insomniac_AU
Active member
I actually got those seeds as Freebies and they turned out to be great. Here's a couple of harvest photos.
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Critical Mass Collective?
- Thread starter creativeprocess
- Start date
bigbadbiddy
Active member
I grew out 50 Seeds of Critical Mass from MNS directly last year.
It does produce, grows very unproblematic (great newbie strain if you ask me) and has a decent range of terpene profiles.
In the 50 seeds I found about 4 phenos that were "something else".
My favorite pheno (I found 3 of that kind in the 50 seeds) was one that had purple turning hairs (that later degraded to the classic orange/brown) and had very fruity type terpenes. It was also covered in frost and yielding well.
There were two other phenos, 1 plant each, that were noteworthy and likely what was selected in spain.
One was just massive and phat and yielded a good 10% more than the next best pheno, also caked in resin and pretty much what I was expecting with regards to a cash cropper. Terpene profile was quite earthy with slight citrus hints. Didn't love it as much as the one mentioned above but it was what I imagined the Spanish must have selected.
The other one might have blown that monster out of the water. In mid-flower the entire plant started to yellow as apparently it wasn't fed enough and started to end its lifecycle early. Soil was just depleted. I had several issues in that round and unfortunately didn't manage to keep a clone alive but I should have definitely run that pheno again as it might have produced even heavier than the other fatty pheno.
It was basically the biggest plant, putting on the most weight, when it ran out of nutrients to use in the soil and started to yellow. And that was with a good 4 weeks ahead of normal flowering time... All other plants had no unusual signs of yellowing (aside from a bit from the bottom) and completed their flowering cycles as expected. Was just that one plant that grew amazingly and then suddenly started to yellow from bottom to top in mid flower.
What I characterized as the 4th pheno were just the plants in between all those extremes.
Anyway, long story short:
By all accounts, all those Spanish Critical collectives and stuff likely worked from the same basis as I did. Might be that back then they could have found those "4 phenos" I did in 30 beans not 50. But I doubt they had different genetics to work with overall.
And as much as I like MNS, Critical Mass, I would agree, is so so smoke. Not bad by any means but nothing that blows you out of the water.
My favorite pheno that was pretty to grow with the purple hairs, caked in resin and heavy yielding with nice fruity terpene profile was good smoke too, but nothing to write home about.
The "level of smoke" went down towards the other phenos, with the monster fatty being a bit heavier Indica hitting and my favorite pheno being a bit more cerebral.
But overall it was just so so and I wouldn't grow it again.
But I would suggest it to any newbie, looking for an easy grow to get into the swing of things and have satisfying results.
Those Critical Mass went through a lot of shit in my growspace and mostly took it like champs. I also had a perfect 50/50 germination rate and all 50 made it above soil and grew into healthy plants. If there were any runts I am talking one or two in 50, don't clearly remember.
Good strain overall imho, definitely a good producer when done right but not "elite" herb in the end, just "good" or "decent" depending on who you ask.
It does produce, grows very unproblematic (great newbie strain if you ask me) and has a decent range of terpene profiles.
In the 50 seeds I found about 4 phenos that were "something else".
My favorite pheno (I found 3 of that kind in the 50 seeds) was one that had purple turning hairs (that later degraded to the classic orange/brown) and had very fruity type terpenes. It was also covered in frost and yielding well.
There were two other phenos, 1 plant each, that were noteworthy and likely what was selected in spain.
One was just massive and phat and yielded a good 10% more than the next best pheno, also caked in resin and pretty much what I was expecting with regards to a cash cropper. Terpene profile was quite earthy with slight citrus hints. Didn't love it as much as the one mentioned above but it was what I imagined the Spanish must have selected.
The other one might have blown that monster out of the water. In mid-flower the entire plant started to yellow as apparently it wasn't fed enough and started to end its lifecycle early. Soil was just depleted. I had several issues in that round and unfortunately didn't manage to keep a clone alive but I should have definitely run that pheno again as it might have produced even heavier than the other fatty pheno.
It was basically the biggest plant, putting on the most weight, when it ran out of nutrients to use in the soil and started to yellow. And that was with a good 4 weeks ahead of normal flowering time... All other plants had no unusual signs of yellowing (aside from a bit from the bottom) and completed their flowering cycles as expected. Was just that one plant that grew amazingly and then suddenly started to yellow from bottom to top in mid flower.
What I characterized as the 4th pheno were just the plants in between all those extremes.
Anyway, long story short:
By all accounts, all those Spanish Critical collectives and stuff likely worked from the same basis as I did. Might be that back then they could have found those "4 phenos" I did in 30 beans not 50. But I doubt they had different genetics to work with overall.
And as much as I like MNS, Critical Mass, I would agree, is so so smoke. Not bad by any means but nothing that blows you out of the water.
My favorite pheno that was pretty to grow with the purple hairs, caked in resin and heavy yielding with nice fruity terpene profile was good smoke too, but nothing to write home about.
The "level of smoke" went down towards the other phenos, with the monster fatty being a bit heavier Indica hitting and my favorite pheno being a bit more cerebral.
But overall it was just so so and I wouldn't grow it again.
But I would suggest it to any newbie, looking for an easy grow to get into the swing of things and have satisfying results.
Those Critical Mass went through a lot of shit in my growspace and mostly took it like champs. I also had a perfect 50/50 germination rate and all 50 made it above soil and grew into healthy plants. If there were any runts I am talking one or two in 50, don't clearly remember.
Good strain overall imho, definitely a good producer when done right but not "elite" herb in the end, just "good" or "decent" depending on who you ask.
creativeprocess
Member
Thanks Maynard! This looks amazing is sounds like the exact strain I'm looking for. How many beans did you pop, and out of that how many were awesome?
Also what kind of EC did it like? Coco or hydro?
Side note, definitely looking forward to your new album [hopefully] this spring!
Thanks Dad for the report, I really appreciate your summary. 8% of your total were worthwhile in some way but overall it's "Meh" sounding so maybe I'll just avoid it. The conclusion I'm coming to is that the Critical / Cheese / Skunk genetics have been so interbred with other strains that the original strains are subpar compared to the newer breeds. A good example of subpar is Green House "Super Bud" which had like 10% THC in a grow report by the breeders themselves! www. youtube .com/watch?v=cVAMsSLvrQg
I'm going to keep looking for hybrids, like Maynard's Delicious Seeds "Black Russian" and some others.
If anybody else can recommend fast fat frosty strains, please keep us in the loop!
insomniac_AU
Active member
Thanks mate. I only ever got 3 seeds as I said they were freebies. I grew 2 outside a few years ago and one was outstanding and the best of the 3 phenos I got unfortunately I never took a cut so it was lost. The last seed I had I cracked probably 18 months ago. That is the one you see here. I would actually like to get another 10 seeds and do another pheno search.
Gday bbb
I have only ever grown probably 8 different seeds so not a big pool. I'm sure there are some good phenos out there I just wasn't lucky enough to find one.
bigbadbiddy
Active member
Was the first time for me to monocrop such a big pool.
Won't do it again either, harvest was too overwhelming and I got bored of the smoke, since it lasted me around a year and even among the different phenos there was not enough variety to my taste.
That being said:
I wouldn't categorize CM as a bad strain and wouldn't say only 8% of it was "worthwhile".
8% of the 50 were "something else" i.e. distinct, different, "special".
None of the CM was "not worth growing it". It was absolutely fine and to me, mostly good smoke.
But it didn't blow me out of the water either.
Yet no other strain or pheno I discovered has done so either.
The one getting closest was a MasterKushxSkunk pheno from MRN that had an insane terpene profile that I really, really enjoyed. Unfortunately the smoke was not so killer and the buds were a bit airy/fox taily.
Among the strains I have grown so far and phenos I discovered in these grows, I would rate CM among the top.
Which is also one of the reasons why out of the strains I grew before, I selected CM as the one to try a big monocrop/phenohunt with.
And I might have expressed myself poorly:
If I still had clones of one of the 3 top phenos I found, I would still be growing it along with other stuff. I just wouldn't pop a pack again as what I found didn't blow me out of the water and I still have hope that with other strains I might be completely mindblown.
Could also be that it just doesn't get much better though.
We shall see, I am not far away from harvesting some Chemdawg genetics (Karma Crumbled Lime and King Mamba) to compare with. Maybe after that, I will have even more praise for the CM?
Or maybe after that I will want to grow only Chemdawg genetics like all y'all in the US
Won't do it again either, harvest was too overwhelming and I got bored of the smoke, since it lasted me around a year and even among the different phenos there was not enough variety to my taste.
That being said:
I wouldn't categorize CM as a bad strain and wouldn't say only 8% of it was "worthwhile".
8% of the 50 were "something else" i.e. distinct, different, "special".
None of the CM was "not worth growing it". It was absolutely fine and to me, mostly good smoke.
But it didn't blow me out of the water either.
Yet no other strain or pheno I discovered has done so either.
The one getting closest was a MasterKushxSkunk pheno from MRN that had an insane terpene profile that I really, really enjoyed. Unfortunately the smoke was not so killer and the buds were a bit airy/fox taily.
Among the strains I have grown so far and phenos I discovered in these grows, I would rate CM among the top.
Which is also one of the reasons why out of the strains I grew before, I selected CM as the one to try a big monocrop/phenohunt with.
And I might have expressed myself poorly:
If I still had clones of one of the 3 top phenos I found, I would still be growing it along with other stuff. I just wouldn't pop a pack again as what I found didn't blow me out of the water and I still have hope that with other strains I might be completely mindblown.
Could also be that it just doesn't get much better though.
We shall see, I am not far away from harvesting some Chemdawg genetics (Karma Crumbled Lime and King Mamba) to compare with. Maybe after that, I will have even more praise for the CM?
Or maybe after that I will want to grow only Chemdawg genetics like all y'all in the US
