So, after a few grows and feeling more comfortable with growing and my rig dialed in, I think it is time for me to start focusing on my real goals in growing. I feel that everyone who uses cannabis medicinally should focus on cultivars that work best for thier individual body chemistries. In that end, it would be preferable to look for existing cultivars that work for you, but in my case I am growing for my wife and myself.
After alot of "testing" (smoking

) we have been able to pinpoint specific genetics that gel for her, gel for me, and gel for us. This also opened up our eyes to the fact that different cultivars can bring different primary affects that are wanted, but also some secondary affects that we don't. That is when I started looking as the idea of crossing our own cultivars with specific outcomes in tune with our endocannabinoid systems.
The first step is finding a base parent that gels for both of us universally. Luckily, we found a regular pack and a fem pack with genetics that work from Greenpoint seeds. These being: Purple MAC (MAC 1 x Purple Punch) x MACdawg (MAC x Stardawg)
MAC 1 and Purple punch were both identified early on, and since Stardawg is a
Chemdog backcross, that also is a favorite. For differing reasons, these three cultivars work for both my wife and I, but not totally. It is our hope that by crossing these cultivars we can find a foundational piece that we can build from. Nobody likes to smoke one strain all the time!
The 3 more mature plants showed female sex within one week of flip to 12/12. #7 just showed pistils and #9 is looking like a male
The plan is to pollenate one branch on each female, select the favorite after "testing," and choose that mother's seeds to select F2s. The reason for not directly pollinating the Purple MAC is to hopefully get a larger pool of males to select from and to also test what this father will pass on. Phenotypically, #3 and #9 are very similar, #4 is in between #5 and #3, and #5 and #7 look more Stardawg to me. We will smoke them all and judge by that rather than phenotypic expression.
Why Sundrops? General naming conventions would be to name it something like "Purple MACdawg," but I am not necessarily looking to cross for a specifically purple cultivar. One of my pet peeves is buying a "purple" strain and it being green

So why Sundrops? My wife's name means Sun in Hmong, and I used to try to dabble at rapping under the moniker of 1Drop.... so, Sundrops!
That's it for now, this will be a long journey that I plan to devote my upcoming grows to. I will look to familial breed to F4, then reverse the best F4 female to the F3 mom. That would be an F4S1 or basically a feminized IBL right?
I hope you'll follow along and help guide me if you have suggestions. Take care my friends, and as always, be water....