Nice detail... i think all results should be 'scientifically' based.. and viewed and tested in proper labs for proper judgment on breed, genetics, thc levels etc.
seems like alot of stuff these days is sold on 'here say'
"Should"?
First of all, who is going to decide what exactly constitutes an "Indica" and how exactly are you going to "measure" that? You can't. . .there is no "Indica" test, just as there is no "Sativa" test. The vast majority of modern strains contain some genetic background from tropical and subcontinental strains, meaning that any particular contest entry is likely to be both Indica and Sativa. . .distinguishing between the two is largely arbitrary.
Even if there were some well-defined genetic criteria to separate one from the other (and there aren't), I strongly doubt it would be practical with today's technology to do genetic probing on submitted samples to evaluate them.
Again, judging cannabis. . .like judging wine or beer. . .is mostly subjective, not objective.
Yes, you can measure constituent molecules, like THC, CBD, etc, but that information is of limited value, I think. That's only going to tell you which strains are the most potent. But unless absolute potency is your ONLY criteria for picking top strains, comparing the numbers isn't going to help you. Lets say you have five strains that all vary between (say) 18 and 20% THC. Yeah, by pure mathematics, ONE of them is going to be more potent than the others, but that difference in potency isn't likely to be significant in the real world.
How is a machine going to determine which strain smells the nicest?
How is a machine going to judge which sample has the best appearance ("bag appeal")?
How is a machine going to judge the quality of a "high"?
At this point in time, machines simply CANNOT do these things, and so I don't see any way that you "scientifically" even CAN judge cannabis strains.
At best you can have an expert panel make relatively good distinctions between a small number of stains, but that kind of evaluation is never going to tell you what strain/s are the "best" again, because that's subjective, and because in practice, no such panel could ever do really good evaluation on a large number of strains in any limited time frame. Smoking weed isn't like taking a sip of wine, swishing it around and spitting it out.
As I said earlier, these "contests" are basically ways to generate publicity/advertising for particular seed houses, and for the contest sponsors, and to a lesser extent serve as industry "conferences". That's about it.
its all about 'the show' and 'the stands' more than anything.. and that really annoys me because i demand perfection .. not a bloody crowd.
They buy your own strains, and decide for yourself which are "the best". That's the only judgment that's really going to matter anyway.
i will personally choose breeders who spend there 'money' investing in research to better genetics and come up with new breeds... i wont spend my money on a breeder who spends all the cash provided to them on stands; advertising etc.... all there after is a cash grab and they find plenty of victims.
Short of reviewing their financial records and comparing (which you'll never be permitted to do) how on earth are you going to know what proportion of money any given house is spending on actual breeding vs advertising?
More to the point, even if you did do this, spending money on marketing and on development are not only not mutually exclusive, they are probably complementary. The house that makes the best strains "should" sell the most seeds allowing for better marketing, and the house that sells the most seeds "should" then have the most revenues available for continued strain development.
Even this assumes that strain quality is a function of a particular house's R&D budget, and that probably is only true to a very limited extent. A good breeder with a small budget can do more than a poor one with a large budget. If you look at the history of the more famous "name" strains (Skunk, Northern Lights, etc) many of them were developed via collaborative effort distributed between many breeders over many years.