"Semi auto" landraces?

[Rajas]

Are you sure? On the equator the day length only varies few minutes over the year it seems this is not sufficient to trigger flowering. Some of the equatorial Sativas have adapted by developing autoflowering traits. Ed Rosenthal wrote in the Cannabis Growers Handbook on Page 38:
“Most varieties of cannabis are short day/long night plants, with the possible exception of C. ruderalis and some equatorial C.sativa varieties that are commonly described as auto-flowering and may be day-neutral”

I was "researching" the topic of day length in relation to the start of flowering. I'm at 50° latitude and I'm searching for something that triggers flower between 16 to 15 hours of day length. I stumbled upon semi autos because they supposedly trigger early. Khalifagenetics answered an email about their Beldia and its semi auto traits. Early flower can be triggered by root space, poor soil and other stress factors. According to Khalifa their Beldia will start flowering below 15h45min of day length. I'm planning on making seeds in a tent this year and the idea is to just select the ones that start flowering at 15h30min of light and put the seeds outdoor next year an see what happens.

Its interesting because outdoors it doesnt work that way. I still dont understand Beldia's flowering modes eventhough I just grew it this year.
Outdoor it starts rather with deminishing light hours. Thats from End of June to early July. At my latitude its from the very start below 15:45 light hours. It then peaks at 16 hours daylight and goes down again. About 2-3 weeks later you see the first pistils. The plant grew being sexually mature under 15:45 hours of daylight for a month and no pistils, but after the peak of 16 hours and deminishing light hours it triggered. The plant was also at 1-1.3m in size when i saw first pistils - 1m size is also a trigger for flowering...
So who knows, i even had serious light pollutions yet it flowered perfectly till the end. This plant wants to start very early in the year to use all the strong sun for flower production, everything else is unfortunately not studied at all. I dont even find literature on that flowering mode. Schoolars ignore that topic.

 

[Rajas]

Semi Auto landraces:

Sinai
Lebanese
Beldia
The landrace team as a few eastern european feral strains with semi auto mode
Zamal might have some phenos with semi auto trait but it is only confirmed by two people growing it here in the forum, everybody else seem to be suspicious about a tropical plant flowering like more northern varieties.
Baglung Nepal

As far as I understand it you find semi autos between very northern ruderalis and classic photoperiodical plants (latitude).

On the other hand somebody growing Mango Biche in Swiss said it started flowerin in summer. So there are some tropicals that start very early, too. Its just a matter of being able to grow unselected landraces in bigger numbers outdoors and pick those rare genes.

 

[Old Piney]

still dont understand Beldia's flowering modes eventhough I just grew it this year.

It's definitely intriguing the Beldia isn't auto it's photoperiod but it's just crazy early I suppose it's the most “ simi auto “ you can get. What is simi auto anyway,? I bet I can reveg a beldia cutting .I have a cutting from a Lebanese taken in mid flower rooted and looking like it's reveging now

 

[Rajas]

That is how tropical the (Khalifa) Beldia can get. Yet it finished in the very first days of September. It smelled like buttermilk and passionfruit during growing, no funk, no skunk, my neighbors didnt complain a single time. Dried its sweet fruity mango forward, then sweet cookies. Its the cleanest terp profile I have ever encountered.
No mold, a bit of thrips and lice on lower buds, especially the less complex terpene profile phenos
2.5m tall
12.5L airpots, living soil, biobizz
49N (latitude)
urban balcony grow with lots of light pollution, wind and temps from 0-32 Celsius during its life cycle
it always recovered from drought, even hanging leafs at 32 Celsius for two days was no issue for the Beldias

Gentle positive body buzz, dreamy, very clear to the mind, elegant in a sense it is not too heavy and not too high. A very elegantly balanced plant. Its not for teenagers trying to impress their friends, its more an elegant gentleman's smoke that leaves you being able to communicate and take part in life.
I also wonder why people go for heavy smokes for pain relief, this african "sativa" makes you feel comfortable in your body, pain goes away, yet you even feel like you got enhanced senses and a interesting spacial awareness. If you overdoo it, you get a slightly nervous tingle. It got a nice psychedelic sparkle to it, nothing strong, but it makes the smoke interesting.

 

[Rajas]

It's definitely intriguing the Beldia isn't auto it's photoperiod but it's just crazy early I suppose it's the most “ simi auto “ you can get. What is simi auto anyway,? I bet I can reveg a beldia cutting .I have a cutting from a Lebanese taken in mid flower rooted and looking like it's reveging now

its very uncomplicated you can do it all it seems, even preserving it as a cutting has no issues. If your mother flowers at one point in time, you can trim the rootball and cut it back and it'll go on vegging (info from Khalifa)

 

[Tranquilidade]

View attachment 19082074

That is how tropical the (Khalifa) Beldia can get. Yet it finished in the very first days of September. It smelled like buttermilk and passionfruit during growing, no funk, no skunk, my neighbors didnt complain a single time. Dried its sweet fruity mango forward, then sweet cookies. Its the cleanest terp profile I have ever encountered.
No mold, a bit of thrips and lice on lower buds, especially the less complex terpene profile phenos
2.5m tall
12.5L airpots, living soil, biobizz
49N (latitude)
urban balcony grow with lots of light pollution, wind and temps from 0-32 Celsius during its life cycle
it always recovered from drought, even hanging leafs at 32 Celsius for two days was no issue for the Beldias


View attachment 19082075 Gentle positive body buzz, dreamy, very clear to the mind, elegant in a sense it is not too heavy and not too high. A very elegantly balanced plant. Its not for teenagers trying to impress their friends, its more an elegant gentleman's smoke that leaves you being able to communicate and take part in life.
I also wonder why people go for heavy smokes for pain relief, this african "sativa" makes you feel comfortable in your body, pain goes away, yet you even feel like you got enhanced senses and a interesting spacial awareness. If you overdoo it, you get a slightly nervous tingle. It got a nice psychedelic sparkle to it, nothing strong, but it makes the smoke interesting.

Beautiful plant and beautiful write up. The effect you've described is similar to another semi auto from Lebanon Beqaa Valley. Mine has sweet, piney, bubble gum, woody, grassy and some oldschool funk.

 

[Rajas]

@Tranquilidade
Nice one, I got some denser phenos too. I call it Mrs V, because it split it's head into two headbuds, unfortunatley it broke during a longer rainy period, yet it was still alive.

Some flowers of this one smell like Bitter Lemon. others are more citric, spicy, some even are spicy citric with a bubble gum sweetness and vanilla note in the background, some are a tad earthy. It really depends on where you pick it...

Its also more leafy, so less resinous as the very tropical expression.
Its high is very clear and clean. Quite lucid, more emotional cool and it ends with a mind and body relaxation that is very clean also.
It smelled like sour and spicy with a chamomile floral note during growing. Slightly earthy in a way of how I would imagine dry moroccan desert dust, loam or something. It has denser flowers, shorter internodes and thick calyx. Yet you loose the more lighweight side of the fluffy Beldias that I personally like more.
No skunk, no funk during growing, maybe a tad of stinky flowers in the terpene profile during growing. Dried it has clean typical citric spicy modern terps, but superior to hybrids because its very very clean and nothing stinky and not those earthy kushy notes that usually dont fit into the fresh lemon scent imho

 

[Tranquilidade]

@Tranquilidade
Nice one, I got some denser phenos too. I call it Mrs V, because it split it's head into two headbuds, unfortunatley it broke during a longer rainy period, yet it was still alive.

Some flowers of this one smell like Bitter Lemon. others are more citric, spicy, some even are spicy citric with a bubble gum sweetness and vanilla note in the background, some are a tad earthy. It really depends on where you pick it...
View attachment 19082144

Its also more leafy, so less resinous as the very tropical expression.
Its high is very clear and clean. Quite lucid, more emotional cool and it ends with a mind and body relaxation that is very clean also.
It smelled like sour and spicy with a chamomile floral note during growing. Slightly earthy in a way of how I would imagine dry moroccan desert dust, loam or something. It has denser flowers, shorter internodes and thick calyx. Yet you loose the more lighweight side of the fluffy Beldias that I personally like more.
No skunk, no funk during growing, maybe a tad of stinky flowers in the terpene profile during growing. Dried it has clean typical citric spicy modern terps, but superior to hybrids because its very very clean and nothing stinky and not those earthy kushy notes that usually dont fit into the fresh lemon scent imho

Mine is not dense, it’s poorly trimmed Curious if there is a difference in potency? Not talking about type of high differences but more general potency.

 

[Old Piney]

That is how tropical the (Khalifa) Beldia can get

I grow out six Khalifa’s Beldia for the past two seasons , with three females each year. It's one of my all time favorite strains not all that strong but it's got the best head .It's such a cool plant and a pleasure to grow. With the six females Ive had I haven't noticed any difference with the high and only slight difference in smell and taste. There are two distinct phenos with regard to structure one with crazy fluffy fox tails and one more chunky .I've made no selections , been doing a controlled open pollination with all the plants. Beldia need no improvement I like it just the way it is

 

[Tranquilidade]

I grow out six Khalifa’s Beldia for the past two seasons , with three females each year. It's one of my all time favorite strains not all that strong but it's got the best head .It's such a cool plant and a pleasure to grow. With the six females Ive had I haven't noticed any difference with the high and only slight difference in smell and taste. There are two distinct phenos with regard to structure one with crazy fluffy fox tails and one more chunky .I've made no selections , been doing a controlled open pollination with all the plants. Beldia need no improvement I like it just the way it is View attachment 19082957 View attachment 19082956 View attachment 19082955

Very good looking, are these plants still flowering?

 

[Old Piney]

Very good looking, are these plants still flowering?

No actually I didn't grow Belda this season but they were all finished by mid September at 40 north .just crazy early here’s a male pictured on July 15

 

[Cinderella69]

Outdoor it starts rather with deminishing light hours. Thats from End of June to early July. At my latitude its from the very start below 15:45 light hours. It then peaks at 16 hours daylight and goes down again. About 2-3 weeks later you see the first pistils. The plant grew being sexually mature under 15:45 hours of daylight for a month and no pistils, but after the peak of 16 hours and deminishing light hours it triggered.

It is possible that when Khalifa told me that it will start flowering at 15h:45 min day light that this was specific to my latitude (50°). Originally the Beldia comes from 35° where the longest day is 14h:30 min long so the idea that it starts to flower with diminishing light hours and not at a specific day length seems very plausible.

The question is how well this trait will show up in Hybrids. I mean I actually don't see a big argument for growing a later flowering plant at 50° north. You might be able to grow plants with 11 week flowering time to full "ripeness" when they start right after solstice. The seed market for growers around 50° should be big enough for more strains to exist that have this semi-auto trait.

 

[Old Piney]

question is how well this trait will show up in Hybrids.

I have one example to show I've crossed khalifa’s beldia with TRSC’s Rasoli. I'm at 40 N,. beldia started flowering mid July and finished mid September. Rasoli started flowering around the beginning of October and didn't finish by November 3rd. I have a hybrid growing now it started flowering around the third week in August and is still going. Here's the hybrid pictured on sept 26 and Rasoli pictured on October 6 .the hybrid is really long flowering but I could pick it any day however it's still producing new flowers. This is the f1 I suppose it would be cool to take further

​

 

[Probiomer]

While its seems to be true that its more about changing day length there seems to be a spectrum of how fast there are willing to flower. Beldia seems very eager to flower.

@Old Piney Was the Beldia the mother?
I would cross the F1 back to Beldia, if you want to have a semi-auto variety.

 

[Tranquilidade]

While its seems to be true that its more about changing day length there seems to be a spectrum of how fast there are willing to flower. Beldia seems very eager to flower.

@Old Piney Was the Beldia the mother?
I would cross the F1 back to Beldia, if you want to have a semi-auto variety.

What about F2? Curious if you can go this direction to make them semi flower.

 

[Rajas]

I have one example to show I've crossed khalifa’s beldia with TRSC’s Rasoli. I'm at 40 N,. beldia started flowering mid July and finished mid September. Rasoli started flowering around the beginning of October and didn't finish by November 3rd. I have a hybrid growing now it started flowering around the third week in August and is still going. Here's the hybrid pictured on sept 26 and Rasoli pictured on October 6 .the hybrid is really long flowering but I could pick it any day however it's still producing new flowers. This is the f1 I suppose it would be cool to take further View attachment 19088180 View attachment 19088179

​

It seems as if the flowering onset is pretty much right in between both cultivars. So you may want to select for plants that have an early onset of flowers and may want to discard others. This info is very helpful for breeding. Thanks a lot for your input!

 

[Rajas]

I have one example to show I've crossed khalifa’s beldia with TRSC’s Rasoli. I'm at 40 N,. beldia started flowering mid July and finished mid September. Rasoli started flowering around the beginning of October and didn't finish by November 3rd. I have a hybrid growing now it started flowering around the third week in August and is still going. Here's the hybrid pictured on sept 26 and Rasoli pictured on October 6 .the hybrid is really long flowering but I could pick it any day however it's still producing new flowers. This is the f1 I suppose it would be cool to take further View attachment 19088180 View attachment 19088179

​

If you make seeds of your Belida x Rasoli, you will have F2 seeds that you can select in small pots for those that are starting early. Bigger numbers will make it possible to select for other traits, like maybe very Rasoli leaning phenos, that are still flowering early...

 

[Probiomer]

Thats the great thing about the semi-auto trait. Breeding for it is quite straight forwards and F1s always seem to be a blend of the flowering characteristics.
But i don't quite understand how thats influenced by the mother or the father being the semi-auto one.
I have read this in the comments on a FCP livestream recently, but i don't quite understand it.

"
Heterozygous at the AUTO1 allele creates one form of semi-auto but there is the EARY1 gene that influences semi-auto phenotype but this can be WITHOUT any auto genes present.

You do NOT get more or less recessive traits on a male compared to female. ONLY the SEX LINKED male traits DONT experience recombination events. So they share all the other traits, as far as know.

I am currently studying sex traits in cannabis in relation to feminized vs male breeding. Spent extensive time on this. But I am no expert.

Males have some serious economical aspects for breeding. In addition there is some potential cytoplasmic dna leakage from males that could be lost by not using them.

"

 

[Old Piney]

If you make seeds of your Belida x Rasoli, you will have F2 seeds that you can select in small pots for those that are starting early. Bigger numbers will make it possible to select for other traits, like maybe very Rasoli leaning phenos, that are still flowering early...

I know but I'm lazy and I like f1’s they are very uniform and easy. I think they are just what I want, for making hash. That project is for someone at a higher latitude for now

 

[right]

I have a question about something I heard about semi auto landrace I'd like to put up .
I've read that Zamal get s better every time it's reveged and reflowered. Is this true ? Does anyone have any experience with this?
Does this have anything to do with its semi automatic flowering?