[oldchuck]

So, Thule, what do you make of a 25% germination rate from seeds acquired directly from Finland?

[Thule]

Originally Posted by oldchuck

So, Thule, what do you make of a 25% germination rate from seeds acquired directly from Finland?

I've bought a few baggies like yours, mostly for eating though. I would say if you repeatedly only get 25% to sprout they probably aren't last years seeds. A thin seed hull also means that the seeds get old faster, I've had that problem with seeds that have been lying around in the kitchen for more than a year.

[Only Ornamental]

Originally Posted by Thule

Healthy fin314 seeds have a very thin husk and should sprout within hours, no need for stratification. That's why I find it so very hard to believe the original two strains were wild.. there's a massive difference between finola seeds and the wild seeds I've worked with. Perhaps the seeds are just old or stored badly. They don't sterilize seeds inside the EU.

The VIR data bank does not state if these accessions were wild or cultivated. It only mentions that they were from Kirov.
Besides, Kirov isn't situated in Siberia (not even in the broadest sense) as often mentioned. Kirov falls into the (former) Northern Russia hemp-producing area and especially in that part of Russia many different local varieties have been grown back then. It is well possible that this is some farmer's heirloom or a feral version thereof. The growth habit of today's Finola seems (from what I've read) to be very similar to the original accessions. That makes it even harder to think of it as an endogenous wild form and not a cultivar...

Well, mine did as they should and they're from the same store if I recall correctly (forgot about that before). The expiry date was I think end of this year which makes the seeds a 2012 or 2013 harvest.
It was just an idea... the only other thing I can think of is light. Seeds can somehow sense red light up to a few millimetres deep in the soil and hemp is planted that way. But again, I don't know if hemp seeds depend on light or not but would say rather not.
I had mine in a glass of water for a day, so plenty enough light...
Or it could be temperature? Mine was about 25°C during the day and 20°C at nights which is rather high for Finola.

[oldchuck]

I read a brief rant yesterday bitching about Colorado"s newly rich and famous Stanley Brothers and their Charlotte's Web high CBD weed strain. The guy claimed they ripped off Canadian Finola seed to produce Charlotte's Web. Thule, OO, do you think Charlotte's Web could be a Finola cross with a high THC plant?

[VonBudí]

Originally Posted by oldchuck

I read a brief rant yesterday bitching about Colorado"s newly rich and famous Stanley Brothers and their Charlotte's Web high CBD weed strain. The guy claimed they ripped off Canadian Finola seed to produce Charlotte's Web. Thule, OO, do you think Charlotte's Web could be a Finola cross with a high THC plant?

6 brothers = 6 versions of what Charlotte's web is, thats what i came away with after reading their interviews/posts after the ng doc aired.

[aridbud]

"do you think Charlotte's Web could be a Finola cross with a high THC plant."

Probably not a high thc plant....but I'll betcha, Stanley bros. had something to do with 'acquiring' Fiona (steal, barter)..... the strain to help hybridize "Charlotte's Web".

And yep, they are raking in the bucks, thanks to 60 Minutes and other media coverage. If they do procure the strain from someone....an ethical 'brother'hood would pay a royalty.

[Only Ornamental]

Originally Posted by oldchuck

Thule, OO, do you think Charlotte's Web could be a Finola cross with a high THC plant?

I have no idea if they took a Finola... As Charlotte's Web is a pure CBD strain, it could well be. But from a purely practical point of view it would be very 'stupid' to do so (although I'm going to do exactly the same LoL) because Finola and other hemp varieties not only carry the CBD allele but also the disposition for generally low cannabinoid contents. That means, it takes quite a bit of time and effort to obtain it because you'd need at least F2 or F3 generations followed by back-crosses to the THC parent and again F2/3 likely followed by one or two back-crosses and again each time F2 or higher to finally obtain a consistently >15% CBD plant.
It would be way quicker with a CBD drug type plant, like a charas or hashish variety where you start at maybe 10-15% and not just 2-5%. That way and if all goes well, you'd need only the F2, prolly one bx and a bit of selection and stabilisation (and that alone is already something).

[oldchuck]

I'm wondering about heterosis. Why not just continuously produce F1 seeds from a Finola X unknown weed strain?

[Only Ornamental]

Sure, heterosis is nice and all, but if you have a 20% THC plant and a 5% CBD and you cross them, you'd get F1s with a 1:1 ratio THC/CBD at a total of ~10%. Make F2s and you get 1/4 pure CBD plants (and the rest for the compost) but these will have a content of ~10%. True, they'll show a rather high variability with most plants around 10% but still some at 5 or 20%. Make hundreds of F3 from the few strong ones and you should get better results but still a huge variability and a tendency towards 10% or lower (from what I've heard, the tendency is persistently towards lower %, maybe Murphy's law?). That's why you back cross to the consistently high THC parent; but then you'd get again 1:1 THC/CBD and need to do F2/3 to obtain the BD allele homozygously. Also, saying you cross the 10% CBD (because you hadn't any luck getting a high content plant with all other phenotypical expressions you seek) to the 20% THC results at best in a mean of 15% for the offspring (don't know why, though).

Apropos phenotypes: Hemp is often just one very tall stalk, no branches and no nice buds... A hybrid will tend toward that but maybe grow even bigger because of the heterosis effect. No one will buy that 'thing' .

Do you see the point?

[oldchuck]

Is Charlotte's Web advertised as a 0% THC strain?

I'm not thinking smoking bud. I'm thinking concentrates mixed and matched in various combinations.

Yeah, OO, I get what you are saying about nailing down a strain with a pretty much fixed ratio. I am not, however, a skilled breeder.