little corner of a bag and was like, ok I'll take that. Oh, no, you can't have all of it! I wound up with like two bowls and I can't say it was particularly impressive either. Right now, I can get something that smells like perfume, it kind of hits, it kind of creeps, it kind of goes to the head, it kind of goes to the body, but it doesn't do very much of any of those.
So, in looking at my cultural interests, it includes that tract of earth which goes from the Pamirs, across North India, down towards Southeast Asia, and from what I am able to research about genetics, it sounds as good a starting point as any.
I understand about the Afghani types of smokes, and I like that just fine, but, right now I'm trying to experiment with mostly other things whose roots range across that area beside it. I almost bought a ten pack of "something", but once I realized some places would be willing to let me get two or three seeds of different things, that's the route I chose. I kind of tried to span the spectrum from the skunky to pure "sativa" and from basics to poly-hybrids, in hopes of forming any kind of taste or opinions about these things.
The reason this is an auspicious moment is because the final strain in this menu just sprouted. The different thing I am strongly considering now, is to use the sun for flowering; so, more or less looking for input from anyone who knows these particular ones, and/or perhaps outdoor growing.
Edelweiss. This is a skunky one with "something" from North India. I was intrigued that the Swiss grew it outdoors all over the place. This one is perhaps best indoors? No Alpine climate here, I'm sure of that.
Kiss Dragon. A Nepali sativa crossed with Black Domina, which itself is a blend of about four skunkish kinds.
Orient Express. Researching this is what led me to IC, already a great thread on it. The difference for me here, is that I mistakenly ordered regular seeds, but I got three of them. As long as there's at least one female, I might put it to seed--I don't think this strain is going away any time soon, so perhaps it's not a bad idea to try using this as an actual breeding stock here at the homestead?
Mekong High. A mostly sativa blend from Laos and Vietnam. I believe I saw somewhere around here that it is discontinued, and there were only feminized seeds available when I checked. I can understand that large sativa varieties are less viable on a commercial basis.
Sex Bud. No, it's not from the same area at all, and no, I don't think it's a terrible name, and this one is a serious poly-hybrid of Cinderella 99 and White Grapefruit. If in someone's experience, those two strains are somewhat aphrodisiac, I'm willing to toss it in as a comparison.
The last two seem superficially the same, Nemesis and Himalaya Gold. Indian Sativas crossed to Nepali Indicas. Not saying their origins are in the same village, valley, or wherever. So far, the three things that have some Nepal in their background all have thicker, harder seed hulls for "shoes" and then they have "socks", a second layer of mucilage or something that binds the cotyledons together. The Nemesis was the last one of those to come up today, and it did something I've never seen before--it popped up looking like the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. Took a little adjusting, however, I've heard that a spiral shape makes a sturdier support than a root that goes "properly" straight down.
Yield is not that important to me. I understand that if I take a two week old Mekong or Himalaya plant and force flower it indoors, it will still reach five feet tall. Given the time of year, latitude, and climate, what would one expect from leaving them outside?
Thanks for any reads and replies, looks to be a good board to discuss these things.
