Genetics for foggy coastal Mediterranean climate?

Breadwizard · Oct 24, 2018

Hi everyone! I've got an outdoor strain selection question, and would love some suggestions or thoughts:

I'm working on developing an outdoor line for my folks, and the particular microclimate they live in can be tricky to choose genetics as a base. They are big fans of sativas, and I gifted them a few selections of Bangi haze from Ace, as well as some Purple Mexican from CBG, both if these had to be chopped early due to botrytis. This was especially surprising as the bangi haze is said to be quite resistant.

The microclimate itself is a coastal "warm summer Mediterranean," sitting a few hundred feet above sea level, a few miles from the coast, at about 35 north. The area however gets lots of fog, and is always humid in the mornings, especially as fall begins. The area is used traditionally by seed companies for vegetable and flower seed production, because the climate encourages early ripening.

Anyway I'm thinking I need to shorten up the flowering period a touch, and perhaps get flowering to trigger earlier, with a med hash plant variety like Lebanese (the one available through Ace or RSC) or Morocco, as these traditional areas have similar latitudes, and are known to finish early enough to avoid the humid cold mornings as fall approaches.

Other climate info: stays between 55-75 all year, only gets below freezing once a year or so in December, with winter usually being wetter than summer.

Any thoughts or musings on source genetics for this microclimate?

troutman · Oct 24, 2018

Pure Indicas aren't good in foggy areas and will probably go bad just before they are ready to be cut down.

Try Sativas instead as they can handle more humidity. :tiphat:

Breadwizard · Oct 24, 2018

It is my understanding that Lebanese and Moroccan strains are NLD types, with more fox-tailing "sativa" habits, as opposed to the WLD hash plants from less Mediterranean areas. Is that not correct?

therevverend · Oct 24, 2018

Foggy climates are especially bad because you're dealing with boytritis and powdery mildew. I've had a week of foggy weather and my Mextiza plants which did great with the bud rot were destroyed by the PM. Glad I harvested a lot before the fog because now nearly every bud on plants are infected to the point I'm going to have to let it go.

Bangi Haze is overrated against boytritis. I've had bad stem rot. It shouldn't be surprising because it contains Pakistani Chitrali from the Kush mountain range. So does the Purple Mexican I'd avoid those lines. Mextiza is a better choice.

Flowers with an open foxtail bud structure do much better against grey mold then dense strains. Like Troutman said a lot of dense Indica strains will do great until the last week when the buds get too dense to dry out during the day. You want buds with a lot of surface area so they dry out in the afternoon sun. If buds stay waterlogged in the middle for more then a day or two it's death.

You almost need to have something with some Indica in it to finish early enough in your climate. The trick is finding a hybrid with the right kind of buds. Royal Kush is a good one as is Mextiza. I've had good luck with Bodhi strains especially the Snow lotus crosses they have a good open structure. They finish so late it makes it difficult.

It's a short list but your parameters are difficult there's not a lot of strains that like cool temperatures and humidity. You could always try Autoflowers to set your finishing time back to August and July. The Lebanese and Moroccan genetics aren't a bad idea but they may not do well against the humidity. Especially in their unhybridized state they are from arid areas.

Breadwizard · Oct 24, 2018

Rev: I was planning on crossing to some mex/Colombian hybrids, not using them in their raw state. If I could get a hold of mextiza I'd use that, but I can't seem to find a source. Currently the plan is to find a pretty mould resistant sativa and cross it to the leb or moroc for the super early semi-autoflower tendency.

The purple Mexican did better than the bangi haze. I think because it triggered flowering earlier.

djonkoman · Oct 25, 2018

I'm in a similar situation, but more north, and our summers are usually somewhat wet too.
for early flowering, I would look more to northern outdoor varieties instead of landraces that are still from pretty far south.
there are some danish outdoorstrains that are mostly sativa, you could use those to bring in earlier flowering(for example the stuff from hybrids from hell).
against rot, I'm having some good success with crosses I made with kumaoni(from rsc). the cross before that, without kumaoni 'blood' in it still does ok against rot, but the crosses with kumaoni are clearly better resistant. the kumaoni does bring in later flowering though, so it needs early strains crossed in to balance that, at least here.
another one that may be interesting for you to try is UEL(ultra early love). had one plant of it this year, and I liked it, going to plant it again next year. it's a late season harvest here(53 north), at your location it would be earlier. not immune to budrot, but it handles itself well and it's nice weed.

in general I would avoid strains that are selected for indoor, and strains/landraces from dry areas.

Breadwizard · Oct 25, 2018

Definitely avoiding strains which are selected indoors. I looked into the kumaoni from RSC but was worried about how late it was, I might have to give it a second look, along with other Nepali genes.

Lebanon and Moroccan were chosen partially because their native range is very similar latitude as my target location 34-35 N.

djonkoman · Oct 25, 2018

the lattitude may be similar, but I think the cimate is mostly dry there, so more susceptible to rot.
and with a landrace you would end up with some bad traits too, so you would probably want to cross it to something(selection within a landrace is possible too, but more work and more limited in what you can achieve). since your landrace is yoursource for early flowering, the thing you cross it to would be later flowering. so it would still be on the late side for your location.

in my experience flowering inherits mostly as an average of both parents. so most plants will finis somewhere around the middle of the 2 parents, some variation around that point, and a few that go towards the extremes(like a normal distribution in statistics). for finding those extreme ones you need higher numbers, but the average ones you don't have to look so hard for.

so in your case, it would be way easier to get to your goal if you use a really early(but not autoflower) strain from a more northern location. that parentstrain would probably not perform it's best at your location, it would behave somewhat like an autoflower and stay small. but you could use that to knock down the harvest date on much later strains, so for the other input of your cross you're less restricted to plants that are already early enough for your location. and the resulting cross would be just right for your location.

Flying Monkey · Oct 25, 2018

Hey BW- im in a similar lat to you but much higher altitude, i have hanging mists through much of Autumn so i can relate. I do not have powdery mildew issues in my area, never seen it on a plant, but botrytis has been a real PITA. Just cause i love it so much id consider grapefruit strains- Sweet Deep Grapefruit is my fave but theres a bunch of them- ive been super impressed by yeild vigour and resistance. Ive lost whole patchs to grey mold but the SDG is untouched. Is fast flowering and as the plant spreads bud production over the whole plant i don't have the issues i see in heavy apical flowering stuff. Other strain id consider for a breeding program is Kc33. The right strain of this is practically bomb proof.

Good luck with it...

Flying Monkey · Oct 25, 2018

Probs doesnt need to be said amigo but its worth if your doing some serious pollen chucking doing it right. Get a bunch of your picks grow em, clone em test em. Use the best of the best. Half a dozen plants never gives me much more than an idea of the strains potential. It doesnt let me find the elite example im looking for to be worth developing. Preaching to the converted im sure.

Mr. Greengenes · Oct 25, 2018

I'm at 33n, about 200 feet above sea level, and a short stroll to the pacific ocean, so pretty similar to you. Our daylength is only about 14 hours 22 minutes at June 21. That's quite a bit shorter than folks up north. Seedlings can go in the ground as early as May, but I wait 'till second week in June for clones. Quite a bit of genetics will flower at 14 hours here, which means as soon as it goes in the ground. Sativa dominant things do seem to veg larger, which means you get more yield. If you put indica dom clones, you'll have to veg them up big indoors first, or plant more because they won't get big.

I can leave plants out until end of October or longer, so long flowering genetics work great here. It definitely does take more skill to keep plants happy that long but the results are worth it. Earlier finishing genetics are quite a bit easier, but it's rare to find clones that will veg up big and finish fast at this latitude. Seedlings are heck of a lot easier.

St. Phatty · Oct 25, 2018

No late flowering Sativas.

I have 2 that are late but if I was closer to the coast, I would probably have to harvest them early.

Instead I can take it day by day, and watch the trich's slowly approach a condition of true frostiness.

Koondense · Oct 25, 2018

I'd dig into Mexican and Nepalese pools, cross them and select for a nice blend of fast resistent sativa.
Purple Sattellite comes to mind.

Cheers

Breadwizard · Oct 25, 2018

I've had my eye on both mextiza and purple satellite for some time, as they are both nepal x mex crosses, but I haven't found a way to get them.

Thanks for all the feedback, I think the current plan is to grab a few packs of the ace Lebanon, along with the "first lady" from original delicatessen (an old mex selection, possibly Acapulco gold). I have a few packs of nepjam already, which could be a good Nepal source.

I'll run them all outdoors next season and do some test crosses of whatever does best in the climate, first lady x nepjam and Lebanon x first lady. We'll see what shakes out!

Grapefruit looks interesting, I'll see if I can find the cut and run it to test. Thanks everyone!

Flying Monkey · Aug 10, 2019

Hows those crosses coming Bread. And did yoiu have any joy with SD Grapefruit... :thank you:

Koondense · Aug 10, 2019

Right,

how's the season going?

Cheers

Breadwizard · Aug 12, 2019

Hey folks! Currently I'm in the process of parent stock selection, the folks have a bunch of nepjam in the ground, they'll be saving me a clone of the one that does the best. I'm testing out the First Lady from original deli, an early mex selection that was likely climitized to norcal from RC Clarke.

The best from each will be crossed to the most mold resistant male from my RSC Syria pack, then run next year.

Other genetics I've had my eye on for this project is the upcoming Zacatecas Tribute by vermontman (oaxaca x BSHW) one half of which was bred outdoors pretty close to my target location, and the oaxaca even further north, as well as the Lebanon from Ace.

Here's a pic of the most vigorous First Lady, 3 weeks from moving it to the flower chamber.

I'll keep this updated, but there's not much exciting until the first beans to be created are popped.

Teddybrae · Aug 12, 2019

I 've found Mango Haze to be very mould and soil-fungus resistant.

Flying Monkey · Aug 13, 2019

Nice one Brother.. Keep us posted.

Mtn. Nectar · Aug 13, 2019

with “Indian Summers” commonplace along such clim’s ...better for later maturing sativa’s...like the original pure sativa BSHW..nothing like a sweet lanky trippy ripening sativa when all else = hay........

ganj on.....

Genetics for foggy coastal Mediterranean climate?

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