Yes but taking away the cherry factor does that mean the plant was better the 2nd go
or the grower is more prepared for it on the second round?
I get that you will always usually "grow" it better on the second round.
But does the plant really "improve" ?
Not being snarky im genuinely interested.
Has it been tested?
Edit to add : or is it because now the plant is genetically a little older by a few months?
If so when does the genetic age "improvment" stop ?
It grows frostier, matures quicker, and stretches less even if all parameters stay. This is fact and something that is very evident to nearly everyone who grows a lot from seed and clones. It's been very common knowledge for probably 30+ years. It is very evident to master organic growers who get killer results every time regardless of plant strain.
Growing it "better" generally entails "dialing it in" which entails people growing with chems. A constant guessing game the majority of the time because most people refuse to keep it simple stupid as we call it. K.I.S.S.
I'm not buying into the 'cookie strains are terrible yielders'
Thee girl scout cookies, yes, but when you go making crosses between cookies and other strains, you could get whatever, it changes, maybe bad yields maybe not. Maybe I'm wrong but it just seems common sense to me. That's why crosses are made, to get the best of both worlds.
This is true and near exactly what I said. One difference being is you generally don't get "whatever". You get punnet squares, very noticeable result of standard ratios (I am not going to spend time explaining this). We call it hybrid vigor...F1 vigor...for a reason. The more inbred the less you will yield and the less vigor you will get as well as less variety (inbreeding depression). Unless of course you hybridize a low vigor strain with a low vigor strain. IE OGKB x Bubba Kush will undoubtedly result in a plant that will grow as slow as a fuckin sequoia tree in the winter (almost 0 stretch, complete shit yield, but of amazing quality buds). I always go for F1's when possible aside from very land race based strains that you won't notice much vigor reduction at all even around F9.
This is why most people in the AG industry don't sell to the public until F4 plus. They save the awesome gene pool for themselves to fully work and explore while giving the customer a more specific and 'stabilized' product. IE the reason that DP and Sensi have multiple versions skunk from Skunk #1-whatever to Orange Skunk to Pineapple Skunk list goes on...
In short the vast majority of time:
F1's = more variation and more vigor
F4+ = less variation and less vigor.
Edit: Wanted to add something. I don't think a lot of inexperienced people out there or even people with a lot of experience, but just with American genetics, have any clue what good yield is...Try growing some MNS Critical Skunk (insane yields), Shit, Afghan x Skunk, Haze x Skunk, Haze x Afghani, or Northern lights, KC brains Mango or many of his other lines, Serious Seeds AK47 m/f versions, White Russian, ....That shit will blow your mind as far as yield goes. I could keep listing for days. Lots of Dutch genetics are just out of this world yield compared to modern American genes as of late. That is what landrace brings to the table though and why it is so important to have a broad healthy gene pool.