Balkhi grow and smoke report

[meizzwang]

Out of a 5 pack of seeds, all of them germinated! Ended up with 3 females, 2 males. One of the males turned hermi, but all the females so far are stable. All are grown outdoors in the pacific NW.

Here's what I ended up with:
earliest pheno-great frost coverage! Has a strong, spicy fuel aroma, the fuel part of the smell smells very similar to the real deal GG4 clone, definitely not a unique smell, but nevertheless, it's mouth watering! Here she is zoomed out a bit:

Slightly closer shot:

Clone#2: smells almost exactly the same as the earliest pheno, but this plant pre-flowered maybe 1-2 weeks later. This clone will likely yield more than the earliest pheno. not as much of a looker at this point:

clone#2 Hard to see in this picture, but cold stress is bringing out a little bit of color in the bracts:

The third pheno (clone#3) is short and squat! It's probably half the height as the other two. It began preflowering late September, so it'll finish early November at the earliest. Aroma-wise, it's completely different too, it has that bubblegum terp. that I've smelled in Lebanese, indiana bubblegum, and CBG's Durban! Oh, and one very, very strange mutation: I found a female flower on one of the leaf blades! I pollinated it, will see if it produces a seed! Here a pic of the shorter pheno, second week of October. It's flowering very slowly:

If you have pictures or experience with Balkhi, feel free to share them in this thread!

 

[AbuKeif]

No personal experience with Balkhi, but wanted to say thank you for your thorough documentation of all your grows with the RSC gear--it's been really helpful as I plot my own course! The grow looks great--do you have a picture of that mutation? Sounds like the kind of thing that needs to be seen to be believed


Looking forward to the smoke report!

 

[tcherno]

Thanks for the report, I'm hesitant between tora bora and balkhi.

I need an Afghan strain for my Black kandahar cut

 

[meizzwang]

Abukeif-took a pic of it, the bract is at the base where all the leaf blades meet the petiole. Pollination was successful, I'll get it uploaded soon!

tcherno: So far, I have experience with RSC's Balkhi, Lebanese, mazar i sharif, sheberghan, and Tashkurgan. With 5 or even 12 packs, it doesn't matter which one you choose, you're rolling the dice because these landraces are incredibly diverse. My 12 pack of lebanese were all duds: very weak individuals that smelled great, but had almost zero effects. Others reported finding winners from their packs, and I don't doubt that. On the other hand, I lucked out with Mazar I sharif, I ended up with 1 female from a 5 pack that was outstanding and had unusual mold resistance despite being thick like a baseball bat! Haven't yet tried balkhi, sheberghan, and Tashkurgan, will report on those in the near future.

My "limited" experience with RSC indicas so far is that besides Balkhi, the descriptions of all the other variety for the most part hasn't translated to what I ended up getting. As mentioned earlier, in some cases, it was better, and in others it was worse. In stark contrast, the descriptions for the sativas has been spot on for most of the varieties!

FWIW, Balkhi is the only recent offering that I've tried that had 5/5 germination, I'd give this variety a shot! Sheberghan had 2 out of 5 sprout, and Tashkurgan had 9/12 pop.

 

[tcherno]

I lost my tashkurgan picture, but I had 2 females on a 5 pack.
One was stocky and very fast at 8 weeks old and she was ready, another one I never flowered, just a few pistils after 3 months and a more bush structure.

Taste is earthy and slightly berry, with a more earthy and spicy smoke.


I think Balkhi is going to be the next one I'm going to try.

Afghan landrace lovers are happy right now.

 

[meizzwang]

here's the stange Balkhi plant with a female flower on the leaf. It's the short, squat plant that is several weeks behind the other two female plants. This will likely finish in November:

The early flowering individual, bracts are a bit small but the leaves are quite frosty. Probably will finish in a week or so, maybe sooner:

The later developing individual, notice the purple color on the bracts. Probably will be done end of October:

 

[AbuKeif]

That... is very funky-looking. I’d be curious to know if you get the same mutation when growing out seeds from that lady. I guess it means a little more resin from your leaves, which ain’t a bad thing?

 

[CannaZen]

The rare bud-leaf mutation!


Wonderful to know it was found in rsc balki seed. Cool you should preserve the trait.

 

[Sunshineinabag]

I'm going balkhi as well