bigbadbiddy
Active member
#wewlad
I mean I came to respect you as a knowledgeable guy and enjoyed reading your posts on this board here or there.
But you are way off base with your irrational MRN/Shanti/Nevil hate.
Generally speaking I don't mind anyone criticizing anybody and especially in the seed biz I am aware that there are pretty much 90% black sheep.
But some of the stuff you say is so off base ...
Let's start off with the Stradivarius comment:
Nevil never said that the way you claim here. Or at least not in the posts I read.
I remember mentioning him a Stradivarius once, he was talking about how he left Sensi and that they had left over copies from most of his work. But that doesn't mean they know how to use it.
He used the following comparison to illustrate his point: "You could give me a Stradivarius but that doesn't mean I could play it".
So I call bullshit on your statement or better yet a strong bias based in hate for whatever reason and thus a morphed memory.
Next let's go to the statement that irks me the most:
"Now, the few people who actually grow MNS strains keep on reporting hermies and wild ranging phenos,..."
Come on dude ....
I did about a year of research into breeders and strains before I decided what I spend my money on.
MRN reputation is impeccable. They have fallen out of flavor of sorts as the advent of Chemdawg has taken over and OG Kush seems to be everything. But the "few" people who grow it, you will only find positive reports.
There are very few slightly negative ones but they are far and few in between and none of them are about "all hermy gear lel" and that kinda shit.
The only report on hermy issues with MRN gear I found and read carefully was Morphote's Ortega grow. And to that let me say two things:
a) Morphote at the end of his journey claimed that the Ortega line changed his view of hermy plants because even though he was ready to toss everything, he stuck with it, harvested and said that they were among the best indica bud he had experienced to that date. Hermy or not, he would grow them again.
b) during Morphotes journey, with input from Shanti and others, it was discovered that the Ortega has a tendency to herm if it isn't lollypopped/de-leafed at the lower nodes as the larger fan leaves higher up will shade the lower fan leaves too much and thus induce hermying. Easily corrected and I have not seen hermy reports on Ortega since that info came out. Also possible Shanti worked on the Ortega line in the meantime, not sure.
The wild ranging pheno thing... Come on, we really still discussing this??? I can see how amateurs are raging about this but experienced growers???
It is a conscious decision by MRN to offer larger seedpacks (15+) than others and only offer regular seed packs because they don't want to bottleneck stuff too hard and preserve the genepool somewhat. They also don't want to run the risk of locking out genetic traits that might prove desirable in the future. They have since come around and made some IBL stuff (Mango Haze IBL) and even made some fems with CBD crew.
But at the core, this is a stylistic/philosophical choice.
They choose to offer wide varieties of phenos because that's what they believe in. If you don't agree and you think that "actual breeding work means to produce a seedpack of 10 where there is only ever 1 or 2 phenos and they are always the bomb", then by all means, go with another seedbank and try your luck with that.
Let's wrap this up cuz I got other fish to fry:
"The everything crossed to white widow story is true..."
Gtfo mate .... Up to that point I was like "Ok, dude is definitely personally pissed at them for some reason, bit irrational what he is commenting... but I guess I can see where he is coming from and you could argue this or that..."
But with that comment...
#wewlad
Personal experience:
I just finished a grow in which I flowered 1 CM, 2 MKS and 2 NLxSK from MRN. I currently have 5 BW from MRN in veg.
First off: These plants are very distinctly different from each other and very much fit what they are advertised as.
My sample size might be small at this point but don't you worry, I will grow many more MRN strains.
Saying they crossed everything to white/black widow is just ridiculous amateur hour kindergarten like bashing.
Seriously what the fuck ...
And before you brand me as a fanboy:
I went with MRN because they were among the most convincing after careful research and they offered by far the best deals.
But I didn't go with MRN only, matter of fact I am going into round 2 where I pit MRN genetics against others.
So far the MRN genetics are in some ways the measuring stick, in others they are on par with other breeders but in no aspect have I seen them be blown out of the water by other breeder's genetics.
Ace and Karma gear is currently in veg and will be compared just like the Peakseeds gear and some freebie testers.
There is no huge discrepancy so far. They all have their merit and intricacies and none of them have been duds so far.
But if anything, the Critical Mass in particular have stuck out for their vigorous growth and great bud structure, yield and taste.
I am not entirely happy with the effects so far and will continue searching but it isn't bland or bad or anything, just not exactly what I would like.
The MKS should be noted as well as they are the current benchmark in my garden for smell/aroma/flavor/terps. One pheno was disgusting smelling like camphor, smelled nothing like weed actually. Just like rotting plant material or something. The effect is a solid Indica stone but nothing outrageous or noteworthy. But the smell is insane (albeit negative).
The second MKS pheno was much more skunk/sativa leaning and produced an insane altoids wintergreen/bubblegum/sweet mint or something flavor. Smells artificial, fresh, sweet, icy. And it is overwhelming in the positive sense, just like the other MKS pheno was in the negative sense. I have not tested this bud yet as it is still drying. But smell/aroma/terp wise it sets the absolute benchmark out of 30 seeds across 2 breeders so far.
One last thing:
I find it particularly amusing that someone from Spain of all countries would criticize Nevil, Shanti and MRN as a whole to that extend.
It is not an opinion but a fact that can be simply retraced that a whooooooole bunch of strains carry a lot of MRN genetics in them. Be it their NL or their Skunk or, and Spanish "breeders" should know that best of all, their Critical Mass.
I mean the entire Spanish seed industry came on the scene and became known mainly through crossing their "elite" Critical Mass clones to EVERYTHING.
Just look at the seed offerings on various websites.
Pretty much all (but a selected few, like Ace/Cbg which are the ones I went with from spain) Spanish "breeders" have several Critical Mass crosses in their catalogue!
Critical this or that, + or Bilbo or whatever.
It is nauseating.
And they gave NO CREDIT WHATSOEVER to MRN. Ever!
Nobody ever acknowledged that the whole "Spanish breeders are hacks" thing mainly stems from them growing a few MRN Critical Mass seeds, finding a great pheno (hey wonder why...) and then crossing that to all kinds of shit to improve yield most of all.
Then flooding the market with these CM crosses which are very inviting to amateurs because of the big buds and all...
I don't specifically remember reading stuff about Nevil or Shanti bashing the Spanish pollen chuckers and fem "breeders" or claiming that all strains on the market use their genetics.
But just looking at the seed market and the Spanish "breeder's" offerings, I can definitely see why they would be pissed at the Spanish seed market and lashing out at them.
No offense to you personally but your entire post, the fact that it was liked 3 times etc. looks/sounds to me like the Spanish hacks coming out of the woodworks, smelling their chance of smearing an old and iconic breeder as they have faded a bit out of the limelight. They don't frequent the boards much anymore and quietly go about their business. Not so many people grow their stuff anymore, time to get back at them for calling us out on being pollen chuckers/hacks and simply crossing their Critical Mass to everything, calling ourselves master breeders with decades of experience and breeding work and not giving any credit whatsoever to whom we got our foundation from.
/Edit
@topic and the Critical Mass
I flowered only 1 female, had 3 males.
All were stars vigor/growth wise in the veg room only equaled by the MKS sativa leaning pheno.
The female flowered for 60 days and was well done by that time.
Yield was good but not spectacular, I had bigger buds and overall yield on the MKS sativa pheno that went 70 days however and could have gone a few more.
There has been an acrid berry kind of smell developing in late flower in the background. Early flower had a few menthol smells but they went away later on.
After dry and cure the acrid berry/red fruit flavor in the background remains. Very strong in the nose when smelling the jar, low-key and in the background when smoking.
Effects I would describe as a solid Indica stone but nothing spectacular.
They have been curing for a week or two and the effect seems to get stronger and the flavor/aroma more pronounced. Will know more in a few weeks.
My pheno was covered in white pistils in early flower and after trimming has a lot of orange hairs, hard and solid nugs, medium/high resin coverage (the C99 from Peakseeds had by far the most resin of all plants in that round but after smoking wasn't as potent as the CM for example. Still waiting on the C99 to cure though and it seems very important with that strain. I already have grapefruit aromas along with something like vanilla or cookies or the sort along with sour notes developing in the jar while right after drying the plant had no discernable odor whatsoever. Curious to see what the effect will be like, haven't touched it in a week and the only test so far was a bud I tried straight after hang-drying and it was a bit weak).
To me, AfghanxSkunk#1 fits the bill.
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