Landrace Genetics 101

[Tennessee Tim]

I should of mentioned that getting enough high quality seeds was a problem sometimes in those days! My grows were sometimes limited by that. The best pot usually had few seeds and growing lesser quality plants was a waste of time. I had several people saving seeds for me from their best cannabis they purchased, I sometimes did not really know what I was growing except by word of mouth and on the trust of the friend who saved me the seeds, in the early years. Later, I saved seed loaded buds, for seeds for next years crop from the best patches. I was a kid when I started growing and had to learn it all with no internet or library information in those days on growing pot. I was not sophisticated or real knowledgeable. The forgiving nature of the plant in our climate made me successful at growing clandestine grows here.

 

[Bobby Blunt]

That's about how it was, no formal teaching other that what you got from High Times Magazine, they were our bible. I decided to try my hand at growing in 1978 most of our weed sucked, I was 17 and the US was supplying Mexico with the chemical Paraquat to spray on their marijuana fields, real nasty stuff. I had some "Home grown" seeds, that's what we called it, today I know it as indica/Kush. I completed my grow had a ok crop for a newbie, mom got wind of it, and that was the end of that. I didn't grow again until 2015, Now I have a grow tent, led lights, awesome nutes. and anything that I need to know about the plant is just a click away.
Peace

 

[yesum]

At that time of 1977 and before , almost no one knew how to make the plants mature fully. Homegrown meant smoking fan leaves usually. By '78 or '79 homegrown became 'red hair', which referred to the pistils being red on the buds and it was favored over the imports by most. I had the idea the pistils were a big part of the high because of that, not true as it turns out. 'Sinse' or red hair ruled from then on here in socal.

You lived my dream there Tim, I figured there were areas of the country where you could grow like that, but I was not in one of them. Your several or many small plots was another thing I read of with the Kentucky growers. It provided stealth and also made it likely you would have at least one plot that would escape being eaten by animal/bugs or stolen by people/cops.

I nearly tried to grow guerrilla here a few years back, as that urge to do so never went away. No way to do a set it and forget it grow around here as it is too dry, and that was the only kind I wanted to do.

 

[bluter]

I nearly tried to grow guerrilla here a few years back, as that urge to do so never went away. No way to do a set it and forget it grow around here as it is too dry, and that was the only kind I wanted to do.

guerilla has always been more than drop a seed and walk away.

all the best guerilla growers i know have put more time and effort into it than the bulk of indoor home growers i know. for most of them it was a job, a lifestyle, a way to make ends meet, and way to feed their family.

there are few places here with a climate truly good enough either. most of the outdoor where i am needs to be harvested early and knocked down, or it freezes and gets bud rot immediately before chop. i know your pain lol.

 

[yesum]

Most guerrilla growing is quite a bit of work. I know that, but there were exceptions. Also, when 'working' they were vulnerable to getting caught. I wanted to avoid getting caught at all expense.

I got arrested for growing in the 80's, I know the crap they put you through. Not worth it imo. That is why Tim walked away when they went full retard on growing. I have been harassed in my home twice, a few years back while having a medical card to grow. Around 1AM both times, a cop shows up wanting to talk to me because they 'received a report that there was an emergency at my home'. Of course no mention of who told them that or anything really.

First time I answered the door and talked, the second time I talked thru the window. I figure they were fucking with me over growing, as I had a card and told people at work I grew. Did not tell the neighbors of course, but when you have a card they can track you that way.

Tim is right about control freaks and really mentally shitty people being involved with trying to bust pot smokers or growers. The rats that would tattle on smokers or growers were always people that you would despise or at least not like. Same people get a badge and it gets worse as they have power.

 

[Tennessee Tim]

guerilla has always been more than drop a seed and walk away.

all the best guerilla growers i know have put more time and effort into it than the bulk of indoor home growers i know. for most of them it was a job, a lifestyle, a way to make ends meet, and way to feed their family.

there are few places here with a climate truly good enough either. most of the outdoor where i am needs to be harvested early and knocked down, or it freezes and gets bud rot immediately before chop. i know your pain lol.

 

[Tennessee Tim]

I told you we did not know what we were doing at that time and were kids. It worked for us. I grew hundreds of pounds planting seeds and walking away here in the south. Could it of been done different or better done, no doubt. It was hard work just to get the crop out of the woods to the house or barn. Things grow here easy. It is harder to stop things growing. I did not know anything about growing pot and very few did in those days around here and no information or forums, not even in the libraries. It is easy now days with the information at your fingertips, but many still struggle to grow a good plant. The pictures posted here are often not very impressive plants, but the amateurs seem to think so. I grew pot like we grew corn or turnip greens, except no chemical fertilizers for me, not then or now , on my weed. If you think it can't be grown outdoors from seed very successfully with no watering and just a little tending you must live in a desert or cold area. All my plantings did not work great. But many did and some were fantastic. I lost crops or parts of crops to people, bugs and critters and sometimes to dry spells that occurred right after the plants came up and were young and vulnerable, but that was seldom here in our part of the country. We grow most crops here with no irrigation. though the wealthiest farmers may have some irrigation and it is great insurance for growing crops. Modern tech and methods are not needed to grow plants, us ignorant hillbilly children have been surviving on our crops just fine and often have crops when the modern farmers next door have failures, due often to their choice of modern hybrid seeds that require more fertilizer and rain to make a crop. When left coast techies learn how to feed themselves and survive on their own without high inputs, irrigation, chemicals, grow lights and pumps, you will show me what we and the native Indians learned hundreds of years ago. I have used modern methods as well in my work in horticulture for most of my working career. I abandoned most of that before I retired as unsustainable, added cost and less safe as food or medicine. I was a licensed horticultural chemical applicator, a market grower and also a former health inspector. I abandoned those professions(except market growing) because of the danger and stupidity of modern societies new horticultural practices were abhorrent to me after becoming fully informed about those industries and the practices/chemicals used since Monsanto(and some other corps) took over the worlds crop production. You drop a seed in the soil and provide some organic matter and rain comes and the seed grows. It is that simple here in the wilds of Tennessee. So simple , in fact, that 14 year old kids with no information could grow successfully and have so much pot that we had trouble just finding places to store and work with it after harvest. A hundred pounds of pot is hard for a teenage boy to deal with living at his parents home, without their knowledge. I got shingles from the stress at 18 years old, But we managed it. I was one of the most popular boys in school, partly because I always had weed, a motorcycle and spending money. God protected me and I made it somehow, while others were getting busted around me, but when I got married and had a child, I walked away from that life and became a simple consumer, for the most part. Love conquers all things, Happy growing and God bless you all.

 

[Tennessee Tim]

At that time of 1977 and before , almost no one knew how to make the plants mature fully. Homegrown meant smoking fan leaves usually. By '78 or '79 homegrown became 'red hair', which referred to the pistils being red on the buds and it was favored over the imports by most. I had the idea the pistils were a big part of the high because of that, not true as it turns out. 'Sinse' or red hair ruled from then on here in socal.

You lived my dream there Tim, I figured there were areas of the country where you could grow like that, but I was not in one of them. Your several or many small plots was another thing I read of with the Kentucky growers. It provided stealth and also made it likely you would have at least one plot that would escape being eaten by animal/bugs or stolen by people/cops.

I nearly tried to grow guerrilla here a few years back, as that urge to do so never went away. No way to do a set it and forget it grow around here as it is too dry, and that was the only kind I wanted to do.

You nailed it friend! We seldom had patches over a hundred or two hundred square feet, but a few years we had dozens of them. I had a group of friends that colluded to first smoke pot, then grow it as a group effort of friends. We did have one in our midst, a close " Friend" that betrayed us and stole our largest crop ever one year, moved away and lived in a rental house in the Ozarks for years with a new sports car and a lavish life style for the first couple years. Another of our group was busted and spent many thousands on lawyers and fees and spent 4 years in prison of a 5 year sentence for distribution of a controlled substance, after getting busted with 6 pounds back in the day. It seemed natural to us to grow like we did most everything else and beginners are sometimes lucky. I grew the best pot I ever smoked in one of the early efforts to grow a small clump only a few feet wide and less than six feet tall. At that time, we knew so little, we harvested it prematurely with the buds just half way there, because of paranoia and it was so good, that to this day I wonder what it would of been fully grown out! That was about 1968 or so and we named it Tennessee Thunderfuck and it became a local legend and people were paying 5 times the going rate for a small nickel bag, that we only sold reluctantly. Accidents happen. I have no idea why it was better than the plants the seeds came from but it was better than the pot we got the seeds from. I think the large seeds were Thai and maybe Panamanian, Hawaiian or Jamaican but we did not know for sure. Thai sticks had just shown up coming from the war zones and the first batches were excellent! The problem was that the best pot had no or few seeds. The accidental success we had was much better. I have hoped for that to happen again, but alas, no such luck, so I have experimented and crossed plants and tried every grow method available over the decades, grown some good weed, but never a repeat of that early success. Young people can not appreciate fully, how it was in those days, when you could not buy seeds by mail over the internet or look up an article on growing cannabis, anywhere! This was way before High Times magazine! They would of locked the publishers up in those days. Best wishes for your success and endeavors! I am slowly retiring from the entire enchilada of life , but still enjoy growing a beautiful plant that works it's magic on me. Until it is over, I will garden and enjoy the fruits of natures bounty!

 

[CaptainLucky]

I wonder what they intend to do with their genetic lines. I hope they'd hand off Destroyer to Ace, at least.

I should of mentioned that getting enough high quality seeds was a problem sometimes in those days! My grows were sometimes limited by that. The best pot usually had few seeds and growing lesser quality plants was a waste of time. I had several people saving seeds for me from their best cannabis they purchased, I sometimes did not really know what I was growing except by word of mouth and on the trust of the friend who saved me the seeds, in the early years. Later, I saved seed loaded buds, for seeds for next years crop from the best patches. I was a kid when I started growing and had to learn it all with no internet or library information in those days on growing pot. I was not sophisticated or real knowledgeable. The forgiving nature of the plant in our climate made me successful at growing clandestine grows here.

I remember living in Florida in the 90s Kentucky bud was the best available. The B.C. + Emerald Triangle never reached us. CL

 

[gwhunran]

Panama by Ace
Day 83 flower.
The buds are starting to mature. If they follow the growth pattern they've shown so far, they will mature slower than my usual 60-70 day hybrids.
They are starting to show a lot thicker concentration of trichomes, so I am happy about that. I've read that many of these long flowering sativas don't trich up like the hybrids.

Brush up against these and you get the smell of pine/cedar/spices. Just put your nose close to a bud and it smells like lime.

Panama, Day 83 flower. Bud on the far right, red pheno. All the ones to the left, green phenos.

Panama, Day 83 flower. Tied over green pheno.

Panama, Day 83 flower. Tied over green pheno.

Panama, Day 83 flower. Tied over green pheno.

 

[Tennessee Tim]

In thought I mention , while I am ranting, that Eastern Diamondback rattle snakes, Pygmy Rattlers, Water Moccasins and Copperheads by the buckets full were one of the big hazards we often encountered while growing or scouting grow sights in those days. I was bitten just below the knee by a Copperhead once, after stepping over a log carelessly. I was lucky and the Naval Hospital I was taken to, said the snake must not have injected venom to much of any degree, as there was only a little local swelling and no major symptoms appeared. They did not administer any anti venom and only monitored me and did little else. It hurt like hell and had slow healing to the bruised and ulcer like wound area that did occur at the bite location, but no complications or serious illness. I saw the biggest Eastern Diamondback Rattle snake I have ever seen on one of those trips to a grow. Bigger than any I have ever seen in a museum or zoo or in pictures! He was laying on a huge Grape vine hanging in the forest just about waist high. His bottom rattle was as big as my wrist in diameter! Believe it or not! We did not molest him, we figured he was a good guard of the way to our plot. I was about to duck under the vine when I saw him coming to attention and then he began to rattle. I was a second away from being in his range. Many other stories of adventures come to mind, like traveling through Texas, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and the Honduras in my early twenties looking for Mushrooms, roots, leaves, peyote to trip on and good pot and seeds to bring home. I bought my first pot in Mexico from Mexican police! I did not know that until after they sold it to me, but they were just looking for a customer for their stolen pot to buy some tequila , most likely!

 

[CaptainLucky]

In thought I mention , while I am ranting, that Eastern Diamondback rattle snakes, Pygmy Rattlers, Water Moccasins and Copperheads by the buckets full were one of the big hazards we often encountered while growing or scouting grow sights in those days. I was bitten just below the knee by a Copperhead once, after stepping over a log carelessly. I was lucky and the Naval Hospital I was taken to, said the snake must not have injected venom to much of any degree, as there was only a little local swelling and no major symptoms appeared. They did not administer any anti venom and only monitored me and did little else. It hurt like hell and had slow healing to the bruised and ulcer like wound area that did occur at the bite location, but no complications or serious illness. I saw the biggest Eastern Diamondback Rattle snake I have ever seen on one of those trips to a grow. Bigger than any I have ever seen in a museum or zoo or in pictures! He was laying on a huge Grape vine hanging in the forest just about waist high. His bottom rattle was as big as my wrist in diameter! Believe it or not! We did not molest him, we figured he was a good guard of the way to our plot. I was about to duck under the vine when I saw him coming to attention and then he began to rattle. I was a second away from being in his range. Many other stories of adventures come to mind, like traveling through Texas, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and the Honduras in my early twenties looking for Mushrooms, roots, leaves, peyote to trip on and good pot and seeds to bring home. I bought my first pot in Mexico from Mexican police! I did not know that until after they sold it to me, but they were just looking for a customer for their stolen pot to buy some tequila , most likely!

All the Cubensis you can pick in the Sunshine State. CL

 

[yesum]

Awesome stuff Tim. I had the idea you got away clean before these latest posts, but you did have a few bumps/bites along the way. Even when it is your friend and not you that gets jailed, there is an effect on you. Being betrayed on a deal, in your case a really big one, or ratted out is rough.

I am trying to get some Acapulco Gold seeds from Mexico. I sent seeds over a month ago to my contact and he sent me seeds the same day. Neither of us have received the seeds from each other. I know Mexico can be slow with mail, but this is getting real sketchy. He was not sending me AG seeds as he does not have them yet, another Guerrero line is what he sent.

The Acapulco Gold seeds sold today in the US, are not what I and others had back in early 70's and before. Much less psychedelic. They have what they call Monkey Shit in Guerrero, and this guy thinks it is what we called Acapulco Gold. It makes sense. The Mexicans never referred to their pot as AG, only when the gringos came around asking for it. Money talks as they say.

 

[Zembretti]

I told you we did not know what we were doing at that time and were kids. It worked for us. I grew hundreds of pounds planting seeds and walking away here in the south. Could it of been done different or better done, no doubt. It was hard work just to get the crop out of the woods to the house or barn. Things grow here easy. It is harder to stop things growing. I did not know anything about growing pot and very few did in those days around here and no information or forums, not even in the libraries. It is easy now days with the information at your fingertips, but many still struggle to grow a good plant. The pictures posted here are often not very impressive plants, but the amateurs seem to think so. I grew pot like we grew corn or turnip greens, except no chemical fertilizers for me, not then or now , on my weed. If you think it can't be grown outdoors from seed very successfully with no watering and just a little tending you must live in a desert or cold area. All my plantings did not work great. But many did and some were fantastic. I lost crops or parts of crops to people, bugs and critters and sometimes to dry spells that occurred right after the plants came up and were young and vulnerable, but that was seldom here in our part of the country. We grow most crops here with no irrigation. though the wealthiest farmers may have some irrigation and it is great insurance for growing crops. Modern tech and methods are not needed to grow plants, us ignorant hillbilly children have been surviving on our crops just fine and often have crops when the modern farmers next door have failures, due often to their choice of modern hybrid seeds that require more fertilizer and rain to make a crop. When left coast techies learn how to feed themselves and survive on their own without high inputs, irrigation, chemicals, grow lights and pumps, you will show me what we and the native Indians learned hundreds of years ago. I have used modern methods as well in my work in horticulture for most of my working career. I abandoned most of that before I retired as unsustainable, added cost and less safe as food or medicine. I was a licensed horticultural chemical applicator, a market grower and also a former health inspector. I abandoned those professions(except market growing) because of the danger and stupidity of modern societies new horticultural practices were abhorrent to me after becoming fully informed about those industries and the practices/chemicals used since Monsanto(and some other corps) took over the worlds crop production. You drop a seed in the soil and provide some organic matter and rain comes and the seed grows. It is that simple here in the wilds of Tennessee. So simple , in fact, that 14 year old kids with no information could grow successfully and have so much pot that we had trouble just finding places to store and work with it after harvest. A hundred pounds of pot is hard for a teenage boy to deal with living at his parents home, without their knowledge. I got shingles from the stress at 18 years old, But we managed it. I was one of the most popular boys in school, partly because I always had weed, a motorcycle and spending money. God protected me and I made it somehow, while others were getting busted around me, but when I got married and had a child, I walked away from that life and became a simple consumer, for the most part. Love conquers all things, Happy growing and God bless you all.

 

[Zembretti]

What a great post! It brought back so many memories of me growing pot when I was 15 in the Annopolis Valley in Nova Scotia, Canada. Yes where do you store pot in your parent's house, haha.

 

[CaptainLucky]

In the words of the Great Hank Jr. A country boy can survive. It was true when he wrote that and it’s still true today. CL

 

[gwhunran]

Panama by Ace
Day 86 since flip.

I think these plants will be ready by day 100, they are already ripening.

Panama, Day 86 flower. One on far right red pheno, others green phenos.

Panama, Day 86 flower. Green pheno.

Panama, Day 86 flower. Green pheno.

 

[Tennessee Tim]

I would love to taste that Panama! I am going to get some of those seeds as soon as I run out of the seeds on hand. My last sativa, was a Panama/Malawi cross and it was nice. Currently, I have unknown(i forgot the name) autos and a Indica/sativa photo hybrid cross in my mix. My much younger friend and associate usually gets the seeds for me and I am happy to have them. However, I will suggest or get some good old landrace strains going again. My next to last sativa was Lambs Breath Jamaican and it was nice. Great pleasant and easy smoking with a nice Sativa buzz. I still have a Cob from it left. The last time we bought " Acapulco Gold" seeds they were not what I remembered, ok but not the same as I remember, but that may just be my faulty memory. The Jamaican did taste and work like I remembered. I bought a second batch of those seeds and they were not the same as the first! Oh well! My young friend is all about trying all the newest and most potent strains, nothing wrong with that either, but he is reluctant to waste time on less powerful strains. He has been surprised by how nice some of the landrace strains have been, but disillusioned by that so called Acapulco Gold he bought. He , it seems had somewhat believed the propaganda about the old strains being weak and low THC as compared to modern strains. The Panamanian, Malawi and Jamaican showed him that error. I have explained to him, that people have been making crosses and using cannabis for thousands of years and that there is nothing truly new about crossing strains and selecting for better crops. I think he is starting to believe me now. The ability to collect strains from all over the world and rapidly market them is fairly new, but it is not the beginning of plant husbandry for growing pot. People have always been finding better and more effective strains and growing them or including them in their crops genes, it was just a slower and more organic process in the past, with hundreds of years passing instead of unlimited and mass participation at the speed of modern travel. Still, the old genetics are working to grow great plants that are herbal gems. My concern is that "pure "older strains are being lost and may have to be rediscovered by accidents of random selections or nature reversing to what it finds most suited to the plants vigor and survivability, and time is not in favor of us individuals short life spans, to rediscover "wild" strains that have been bred out of current crops. To many strains and not enough time to grow them all! Best wishes friends.

 

[gwhunran]

I never got to smoke very many of the classics. There were a few great bags of Mexican and a couple of really good bags of Colombian until it all started turning into brown dried out stuff. I moved to Texas in the early 80s and had a friend that could get skunk. Smelled just like a skunks odor.
My current state of residence legalized it and now I've changed my set up and can get 4 grows in each season from early spring until late fall. My strategy is to get my year's smoke covered first with something I can tolerate smoking for a year and then use two of the grows to grow something like Panama that I've always wanted to try. My "wanted to try" for next year are Golden Tiger and Acapulco Gold. I know the AG is not the old stuff but several on the forum have grown it and it seems like a good Mexican. The Golden Tiger being a Thailand strain that will have to stand in for Thai Stick.
I do like the weed and how in the hell do I choose between the thousands of strains when I can only grow four a year. I guess it's a good problem to have.

 

[Willydread]

Suroeste Mexican x Copalita Oaxaca