It's Been Too Long Journal, Critical Kush

[Mike Connor]

Well...

I sent Barney's Farm an email requesting clarification and information......

And in return they dodged the question and asked for sales information to start a warranty claim....

Not helpful.

Sigh.

20 years ago you got real seeds. Non auto, non feminized and you get what you ordered. I miss the old days.


Cheers

 

[GroZone]

Definitely following along with this one, I too am running critical kush right now (although from clone not seed). Should be fun to compare our grows, good luck to you!

 

[Mike Connor]

Definitely following along with this one, I too am running critical kush right now (although from clone not seed). Should be fun to compare our grows, good luck to you!

Well that's great news. Glad to have a brother in arms so to speak.

I just found your journal so I will keep up with your endeavors.

Can't wait to see more photos from you.


Cheers

 

[Mike Connor]

Journal log entry.

Due to the genetic issues of this strain, we germinated and planted 2 more critical kush seeds.

Time lines as follows.

-Began soaking in distilled water Sunday April 30th around 4 pm
-Germination noted On May 1 6:30 pm
-Seeds planted in one liter pots 1/4 inch deep.
-Seeds sprouted and ejected seed casing on May 3.

Seedling labeled CK 4 - Was a large robust seed with an even tone casing. Even at this early stage one Cotyledon is larger than the other. You cant see it in this photo but I will post later when its crystal clear. Seems a good bet this one will be phenotype two.

Seedling labeled CK 5 was a smaller seed with a mottled casing. Cotyledon leaves seem even size at this point. Too early to classify it as phenotype one. Stay tuned.

Cheers

 

[Mike Connor]

Things are getting interesting over on this thread about this plant.

If you are interested in genetics and genetic boo boo's, you may find this some good info.


Barney's Farm - Critical Kush - Phenotype Identification?


Cheers
.

 

[Austin084]

Gonna watch this with a keen eye

 

[TorturedSoul]

{...}its not really a strain. Radically different Phenotypes have emerged. Phenotypes are differences within a family. However the differences displayed here are pretty extreme. In fact I leave the door open to the concept of mis-packaged seeds. However I see others have had the exact same experiences, hence I will label this as a phenotype issue for now. Simply put, this isn't a pure strain. Imagine a family of really short people. And then a child turns up to be 7 feet tall. Right off the bat I would imagine the Paper Boy, Milk Man or Post Man was tall too. But one thing is crystal clear. When you buy a pack of these seeds, you really have no idea of what you are truly getting. Due to the fact one of the dominant phenotypes is touchy, I don't recommend this strain for a beginner. And due to the varied types, you will need to be a marksmen at cloning. Another good reason its not a great place for a beginner to start off.

At this point if I had to make an educated guess, the type one plant is a Critical Mass throw back and the type two plant is an OG Kush throw back. (or variants thereof) Since Critical Kush is supposed to be an OG Kush and Critical Mass cross, this seems a likely explanation. And if that's the case there should be a 3rd phenotype out there. One which is the true result of that cross. And it just might be the Holy Grail. Makes me wonder what the two other seeds I am germinating hold in store. Stay tuned. Same Bat time, Same Bat channel.

20 years ago you got real seeds. Non auto, non feminized and you get what you ordered. I miss the old days.

Lol. Seems like it was 20 or more years ago... Neville's Haze... IIRC, the breeder's description included something along the lines of how the grower should find a keeper in every pack (of ten? twelve? I CRS :rolleyes3 ), and growing out several packs in the search for "The One" might be required. High dollar strain - and it was worth it, too.

But it was a hybrid. The strain hadn't been inbred/backcrossed with an intent to produce stable, uniform plants in the seed-generation. I think it would be fair to say that Neville focused on breeding for prime headstash material (mission accomplished) and with some thought towards lowering the flowering time.

They were all pretty healthy. And the effect was great. But there are levels of "great." From reactions of some of the folks who got to smoke it, I'd guess that they would have been happy to have something that was just a bit less of itself, so to speak. I suppose a not insignificant percentage of those who grew it chose and bred for shorter flowering times since in that case, "shorter" was generally accepted to be around 16 weeks . I had one that I cut at around 18 weeks and one that liked to go 20½ (and liked to self-seed by then if I wasn't vigilant). IIRC, this strain was supposed to be 25% indica via its Northern Lights content. Makes me shake my head a little when I see one advertised as being 75%-80% sativa and with a flowering period of 14 weeks or less. IDK... Anyway, the breeder didn't simply take a couple of strains, grow a plant from each, cross them, and sell the resulting seeds to people; he put time and effort into getting to the point where he could sell them. If memory hasn't failed me, it seems like they were a generation or two, or three, again, I CRS) past the F₁ stage and the selection involved multiple plants all around.

Looks like most of the strains being peddled these days are F₁-generation seeds. Among others, I like Serious Seeds. Generally considered to be high quality, and Simon has been doing it for decades, so SS is not exactly a pollen-chucker outfit. But even there, the vast majority are F₁s. I think the only IBL he carries is Bubble Gum.

I do feel like there are more than a few breeders out there who just buy a pack or two - or, in extreme cases, a single seed? - of a couple of different strains, grow them, and cross them. These days, both of those parents are probably feminized stock. I wonder what a chart of all the possible different combinations of observable traits a grower could see when growing F₁s of F₁s (of F₁s...) would look like, lol? Maybe these people decide to cross a couple of strains that they've grown and liked - or maybe they're crossing things that they figure are high sellers and they want to grab a piece of the pie. I don't mind getting hybrids, F₁s or other "pre-stablized" generations. But I very much prefer that the breeding program that created the strain wasn't the plant-world equivalent of a quick drunken screw in a concert-hall bathroom that only happened because the line to the p!sser was shorter than the beer line.

The good news is, once a grower finds a plant that fulfills his/her requirements, es can produce a huge number of clones over time and a mini-mother doesn't require much of anything, relatively speaking. But there are situations where a person wants/needs a quantity of seeds, and it is helpful if the variation is generally within the bounds that are acceptable to the grower (and known). Said grower would probably expect - and reasonably so, IMHO - to be able to get more keepers from purchasing n seeds from the breeder than the grower could get from taking two random seeds of that generation and crossing them, I'd think. I mean, you expect some variation when purchasing non-IBLs, and more if you cross them. But I've glanced at strain descriptions with so many different possible phenotypes that that's what it seemed like, someone just bought a couple of different F₁s and crossed them (and then sold the seeds). When the number of possibilities listed in the breeder's description ends up being able to describe 80% of the strains in existence, lol, it's time to pick a different strain. Err, or something...

BtW, I just happened to stumble across this thread, and I've got a Critical Kush seed around here somewhere that I will probably attempt to grow one of these days if I don't get talked out of it. I'll have to do some catch-up reading and then follow along. I hope we're both able to get something decent. If you haven't already mentioned it, how does it smell while growing (and how strongly)? If you've already covered that, I'll see it when I read your past posts in the thread. Oh, and sorry for rambling....

 

[Mike Connor]

Lol. Seems like it was 20 or more years ago... Neville's Haze... IIRC, the breeder's description included something along the lines of how the grower should find a keeper in every pack (of ten? twelve? I CRS :rolleyes3 ), and growing out several packs in the search for "The One" might be required. High dollar strain - and it was worth it, too.

But it was a hybrid. The strain hadn't been inbred/backcrossed with an intent to produce stable, uniform plants in the seed-generation. I think it would be fair to say that Neville focused on breeding for prime headstash material (mission accomplished) and with some thought towards lowering the flowering time.

They were all pretty healthy. And the effect was great. But there are levels of "great." From reactions of some of the folks who got to smoke it, I'd guess that they would have been happy to have something that was just a bit less of itself, so to speak. I suppose a not insignificant percentage of those who grew it chose and bred for shorter flowering times since in that case, "shorter" was generally accepted to be around 16 weeks . I had one that I cut at around 18 weeks and one that liked to go 20½ (and liked to self-seed by then if I wasn't vigilant). IIRC, this strain was supposed to be 25% indica via its Northern Lights content. Makes me shake my head a little when I see one advertised as being 75%-80% sativa and with a flowering period of 14 weeks or less. IDK... Anyway, the breeder didn't simply take a couple of strains, grow a plant from each, cross them, and sell the resulting seeds to people; he put time and effort into getting to the point where he could sell them. If memory hasn't failed me, it seems like they were a generation or two, or three, again, I CRS) past the F₁ stage and the selection involved multiple plants all around.

Looks like most of the strains being peddled these days are F₁-generation seeds. Among others, I like Serious Seeds. Generally considered to be high quality, and Simon has been doing it for decades, so SS is not exactly a pollen-chucker outfit. But even there, the vast majority are F₁s. I think the only IBL he carries is Bubble Gum.

I do feel like there are more than a few breeders out there who just buy a pack or two - or, in extreme cases, a single seed? - of a couple of different strains, grow them, and cross them. These days, both of those parents are probably feminized stock. I wonder what a chart of all the possible different combinations of observable traits a grower could see when growing F₁s of F₁s (of F₁s...) would look like, lol? Maybe these people decide to cross a couple of strains that they've grown and liked - or maybe they're crossing things that they figure are high sellers and they want to grab a piece of the pie. I don't mind getting hybrids, F₁s or other "pre-stablized" generations. But I very much prefer that the breeding program that created the strain wasn't the plant-world equivalent of a quick drunken screw in a concert-hall bathroom that only happened because the line to the p!sser was shorter than the beer line.

The good news is, once a grower finds a plant that fulfills his/her requirements, es can produce a huge number of clones over time and a mini-mother doesn't require much of anything, relatively speaking. But there are situations where a person wants/needs a quantity of seeds, and it is helpful if the variation is generally within the bounds that are acceptable to the grower (and known). Said grower would probably expect - and reasonably so, IMHO - to be able to get more keepers from purchasing n seeds from the breeder than the grower could get from taking two random seeds of that generation and crossing them, I'd think. I mean, you expect some variation when purchasing non-IBLs, and more if you cross them. But I've glanced at strain descriptions with so many different possible phenotypes that that's what it seemed like, someone just bought a couple of different F₁s and crossed them (and then sold the seeds). When the number of possibilities listed in the breeder's description ends up being able to describe 80% of the strains in existence, lol, it's time to pick a different strain. Err, or something...

BtW, I just happened to stumble across this thread, and I've got a Critical Kush seed around here somewhere that I will probably attempt to grow one of these days if I don't get talked out of it. I'll have to do some catch-up reading and then follow along. I hope we're both able to get something decent. If you haven't already mentioned it, how does it smell while growing (and how strongly)? If you've already covered that, I'll see it when I read your past posts in the thread. Oh, and sorry for rambling....

Mr. Soul,

Thank you very much indeed for your insightful post. I was beginning to think I was the only one thinking this way. I certainly agree with you wholeheartedly.

I think you are correct in your judgment of this breed and likely many on the market today. It's prolly an F1 or other near initial crossing offspring.

In the early days when I was growing you bought 10 seeds for 20 bucks, you picked the best one or two to move forward with and commence cloning. And for 20 bucks, it was worth the effort.

But in this case its me who's fouled up. In the 1980's and 90's I watched and participated in the improvement of the plants. During that time great strides were made towards making strains a more compact, and of course, more potent. My failing was assuming that during the time I was gone from growing this forward progress in the community continued. I now find out that's not the case.

Money is the root of all evil. Never a truer phrase ever spoken. Seems the community has gone corporate style commercial, focused on profits. Put that together with our instant gratification society and you get fertile ground to sell your junk to unsuspecting souls.

Doing it the right way isn't easy. And today's folks just don't want to go the distance of planting seeds, sexing, choosing the best then cloning. This is where I made my second mistake. I foolishly thought I could run out to this amazing marketplace and buy feminized seeds and live happily ever after. Since I paid almost 100 bucks for 5 seeds I had very high expectations. I fully expected to walk away with at least 3 similar usable females. What it appears I'm really getting is screwed.

So I just got a kick in my complacency. I will now endeavor to do it the old way. The hard way.

And I think that course of action is best. Looking at the market now, I see so many seeds feminized and even scarier to me, auto flowering. It wont be long before all the strains are bastardized and getting a solid plant becomes quite difficult.

One of my favorite sayings is this > "Sometimes you've got to pee with the penis you've got" And this is exactly what I'm gonna do.

I will carry on with Barney's farm critical kush. But I intend to breed for my own purposes. And I now have a few trump cards.

Gotta love my wife. Shes a die hard collector of everything interesting. Over the last 18 years shes been collecting seeds. Some bag seeds of unknown origins and other known plants. I know you are thinking, "what the hell good is an 18 year old seed". I know and I would have to agree. HOWEVER, for shits and giggles we attempted to germinate some. Some very old, and some much newer. We must have tossed down close to 50 seeds into wet paper towels.

In a stroke of luck, 3 germinated. 2 Newer ones and one very old. Like 18 years old. At this point it would appear that old seed is my 18 year old original strain northern lights plant. To me, this is solid gold. Male or female I am more than happy to have it.

We intend to breed it and create our own plant. If I don't get a male in either the critical kush or northern lights I will force the issue and generate a hermie. We will move forward with our own breeding and selection program and begin storing unbastardized seeds. We will likely make an attempt to resurrect the old northern lights line as well. Line breeding, here I come.

As for your Critical Kush seeds, I've seen a photo of them you posted in your grow thread. They both look like they will produce the large vigorous growing phenotype. So its certainly worth a shot to bring it along. Folks who have grown this plant, albeit lop-sided still produced some heavy hitting stuff. So that's a plus. It just grows funky.

No need to apologize for rambling. It's really helpful in soaking up the wisdom of the community. The more we share as a group, the sharper we get. Bring it on.

We were thinking maybe barney should change his name to WTF Seed Inc.

Cheers!

 

[Mike Connor]

All 3 original seedlings have been transplanted into 3 liter containers. After a short period of pouting, Vigorous growth continues...

 

[Mittin]

She's looking dam good to me! Happy and healthy.

 

[GroZone]

Looking good Snid! Just curious if you had any insight for my noobish grower-self as to why your Critical Kush leaves are much wider than the CK clones i'm running thus far?

 

[Mike Connor]

Looking good Snid! Just curious if you had any insight for my noobish grower-self as to why your Critical Kush leaves are much wider than the CK clones i'm running thus far?

I think its a bit too early to tell with yours. It would appear your plants came from a mature plant that was in flower mode. Note the leaves are alternating rather than coming together. This suggests its program was firmly stuck in flower mode.

So lets wait a bit to see what you have.


On the other side of the coin, there are wildly different phenotypes with this plant. I have identified 3 so far. So, once yours get going for a few weeks in 18 hour mode, we will be in a better position to identify which phenotype you have. To get up to speed, you might wish to read my growth report from last Sunday.

On to raising your babies. Make sure you are not too close with your lighting yet. Clones need time to root up. Wilting or what I call pouting can be a sign lights are too close just yet. Easy on the nutes.

So close up photos would help at this point. I find it interesting I'm only seeing leaves of 5 on your plants.

Make sure to support those stalks. The distance between the nodes is a bit too much right now. They are too tall and spindly. However once they get well rooted we can fix that.

Get em supported and sort out why they are pouting. Could be too much light, too much nutes or not enough water. Getting them happy is job one.

Cheers

 

[GroZone]

I think its a bit too early to tell with yours. It would appear your plants came from a mature plant that was in flower mode. Note the leaves are alternating rather than coming together. This suggests its program was firmly stuck in flower mode.

So lets wait a bit to see what you have.


On the other side of the coin, there are wildly different phenotypes with this plant. I have identified 3 so far. So, once yours get going for a few weeks in 18 hour mode, we will be in a better position to identify which phenotype you have. To get up to speed, you might wish to read my growth report from last Sunday.

On to raising your babies. Make sure you are not too close with your lighting yet. Clones need time to root up. Wilting or what I call pouting can be a sign lights are too close just yet. Easy on the nutes.

So close up photos would help at this point. I find it interesting I'm only seeing leaves of 5 on your plants.

Make sure to support those stalks. The distance between the nodes is a bit too much right now. They are too tall and spindly. However once they get well rooted we can fix that.

Get em supported and sort out why they are pouting. Could be too much light, too much nutes or not enough water. Getting them happy is job one.

Cheers

Very good info, I am grateful for that! I think part of it is the light so I have raised it up and will begin slowly lowering once they are happy for a little while. I've got the tower fan gently going 24/7 to help strengthen up the stalks hoping I won't need the extra support yet as this seemed to work with the last clones I ran plus I am going to try scrog'ing them later in the grow. The leaves I thought was a normal thing, my last clones were the same way (same breeder different strains) but as I said I am still a novice grower so i'm not sure on that. Again thanks for all the info!

 

[Mike Connor]

Very good info, I am grateful for that! I think part of it is the light so I have raised it up and will begin slowly lowering once they are happy for a little while. I've got the tower fan gently going 24/7 to help strengthen up the stalks hoping I won't need the extra support yet as this seemed to work with the last clones I ran plus I am going to try scrog'ing them later in the grow. The leaves I thought was a normal thing, my last clones were the same way (same breeder different strains) but as I said I am still a novice grower so i'm not sure on that. Again thanks for all the info!

The picture below shows how the nodes are arranged.

On the left is a node from a plant in the 18 hour / vegetative state. The node on the right is from a plant that is in a 12 hour / flowering state.

You may find, depending on the plant itself and its age, it may revert to vegetative type nodes after a few weeks of being on 18 hours. And this is a good thing.

Cheers

 

[TorturedSoul]

Err... Cannabis begins growing staggered/alternating branches when it reaches sexual maturity. Number of hours of darkness the plant gets isn't a factor for this.

 

[Mike Connor]

Err... Cannabis begins growing staggered/alternating branches when it reaches sexual maturity. Number of hours of darkness the plant gets isn't a factor for this.

Sorry, cant agree. The 100's of pant I've grown in past and the one I'm growing now come together in veg mode and switch to alternating when flowering.

Heres a photo of 2 of my current plants in veg with the nodes occurring together.

Heres a photo of the beginning of flowering. It has switch to flowering and alternating nodes.

Alternating nodes can occur with plant maturity or forced by photoperiod. Many plants ive grown reverted back to occurring together during reveg.

What I explain above is what I'm used to seeing. My original northern lights plant kept as a mother took over 2 years to step into alternating nodes without a photoperiod bump. And by then it was no longer useful and the clones never entered vigorous growth again. Its clones prior to this age alternated during flowering and reverted during reveg all based on photoperiod.

However with all the bastardized genetics out there I concede anything is possible. However a plant showing preflowering will begin to alternate with a change of photoperiod.

Cheers

 

[BulletTooth]

Your exactly right about this. Genetics have went to hell so to speak. And yes some plants will grow alternatingly now(because of genetics) although I don't know how much this affects their speed. But it does make me think about that interesting point you made about old mother's throwing clones that are slow. I think that genetics are being inbred for more than one reason(whether from stupidity or lack of knowledge) but honestly I think it's to muff up the breeders (or normal growers needing seed). Seems like more and more plants I grow have some type of mutation. And that's a serious sign of inbreeding.

 

[Mike Connor]

Your exactly right about this. Genetics have went to hell so to speak. And yes some plants will grow alternatingly now(because of genetics) although I don't know how much this affects their speed. But it does make me think about that interesting point you made about old mother's throwing clones that are slow. I think that genetics are being inbred for more than one reason(whether from stupidity or lack of knowledge) but honestly I think it's to muff up the breeders (or normal growers needing seed). Seems like more and more plants I grow have some type of mutation. And that's a serious sign of inbreeding.

Thanks BT,

However I can probably surmise we are both correct due to age and genetic issues.

I hear ya loud and clear on the genetic stuff. I see what you have got going with your Journal. I looked at many others and noted similar issues. Odd growth patterns Polypoids and more. I'm sure you have seen the videos by that billy bud guy that thinks the plant will be more potent. Me, I'm not so sure. You can tell us how you make out with the one you are raising. Looking forward to it.

I fully understand the clones failing to thrive. The mother plant got old, It would not revert back to paired nodes. Therefore all clones taken for it also brought its mother old age with it. Hence they were a no go. Makes sense to me.

But in my day, when a plant switch to alternating without a photoperiod bump, I wouldn't have called it mature. I would have called it a senior citizen and well past its prime. All things living have a maximum life span and this is how the plant expressed it was time to enter the end of life cycle, with or without the photoperiod change.

I must say all genetic issues today have me a tad hot under the collar. Corporate greed has taken over for sure. I am happy to have a few old seeds germinate. I'm going to breed that for sure and make my own seeds from plants of days gone past.

I have one 18 year old northern lights plant going. lol, for the first time I hope the plant is a male. I will breed it back to some of this new stuff and follow the course. But then again, if its a female and I can force some clones to turn hermie, I may be able to bring back the old line of northern lights. I don't know if you are familiar with line breeding but its going to be a 4 to 5 year ride.

Heres the line breeding plan to make your own strain and end up with a normalized plant with vigorous growth.

Cheers

 

[Mike Connor]

Well I Found it,

Heres a shot of a stalk that was alternating but reverted back to paired when it went back to veg. This shows clearly that nodes are photoperiod sensitive.

This is how it is with non bastardized plants. Old age will bring on alternating nodes, but while the plant is in its prime it is a simple matter of programing. Which program is it in? Veg or Flower. It will follow its predetermined program regardless of age entirely driven by photoperiod.

Cheers

 

[Mike Connor]

Holy Crap.

Its snowing out there...