I first started growing at the end of the 70s, when I met a contractor hippie that introduced me to HID. There were no manuals, internet references, seed sources, hydro equp...everything was trial and error. After countless failures trying indoor growing with regular lights, fluorescents, Arc Lights, the 1KW MH was the magic answer!
Over the years the only source for seeds were from friends, and I was fortunate to get a small jar of Matanuska ThunderF (pardon spelling), which is still the main strain that I've continued with. After all this time, many seeds are still good. I've made a couple crosses and recently climbed out of my comfort zone and tried some modern strains...Grandaddy Purple, Sour Diesel, and Train Wreck. These look NOTHING like what I'm used to seeing and growing and are more like a shrub than a large plant that you need to train to keep from going wild. Times have changed!
Anyhow, I took a couple of years off and fired up the magnetic ballasts up again. I've ordered a couple of seeds but was hoping to get a couple "surprise" seeds from a breeder to see how they would grow...without knowing what type of strain they are. I've been doing this for over 35 years or so and I'm ready to experiment some. Polyploid plants are the next project...just for fun!
That's about it. I enjoy this as a hobby and I'm 100% old school. 5 gallon buckets, 2X 1000W MH (soon to include HPS, although I've had great success with multi spectrum MH), magnetic ballasts, and Lowes fertilizer, either 20-20-20 or 24-16-10 for veg, lower nitrogen with fireplace ashes for flowers. OK...that's it! Nice to meet you!