What's Your Dependable Phenotype Steady Favorite?

[StoneOtter]

So Being relatively new at this I've noticed 2 grows in a row, one photo, one auto, that presented multiple personalities. Now that's nice. I do enjoy seeing them express themselves in their own ways and all that. However...I'm finding the final weights and textures very different. I would rather have 4 plants act in a way I can rely on and plan for. It means ounces in weight/time,soil electricity,nutes,wear and tear,etc.
Do you have a favorite from a seed company that rocks time and again? Or am I dreaming of something that doesn't exist?

 

[fanleaf]

Gorilla Bomb hands down. Very consistent and always the same taste and yield. My last 5 grows have been nothing but Gorilla Bomb and you cannot tell any of them apart.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Remember when you were a kid and times got kind of tough... So, instead of setting meat down in front of you at the dinner table, the parents ended up giving you a plate full of bait, lol? And you, a pretty good kid but known to be a bit of a smart-@ss (or maybe that was just me ), didn't really know what was up with that, but hesitated to ask, "What, am I supposed to just sit here really quietly until a rabbit or something hops onto my plate and begins eating, and then grab it and then...?" because the last time you asked such a reasonable question at the dinner table, you got sent to your room. So you're sitting there, yeah, still hungry, and you think, "Am I supposed to eat that? But it never tried to fight OR run when they came for it, how do you know if it's healthy?"

But... still hungry... So you finally break down and eat the tomato (completely ignoring the lettuce it's sitting on, because - all jokes about lettuce being rabbit food aside - even a rabbit knows there isn't enough nutrition in head-lettuce (which is quite different than Lettuce for the Head, BtW ) . It doesn't taste like meat, it doesn't chew like meat, and any fever-dream you ever have that could make it seem otherwise would surely prove to be fatal, but... It's arguably food, yeah? Sure, you're kind of a sh!thead, and while other kids were busy learning about "mental filters" and how to implement same and other things collectively known as "the social graces," you were busy learning that your 16-year old babysitter is much friendlier after getting dumped by her ex-boyfriend and, that if the world is filled with such as her, high school (in <COUGH>a few<COUGH> years) will likely be one heckofa ride, lol.

But, hey, you're basically a good kid, right? And the parents must be having serious money troubles, since even if they couldn't afford to buy a package of steaks or even hamburger, one little box of ammo would provide many meals of rabbit, squirrel, possibly even something more substantial - and you got served stuff that never breathed. So you decide to do your part to help out. You carefully save a few seeds from one of your tomato carcasses (not being smart enough to know that you could have simply waited a couple days and then crapped in the weeds, somewhere, and you'd end up with all the tomato plants you ever wanted ) , dry them, and plant them...

You take care of them, removing weeds from the surrounding ground, removing bugs, watering...

...until it's time to start pulling off fresh, ripe, tomatoes for you and your family to choke down enjoy. You carry some inside to the kitchen, they get rinsed off, chopped up (presumably, killed as part of the preparation instead of beforehand - much like lobsters ) . Everyone sits down to table, spears a piece of tomato with their fork, smiles at you for creating instead of destroying...

...and everyone realizes at the same time that your tomatoes taste like sh!t. Or are full of seeds. Or, perhaps, you realized whilst growing them that the plants were unruly train wrecks, or only produced a few decent fruit each, or...

...basically, what you got when you grew out the seeds was nothing like what the seeds came from. So you take a few of the seeds, one of your tomatoes, and one of the store-bought tomatoes to school, and when your sixth-grade teacher begins science class, you - being polite - raise your hand, wait to be called on, then show her your materials and ask, "Excuse me, ma'am, but what the <BLEEP>?"

At which point, you get a basic elementary school version of a genetics/breeding primer. You learn about hybrids - and how just about every fruit/vegetable/etc. sold in grocery stores is one, and how utterly unlikely it is to manage to grow an example of exactly the same thing you got the seeds from. How you might see the same color, the same size/shape, find the same flavor, et cetera - but generally not all of this (and more) on the same fruit.

It's pretty much like that with cannabis seeds, lol. Most commercial offerings are hybrids. And probably not simple F₁s created by crossing two unrelated purebreds, either. You're likely dealing with polyhybrid crossings, an F? crossed with a completely different F?.

If you want to cross a couple plants and have a reasonable expectation of what you'll end up getting if you grow out the resulting seeds, then look for strains listed as being landraces or at least IBL (inbred line). You'll still expect some variability, of course. After all, that's how evolution happens; every now and then, one of the mutations ends up being a positive one (or at least a dominant one), giving that plant some kind of leg up on its fellow plants in terms of breeding, general survival, et cetera - so the trait ends up in more and more succeeding generations, until it becomes a part of the species. But, assuming a stable environment, low stress levels, and not living near a failed nuclear reactor... your population should be fairly stable from one generation to the next.

If a strain is an IBL, the breeder's description often (but not always) mentions this. For example, if you look at Serious Seeds' Bubble Gum, you see:

...and were given to two different seed companies. Each created their own ‘original Bubble Gum’ from that genetic material. The Serious Seeds Bubble Gum is more sativa like in looks and effect, a sturdy and strong plant, with the characteristic, sweet smell (truly resembling a typical bubble gum taste) and euphoric high; the original trademarks of this famous strain. The only inbred strain (not a F1 hybrid) on the Serious menu.

The trouble, then, ends up being that the breeders have been known to work their lines for various reasons. Maybe they've lost one of the parent plants. Maybe they've lost both, and are having to recreate the line via seeds. Maybe they're trying to improve it. Et cetera. Therefore, the seeds you buy today might produce a plants that are not quite the same as what you'd have gotten if you'd purchased seeds 25 years ago. You might see slightly(?) more variability in the offspring, especially if you purchase the seeds soon after the breeder introduces a new genetic component into the line.

But, generally speaking, you'll get far less variability working with IBL or landrace strains than you would if working with any two (or even one) random hybrids.

For best results, lol, use clones from the same mother. <BAM!> Job done. Besides, this way you can grow out a pack of seeds, sample the harvest of each... and compare them, in effect (type/duration/etc.), taste/smell, and growth/flowering characteristics - and then pick the one phenotype / specific plant that you most enjoyed both the growing and consuming of, and "grow a patch." Always take a cutting (or two, just in case) of a new potential mother plant; you can keep one alive in a basic small container setup, then - if it turns out to be "the one" after your harvest / dry/cure / sampling - up-pot it and give it more light when you want to grow it to a sufficient size to produce clones from.

 

[StoneOtter]

Gorilla Bomb hands down. Very consistent and always the same taste and yield. My last 5 grows have been nothing but Gorilla Bomb and you cannot tell any of them apart.

That's what I'm talking about.

 

[StoneOtter]

Remember when you were a kid and times got kind of tough... So, instead of setting meat down in front of you at the dinner table, the parents ended up giving you a plate full of bait, lol? And you, a pretty good kid but known to be a bit of a smart-@ss (or maybe that was just me ), didn't really know what was up with that, but hesitated to ask, "What, am I supposed to just sit here really quietly until a rabbit or something hops onto my plate and begins eating, and then grab it and then...?" because the last time you asked such a reasonable question at the dinner table, you got sent to your room. So you're sitting there, yeah, still hungry, and you think, "Am I supposed to eat that? But it never tried to fight OR run when they came for it, how do you know if it's healthy?"

But... still hungry... So you finally break down and eat the tomato (completely ignoring the lettuce it's sitting on, because - all jokes about lettuce being rabbit food aside - even a rabbit knows there isn't enough nutrition in head-lettuce (which is quite different than Lettuce for the Head, BtW ) . It doesn't taste like meat, it doesn't chew like meat, and any fever-dream you ever have that could make it seem otherwise would surely prove to be fatal, but... It's arguably food, yeah? Sure, you're kind of a sh!thead, and while other kids were busy learning about "mental filters" and how to implement same and other things collectively known as "the social graces," you were busy learning that your 16-year old babysitter is much friendlier after getting dumped by her ex-boyfriend and, that if the world is filled with such as her, high school (in <COUGH>a few<COUGH> years) will likely be one heckofa ride, lol.

But, hey, you're basically a good kid, right? And the parents must be having serious money troubles, since even if they couldn't afford to buy a package of steaks or even hamburger, one little box of ammo would provide many meals of rabbit, squirrel, possibly even something more substantial - and you got served stuff that never breathed. So you decide to do your part to help out. You carefully save a few seeds from one of your tomato carcasses (not being smart enough to know that you could have simply waited a couple days and then crapped in the weeds, somewhere, and you'd end up with all the tomato plants you ever wanted ) , dry them, and plant them...

You take care of them, removing weeds from the surrounding ground, removing bugs, watering...

...until it's time to start pulling off fresh, ripe, tomatoes for you and your family to choke down enjoy. You carry some inside to the kitchen, they get rinsed off, chopped up (presumably, killed as part of the preparation instead of beforehand - much like lobsters ) . Everyone sits down to table, spears a piece of tomato with their fork, smiles at you for creating instead of destroying...

...and everyone realizes at the same time that your tomatoes taste like sh!t. Or are full of seeds. Or, perhaps, you realized whilst growing them that the plants were unruly train wrecks, or only produced a few decent fruit each, or...

...basically, what you got when you grew out the seeds was nothing like what the seeds came from. So you take a few of the seeds, one of your tomatoes, and one of the store-bought tomatoes to school, and when your sixth-grade teacher begins science class, you - being polite - raise your hand, wait to be called on, then show her your materials and ask, "Excuse me, ma'am, but what the <BLEEP>?"

At which point, you get a basic elementary school version of a genetics/breeding primer. You learn about hybrids - and how just about every fruit/vegetable/etc. sold in grocery stores is one, and how utterly unlikely it is to manage to grow an example of exactly the same thing you got the seeds from. How you might see the same color, the same size/shape, find the same flavor, et cetera - but generally not all of this (and more) on the same fruit.

It's pretty much like that with cannabis seeds, lol. Most commercial offerings are hybrids. And probably not simple F₁s created by crossing two unrelated purebreds, either. You're likely dealing with polyhybrid crossings, an F? crossed with a completely different F?.

If you want to cross a couple plants and have a reasonable expectation of what you'll end up getting if you grow out the resulting seeds, then look for strains listed as being landraces or at least IBL (inbred line). You'll still expect some variability, of course. After all, that's how evolution happens; every now and then, one of the mutations ends up being a positive one (or at least a dominant one), giving that plant some kind of leg up on its fellow plants in terms of breeding, general survival, et cetera - so the trait ends up in more and more succeeding generations, until it becomes a part of the species. But, assuming a stable environment, low stress levels, and not living near a failed nuclear reactor... your population should be fairly stable from one generation to the next.

If a strain is an IBL, the breeder's description often (but not always) mentions this. For example, if you look at Serious Seeds' Bubble Gum, you see:


The trouble, then, ends up being that the breeders have been known to work their lines for various reasons. Maybe they've lost one of the parent plants. Maybe they've lost both, and are having to recreate the line via seeds. Maybe they're trying to improve it. Et cetera. Therefore, the seeds you buy today might produce a plants that are not quite the same as what you'd have gotten if you'd purchased seeds 25 years ago. You might see slightly(?) more variability in the offspring, especially if you purchase the seeds soon after the breeder introduces a new genetic component into the line.

But, generally speaking, you'll get far less variability working with IBL or landrace strains than you would if working with any two (or even one) random hybrids.

For best results, lol, use clones from the same mother. <BAM!> Job done. Besides, this way you can grow out a pack of seeds, sample the harvest of each... and compare them, in effect (type/duration/etc.), taste/smell, and growth/flowering characteristics - and then pick the one phenotype / specific plant that you most enjoyed both the growing and consuming of, and "grow a patch." Always take a cutting (or two, just in case) of a new potential mother plant; you can keep one alive in a basic small container setup, then - if it turns out to be "the one" after your harvest / dry/cure / sampling - up-pot it and give it more light when you want to grow it to a sufficient size to produce clones from.

You know TS the mother plant is the only real way out in the long look I guess. I have to be careful of what I wish for too. It's fun to try the different strains in the world too.

 

[StoneOtter]

Gorilla Bomb hands down. Very consistent and always the same taste and yield. My last 5 grows have been nothing but Gorilla Bomb and you cannot tell any of them apart.

I took your advice and grew one. Brother it grew so well Loud and proud every day of it's life. Beautiful bud too and a colorful plant . It's a week into curing now and I'm hoping it changes it's musky taste. It's powerful, just needs to taste better to me. Do yours change much over time?

 

[Oldgrowth]

Remember when you were a kid and times got kind of tough... So, instead of setting meat down in front of you at the dinner table, the parents ended up giving you a plate full of bait, lol? And you, a pretty good kid but known to be a bit of a smart-@ss (or maybe that was just me ), didn't really know what was up with that, but hesitated to ask, "What, am I supposed to just sit here really quietly until a rabbit or something hops onto my plate and begins eating, and then grab it and then...?" because the last time you asked such a reasonable question at the dinner table, you got sent to your room. So you're sitting there, yeah, still hungry, and you think, "Am I supposed to eat that? But it never tried to fight OR run when they came for it, how do you know if it's healthy?"

But... still hungry... So you finally break down and eat the tomato (completely ignoring the lettuce it's sitting on, because - all jokes about lettuce being rabbit food aside - even a rabbit knows there isn't enough nutrition in head-lettuce (which is quite different than Lettuce for the Head, BtW ) . It doesn't taste like meat, it doesn't chew like meat, and any fever-dream you ever have that could make it seem otherwise would surely prove to be fatal, but... It's arguably food, yeah? Sure, you're kind of a sh!thead, and while other kids were busy learning about "mental filters" and how to implement same and other things collectively known as "the social graces," you were busy learning that your 16-year old babysitter is much friendlier after getting dumped by her ex-boyfriend and, that if the world is filled with such as her, high school (in <COUGH>a few<COUGH> years) will likely be one heckofa ride, lol.

But, hey, you're basically a good kid, right? And the parents must be having serious money troubles, since even if they couldn't afford to buy a package of steaks or even hamburger, one little box of ammo would provide many meals of rabbit, squirrel, possibly even something more substantial - and you got served stuff that never breathed. So you decide to do your part to help out. You carefully save a few seeds from one of your tomato carcasses (not being smart enough to know that you could have simply waited a couple days and then crapped in the weeds, somewhere, and you'd end up with all the tomato plants you ever wanted ) , dry them, and plant them...

You take care of them, removing weeds from the surrounding ground, removing bugs, watering...

...until it's time to start pulling off fresh, ripe, tomatoes for you and your family to choke down enjoy. You carry some inside to the kitchen, they get rinsed off, chopped up (presumably, killed as part of the preparation instead of beforehand - much like lobsters ) . Everyone sits down to table, spears a piece of tomato with their fork, smiles at you for creating instead of destroying...

...and everyone realizes at the same time that your tomatoes taste like sh!t. Or are full of seeds. Or, perhaps, you realized whilst growing them that the plants were unruly train wrecks, or only produced a few decent fruit each, or...

...basically, what you got when you grew out the seeds was nothing like what the seeds came from. So you take a few of the seeds, one of your tomatoes, and one of the store-bought tomatoes to school, and when your sixth-grade teacher begins science class, you - being polite - raise your hand, wait to be called on, then show her your materials and ask, "Excuse me, ma'am, but what the <BLEEP>?"

At which point, you get a basic elementary school version of a genetics/breeding primer. You learn about hybrids - and how just about every fruit/vegetable/etc. sold in grocery stores is one, and how utterly unlikely it is to manage to grow an example of exactly the same thing you got the seeds from. How you might see the same color, the same size/shape, find the same flavor, et cetera - but generally not all of this (and more) on the same fruit.

It's pretty much like that with cannabis seeds, lol. Most commercial offerings are hybrids. And probably not simple F₁s created by crossing two unrelated purebreds, either. You're likely dealing with polyhybrid crossings, an F? crossed with a completely different F?.

If you want to cross a couple plants and have a reasonable expectation of what you'll end up getting if you grow out the resulting seeds, then look for strains listed as being landraces or at least IBL (inbred line). You'll still expect some variability, of course. After all, that's how evolution happens; every now and then, one of the mutations ends up being a positive one (or at least a dominant one), giving that plant some kind of leg up on its fellow plants in terms of breeding, general survival, et cetera - so the trait ends up in more and more succeeding generations, until it becomes a part of the species. But, assuming a stable environment, low stress levels, and not living near a failed nuclear reactor... your population should be fairly stable from one generation to the next.

If a strain is an IBL, the breeder's description often (but not always) mentions this. For example, if you look at Serious Seeds' Bubble Gum, you see:


The trouble, then, ends up being that the breeders have been known to work their lines for various reasons. Maybe they've lost one of the parent plants. Maybe they've lost both, and are having to recreate the line via seeds. Maybe they're trying to improve it. Et cetera. Therefore, the seeds you buy today might produce a plants that are not quite the same as what you'd have gotten if you'd purchased seeds 25 years ago. You might see slightly(?) more variability in the offspring, especially if you purchase the seeds soon after the breeder introduces a new genetic component into the line.

But, generally speaking, you'll get far less variability working with IBL or landrace strains than you would if working with any two (or even one) random hybrids.

For best results, lol, use clones from the same mother. <BAM!> Job done. Besides, this way you can grow out a pack of seeds, sample the harvest of each... and compare them, in effect (type/duration/etc.), taste/smell, and growth/flowering characteristics - and then pick the one phenotype / specific plant that you most enjoyed both the growing and consuming of, and "grow a patch." Always take a cutting (or two, just in case) of a new potential mother plant; you can keep one alive in a basic small container setup, then - if it turns out to be "the one" after your harvest / dry/cure / sampling - up-pot it and give it more light when you want to grow it to a sufficient size to produce clones from.

Brilliant ramble TS, many thanks. I started with landraces-Hindu Kush-for my first legal outdoor grow 5 years ago in San Diego, and have continued with at least one each year because it is a predictably (yep, those genetics as you point out) vigorous, dark thriving plant that I think of as "my proud beauty" (I copped this from a pirate film in truth). She is now twice the height or more than her next competitor, an aspiring GG4 lady also thriving. I use cannabis medically in rather small amounts caring not a whit about the relative THC levels because I merely adjust the amount and frequency of application.

For me the vigor of the landrace, thick strong branches, an apparent resistance to insects and a tall shapely appearance justify its return each year and it is also a good comparison standard for the other strains, GG4 and White Widow. I have found GG4 to be a bit brittle before harvest and will search out treatments for the problem. Silicates? I dunno. A few insect signs have prompted Neem oil applications on alternate weeks. If not for curiosity about other strains in all their dimensions I could be happy growing Kush each year that I have left.

Peace

For a first time grow why not a landrace?

 

[TorturedSoul]

For me the vigor of the landrace, thick strong branches, an apparent resistance to insects

Do remember, though, that while a landrace may have developed good resistance (or at least tolerance) when it comes to insects/etc. in its native area, that it is entirely possible that it may have little or even no resistance against local pests in a distant land.

For a first time grow why not a landrace?

The Internet is full of "How 2 Grow Ur Pot in a Pot" directions, and most newbies follow such things, at least initially. And that works fine for the average cannabis strain. But many landrace strains have special needs, so to speak. If a person does not know how to "read" their plants, does not know what the different examples of various nutrient deficiencies and toxicities look like, well, they're very likely to make a mess of things with these kinds of plants and then, sadly, not know what caused their plants to tank or even what to do in order to nurse them back to health. If Newbie's first experience is a poor one, he/she just might get discouraged enough to give up.

Of course, if that newbie cannabis cultivator is already an experienced gardener in general, this can reasonably be expected to be less of an issue. The person may well still make the same mistakes - but they will be more likely to know what to do about them.

 

[LiberalThinker]

The other way to get improve dependability is to buy strains from the original breeders that were around in the 90's or longer, like Northern Light, White Widow California Orange etc. The genetics will be more stable.

 

[Oldgrowth]

Do remember, though, that while a landrace may have developed good resistance (or at least tolerance) when it comes to insects/etc. in its native area, that it is entirely possible that it may have little or even no resistance against local pests in a distant land.



The Internet is full of "How 2 Grow Ur Pot in a Pot" directions, and most newbies follow such things, at least initially. And that works fine for the average cannabis strain. But many landrace strains have special needs, so to speak. If a person does not know how to "read" their plants, does not know what the different examples of various nutrient deficiencies and toxicities look like, well, they're very likely to make a mess of things with these kinds of plants and then, sadly, not know what caused their plants to tank or even what to do in order to nurse them back to health. If Newbie's first experience is a poor one, he/she just might get discouraged enough to give up.

Of course, if that newbie cannabis cultivator is already an experienced gardener in general, this can reasonably be expected to be less of an issue. The person may well still make the same mistakes - but they will be more likely to know what to do about them.

Excellent pt re gardening experience. Cannabis is just a plant after all despite how we torture its genetics.