Hey Brother,
Long time no see. How's life been treating ya on the other side?
Thanks for the kind words!!
And yes, I've still got a long way ahead of me.
My initial selection was based on the healthiest of the batch, the kind of serrations the leaves had and still have. It was a difficult one as all the seeds germinated and the sprouts were all super healthy. Still in the early stages I could see some which were looking healthier and more vigorous then others, some that, during the rub test, came out with onion, garlic and even one White Widow smell right out of the box. These were the one's that got selected.
I tried looking at the internodal distance, but because of my crappy DIY light plants stretched a heap during the first days that looking at them internodal distances were all out of whack. Maybe they will show up in the clones???
By all means, this isn't Switzerland
Here one can discuss with one and other without fear of trolling
That's something on my todo list, but first I want to sex my P1's.
I've been reading up on ways to stress test my plants, because any plant that switches sex under dire stress will be out of the selection pool. Those aren't up to par to breed with.
What I've got so far are the following:
- Switch the light cycle during flower
- Give 'm to much heat during dark hours and cold during the lights on hours
- Let the soil dry out
- physically damage the plants by crushing the stems
What I won't do is let the tent be infested by mold or bugs. Those are a pain in the arse to get rid of and I don't want to compromise my project.
I know where you're coming from with that line of thought. In the olden (photo) days people bought/grew clones and those came from a large selection of seeds that had to be grown out, selected and thinned out. For photo's it's still ok to have lot's of variation in the offspring, but that's not the direction I'm heading in.
In the end I will be selecting three females and three males to breed with. I just don't have the room nor time to go any bigger. I might do one run where I will do an open pollination, but then I would need to have plenty of headstash in storage to overcome that period, which are another three months for the seeds to be ready. Once I find out which plants are the ones that have what it takes I can always go back to my sealed envelope and see where to get new seeds.
You might remember the second diagram I made, in which I showed the backcrossing program. The first diagram showed two lines (auto ♀ x P1 ♂ & P1 ♀ x auto ♂ ) and only at the end I would bring those two lines together. In the second, I mix the two lines every two breeding runs. There might be a third and a fourth diagram
I will in actual fact have three couples to work with, just to keep vigor up to par, but those couples must have what I feel is the White Widow of olden days.
That's where I have to disagree... You can make a cultivar that has all sorts of pheno's/variations in the seed's end-product and so is heterozygous, but that's not what I'm after. Remember, the end result has to be grown from seed as one cannot clone an autoflower like you can with a photo. With tissue culture that's an whole other story, but I don't see many growers messing about with those techniques yet. But I digress...
What I want to make is the White Widow I smoked all those years ago, but in Auto format and then share those seeds the
@Sawney_bean way. I love the way that guy thinks and even though we live in different parts of the world, I feel like I've know him whole my life.
But to share what I love with someone else on the other side of the world would mean, that what I send to those people has to be what I tell them it is and not give 'm ten different variations. That's where selection comes into play and to select is to eventually create homozygous gene pairs.
If I buy an auto seed, I expect it to be on par with the description. Take it to the extreme and let's say I don't want any more then two pheno's of this cultivar...Even more selection has to take place and the more one selects the more homozygous the cultivar becomes.
What I will do is keep a library of seeds from the entire journey...In that mindset diversity is still preserved, be it in my library...
But I'm getting ahead of myself as we're still a long way from a finished product, that's for sure
If you have any more ideas, please do share 'm here as I'm only one person and I didn't invent the lightbulb
Regards,
Bob
