Just found this thread, read it all, wish I had seen it earlier to be a part of this whole hermie revealing epidemic, but glad I missed all the drama. It is a super bummer that so many people, including myself, have had problems with A's gear, but true that we all bought into what was very clearly hype built on hype. I was getting word slowly from people here and there that issues were occurring commonly in their garden with hermies, but one thing I am surprised by is the little bits of information coming out that seem to say bud flavor and highs are not great in his genetics. I wanted to share my personal experience as plainly and honestly as I can, hopefully I don't step on anyone's toes.
I have found a true keeper in the Alien Grapevine pack I purchased for $400. It has smell, flavor, looks, yield, and potency, but is a little bit finicky. I found no traces of any male flowers/hermies during my Alien Grapevine grow, although at one point I did notice some pistils turn orange earlier than normal, usually a sign of pollination, I have found no seeds smoking the dried buds and it is over halfway gone. The smell was a very very strong berry flavor that reminded me of 'Oops All Berries' Captain Crunch cereal, but has faded into a darker berry flavor with a longer cure that reminds me of blackberries.
2 out of 4 female LADs hermie'd on me with minimal or no stress (grow went very very well the whole way through). I did not find a true keeper in either my Alien Grenades or Lemon Alien Dawg packs of seeds. Smell and flavor is mild or missing from all my Alien genetics plants except my keeper Alien Grapevine#3, I blamed this partially on the seed production taking energy away from terpene and flavanoid production, but 3 out of 4 AGV's lack smell/flavor and were not pollinated last round.
So out of three strains, but only 10 female plants, I was able to find one solid keeper that I am already veg'ing up to size for next round. . . make your own decisions if that ratio is worth it to you, I am still very much on the fence after the loses I have taken and my second round with the one AGV genotype keeper will hopefully make up my mind.
And my last comment because this post is getting long. If you want every plant to be a keeper with guaranteed stable genetics and great flavor, don't grow from seed. . . it's as simple as that. Even with the Midas touch that OGRaskal seems to poses, I had to cull 1 out of 8 White Skunk plants this round because they felt my stress during finals week and popped balls. Just one more reason why I will be doing a few clone runs before I pop anymore beans.
-Meeks