[oldchuck]

As I'm sure you know Joe, there is more to Cannabis than cannabinoids. My interest in Finola is due to its ability to survive in the north. My god, it races to maturity producing an abundant seed head at 60 NL. It grows in the snow. It's a fine hemp variety in its own right.

I feel the same way about ditchweed. Hardiness and resilience, the plant that beat the DEA without human help.

Mixing things up with high cannabinoid types is, admittedly, just playing around but I think it is a good thing to keep the gene pool stirring. Preserving genetic diversity and such.

[Only Ornamental]

Small remark on germinating Finola:
I tried now several things, like wet paper towel, in soil, on soil, greenhouse (February *brrrr*), more light and less light and also pressure testing the seeds and take small or big ones...
What I've seen so far is that the more exposed to light (even weak illumination) they are, the faster and better they germinate. I dug 'em also out to check; obviously I killed quite a few by this procedure ;( .
The wet paper towel and seeds sitting on top of the soil just slightly pushed in and covered with a plastic film works best and makes them crack the shell within a day (greenhouse a lil longer). Also, germination rate is way up that way whereas covered in soil (5 mm) results in low germination and it took over a week to show cotyledons above ground. For the 'in soil version', I think only the pressure tested ones work (mould?) whereas the 'on soil nuts' grow fine even with cracks in the shell.

Anyone observed the same with other cannabis varieties? I haven't so far but have now the suspicion that the RSC Nanda Devi have a low germination rate because of that... could be other reasons as well though. Gonna test it in any case .

[oldchuck]

Thanks for reminding me to do some more testing, OO. Interesting results. What is "pressure testing?"

My seeds seem pretty uniform in color and size, a few cracked but mostly good looking. I'll try your longer light method. This time I dumped a batch into a petrie dish with 100 ppm gibberellic acid solution. We'll see if a 24 hour hormone bath will help.

Re: oil seed workshop yesterday. An Ontario farmer gave a presentation on his experience growing about 400 acres of hemp in rotation on of a 1200 acre farm since 2009. It was pretty interesting. He grows a monoicous variety. I didn't catch the name but I think those cultivars are combined seed and fiber types. However he said there is no Canadian market or processing infrastructure for fiber so all they sell is seed. Apparently he's making money selling Cannabis by the ton. The numbers for hemp seed, $ per acre profit are better than corn.

What the new farm bill actually allows a state university to research and how remains unclear. Our ag extension people are very interested, somewhat nervous about playing with hemp, and still in the dark regarding what they can do. The state guy overseeing the hemp registry is a bureaucrat who seems to know nothing about Cannabis. But they will register anybody for a $25 fee and let you go for it at your own risk from the feds. The state is authorized to test THC content but they have no plans to do any field testing because they have no facilities or money to do any. So I still dunno how I'm going to handle it.

[Only Ornamental]

What I mean with pressure testing is what everyone does with cannabis seeds: place it on the table and push with your finger on it. If it cracks *yammi-yammi*, if not, it's sold or planted . With my Finola seeds it's 9 out of 10 failing when applying the same pressure as with 'normal' cannabis seeds.

Didn't thought that hemp pays off better than corn. COOL!
Gotta go, BBQ's ready (in the rain, darn)...

[oldchuck]

One weird tidbit from Canada: It is legal to grow and sell Cannabis seeds for people to eat but it is illegal to feed animals with it. Any logic to that escapes me. I wonder what the seed oil people do with their cake.

[Only Ornamental]

It's the same in Switzerland and Lichtenstein ;( . No idea who came up with such a stupid law. Hemp was used for hundreds of years as fodder but now... people could get stoned by drinking milk or eating spareribs (mine were delicious BTW ).
I think there's also some sort of bizarre regulation in the EU but don't know more about.

[mexcurandero420]

Originally Posted by oldchuck

I wonder what the seed oil people do with their cake.

Fertilize probably their land with it, although it is better to feed the cattle than those GMO soy shit from Argentina.

Keep on growing

[G.O. Joe]

There are no cannabinoids inside the seeds; in the long run soy is a better feed, being a legume. It's easy to say that politicians are stupid but it's easier to say some corn lobbyist is most likely to be ultimately responsible for banning hemp seed feed. My tiny ditchweed seeds didn't want to germinate either - Ultrasorb floor dry solved this though perlite probably would have worked as well.

[Thule]

Originally Posted by G.O. Joe

There are no cannabinoids inside the seeds; in the long run soy is a better feed, being a legume. It's easy to say that politicians are stupid but it's easier to say some corn lobbyist is most likely to be ultimately responsible for banning hemp seed feed. My tiny ditchweed seeds didn't want to germinate either - Ultrasorb floor dry solved this though perlite probably would have worked as well.

It's likely those seeds are dormant. You can try waking them up by refrigerating them in moist sand. Some might take less than a week to pop, fresh seeds might take months.

[Sam_Skunkman]

Originally Posted by Thule

This is the first time I hear about Charlotte's web. Only ornamental pretty much sums it up. Only that the cbd content of finola is closer to 2% than 5, making the offspring even lower in cannabinoids, not to mention the insane dominance of finola genes. The first cross I ever made was a dutch hybrid x finola, I went all the way with the cross producing hybrids of only 1/8th of finola. The hempy structure and smell were still coming through in most the offspring producing bean pole structured plants.

F2 phenotypes are all over the place, some of them expressing very nice combinations of both thc and cbd. I find 2/1 thc/cbd the most pleasant, this I have concluded by mixing pure thc buds with cbd ones prior to smoking.

In general heterosis guarantees that the F1 generatíon will have a vigour going through the ceiling, but the finola genepool seems to produce healthier offspring with wld indica strains, possibly due to being genetically a closer match. Bear in mind you are creating a true hybrid by crossing the two subspecies of cannabis. Central Asia is mixed as it is, but a tropical genepool most likely never crossed paths with the northern Asian genepool. Such a mix seems to be a bit problematic and often produces freaky growth during the seedling state with leaves not developing correctly.

So, creating a stable high cbd line from finola genetics.. theoretically it's possible but to achieve any kind of standards in potency or bag appeal it would take years and years to achieve anything like Charlotte's web looks like to be.

As a learning experience crosses like these have huge value and can teach a thing or two about inheritance, but if high cbd is the goal there are better ways than finola.

I AGREE!!!
-SamS