Humboldt Seed Organisations 2019-2020 Grow Diaries

Thanks for sharing, really interesting. I’ve got it in my head that photo’s produce a better quality end product and just about to do your experiment the other way round (I need to grow my own photos and would love to grow a strain from a mother plant etc) I suppose there’s a place for both autos and photos 

I've never tried Tribus so I wouldn't like to say, but we did play around with URB about 3 years ago that was pretty good stuff but I preferred mammoth as it was cleaner in my system - I already run enough humates that it requires additional labour from me to clean up between tank changes as it stands, URB contributed to making that worse/more hard work for not enough/no difference

Well tbh there's quite a few reasons behind the change. My pa used to say "decisions we make are rarely down to just one thing, it's usually a combination of factors", and this is true here. When i very first started growing we would just pick seed out of Thai weed or Jamaican and go with that,,then when the first hybrid seeds appeared b4 tinternet we had to travel to Holland to get good seeds ,skunk no1 and northers lights etc ,and they where much more expensive back then ( tight Yorkshireman haha ) , so it was crucial to keep a mother box going to keep the strain alive. One problem is that some strains are stable, u can take take cutting from cutting endlessly and it will never change.And some are unstable so it gets weaker and weaker ,and less vigorous the more u take cutting from cutting,it has to do with breeding either two haploid types ( one set of chromosomes ) , or two diploid types ( two sets of chromosomes )  , which will both be stable, but if you cross a haploid with a diploid its unstable and gets weaker and less vigorous after the first few cuttings from cuttings. ( marijuana botany by Robert Connell Clarke 1981, highly recommended for any budding breeders out there , haha unintended pun  ) but the thing is they never tell you on the packet if its a stable or unstable variety do they , u just have to 'suck it n see' .. White widow is a good stable variety that i grew for 10 years from one cutting with no issues. But there's nothing like popping a fresh seed to get a vigorous and potent plant.And seed of all types is cheaper and easily available nowadays. Also over the years keeping the mother box going has been very problematic at times with pests , house moves, rcd's tripping while out or working away causing flowering , and such like . Another reason was that for many years autos just didn't stand up next to photoperiod for potency and its only lately that they have been able to breed genuine strong varieties, so now it's worth a try . And i wont lie a bit of it was greed , going on 'the literature' autos are done in 70-80 days.whereas photoperiods need 2 weeks to root 4-5 weeks to veg then 8 to flower, so on paper it looked like i could easily get 6 crops a year instead of 4, but as the claims are a bit ambitious it's not as straight forward as i expected,but still shorter time than photoperiods. And last but not least i was curious to give it a try. generally speaking i can still get more varieties and selection in a year than i could from photoperiods and i don't need to keep that mother box going anymore .. Lots of pros and cons to both types. Generally speaking it is easier with Autos,but only time will tell if i stick with Autos or go back to Photoperiods. Regards. Mikethebike.