Hello EZ, "old school" member here trying to make a comeback from an extended sabbatical. I'm a medical grower who specializes in single plant grows (not legal to grow in my state so I keep it safe) & I donate my product to those with real medical needs - PTSD, cancer, opioid addiction, fibromyalgia, etc. I saw your Fast Buds reference & decided to take a look.
I've been a Fast Buds fan for a number of years, and once upon a time, Gorilla Glue was one of the best strains I've ever grown. Encouraged by my success, I've grown the strain five fimes, including my current grow. But over the last several grows, my success with the strain has me worried that this is not a stable strain.
My first grow was from seeds gifted to me by Fast Buds, and was called Gorilla Glue #4. It took 90 days to finish from seed, and yielded 11.65 oz of some of the stickiest, stinkiest weed ever. Encouraging.
2nd grow, the plant showed cal-mag deficiencies & light stress. Made me work, but still yielded 11.4 oz, yet not a high quality buds as first.
Next grow, seed did not germinate.
3rd grow - Fast Buds changed their labeling, simply calling the strain "Glue Auto". Yield went down a bit to 10 oz. in 82 days, but the bud size, quality & frost was way down. Additionally, the leaf-to-bud ratio (formerly a great characteristic) went to shit. Kept me busy leaf pruning during the grow, and much more difficult to manicure the buds for drying & curing.
4th grow - pitiful failure. The plant was a runt that showed low nutrient uptake, leaves were taco-ing continually through the grow, and yield fell to a miserable 106g / less than 4 oz.
5th grow - I'm 30 days in & this plant is a runt as well. I might squeak past the last runt yield of < 4 oz., but probably not by much.
So, question to you - were your seeds in original breeder packs? What were your per-plant yields? While I loved the early results, this and other Fast Buds strains are forcing me to reconsider if I can keep growing their seeds. For example, Tangie:
1st grow - 76 days, 12.92 oz., great smoke quality.
2nd grow - 68 days, 7.5 oz., heavy leaf to bud ratio, ok smoke quality. Serious cal-mag seedling deficiency, cleared by bloom phase but hurt plant.
3rd grow - 70 days, 10.8 oz., better leaf to bud ratio, back to great smoke quality.
In reviewing my grow logs, seems the older strains of Fast Buds were more stable & generated great results. For example, my Rhino Ryder grows were among my best ever - Grow # 1 outgrew my tent, to the point I had to tweak 3" off all the tops, & still yielded 13.9 oz., but in a long 121 days. My second round, same seed batch, finished much quicker at 94 days but yielded a personal best 18.5 oz. - a legitimate pounder from one indoor plant. Proud Daddy! As a side note, I grew an original photoperiod strain of Medicine Man (White Rhino) from the original breeder, Shantibaba of Mr. Nice, & the Fast Buds Rhino Ryder was alarmingly similar. Slow grow but great smoke & crazy yield. Not since those two, though.
Green Crack was one of my most prolific yielders, took awhile at 95 days but yielded 14.5 oz. Beautiful fat buds, high frost, low leaf. I havent tried growing this strain agai due to the longer yield time & patient needs not allowing me to wait this long. Maybe later this year, will see, still have two beans.
G-14, only one seed germinated, but finished fast at 65 days & yielded a beautiful heavy frosted 10.2 oz of low leaf solid buds. I'd like to try this strain again, but inconsistency among their strains is making me nervous.
Anyway, I'd love to hear how your Gorilla Glue adventure ends up - how many plants, final yield, etc.
I see that
@Son of Hobbes has started a thread to evaluate how we track reliability & quality of breeders so that others may benefit. I'm tagging him in here in case any of this info is beneficial to his new thread.
Happy growing. Be seeing ya!
