Massive pheno variation when ordering seeds

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DWCgrower406

Well-Known Member
Back in the day when i grew 10 years ago, i got cuttings from a caregiver i knew. Always knew exactly what the bud was gonna be and i kept my strains for years with 100% consistency.
Recently started growing again just for personal and my experience so far with ordering seeds has not been great. Just harvested some bruce banner #3 and ak47 fast flower, 2 plants of each. The plants are not similar to eachother at all, especially the bruce banner. One plant had super thin sativa like leaves, more stretchy, low yeild of quite frosty bud with pungent smell. Other plant was very vigorous, gigantic fat leaves, huge buds with much less resin production, not much smell. Basically no similarity at all that would suggest they are the same strain. Same deal with the 2 ak47 plants, not quite as different but still the 2 plants dont look like same strain.
Is this just how it goes when growing from seed? Or should i be questioning the reliability of the seed company? I expect pheno variation but i always thought it was small differences. I dont have the time, space, or allowable plant count to pheno hunt. Should i just try again with a different seed company, or is this normal?
 
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wackytbakky01112

Member
DWCgrower406 said:
Back in the day when i grew 10 years ago, i got cuttings from a caregiver i knew. Always knew exactly what the bud was gonna be and i kept my strains for years with 100% consistency.
Recently started growing again just for personal and my experience so far with ordering seeds has not been great. Just harvested some bruce banner #3 and ak47 fast flower, 2 plants of each. The plants are not similar to eachother at all, especially the bruce banner. One plant had super thin sativa like leaves, more stretchy, low yeild of quite frosty bud with pungent smell. Other plant was very vigorous, gigantic fat leaves, huge buds with much less resin production, not much smell. Basically no similarity at all that would suggest they are the same strain. Same deal with the 2 ak47 plants, not quite as different but still the 2 plants dont look like same strain.
Is this just how it goes when growing from seed? Or should i be questioning the reliability of the seed company? I expect pheno variation but i always thought it was small differences. I dont have the time, space, or allowable plant count to pheno hunt. Should i just try again with a different seed company, or is this normal?
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There has been a paradigm shift in recent decades towards less traditional breeding methods. Specifically the trend has moved away from selecting for specific traits out of a wider population and then line breeding using those traits until the progeny express the traits uniformally towards crossing two distinct plants once... and only once, making hype f1s that are not phenotypically stable.

They could be a little stable, and they used to be more likely to be because when the f1 hybrid no line breeding craze started, people were using relatively stable lines. Now??? lol...

Imagine if, for example, the brandywine tomato had been lost. Once legalization happens, you will see real plant breeders step into the mess and it will get VERY interesting.

All that said, there are still breeders that line breed or at least use stable genetics in their f1s. You have to look around.
 
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DWCgrower406

Well-Known Member
wackytbakky01112 said:
There has been a paradigm shift in recent decades towards less traditional breeding methods. Specifically the trend has moved away from selecting for specific traits out of a wider population and then line breeding using those traits until the progeny express the traits uniformally towards crossing two distinct plants once... and only once, making hype f1s that are not phenotypically stable.

They could be a little stable, and they used to be more likely to be because when the f1 hybrid no line breeding craze started, people were using relatively stable lines. Now??? lol...

Imagine if, for example, the brandywine tomato had been lost. Once legalization happens, you will see real plant breeders step into the mess and it will get VERY interesting.

All that said, there are still breeders that line breed or at least use stable genetics in their f1s. You have to look around.
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Ok, thats unfortunate to hear. Is there any way to know if you are buying a stable strain like a line bred f4 or better? Any reccomendations for seed companies (preferably in US) that provide these specifics about their strains? What i would really like to get right now is a good producer for pressing rosin, thinking gorilla glue #4. Is there somewhere specific i should get it from that will have a stable version of it? I dont mind paying a premium. If i know for sure it will grow as expected, i will just start with a mother and clone from that.
 
Failmore

Failmore

Well-Known Member
I think we are all in the same boat. Need a good source of clones.

2 seeds. Same strain. 1 purple 2 foot plant. 1 green 4 foot plant. Purple is 100% indica sleep weed. Green is a mix but more sativa than indica.

If i were to ask you of you thought these plants were same seed...you would laugh at me.
 
lusidghost

lusidghost

Well-Known Member
DWCgrower406 said:
Unless you are limited to 4 mature plants and 4 seedlings, as well as wanting to have at least a couple strains. Pheno hunting is just not practical for me
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Ah. Well you did say, “if I know for sure it will grow as expected, i will just start with a mother and clone from that.”
 
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DWCgrower406

Well-Known Member
lusidghost said:
Ah. Well you did say, “if I know for sure it will grow as expected, i will just start with a mother and clone from that.”
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Yeah, what i meant by that is i dont mind paying a premium per seed because i would just buy a couple seeds, grow a mother, then take clones. Also i just prefer clones because i grow dwc and they are much easier to start and can be flowered almost immediately.
 
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GrowingAbroad

Active Member
twentyeight.threefive said:
Same strain? :lol:
View attachment 4941986
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I've been there before but using 20 seeds from the "same" strain. almost all were different.
That's one of the reasons i started cutting my own clones. No variations in how much they like to drink and no variations in what they van handle when it comes EC.

These are my current clones. 9 of them from the same mother. Currently 700ml each using 1.5 EC and they all like it with no variations at all but i realize it's not for everybody selecting a mother, cut clones etc etc. It does take more time but the end result is wort it to me.
IMG_20210712_010501.jpg
 
lusidghost

lusidghost

Well-Known Member
DWCgrower406 said:
Yeah, what i meant by that is i dont mind paying a premium per seed because i would just buy a couple seeds, grow a mother, then take clones. Also i just prefer clones because i grow dwc and they are much easier to start and can be flowered almost immediately.
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That’s what I thought. Select your favorite plant and make it a mom. That’s what variety is nice.
 
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DWCgrower406

Well-Known Member
Failmore said:
I think we are all in the same boat. Need a good source of clones.

2 seeds. Same strain. 1 purple 2 foot plant. 1 green 4 foot plant. Purple is 100% indica sleep weed. Green is a mix but more sativa than indica.

If i were to ask you of you thought these plants were same seed...you would laugh at me.
Click to expand...
Seriously, what is even the point of paying good money for specific strains if its gonna be like this.
Part of me wonders if the issue is even the breeders. What is to stop a seed company from giving you a random mix if they are out of stock of something. How could you ever prove otherwise if phenos are believed to have such variance?
My bruce banner #3 was the same way. One looled pure sativa, one looked pure indica. Im not an expert on breeding, but doesnt the "#3" mean that it was specifically selected from a group of phenos and then line bred for those traits? Shouldnt it be pretty stable by that point? How could i end up with 2 plants that could not be any more different from eachother?
I hate to suggest seed companies ripping us off, but lately i dont have much faith in people in general. Someone please correct me if my understanding of the #3 on my strain is incorrect
 
Gemtree

Gemtree

Well-Known Member
DWCgrower406 said:
Seriously, what is even the point of paying good money for specific strains if its gonna be like this.
Part of me wonders if the issue is even the breeders. What is to stop a seed company from giving you a random mix if they are out of stock of something. How could you ever prove otherwise if phenos are believed to have such variance?
My bruce banner #3 was the same way. One looled pure sativa, one looked pure indica. Im not an expert on breeding, but doesnt the "#3" mean that it was specifically selected from a group of phenos and then line bred for those traits? Shouldnt it be pretty stable by that point? How could i end up with 2 plants that could not be any more different from eachother?
I hate to suggest seed companies ripping us off, but lately i dont have much faith in people in general. Someone please correct me if my understanding of the #3 on my strain is incorrect
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Well I doubt you had real bruce banner unless you got it from darkhorse who bred it years ago and only recently rereleased it. Buy from the actual breeders to start
 
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