New Grower Santa Auto Question

[CaliGuy]

hey everyone, nice site!......lots of premo info!

i have a question though ad im hoping smeone here can help me. awhile back, a friend of mine gave me some santa auto seeds ( 20 to be exact) and i planted them indoors in 1 gallon pots under 2k of light. out of 20 seeds, i got 4 that didnt sprout, 2 males and the rest are females.

i noticed right away there seemed to be a fairly prominent variation in the plants. out of all of the plants that sprouted, i got 12 that seemed to look like a standard photoperiod dependent strain ( they arent though, everythings in autoflower) and the rest turned out to be VERY short, leaves are MUCH darker green and smaller than the others, and they started autoflowering MUCH faster than the others. the standard looking plants are now about 16" tall and flowering nicely, the smaler darker green plants are also flowering nicely, BUT they are still short, about 8" max. the smaller darker green plants started flowering around 6 days after sproutng. one of the smaller darker green plants was a male and another a female , both very smal so i let those two have a little fun and now the females loaded with seeds)


now i d understand that anytime you grow multiple seeds from the same parent plants even your always going to get several different variations (ive been growing regular photoperiod sensitive plants for over 30 years, and im fairly well known in northern california) but ive never grown autos before.

ive no experience with the ruderalis strain, so i dont have a clue what they look like in the wild. is it possible the shorter darker green plants are showing their purer ruderalis genes?

any info on this would be greatly appreciated.

thanks guys

P.S.

ill get the camera out here in a second and post a couple of pix

 

[Muddy]

Welcome to the forum. The variations in phenotype that you are seeing are still fairly common with most auto strains. Auto development is still relatively new, about 5 years now, and many strains aren't fully stabilized yet. It's not uncommon to see three distinct phenos, taller single cola with 4-8 side branches, bush phenos that may have no or small main colas and multiple side branches, sometimes up to 20, and runts. The smaller ones you have are runts. But given proper growing techniques they can still produce fairly well. In another 5 years I expect well see fully stabilized strains with many being offered in both the large single cola and bush phenos. Personally, I wouldn't breed to a runt.

 

[CaliGuy]

heres a picture ( dont mind my junk in the back, i grow indors in a climate cntrolled room in my shop, and had to take these out to take a picture)

all the plants are getting the same light, water,nutes,ect

 

[CaliGuy]

i only bred the runt because i didnt know specifically what it was ( I.E. a runt, a purer ruderalis creeping to the surface,ect)

the other male i got was a taller fuller one (like the female in the picture) and i did put him with one of my other taller females and shes seeded pretty good now to so ill have a large batch of seeds to run with if these plants turn out nicely and i decide to regrow the santa in the future...

just out of curiosity, has anyone grown pure ruderalis and if so, any pix? id be curious to what they look like in their pure form or future reference.

is there any place purchase pure ruderalis seeds?

id love to grow a few just to check them out

 

[gearbear]

The runt pheno can have a stealth use. They would be ideal for micro grows, or look like a weed just outside. no one would really think much of a 10" weed lol. Since you already bred her. Just made sure you mark runt pheno as to not get it unless you want it when you go to collecting seed. Micro growers would def. prolly be interested in the seed.

 

[Trifid]

Caliguy do you mean to say your runt was a crawller/climber pheno? I've been looking for one for years

 

[Trifid]

now i understand that anytime you grow multiple seeds from the same parent plants even your always going to get several different variations..

If you selectively back-cross for several generations from the f1 then you can stabilize the traits you like

 

[CaliGuy]

GearBear,
thats exactly what i was thinking. one could plant these smaller phenos in flowerbeds or wherever they wished and they would likely go completely unnoticed. my wife grows flowers in our flowerbeds every year, and i though, "HMMM...sure would be kewl to plant some in the flower beds".

yes, i already thought about that. i will be harvesting the small pheno female and keeping the seeds clearly marked and separate from any other seeds i harvest as to not confuse them.

Trifid

only plant ive ever had that was a crawler/climber was trainwreck i grew a couple of years ago outdoors. weirdest plant i ever grew and VERY potent i crossed it with an alaska TF and im going to grow a couple of them out this next outdoor season in cali to see how it turns out.

 

[gearbear]

You would have those variations def. if the Santa was an F1 cross, or unstabilized phenos which seems to be the case. Looks like they stabilized auto and then just crossed some plants and sold the seed. now you have several phenos per seed germ. nice if you are looking certain phenos for your particular garden, but bad if you're looking for uniformity in your garden right now.
Which you know that, from photos I'm sure. Autos and Photos aren't much different when it comes to breeding (once auto is stabilized in the line anyway) from what I can tell. Just the big difference is, it seems to be a whole other ball game when it comes to growing them in soil. completely different technique and strategies should be applied. Hydro doesn't seem to be much different though.

 

[gearbear]

It would be waaay cool if there was an auto version of the creeper/ crawler/ climber of ABC, or Trainwreck, or otherwise. vine weed is the best weed for LST'ing weed, I'm sure.