good pheno, bad pheno, red pheno, blue pheno

the silver mountains were purely losers in the flavor department. great buzz but the flavor is a bummer. catpissy lemonlimewetdog bout sums it up. they were all pretty close when done too. i had one that was sweet and had some hints of grape and another that had some hints of mint but they were still pretty bummer. patients were not happy one bit.

when i run the HGK i get the golf balls. not from stretch but nice little tight calyx's. guy ran it all organic water only with teas in bloom and the calyx's swelled like I've never seen making the buds into spiky fingers. was just amazing. top 3 I've ever smoked....

i could care less how a plant grows really except if it just up and dies thats a problem but i mean even a semi unhealthy plant can give a pile of dankness when the magic is there. my first HGK plant was a mess but after a few runs i got her going good. had a few hiccups but she's a pretty ez grower really. i got some s1 seeds in flower right now from Colo that are all over the map growth and flavor wise. a buncha Citrus bull shit, but a few gems. i just picked my winner of darth maul and bruce banner i think. the banner i like is fading pretty early but I'm sure i can work that out... thats kinda what I'm talking about.

cant make a good grower taste good if she wants to taste like grass.... CAN make a Bad grower grow good when dialed in if she tastes like gasoline and Jessica alba

If it didn't look healthy you probably didn't grow it correctly. Some plants are difficult to figure out. It's sort of why I've switched over to organics as the biology takes care of most of the work for you if done right. Not bottled organics mind you I am making supersoils. You can screw it up too though using excessive amounts particularly certain kinds of amendments that have quite a lot of readily available nutrients.

I've seen guys who I would consider experienced and knowledgable say you really won't know what you've got until the 3rd or 4th run. If you in any way liked it, keep it and dial it. Because sometimes it can be night and day. Especially with yields.

That said, a lot of guys ditch difficult to grow plants because they are difficult and the perceived payoff isn't worth it. The last part is the real question here.

Check into Brix gardening bro, plant health goes a very long way towards plant effect.

TonightYou said:

Here is my method, which has about a 95% rate of survival.
1.) ceeds get a 24 hr soak in a shot glass or remove earlier when cracked open.
2.) Place ceed in soaked rockwool cubes, place in humidity dome (some cheap ceed starter kit from HD)
3.) let ceed do its thing, I don't put it into a solo cut until i see the tap root through the bottom.
4.) Once transplanted into cups, give a good water and let it do its thing. I do not water again until the soil is dried out, like really dry. I find under watering is pretty good at getting the seedling to go stretch those roots out.

Click to expand...

Under watering kills your fine roots though and it can also slow down your microlife if you're growing organically. Also, the act of watering can bring a lot of oxygen into your root zone which is really important for root development as well.

well this plant smelled like some straight up gasoline in veg. smelled so good it made the hair on the back of my neck tingle. well about week 3 after she stretched and showed me that LEMON RIND was 90% of the terp profile she started fading FAST. she's now about week 6 and is yellower then hell.. the buds are coming in alright but its gonna be very tangerine dream whispy lemon shit.

Click to expand...

See, that's definitely a plant not dialed in and definitely a plant I would be running again.I'd guess you're feeding excessive phosphorous, but there are other possible answers too and none are easy to figure out unfortunately. What kind of regime are you using?

Keep in mind comparing proven clones to seeds is not a good idea. The part you missed was the work the person did who selected the clone and how many he went through before he found it.
With seeds, especially poly hybrids they will be all over the map. In a pack of 10 don't expect to find an elite clone. Usually you won't. If it is just a hybrid you usually get 80-20% as an example.
80% similar in vigor, looks and quality. The other 20% are runts/crap or that rare keeper. Everything else is just average.

When you go to poly hybrids the statistics are all over the place.
It is a rare day when you find a plant that has everything you could ever want in a plant. Most elite clones fall into that relm but again if you expect to find something in a 10 pack you are kidding yourself and don't yet understand odds or breeding. Not ment as an insult, attack or anything of the sort, but it is the truth. And yes every once in a while someone buys one lottery ticket and wins but it is rare.

One way to increase your chances of a plant producing average(good) quality with seeds is to do the things everyone already said earlier in this thread. Just a few things I will add is the size of the container the plant is in. The bigger and the more soil the better. Also using something like a smart pot fiber container will help. A friend who elevates his smart pots on milk cartons with great air flow has just amazing results compared to what I have ever been able to produce. Buds bigger than my leg. And he doesn't even use co2.

When you do have that elite clone and dial everything in your results will stun even you.
That has been my experience.
Hope that helps.

Ah that is a bummer HGK, I knew you were looking forward to those. Got a strong, truly nighttime smoke of Sunshine Daydream, should be named sunshine daywreck due to its incompacitating nature... which is awesome for me as I crave night knockout strains.

To the comment about underwatering, I find drying the soil out allows the roots to seek water and promote growth. I don't know if this is fact, nor claim it, but when I water less, I get better results. Much of the initial watering was heavy, and even with the soil dry at the top probably tomorrow, there is still a great deal of water trapped lower in the soil.
Here is a photo I just took of my recent clones and seedlings. Some have been moved from being much closer to the lighy, a few need to be propped up to get closer to the light but to be honest if I can slow growth, the better as space in flower is sparce until the end of the month.

Those seedlings and clones were watered yesterday, and will probably be watered again Thursday night at the earliest, maybe Friday.

OGEvilgenius said:

See, that's definitely a plant not dialed in and definitely a plant I would be running again.I'd guess you're feeding excessive phosphorous, but there are other possible answers too and none are easy to figure out unfortunately. What kind of regime are you using?

Click to expand...

i cant do it.. it cloned easier then fuck but it just smells so terrible.. i cant waste time tweaking. thats kinda my main question is how different could it possibly be in a perfect environment. so far a couple plants have really shown great traits including flavor. growth is amazing on these ones as well... i might as well concentrate on the ones that like me and taste good instead of trying to change my set up for one that probably won't make me happy in the end.

this batch has been synthetic with a K heavy feeding regime.

I've never been a taste/smell chaser. Don't get me wrong, it's a bonus from my point of view. As long as it isn't simply terrible ( few years ago buddy grew a mexibag sativa, my god that thing smelt/tasted like burnt hair), and is a solid smoke, I'm happy.

Perhaps you could try a more balanced fertilizer. Ya know I'm a huge fan of Jacks. Just seems odd to be having that many plants be off so to speak

o i only have a few off. most of my rooms looks great but it seems 1 out of every pack almost always wigs out.

side note:i haven't found a plant that wasn't VERY vigorous with GDP seeds.

if a breeder uses a sick mother plant, she can pass sickness thru the seed and you can get a sick plant or a plant that just dies. iv been reading about germing with a beneficial bacteria to battle these pathogens.

my main problems were centered around HSO and THseed plants. I've heard fusarium can come down through seeds before and if you not careful you can get into some trouble.

ive even been wondering if this is what happened with this last bunch. the plants that started getting weak or fading seemed to just fall off a cliff shortly after the slightest bit of sickness. the healthy ones did fine.

just weird thoughts.

HGK, you Should know there are better breeders than those two companies. while I do love mkultra, I won't purchase from th seeds which two beans hermied in me right off the bat

kgp said:

I think when popping seeds, especially new strains getting them dialed in can take a whole grow . Mostly with multi strain grows. I have a tendency to over feed, light feeding or picky plant's. I kind of push them hard even with organics. Finding that sweet spot for could result in not being able to tell the full potential.

I also think that vigorous growth right out the shell is a great quality to look for. Also how fast she roots and sensitivity to light and food. But like you said, genetics shine thru.

Its easier to make a good strain great, than make a bad strain good. IMO

Click to expand...

Yeah, I push them hard as well. When they have had enough they will tell me.

But, I have had, on several occassions, plants that look weak and very unimpressive that turned into straight up WOW the last few weeks of flower. I try to temper my disappointment or excitement over how good or bad a plant looks while growing.

Enviroment, the way you water, different ferts, different mediums, different finishing styles(fading/flush) all effect the taste. I just ran a clone of MKultra for a buddy. His smells like black liquorice with hint of earth, mine smells like lemony og kush with a little earth. totally different taste and smell but the same plant. He runs my Fuel cut and gets a sweet sour apple smell and taste and when i run it taste and smells like fuelly chemdawg and we both pull her at 63 days. He uses 600's and i use 1000's, he uses botanicare and i use technoflora, he has city water and i got well water, he runs higher temps/lower temps on average then me. What im getting at is many factors change the way something ends up.

which means a tweak or 2 and no more lemonrind shit lol

well i got a couple that are bringing the fuel without any tweaks so those will probably be the ones i concentrate on. cant help but always wonder tho ya know. i wish the market wasn't so toast, a bad phenotype used to fly as mid grade but not anymore, lucky to get reg prices.

the lemon rind is a very reminiscent flavor too. I've found it in a lot of strains. 7/10 TGA have this type of smell. i think it might just be an ugly recessive trait.

its actually gaining some steam in the last couple days and getting this burnt racing fuel smell thats starting to take over. might still be hope yet. i already whacked all the clones from it tho! botanicare Kind soil almost killed em it was so hot so i figured id cut my losses. iffy pheno + bad start to life = really really bad meds lol

i love when the smells change in those last weeks. this mendodawg went from grape pixy stixs to fine champagne! makes me drool when smelling her n i smell my fingers for the next hour or 2 lol

o man but grape pixy sticks woulda been pretty epic too! at least it still is good, that woulda sucked if it went from grape to rubber/wood

i have a plant that smelled of pencil erasers, that good or bad? lol

lol depends on how your elementary years went i suppose..