Selecting Cannabis Varieties to Grow

Greetings and salutations amigos, selecting cannabis varieties to grow is a very complex subject we’ll tackle today. It all boils down to a simplistic truth, which is: Every garden is different, different varieties will do better or worse, in differing environments. There is also the subject of growing varieties that you love for enjoyment purposes. Getting baked is often quite a subjective experience, given different states of mind to start with and different environments.

Back to growing advantages… Here’s a fact as far as my experience tells me—if you breed a variety in your environment, the offspring generation will almost always do very well in that same environment. That’s one way to dial in your beast artisan plants.

Selecting cannabis varieties is really pretty simple, as long as you accept the “work” it takes to get there; which in reality is just some time for a couple, or a few harvests. Perhaps I can lend a hand here with your selections to grow, and enjoy; maybe even give you some true shortcuts, heh heh—let’s roll…

Preamble to Selecting Cannabis Varieties

Cloning abilities and tools here are required. You also need to plan ahead for space limitations. I recommend you start out with no more than 4 different (very different) cannabis varieties/strains from different sources. Try to mute out most of the noise and hype regarding the strains. Look at their origin stories and make sure the breeders are solid. Actual customer reviews are fairly helpful as well.

If you start out with 4 varieties in seed form, I would sprout 6 seeds from each variety. That should end you up with 18-24 sprouts. You’ll need the space and environment to handle these plants for about 30 to 40 days. Once you know their sex, you will suddenly have space, and about half the plants, 9-12 of them or so. You will need a cloner or a cloning dynamic than can handle 2 cuttings from each female plant. Also, it goes without saying, cull (kill) any plants that are having problems or are obviously weak.

You can start with 1 variety, or 3, whatever, but keeping your ceiling at 4 varieties at once keeps your space requirements within norms. Like you would need a couple of tents and a cloner. Or a single room with a separate veg closet or tent. Starting with fewer varieties makes more and better use of your space. Not to mention, starting and tracking/observing 4 varieties well is a decent amount of work for one stoned grower—LoL.

Selecting Cannabis Varieties to Grow for Your Enjoyment

There are so many facets to every variety as far as enjoyment goes. Peeps are all different when it comes to any intoxicant. I often use the comparison of myself and my girl. If either one of us needs to eat some pain pills for some reason, effects are very different. My hunny gets almost wired, and starts cleaning the house and doing busy work. I, on the other hand will get hungry and pass out. I have seen cannabis have way different effects on different peeps as well. Highly exotic sativas can straight-up wig some peeps out. I love them and they far from ever wig me out. So, what you want to do is find your favorites within those you have chosen to grow. You can save these clones and enjoy them for years to come.

While you are sampling your first harvest plants, you will be able to eliminate some more of the females from your “herd” of selected females. Make sure to use as many different forms of imbibing as you have available to you. Vaping, smoking doobies, bongs, pipe-loads, edibles, etc. This gives you good broadband perspective. Make sure to wake-n-bake as well as late-night bake, note things like length of effects, how “stupid” it makes you, how sleepy it makes you, and when. How hungry as well. Basically, anything that matters to you.

If you started off with at least 12 plants you sprouted you will likely end up with 1 or 3 bigtime favorite females at the end; bigtime favorites! Things like terpenes (smells and flavors) along with yields will also be factors here in your decision making. Give yourself the proper time to select, and you will be rewarded handsomely for your efforts.

Selecting Cannabis Varieties to Grow for Your Environment

Here’s where the selection process matters huge! Like if you are growing outdoors, your best breeder options would be those that breed outdoors. If you are a coastal peep, you will also need either a very fast finishing variety—finishing by the end of September—or, you will need a greenhouse that can control humidity. As long as wind is always hitting your plants you may be able to get away with it without a greenhouse, even growing longer flowering varieties. But that’s a rare location in suburbia along the coast.

Indoors you’ll want to source from indoor breeders as your first choice. If you are an organic grower source from organic growing breeders. If you are hydro, source from hydro breeders. To truly lock down your winning selections you will need to grow your selected females all the way to harvest, twice, before your final choosing. This will give you real examples of resin production and profiles as well as giving you the ability to see the strengths and weaknesses of individual plants through various aspects of growing.

Rev’s Tips for Selecting Cannabis Varieties

If you start out with a single variety, sprout at least 12 seeds. This gives you decent odds of finding something really stellar, as long as you are paying attention. Stellar individual plants can slip through your fingers easily without you paying attention. Starting out with 16 seeds to sprout at first, no matter how many varieties you are starting with, is the primo number for smaller scale indoor home grows. This keeps your space concerns manageable.

You can keep clones going for decades if you want to. It is also a beautiful methodology for selecting breeder females. ANY plants you have grown out and flowered and you like a lot—like when it’s down to your last several plants. You really need to take them all through a harvest and sampling one more time to really understand who is who, regarding true strengths and desired qualities. I often find plants I was iffy about at mid stage selection, like after the first harvest, become my prime girls at the second harvest.

What this all accomplishes my fine green friends, is you becoming truly familiar with the plants you are dealing with. Kind of like you get to know your pets. Like all cats and dogs have very different personalities and abilities to deal with things, overall health etc., and the same is true for all your plants. You just really have to give it a little time to get to know them while observing them closely and paying attention. Boom! Just do it.

L8r G8rs

Okay then, that’s it for today for me. I hope today’s article has given some insights to those of you who are confused regarding this whole selection process. Along this path of knowledge, you will of course discover other things that will help you dial in selecting the killer females. Just pay attention, set aside like 8 months for your mission, and you will come out of it with some truly stellar plants you can clone for years and years to come.

Start out with good seed stock and healthy genetics. Nothing like some weak ass plants, or hermaphrodites to mess up your plans. Seeing at least a couple different strains/varieties at once will help you out more than choosing to start with a single variety of cannabis. You will be able to compare and contrast strengths and weaknesses across genomes. Grab at least one of your choices from Kingdom Organic Seeds for some good healthy exotics. Here’s another article by yours truly if you care to give it a whirl: Product Review: The 420h LED Grow Light – Skunk Magazine.

I was almost fucked with (hard) by Mother Nature recently. Took a Blackberry branch to the eye and an infection set in. It spread to both eyes and I had to wear patches for a couple of days. Let me just say—yikes—and also, getting baked while you can’t see is pretty amazing. See ya all back here next Tuesday amigos!

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