Selecting seedlings, what to look for.

[Meadowlands]

Hello all!

To start my spring activities I have sprouted more varieties than ever before. I have a number of outdoor spots, as well as room for about 10 ladies (at 2months veg-time from seed) within my indoor spot. (2x600w aircooled).
I have a number of Mandala seeds on order, as well as Buddha's Sister and Sacra Frasca, all of these intended for the great outdoors but most likely started under flouro's and a 600w MH conversion bulb.

So I ask to you, my peers and predecessors, from whom I have gathered so much knowledge: What factors of growth do you decide for/against when trying to cull your batch?

Out of 23 seedlings I have finally culled two, They were bag seed from a trippy introspective indica. In ridding my room of them I was personally selecting against the traits of small leaves (less surface area, looked "scraggly") and comparably slower growth.

There are four of that variety left and they are the most robust seedling out of the whole batch (which includes Thai Lights, C4, Mazar-i-Sharif[freebie], and resultant seed from a previous exercise in pollen chucking: Nirvana's Pure Power Plant hit up with pollen from an Afghan#1 x Strawberry Diesel.

So I'd love to hear all of your thoughts on how you have selected in the past or perhaps plan to in future projects.


Many thanks!

~Meadowlands

 

[master shake]

you won't really know till they flower out...I've grown some seeds that start off slow and end up exploding in flower.

 

[gromer]

Ill double Master Shakes advice.Youll never know until u flower em.Id be hard pressed to kill a tomato seedling let alone a fragile young cannabis plant I have all I can do to toss unneeded cuttings.Im sure u must have a bro or two that would love to grow out yer culled seedlings.Just think of the starving kids in africa man...LOL!!!No seriously the weak are somtimes the best later down the road so put some thought into it b4 given em the chop.Peace!!

 

[GMT]

Try to keep a couple from each pheno you find. Sometimes on some lines, the fastest growing tallest seedlings are the males.

 

[chefboy6969]

Try to keep a couple from each pheno you find. Sometimes on some lines, the fastest growing tallest seedlings are the males.

in my experience this is correct the ones that seem to be the strongest and most of the time tallest are male..selecting plants is science...
peace
Chefboy

 

[JackTheGrower]

Yep, mostly you won't know till they flower.. You can clone them and keep track.

I have an theory I will share. Perhaps we can all look at my theory:

Females tend to take a little more time in their rooting.

Feedback on this has resulted in the comment that some sativas are equally fast. Other comment stated the female took off before the male.

Jack

 

[JackTheGrower]

in my experience this is correct the ones that seem to be the strongest and most of the time tallest are male..selecting plants is science...
peace
Chefboy

Or a Hermi!

Seen that... A real Iron pumper it was...


Jack

 

[Meadowlands]

Thank you all for the feedback. The combined version of all suggestions so far seems to lean toward flowering them all and keeping clones to that could be culled once the flowers are assessed. This seems daunting, but doable, I like I said there's not too much room/light available for all of them, so some would have to go outside and some stay in.

Thai lights would stay indoors for sure, as the breeder description only states "indoor" for this variety.

The outdoor spot is a sort of savannah marsh with very tall grasses and short (10-20ft)hardwood shrubs. Very wet most of the year so I'll likely be using 5 gallon containers above ground with fabric wicks of some sort to draw from the soil, which is defined as "roscommon sandy loam" with the depth to the water table at "roughly 0 inches" ha! wet! This def. was given by the "web soil survey" on the USDA's natural resources conservation service.
A NR student just exposed me to this amazing site which assesses your actual patch of ground. So far seems like a real handy boon to our hobby. Check it out here:

http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/HomePage.htm

So that's why I bought the buddha's sister, the sacra frasca, as well as the mandala strains...to hold out against the mold in that moist environment.

Unfortunately, absolutely none of the current grow batch is renown for their mold resistance.

Bit of a dilemma, but I'll take it casually, more of a fun challenge really. The hardest part would be having to prep more buckets/sites than I thought!

I assume a dense and yieldy beast like the c4 will not resist mold at all.
Hmm, I would like to put my random cross (pppx[afg.xstrawberrydiesel]) through the gauntlet that is my outdoor spot and see which succeed and carry on their genes. So tough tough...growing them to flower only to find out the mold is going to consume them, ahhh! The harsh realities of natural selection...

I really do recommend you all check out the web soil survey. There is a gren button in the middlw of the screen that says "Start WSS" click that and home in on your grow spot much in the way you would on google maps - only this site loads slower - and use the "AOI" tool to create your Area Of Interest. Basically the tool is used to encircle an area, then you click "create AOI" and it calls on previous land assessments and overlays a soilmap right over the satellite image and describes the various soil horizons and their traits.

This site goes way in depth as far as assessment goes, info for potential homebuilders, septic diggers, agricultural and horticultural interests and anyone else who might have a need to know the soil type/condition and the depth of the water table or potentially obstructing layers. check it out!