So this month just about marks a couple years that I've been growing. I've been reminiscing on the progress made over the last couple years, especially in terms of understanding genetics. To this point I've been focusing on building sample size and understanding how various genetics function, both in growth and on my physiology. Things are going to gradually be shifting more towards refining the unique things that have worked for me on some level to this point, though new stuff will still be dropped as well.
Kubanskiy was one of the first round of seeds that I ever dropped and she's finishing up, likely for the last time. The smoke is nice but the colas are barely thicker than my thumb, don't stretch much so the plant need to veg longer, and the bud structure is, for lack of a better term, awkward. Some strains (or phenos of them, the Lemon OG Kush loser was like that) seem to just stack naturally, most gracefully, and some seem to strain to stack at all.
Kubanskiy tends towards the latter in my experience, unfortunately. Both that and Siberian Haze were flipped in the middle of April so they're coming up on 9 weeks of flower this week. Kubanskiy is billed as an 8-9 week strain so it's already in prime cutting range (likely coming down today), while SH is billed at 10-11 weeks. Whether or not it justifies getting there is another story...
It's difficult to justify saving either with G13 Haze, G13 Hazeplant, Pipatxu, Valencian Haze, Haze x Kali China, etc. around. But as so often seems to be the case with this hobby, the juice has definitely been worth the squeeze. The knowledge juice of growing and working with different genetics and friends made along the way, that is. Shout out to all of the awesome people that have sent beans!
The Blue Power Mango and the Blueberry Amnesias are almost a month younger than the Kalashnikov stuff, are showing more trichome and terpene development, and already have thicker buds. Very excited to blaze those two. Blue Power Mango especially, since Mango is so genetically similar to SSH. It'll be interesting comparing that to strains like Silverfields, one of which should be cut right around the same time as both (roughly a month). BPM and Silverfields will get crossed with Ghash/Hazeplant once winners are found as well but that's, like, all down the road.
Now that the Blue Dream x ON Haze beans have popped, I'm very much hoping for a dude to cross with both itself and the Blueberry Amnesia (likely Zhe Pinch too, but that's another project). There are 6 of them, so hopefully a solid dude or two isn't out of the question.
My love of Blue Dream has never really been a secret, obviously- I've wanted to dive into those genetics and pheno hunt for a while- but the only Blue Dream I've grown has been from HSO (rip) and I let my clone of that go when G13 Haze came along. It was good enough but the smoke was pretty average compared to the Blue Dream I had on the East coast. I'm looking for that super loud cat pee and crazy glue with Boo Berry cereal and frankincense flavor with a high like getting head while drinking Champagne in a hot tub.
If I don't get a dude then I'll go back to the Blueberry drawing board and look for some obscure Blueberry like ESB or Blue Bonic to bring those genetics together.