Elk River (GG4/Choc D. x 79 X-mas)

Apparently, I've been working on a breeding project the last few years. Didn't really mean to. Just wanted to make some free seeds and practice technique.

Been gardening for a dozen years, became a ganja planter six years ago. Still pretty new, so I welcome any comments or advice.

Practiced on bagseed, then found some genetics I was looking for. The irony? I bought two packs of seeds to get this freebie.



Popped five seeds, reserving five. Got four females and one male. Pollinated each female.

One plant stretched like crazy. Tasted like petunias and bland coffee. But the high - oh, the high. Euphoric, energizing, and it had legs (plant at back-right). All day smoke, clear-headed and strong.




The fan leaves were like plastic, and the sugar leaves were thick and greasy.

So I planted some of those seeds. That is when I first started to realize I might want to stabilize a real keeper out of these Useful genetics.

Those seeds grew some good weed.



Nothing phenomenal, but one of them gives the same high (back-left). Tastes like a floral bouquet. Sometimes I don't smoke it because I don't want to do 50 chores!




Today I am ready to plant seeds, and I want to get back into the euphoria project. Gonna call it Elk River for now. Deciding if I want to press on with the F3, or back off to the F2 (if we consider the freebie pack as F1s). I'm likely to pursue the F3, since I'm curious what it will bring.

The ultimate plan is to find an awesome keeper and cube it. So far I have been choosing males that grow and look like the females I like, just doing straight crosses. I may have to expand my scope so I can really narrow it down - doing things like keeping male clones and whatnot. Man, what an undertaking if I get into it that far.

Talking about that old pheno got me thinking. The F2 seeds from it were not dried and stored properly. They got moldy, but I caught it in time (probably 50% germ rate, if you can call that "in time"). I want to make new seeds, and I'll explore new phenos while I'm at it.



I'll plant the F3s soon, too. Got a couple other grows/projects winding down.

As much as I like this Elk River, it's practice for my ultimate goal of crossing some ACE Malawi with some AKBB Purest Indica. Preserving/expanding the PI right now, haven't cracked the ACE pack.

GenericEnigma said:

Apparently, I've been working on a breeding project the last few years. Didn't really mean to. Just wanted to make some free seeds and practice technique.

Been gardening for a dozen years, became a ganja planter six years ago. Still pretty new, so I welcome any comments or advice.

Practiced on bagseed, then found some genetics I was looking for. The irony? I bought two packs of seeds to get this freebie.

View attachment 5435886

Popped five seeds, reserving five. Got four females and one male. Pollinated each female.

One plant stretched like crazy. Tasted like petunias and bland coffee. But the high - oh, the high. Euphoric, energizing, and it had legs (plant at back-right). All day smoke, clear-headed and strong.

View attachment 5435889
View attachment 5435890

The fan leaves were like plastic, and the sugar leaves were thick and greasy.

So I planted some of those seeds. That is when I first started to realize I might want to stabilize a real keeper out of these Useful genetics.

Click to expand...

Beautiful! Useful has fire for sure, currently running his BOO S2.

FmSwayze said:

Beautiful! Useful has fire for sure, currently running his BOO S2.

Click to expand...

Thanks. Yeah, I've been impressed with his genetics. I picked up some Lucky Lime that was stellar. One pheno was reeeallyy strong.

Out of 30 F2 seeds left, two popped - and promptly damped off. Didn't dry nor store them properly. I still have five of the F1s if I need to back up, but I'm hopeful I won't need to.

Held off popping the F3s until somewhat recently (went out of town). Just pheno hunting here, seeing what this F3 batch has to offer. I will select four showing desireable traits for cloning and growing out.

Never seen a triploid out of Useful's genes, but one came up!

Transplanted. Four or five of these are showing signs of the traits I look for (long first leaves and petioles, dusting of frost). Good showing for such a small sample. If these continue to show desirable traits, grow consistently with each other, and smoke how I want, I'll start a true hunt for a keeper to cube (unless I get lucky out of this sample). Otherwise, I may have to try my luck with the remaining F1s and, like, start over.

Need another tent to expand operations. And my HID ballast is going out! May splurge on a DE 600W with a venting hood.

Had a minor setback and course correction. Left the heating mat on too long and fried the sprouts a bit. Then I switched the tent to GLR and they got cold. Poor buggers stalled bad.

The mat is back on now. And I ordered another 2x2 tent, so I sprouted some more seeds. Coming up alright so far!



Saved a few from before. This is the growth pattern I'm looking for. The two on the right are spot on, down to the beefy leaves.

Sprouting nicely enough, in spite of struggling to rebalance after the switch to GLR. I have enough here to work with. (You can see the center area overheated.)



I am very new at this, and I tend to cull aggressively at first. I don't know how to tell if a trait is part of an allele or what combinations will work better, so I'm just diving in and paying close attention. I've gotten lucky so far. Still, I'm glad to see about half of these share the trait for
long, tapered first leaves.

Here are some examples of early expressions.



I'll save a dozen or more after the roots are more established.

The below is an example of what gets culled - though I like this particular one and may save it to see what it does. (I have another project with these genetics where I select early based on keeping these types of sprouts, and it's at F3. I'm curious what else may express in this line with that starting trait, and the sprout looks very healthy.)



Here's the other two. They look miniature. But I like the symmetry and patterns. Looks familiar!

Really cool project. I think its beneficial taking most hybrids to F3. It unlocks more genetic variation. You might actually find a copy of that first plant in the F3 lot.

I will be running a few dozen F4 seeds in the greenhouse in spring. Im really curious to see what pops up. Im expecting more uniform plants in that lot. Recently, I was told that there are males that produce trichomes, but are very rare. Im on a mission to find one now. LOL! I usually kill the males in week 2 of flower, but this time around im going to let them go into week 4-5 before making the final selection.

Im planning to take the best F4 plants to F5 and make my first BC1 (F4 x F3father).
Im most likely going to create 3 different BC lines and take them to BC4. And eventually cross them into each other to turn the strain into a solid IBL.

Right now im having to assess the strains recessive traits, that seem to produce sterile bananas. Breeding that out is going to be super challenging, but hopefully not impossible.

Anyway, ill be watching this thread.

Farmer's Hat said:

Really cool project. I think its beneficial taking most hybrids to F3. It unlocks more genetic variation. You might actually find a copy of that first plant in the F3 lot.

I will be running a few dozen F4 seeds in the greenhouse in spring. Im really curious to see what pops up. Im expecting more uniform plants in that lot. Recently, I was told that there are males that produce trichomes, but are very rare. Im on a mission to find one now. LOL! I usually kill the males in week 2 of flower, but this time around im going to let them go into week 4-5 before making the final selection.

Im planning to take the best F4 plants to F5 and make my first BC1 (F4 x F3father).
Im most likely going to create 3 different BC lines and take them to BC4. And eventually cross them into each other to turn the strain into a solid IBL.

Right now im having to assess the strains recessive traits, that seem to produce sterile bananas. Breeding that out is going to be super challenging, but hopefully not impossible.

Anyway, ill be watching this thread.

Click to expand...

Thanks, man. I don't really know what to expect out of these F3s, so it's good to hear it's a nice spot to hunt. Just need it to have that same all-day functional high. It could stand a better flavor, but I suspect the flavor and high can't be separated. Might be interesting to try to improve. But my time might be better spent weeding out bananas, too.

Is it any different cloning fathers vs. mothers? I guess I've seen preflowers drop pollen, but other than that? I'd keep a frosty male if I ran into one. I hope you find some good F4s!

I've been watching your thread. You have a lot of projects going on!

GenericEnigma said:

Is it any different cloning fathers vs. mothers? I guess I've seen preflowers drop pollen, but other than that?

Click to expand...

Im avoiding pre flowers by keeping the males in small quarter gallon containers. Every now and then the MTF male will start producing flowers if it gets too big. I will prune it down, and it starts all over again. The males seem to bounce back from heavy prunings a lot quicker than the females. Other than that, I haven't noticed much of a difference.

Hit the keepers with a bit of soil, their first taste. Lots of these are potentials. Transplant isn't far off. I'm aiming for 12+ so I can be more sure to have at least four of each gender.

The small teal plant reminds me of the F1!



The older ones are doing well. I like this one.

Taking to the compost in spite of the chill (lung room set to drying temps).



Many of them are coming up like the F2.



This one is different than I've seen before. Maybe more of the GG shining through?



Here is the one that has the teal colorings, reminding me of the F1.



Drying will be done within the next week or so. Looking forward to turning up the heat!

Started my trim job. This one's gonna be time-consuming. Lotta indica genes. But I'll get temps back up this weekend.

The Elk River sprouts are barely growing. Keeping warm roots helps. But the mothers in the same tent are not overgrowing, so that's a side bonus.



Not entirely sure which to keep. Leaning toward keeping eight like the F2 (hoping for four of each gender with an aim to take the IBL to F4). Probably also keep the one growing like the F1 - and maybe the one growing leaves like I've seen on GG4s.

Selecting is a bit challenging this run since the cold is making them grow different than I've seen. If I weren't familiar with the genes I'd bag it all. I'm glad to be drying full proper, but the cold is making it rough for the little ones.

I'm curious if the maturity clock will keep running so I can discover genders before they're big, or if the cold will slow that as well.

Trimming is done, heat is up. The plants responded quickly.



I selected eight for the IBL and saved four interesting ones.



This is four of the eight (far back from above).



Of the other four, there is a weird stunty one; the one like the F1; the more GG4-looking one; and another that's like the F1 I didn't notice because it's not teal-ish (not shown below).





I also kept two from the first batch. Why not, eh? Besides, the one on the right is practically spot-on so far, down to the upward shooting growth and the 90d cross pattern on the leaves.



I love doing this stuff.

Plants drooped for a day in transplant shock, then took off. I'm guessing the roots got established on that heat mat while the foliage stalled, and now that the air is warm, the roots can really work.

Waiting on gender at this point. I'll probably top them in a bit. Elk River gets tall even with topping and super cropping.

One of the eight is staying squat, which may get it culled.