Okie dokie, summary time! In short, the experiments were a success. back crossing the GDP to the GDP x sour rom phenos resulted in varying levels of GDP like plants, all very acceptable for different reasons.
Hmm where to start? it's kind of hard to summarize what was essentially two years of work in a few paragraphs...let me take think over it for a few minutes...
Let's start with the ken's gdp. I crossed it with:
F1: Sour Romulan (Extraterrestrial/ET), Mystery Sativa (Durban Poison x ISS), Northern Lights, DP Mazar, DP Strawberry Cough Indica and Sativa Phenos, Maple Leaf S1, Black Domina x Cheese
Bx1: Sour Rom x GDP GDP Pheno (Granddent), Sour Rom x GDP Mixed Pheno (50), Sour Rom x GDP Rom Pheno (Cobalt)
I still have maybe one vial of pollen left, but I have no plans for it. After growing out most of these strains I definitely think the Ken's GDP is some purple x with a skunk due to the different traits being expressed in the different lines. Due to this, back crossing a second time will likely yield little to no benefit, as I want to select away from the skunk. Before I detail the Ken's profile, let me give my notes on the crosses I've grown out so far:
Mazar x GDP -Mazinga- Much more dense than the usual mazar, way more resinous, and a much more intense oily/foul odor. potency and terps are way increased, along with the yield. Gone are the skunk like pointy colas, which were replaced with huge calyxed, chunky triagles. taste is great, oily and hashy, and the buzz is narcotic and potent.
Strawberry Cough x GDP Sativa - Guava- Denser than the original mom, with some hybrid vigor. yield boosted from pitiful to moderate, and the buzz increased in weight. Terps again turned up to the max, resulting in strawberry guava and purple/passionfruit smelling and tasting phenos. The original was very clear, borderline haze like but this was much more dreamy feeling. Overall flavorful but not too potent, good get up and work weed.
Mystery Sativa - Funkytown- Wow, again the Ken's shows it's ability to do some heavy lifting. The mystery sativa mom was similar to the strawberry cough in effect, but even more clear. You could tell the buzz if you really paid attention, but it sort of disappeared into the background otherwise just leaving an otherwise unnoticeable burst of energy. Great citrus/maybe anise/cherry smell also. of all the crosses this one was the most resinous with the largest trichs of any plant I've seen in person, and is in the running with the mazar cross for the most funky smell. The citrus
terpenes were cranked up to the max bringing a new oily level of funk. The buzz is still decidedly sativa and very clear, but now it's definitely constantly noticeable now and imparts a more intense "get up and go". Much more "potent" than the mom (in quotes bc you couldn't call the mom potent by modern standards), much more flavorful, much more enjoyable.
Black Domina x Cheese - Concord - I originally mistook this for Blue Dream x Cheese, as the single freebie seed was packaged as "BD x Cheese". After doing some research for the freebies around the time i got the seed i found out it was Black Domina x Cheese. Either way the mom was one of my top favourite smokes. Extremely perfumed and sweet, but not like the GDP. There was a heavy level of light fruitiness (berries) combined with a fresh baked aroma that was just amazing in the vaporizer. The buzz was what I liked, sativa but euphoria rather than anxiety, instilled a sense of well being and calmness like none other. Couldn't put you to sleep but could put a smile on your face. I'm happy to say that the cross kept pretty much all of the qualities, and made them better. More bubble gum aroma during the grow, very fruity smell in the jar. Same euphoric happy buzz, same taste with additional grapes/fruit, but now with a great body buzz to accompany it. Now it sets a very relaxing headspace with early tokes, with suggestions to chill and enjoy the basics, but the more you take the more the suggestions to relax become irresistible.
Cobalt - My personal favourite of all the crosses so far. This pheno was a Sour Rom on steroids. Same sativa growth structure as the mom, with extreme hybrid vigor. It was easily 3x the height of the Granddent pheno, with buds that were sativa structured but filled in like an indica with natural (not heat related), dense spiked, crowned, or foxtailed buds similar to the later Grandfather pheno. Great sweet purple perfume smell was combined with the Sour Rom's pure pine to make an extremely sweet and tasty, very potent bud. It can be smoked during the daytime if you're careful. Initially puts you in the Sour Rom headspace, which gradually opened up to a newer dreamier space.
Granddent - My utilitarian favourite of all the crosses. This plant was very indica leaning, with a laughable yield, extremely slow growth pattern, and extremely dense, extremely smelly, extremely resinous, but tiny buds. However, the smoke was the strongest indica buzz I ever had, and every vaporizer bowl would consistently put me down for a nap, regardless of time of day.
50 - It was as explained a perfect mixed of Sour Rom and GDP, reaching the middle in height between both phenos, blue calyxes with purple leaves, passion fruit aromas. Unfortunately even the buzz was perfectly balanced, which to me was....weird. It was potent, but really the buzz was just solidly in the middle of everything, not too up, or down, dreamy or alert, body or head, it kept bringing me to the katt williams skit on his wanting just "regular weed". Again potent, tasty, but just so basic of a buzz it was unremarkable.
I've yet to do the NL, or the indica s. cough crosses. From what I know about the mom's they're going to be godawful to trim so I'll avoid them if I have an excuse. Maples Leafs x GDPs just started flowering.
From working with all the crosses I consider the following my breeding opinions on the performance of my GDP male:
from what I can tell there are two modes of genetic transformations that happen as a result of mixing with the male
1) GDP dominates, bringing heavy purpling, grape aromas, increased bud density, slow growth, and low yield. Buzz of mom taken to the most narcotic it can be.
2) GDP recessive. This mode is interesting...the GDP traits aren't obvious at a glance because the plants look like the moms, but compared to the moms all stats have been boosted, like an evolved pokemon. Lighter purpling is present, usually restricted to around the leaf edges, the mother
terpenes are increased and take on a sweeter tone, buds are both denser and actually bigger than the GDP dominant crosses due to having from a little to a lot more hybrid vigor. They also have increased mite resistance in general due to just being so resinous. I've seen mites take their sweet time spreading, preferring to congregate in mass under what leaf material they can find rather than try to traverse the buds. I'm trying to think of a negative...they do eat nutes like a mofo. These are actually the plants I'm starting to prefer in the F1s.
Okay so the Ken's has been summarized, yeah? Good because I'm way more interested now in the "evolved" lines and back crosses now that I have an idea of the genetics. My goal with the back crosses was to try to uncover hidden genetics in the GDP. This happened, pretty much exactly how I thought it would.
The Cobalt x GDP lines (Indigo) crossed the boosted sativa dominant F1 genes back to the gdp, and resulted in sativa plants that picked up some of the original recessive sativa genes, a sweet bubble gum like odor very reminiscent of skunk and most certainly not present in the P1s. As mentioned before this smell is also present in the Concord line, which features a skunk as a pretty close relative. Cured smell is nice, hashy, a little fuely with the sweet Cobalt background. Buzz is similar, with the initial cobalt headspace opened up to a dreamier level where thoughts come and go like waves instead of a smooth river like the cobalt.
The Granddent x GDP lines (Purple Stuff) was also a great success crossing the dominant indica genes back to the GDP, resulting in two main "lines" of pheno types, one for each parent. The Granddent leaning lines (Rom Jr) came in two flavors, regular or fast. The fast version could be harvested at 6 weeks, and was absolutely done by 7. A joke of a yield reminiscent of the original granddent, and tasty, decently potent bud. The regular version was a 9 weeker, with lavender aromas and taste, with very large buds and hybrid vigor, resulting in a significant yield difference over the fast version. The GDP leaning lines also resulted in a jokester and a more serious contender. One was a plant that looked pretty much like a bog standard gdp, maybe a tiny hint of rom but really nothing spectacular. Smelled like GDP, same grapey purps with skunky aroma, same nagging weakness to mites. It was the only one in the tent other than the sanity tester Helping Hands Herbals Hercules to constantly be attacked by mites. The serious contender was given the Grandfather Clock name. It is very terpene driven, smoke it and the clock starts ticking until you're out. Couldn't say if it's high in thc yet, but I haven't smoked enough yet to evaluate it well. It's a losing game as it will only get more potent the more it cures.
I also managed to find my sweet male, a Rom Jr regular version that I took the opportunity to cross with Grandfather pheno, hoping to get the bigger yield and passion fruit aromas from the Rom Jr back into the Grandfather, while keeping the massive chunky buds. I also did the seemingly impossible, and got a Centennial Seeds Rio Negro Columbian that did not herm. Actually nothing hermed but I was especially worried about the Columbian after hearing so many bad reviews about them. Seeing it as a maybe rare opportunity, I crossed the Rom Jr male to it, making roughly a hundred seeds. The Columbian was loaded so it yielded little, but what smoke there was had an extremely dense, funky odor, pinene solidified. It had good structure, tight spear colas, and a very nice sativa up buzz. I chose the Rom Jr male to cross it to instead of the GDP male because I wanted to try to keep the sativa buzz, but achieve the same boosting effects to get better density, taste, and aromas.
What's next? Well I'm focusing now on my perpetual grow. I've nailed down the specifics, and am just starting to get the cycle tweaked to go for yield. Now that I know what I like from the crosses, I'm going to restrict myself to two strains per grow, with an eye towards improving yield. If the Columbian x Rom Jr works out the way that I want it to I have very big plans for those...but it will take a few years anyway so I'll wait to announce that project :)
I currently have two large maple leafs flowering, along with an Indigo, next in veg are Concord and more Extraterrestrial. Going to focus this year on just growing, and maybe a quick pollen splooge or two to kickstart Project Happy Place (yeah I decided to name it now).
Pictures to follow.
