So I got 3 plants going (Purple Haze photos from ILGM) and have 3 different girls. All exactly the same techniques used for all and 3 very different looking buds? Any explanation?? After failing on the first 2 grows I’m stoked to see and can’t wait to try #1
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First off, nice buds. They’re And all great, bud that first one looks amazing. And B… think of it like siblings, even twins. Not all look exatcly alike, it just depends on what genes pass along to make diferrent phenotypes pop.
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Yeah I love watching them grow up in front of our eyes. #3 started out as the favorite (bushy , fat stems). #2 was super stretchy from seedling on. And we’ll what can I say about #1
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The first gets my vote, very exoxtica looking. Bom vote right there.
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I think I’m throwing some Hendrix on the JBL. Haze flavored.
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Very nice buds 
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There’s a small bud on the bottom, I just might try to clone her. Never taken one this late in flower though
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Phenotyping is the one and only answer.
This speaks to the genetic diversity of the stock seeds - likely F1-F3s (or maybe really R1-R3s, because all of ILGM’s stock is feminized). My rough understanding is that the most genetic diversity manifests on the F2/R2 generation (second iteration of crosses), and the more you breed your selected phenotype with itself (let’s say a deep purple budded Purp haze), the more consistently the deep purple manifests in each plant from that generation of seeds. They don’t become extremely reliable/consistent until around iteration 5 or 6. Many breeders don’t take that time.
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So what does “F” and “R” or “S” stand for in these terms?
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Filial generation (F1 = the first filial generation), while the others are a bit more “made up.” S1 is the first generation of a plant crossed with itself. R1 is the first generation of a reversed and bred plant (where R is “reversed”). It makes life confusing because generally we think F = feminized and R = regular but at least F1 and S1 span multiple plant types, not just cannabis.
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Anybody seen my Rosetta Stone around? Just kidding, but seriously I need to sit down and try to understand this phenotypes/breeding stuff starting with just the basic and work my way up. Is there a breeding weed for dummies book out there or something easy to understand?
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There might be. But I’ll be honest I have learned most everything from @repins12 @anon72256435 and @Tylersays (although he’s no longer active on the forum). Part of it is sitting down with “genetics for dummies” aka the Mendel pea diagrams from middle school and walking yourself back through what happens when you cross your peas (or in our case, cannabis). Isolating traits and deciding what characteristics are most important to you. You may really, really want a pink bud at the cost of other desirable traits, where first and foremost I really need drought resistance and heat tolerance because I know myself and my own watering habits. I often pheno hunt those traits and once I have a winner (it’s like The Hunger Games when I get seedlings going - last one alive is victorious) I’ll use that for breeding. It’s not the best practice for well-rounded breeding, because I stop at the stage where they survive what I’ve done to them, and all I monitor for is whether herm traits manifest. If they do, no bueno. Seeds resulting from the cross go to the trash. The rest, such as bud structure, potency, etc, I know I can selectively breed back into the most drought resistant plant I was able to produce.
Poly actually is just how encountering a gorgeous male plant - and it begs the question, what do we look for in males? It’s obvious for females - mold and pest resistance, high thc, specific terpene profiles, growth rates, drought resistance, and so on. But for males, they don’t exhibit the same traits - can’t select a male based on thc production, after all. I think Poly has a just stunning stud - if I had to hedge my bets, it’d be on that stud producing some killer genes in the offspring, but that’s contingent on the female bred with it, too.
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@Graysin That male is a STUD!!! I saw that monster earlier.
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Wow! So your saying those wildly different bud structures/growth rate are attributable to the genes maybe? So that’s why I should’ve taken clones early and labeled them so I can roll with the Queen that way!?!
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Absolutely attributable to the genetics.
Most of what we see in home grows, I believe, is a result of genetic diversity, and not as much to do with anything else as we think (environment, nutrient line, etc). I ran two clones against eachother to compare nute lines. One gave me ~5oz and the other gave me ~6oz. Tells me genetics did most of the work there.
Because most home growers do it from seed, we definitely see a lot of phenotypes. Cutting a clone from each and marking them at the clone stage to their corresponding mother is the best way to flower out all of them and decide who can hit the trash bin - any hermaphrodites, larf manufacturers, the slowest to ripen, the bad terp profiles (odorless or undesirable terps for your preference). Once I get deep enough into my filial generation, I will be selectively breeding for bulk first, flower time second, and potency third. This is because I think size and maturation rate are truly genetics, while potency can be manipulated by the environment.
That’s 100% the strategy. Pick the best of the best and keep her around. Either use her for clones perpetually or use her to make offspring using the Queen and another Queen or a King, depending on if you want regular or feminized seeds.
A small side note, breeding down feminized seeds to a stable iteration of consistent phenotype is difficult and time consuming work, because it’s my theory that the X chromosome carries the trait that creates herms (think about it, only female plants produce both male and female parts). So you have 4 X chromosomes in any plant pairing to have to consider, rather than 3 (there’s some exponential equation in there but my brain won’t do it right now). Point being a male/female breeding is going to carry less risk of hermaphroditism, assuming that none of the parents exhibited herm traits prior to breeding.
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I believe these exist separately from the general “hermaphrodite” phenomenon we usually see.
It’s my general thought that the X carries the ability to “change” and produce male pollen as a method of genetic self-preservation. Like a frog, I think.
Meanwhile, any cannabis plant, independent of its genetic traits, can carry an extra gene. I think we see it in polyploids but those also seem often to be feminized, so we see XXX instead of the possible XXY combination. People who grow regs very often may see the intersex traits in both males and females, but I think it’s a manifestation of a different genetic quality.
I’m not sure I articulated what I’m getting at very well. It’s early for me, still.
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It does, indeed. That’s why I suspect the female chromosome is what Carries the “sex change” trait - regular seeds are still prone but a feminized seed is twice as prone (if not more?)
I suspect this is the XXY - Freeman did mention something that the test wouldn’t identify hermaphrodites, but it would identify the presence of the Y chromosome.
Yeah, no doubt about that one at all.
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That’s my thought process exactly.
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Is this what you mean by Thai style, the buds keep growing north (longer) instead of east/west (getting fatter)?
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Yeah that was my fav. #3 
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