TOPIC -
DATE - 09:49:28 9/19/99
FROM - oldtimer1
Baudelaire You have given me a lot to think about I just love this its stimulating! The reference to physical
changes and thc/cbd/cbn ratios came from High Times or Sensemilla tips or may be from one of the writers of
books associated with them. I have read most of the magazines and books over the years its hard to remember
which but I seem to remember the university of Mississippi being mentioned if thats any help. As to your
knowledge of how things grow area to area in the states, I cant dispute yours being first hand mine from reading.
As to personal observations matching what I have read Iíll out line them you analyse them for me and maybe we
can get some light from a different perspectives. When I first tried growing here 35 + years ago it was from stash
seed mainly from Africa, Jamaica and a little from south America. Well they did just what you said about the
Mexican in cali except they would be dead by November and would have hardly started flowering. I tried growing
in pots and bringing them under glass, no go they just went longer and made loads of twigs with few calyxes and
the odd white pistils usually hermy to boot. It was crap to smoke and barely potent. A friend of mine at the time
was studying at the glasshouse crop research institute suggested that it was a photo periodic prob [we didnít
know about light hours at the time] and took me to see the darkening system they were developing for
chrysanthemums. He also suggested maybe lights could be used. So about 35 years ago I built my first indoor
flowering cabinet just to finish a plant off. I used growlux tubes over head and down the sides which knowing what
I do now were pretty useless, even so they did the job producing some semi potent if a little green tasting puff. It
took a while to work out 11 hrs light and 13 hrs dark was needed for them to flower properly somewhat different
to todays plants with indica in using 12/12. Any how we got some quite palatable smoke. Looking at it in todays
light the furthest from the equator any of these plants came from was 18 deg and they seem very hard to adapt in
a pure form as even with protection I never produced a viable seed. I have little experience with pure Indicaís.
Depending on who you believe as to its natural range. It is either a lower altitude plant that grew in valley bottoms
in northern Afghanistan that was developed to meet the expanding western demand, or more to my way of
thinking brought by the Bokhara refugees when they fled the Russians in the 1870ís to Afghanistan and Chinese
Turkestan. Either way its centre of adaption would be 35 deg north in the first inst or 40 deg in the second, at
valley altitudes 1500 to 2000 m that would make it fairly well adapted to quite a lot of the USA apart from the
altitude affecting the light spectrum and season length being longer at lower alt!
Most of the seed that provided the genetics for our todays mothers came from American hippies who were
connected with some semi religious commune group devoted to weed. Were crosses made with seed brought
from Afghanistan to sativas and developed field scale in California. These folk used to visit the squat we lived in at
the time! Going back to cally for the autumn harvest and coming back in the new year / spring with sun grown
buds that were pretty dam good and new seeds for me, I have a lot to thank them for! Our stock plants are all
sativa heavy as far as genetics go although not always by looks! We keep our selected lines going as mums, the
longest I have kept a mum alive is 15 years before having to reclone it. All were selected for potent sativa highs
each unique and also for form to suite our growing system. As far as I can tell there has been no deterioration
over the years and the quality is as good now as when grown the first time from seed given the same growing
conditions. Where things seem to change is when growing conditions are changed. We experimented with
lighting using our vars. Using just sodium light the high becomes flat and boring still very strong and the buds
resinous but the structure not as dense. When just grown under a HQI-T MH the quality of the high is a whole lot
better with plenty of up and much more exciting. The bud quality is better but producing 30% less crop weight.
Using a combination of the two lights produces the best bud weight, density and psycoactivly the best high commercial northern lights was included in this test it made little difference to its stone I wonít say high, under
the different light combinations but its best weight came from the sodium alone. We blind tested our var on over
20 smokers saying we were selecting 3 similar plants asking them to select the best as a keeper, non selected
the sodium only, 4 liked the halide best the rest the combination. 50 w per sq ft was used in each cubical the
soil and feed was the same. The same plant it has been grown in a glass conservatory a polytunnel and outside
in a sunny sheltered spot. The plant under lights was selected for being columnar in form. Under glass it
stretched had long gaps between long branches that were lax flopping all over the place the leaves were larger
paler green broader and hanging down. The buds were soft, fluffy and long, they were cut early Nov, There was
little smell or taste, calyxes were large and sparse tricome development. The stone was low down similar to the
sodium grow but nowhere as good. The outdoor grow were tall and wippy small dark green leaves the pistils were
white but the small bud leaves went bright purple at the end of Sep they were cut 10 th of Oct due to continuous
rain causing the start of botritus. The calyxes were tiny as were the tricomes the buds were full of small leaves
that were covered with tricomes as well. Surprisingly this had a lot more up than the crop grown under the
sodium but not as strong over all it beat the under glass crop hands down, but was a bit green tasting to smoke.
The 3 plants grown under the homemade polytunnel was the biggest surprise it was 15 ft high x 15 ft w x 20 ft
long the plants grew sturdy short nodes wide strong branches, by the time they were cut at the end of October
the whole thing was full side to side end to end and protruding out of the end flaps it had to be cut as night frosts
were forecast. The stems at ground level were 2 to 2.5 inches in diameter and the main leaves enormous dark
green hanging down like large hands. The buds were still 90% white but had density and were frosty with
tricomes once again the buds were full of small leaves [they didn't turn purple]! This makes them a nightmare to
trim, indoors this is an easy plant to manicure. They completely filled the attic where they dried them and it
stank the house up for weeks. At the end of the day they got 4.5 lbs of bud and a couple of big boxes of trim. I
know this doesn't compare with Danbos 3 lb per plant but this is the UK not Cal! Oh yes it was strong with a
good complex up high. It still didnít compare with the indoor MH or mixed light product, either for bud quality or
high, But it was still pretty dam good. They were all clones from the same mum and were planted out the third
week in May. I know the growers were different, but I bred and selected the plant and have grown it for 10 years
indoors! When I visited each site, I would not have recognised any as the same one I grow indoors. You certainly
wouldn't recognise them as being the same plant from site to site either they just looked so different in form, leaf
structure and colour. I know a lot of the above goes against current thinking but they are my observations!
Ot1
