Judges notes...

[montanaorganics]

Wow I am really impressed to see such an unbiased review followed by so many friendly breeders comments. For the MOST part, this thread has blown me away by the general friendliness; that occasionally seems lacking in other threads.
Thanks for the great info judges and breeders!

 

[Hoover_lungz]

Good to see your reviews mate!! I only kept a few notes but i can still remember most of the entries. I'll do a full review for next year, would be better to compare what a few of us thought.

I thought many of my samples were overly dry, and shaky. Jah, the sample of yours i had was in very small bits, and was quite dry.
It smelled excellent though, the taste came through well and it was in my overall top 3. If it wasn't such a shaky sample it would have scored much higher from me for looks.
Same with one of fizzbombs entries, the kali, what i got to judge was pretty much shake.

There was a few that had a beautiful, strong aroma, with a good taste (Sour D, Mental Home, Lavendar, Cheisel, G'fruit Fly, Chemdog, Sweet Skunk, Amnesia's, Kali, Mex haze,c99/a11 x Sour D, c99 BX1)
it just seemed so many other samples had lost a lot of smell or taste from being too dry.

I thought the same as you guys about DG's entries, looked and smelled very nice, but the taste didn't match up.
The entries i had of Jamie's were solid buds, nice tasting and sticky.

Most entries had an enjoyable smell, but only around half of them had a taste i would want to go back for.

the buds i sent for the 420 cup were buds not crums, they must of bust up the buds for the sample packs or sumthing? Im glad you liked it, thanks for honest opinion
This is my entry before i posted it.

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

nice report chaos ...

i'm suprised nothing shocked you stinky wise ,,that "real" sour diesel of jahs should've stunk the whole town out , and the cheese should've at least made the room stink a little .

maybe offer consolation prices to all entrants who never won a cup,i.e new fiskars ,,

Chaos Good honest report bruv... I flushed that sd for 4 weeks and took her 12 weeks flowering bruv, so sumthing must of went wrong in the curing process?

Anways its good to see sum of the icmag growers are growing better dank than sum of breeders these days lol.

Hi guys,

Thanks for the input, I just dug up the 0.3 of JahHoovers sample and gave it another sniff, nice, but really nothing exceptional strengthwise on the smell front, when I know for certain she was a while ago.

One of the things that seems to be coming out is how with a bit of handling and messing about breaking it up, great weed can loose a lot of appeal.

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

opinions are subjective

photos less so

...
you see while you're telling all these people that my herb has no resin, they might like to see for themselves. see you could have said smelled rubbish, tasted like shit... but fortunately for me, you decided to pick out the one attribute I can prove by photograph...

not that much resin

.. is not "has no resin"

All samples were judged as equally as possible, this was just an opinion, it looked frosty but under the microscope we decided it had "not that much resin" ... it is our unbiased opinion about what we saw.

 

[Hazyfontazy]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the input, I just dug up the 0.3 of JahHoovers sample and gave it another sniff, nice, but really nothing exceptional strengthwise on the smell front, when I know for certain she was a while ago.

it may have been headband ,,who knows

 

[gaiusmarius]

yeah i have thought about this a bit, ideally you don't send in top colas as when they get broken up you get lots of hidden trim poking out again and if it's dry it might even end up crumbeling up, you need to select 0.8 to 1g size nugs and trim well as with so much to judge the trim seems to get more importance then it otherwise might.

as for the cure, this is another thing that seems to me needs to be looked at in 2 ways. out door and or less intense smelling/ tasting strains will benefit greatly from a nice long cure. but when it come to some top dank stinky bag melting strain then a shorter cure is better. not that it really harms it to cure for 1 month, but much longer and if it's not packed and stored perfectly it will slowly lose taste, at first it just loses it's harshness by evaporating the chlorophyll, but at a certain point the terps start to deteriorate too.

 

[Dutchgrown]

Heya Chaos!

Thank you for your attempts at what I consider a damn near impossible situation to be in as a judge. Hope to see you there again next year....and with all those who choose to be a judge having much more time to properly judge so many entries.

Here's what I posted in the cup thread I have going in my forum:

31 cannabis entries (grower & breeder) judged between 2pm on the 19th and 420pm on the 20th...a very short 26 hrs later (with no sleep time). Imagine how difficult that was for a judge...soon the overlap of one to another takes place, it's not possible for it not to in the time allotted. But, the judges did the best they could and gave it their effort, which is commendable.

I had just 16 grower entries to judge in the same time frame and found the time extremely slim...I gave more attention (and higher scores) in all categories except potency, which I applied somewhat of a curve to. You'll see what I mean when I post up some of my notes after I get all the grower entry pics up I snapped.

To each his own...is what makes the world go round and round. I don't like beer, I think it tastes bitter & nasty...but, there are beer drinkers who find it tasty, not bitter, and far from nasty.

DG

 

[Hundred Gram Oz]

Great reports CC, I find it very intersting to read others opinions of my cannabis. You done a great job.

 

[jalajaslet]

interesting post here folks, I think it is great that so many opinions can not only be expressed here but also ACCEPTED here... Aside from a few unhappy comments, most have been gracious and appreciative to those that undertook this difficult proposition, in connection with the terrible travel issues, thus taking any "perceived" unflattering comments as "constructive criticism" and making mental notes of "tweaking" to be done in future grows....

Great post, loved the pictures and congratulations to all participants, when I grow up, I wanta grow like ya'll.....

 

[Londinium]

Londinium Mental Home Indica 420014 132


Looks like a mature exodus cheese, calyxs look a bit small, not fully swollen, but the bud is mature, smells a lot like mature exodus cheese, maybe a bit overdone, plant not strong enough to fill out ? Resin mature but calyxs not great, taste, ok cheesey, bit not exceptional, high, good, but not quite amazing.

@CC Calyxes not great? HOW DARE YOU!



ONLY JOKING! LOL :friends:

...Yeah fo sho' she doesn't have as big calyxes as Cheddar(or Psycho for that matter...but they're very cute all the same),But she does have a buzz that I personally like better than either C or P and makes better dry-sift than either IMHO and so I can live with that!
Did you think it was Cheese when you were judging it or did you assume it was a Cheese Hybrid or something!
I found it to be like a slightly less sweet more hashy Psychosis in the Flavour department but Psy is close to cheese in taste anyhoo!
"A bit overdone" I am very happy to accept as well,although it was picked and cured pretty much how I like it done exactly to be honest wid ya all(I dont pick many strains early and I like Skunks picked a little late usually).But I don't expect others to like things exactly the way I like them finished so definitely a fair and constructive judgement.

Ta for posting the (private)notes and thanks again for judging and then being very open with us all afterwards....I only judged the Pro's(obviously)but found judging that category between 3 of us in the allotted time was hard enough let alone double that like u lot did.....
I found quite a few of the pro samples drier than I expected which did mean they weren't judged at their best possibly?...I have smoked the buds of a few of the pro's who entered before,like Karma as an example and I have found every nug he has shown or shared with me in the past to be perfectly cured and superbly grown,yet his entries in the cup seemed lovely but a little too dry now that I know which buds they were.Some of the others were the same too!
My entry was made up of quite small nugs I thought but looking at CC's sample of it I see that its broken to reveal a stem during handling/seperating so will make sure nugs are Even smaller next time to avoid that and any shake as much as possible.
Oh yeah! I have to agree about shorter cures for Most strains too.....Longer cure has only been an improvement for me with very few strains.....
Luck'n'Lumens JBo ;]

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

yeah i have thought about this a bit, ideally you don't send in top colas as when they get broken up you get lots of hidden trim poking out again and if it's dry it might even end up crumbeling up, you need to select 0.8 to 1g size nugs and trim well as with so much to judge the trim seems to get more importance then it otherwise might.

as for the cure, this is another thing that seems to me needs to be looked at in 2 ways. out door and or less intense smelling/ tasting strains will benefit greatly from a nice long cure. but when it come to some top dank stinky bag melting strain then a shorter cure is better. not that it really harms it to cure for 1 month, but much longer and if it's not packed and stored perfectly it will slowly lose taste, at first it just loses it's harshness by evaporating the chlorophyll, but at a certain point the terps start to deteriorate too.

I found quite a few of the pro samples drier than I expected which did mean they weren't judged at their best possibly?...I have smoked the buds of a few of the pro's who entered before,like Karma as an example and I have found every nug he has shown or shared with me in the past to be perfectly cured and superbly grown,yet his entries in the cup seemed lovely but a little too dry now that I know which buds they were.Some of the others were the same too!
My entry was made up of quite small nugs I thought but looking at CC's sample of it I see that its broken to reveal a stem during handling/seperating so will make sure nugs are Even smaller next time to avoid that and any shake as much as possible.
Oh yeah! I have to agree about shorter cures for Most strains too.....Longer cure has only been an improvement for me with very few strains.....
Luck'n'Lumens JBo ;]

Thanks for the great input guys and for only slightly busting my hypercritical balls ! ;-)

From what I have seen/learnt, I am now changing my ideas a bit ... fresher is usually better for most strains, but maybe less so with the pure Sativas ? Is well cured bud more important for pure Joint smokers ?

To present your entries and maximise their scores for next time, I think separating the sample into perfect Virgin 1g buds, bagging and leaving with as little fiddling or knocking them about as possible is going to show them in the best possible light. Quite a lot of the entries seem to have suffered a little in the unbagging, separating, weighing, rebagging process. No criticism whatsoever to any of the good people doing this, OP and friends, just an observation. If entrants were sent their baggies before and could be responsible for the whole separation/presentation work it would take a lot of pressure and work off the organisers hands and allow the samples to be presented at their very best... Which is what we all want at the tend of the day.

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

Heya Chaos!

Thank you for your attempts at what I consider a damn near impossible situation to be in as a judge. Hope to see you there again next year....and with all those who choose to be a judge having much more time to properly judge so many entries.

Here's what I posted in the cup thread I have going in my forum:


DG

Hi DG,

It was a great pleasure to meet you, have a good chat and sample your entries, as you say it is very hard being a Judge and getting a fair opinion of a sample. For this reason I think it is very interesting to hear the opinions of many, it is so easy for me alone to miss things and skew the results. If we can get a few Judges taking notes and adding them all together, the quality of the feedback goes up a lot.

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

@CC Calyxes not great? HOW DARE YOU!



ONLY JOKING! LOL :friends:

...Yeah fo sho' she doesn't have as big calyxes as Cheddar(or Psycho for that matter...but they're very cute all the same),But she does have a buzz that I personally like better than either C or P and makes better dry-sift than either IMHO and so I can live with that!
Did you think it was Cheese when you were judging it or did you assume it was a Cheese Hybrid or something!
I found it to be like a slightly less sweet more hashy Psychosis in the Flavour department but Psy is close to cheese in taste anyhoo!
"A bit overdone" I am very happy to accept as well,although it was picked and cured pretty much how I like it done exactly to be honest wid ya all(I dont pick many strains early and I like Skunks picked a little late usually).But I don't expect others to like things exactly the way I like them finished so definitely a fair and constructive judgement.

Hi Londinium,

Yes, we thought it was a Cheese related strain, but have not actually had Psy yet and had no real suspects. It is interesting seeing the different aspects of her influence, especially with a second cross in the mix. Comments on the calyxs as well as resin are really just observations not criticisms, the weed was excellent, it would be very unfair of anybody to christen you the Clapham Common Calyx Crusher ... Ooops.... ;-)

With the late arrival of some entries, we had a seriously reduced time to judge, so there was no real time to properly evaluate the real ongoing effects of each sample and some must come on strong while you are testing the next one. By using very small samples in a Pipe, we got a lot more done a lot quicker, it was definitely a good move for Judging. Likewise, if we can get a few Judges adding notes together, like the points vote, we will get a far more informative view of the whole show that we can all learn a lot from.

Thanks to everybody who entered, judged and comes up with useful ideas for improving the whole experience start to finish, roll on 2011.

 

[fizzbomb]

hey jamie, please dont be falling out with any1 over a comment that was made about your entry, what you have to remember m8 is when they notes were taking, it was a blind competition, its not like they knew it was your bud and gave it a shitty review, it was a honest review and tbh, its was not that bad, im pretty sure they said something similar to my chiesel entry, did not have a lot of resin, but it would be easy for me to post up a pic of the plant when it was nearly finished to prove how much resin it had on it, but that would be very unfair as a plant when its nearly ready looks in its prime, ripe, ready to pick, im pretty sure by the time the sample got to chaos it did not look like the way it did on the plant m8 so its kinda unfair to post up a pic of when its ready and compare it to the sample's he got, maybe post up a pic of before it got sent it or before it got handed to op, maybe then that would be a fair comparison, jamie thc degrades over time m8, not sure how long your entry was drying and curing for but there is lots of factors m8 that maybe could explain why it looked like it did not have that much resin, the same with mine, it would have been better if others took notes, but maybe its for the best no1 else did, as that kinda reaction is uncalled for m8, look at the reviews DG got jamie, yours got a much better review than hers m8 but look at DG reply, she did not say this and that and pick at 1 comment which would have been so easy for her to do also, jamie im not to sure what is up as you and chaos got on well in the dam, tbh at first i thought you were just j/k m8, until i seen you second reply then i realized you were not, m8 its just a review, just say fuck it jamie get back to being yourself m8, hope everything can be cool jamie, as i said m8 its just a blind review, no offense was meant to be taken whatsoever with it. tc jamie, hope you can be cool m8.

 

[Gypsy Nirvana]

It's good to see you guys/gals getting into the judging and making some very relevant comments....

I particularly like the suggestion of getting the breeders/growers to bag up their entries before they go to the organizers for distribution in Judges packs....not only would it save us time, it would also lend to the presentation of the buds being at their best since they won't be subjected to so much abuse in the breaking, handling and packaging of them....

Of course the individual unlabelled baggies would have to be put in a larger labeled bag when handed or posted in... so that the variety would then be known to the organizers who could then stick a randomly generated number sticker on each small (1g) individual entry...

Only downside of this is that we could'nt have such a good 1st photo-shoot of the entered buds as we usually do because then they would just be in small and bagged pieces.....

Congrats to those that did well at this years 4/20 Cup.......and commiserations to those that did not.....I am sure that all who attended had a pretty good time of it....

 

[Londinium]

@Gypsy Yeah I would deffo be happy to pre-bag mine if it means it arrives to a judge in the best shape possible for judgement.... JBo ;]

 

[neil0610rvd]

For judging next year i will bring my own glass jar, as well as plenty ziplock baggies.

Although some samples were dry when i first got the pack, im sure the ones i left to smoke last we're affected by being carried around for nearly 24 hours, into different places with different temperatures.

Some coffeeshops we're roasting, and the 1 small bag the entries were in wouldn't have protected it much from heat/humidity.
That could be a little unfair to the ones tested last, especially if we had 72 hours to judge.

 

[NHMI]

Great reports bro, sad how many people didn't really put the effort in 100% if there was so many that were picked early or not cured enough, etc...you would think if competing in the cup one would only put forth their perfect product...unless you are just excessively critical about your nugs...lol...like I am with taste...I won't smoke anything that doesn't taste fruity or at least smooth...any hay taste or commercial bud taste and I'd rather not smoke...or i'll vape it, though I haven't broke out the vape in 2 yrs or so...

I wish I could have gone, I would love to judge nugs, that would be a dream...lol, thanks for the info.

 

[Dutchgrown]

Hi DG,

It was a great pleasure to meet you, have a good chat and sample your entries, as you say it is very hard being a Judge and getting a fair opinion of a sample. For this reason I think it is very interesting to hear the opinions of many, it is so easy for me alone to miss things and skew the results. If we can get a few Judges taking notes and adding them all together, the quality of the feedback goes up a lot.

Hi Chaos....for those who might be interested on my comments of the grower entries....my judging notes can be found in my thread here: https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=169504&page=12


DG

 

[The_Grim_Reefer]

Great reports bro, sad how many people didn't really put the effort in 100% if there was so many that were picked early or not cured enough, etc...you would think if competing in the cup one would only put forth their perfect product...unless you are just excessively critical about your nugs...lol

I wasnt at the cup, but just a general comment on the above .....

Different growers will prefer different chop times, and different cure times. Same as people prefer differing tastes. What may appear cut early or under/over cured to CC and sly may be perfect for some1 else, know what i mean ?

Samples are also posted in, and subject to being beaten up on the way there. After that they're taken out and broken up into smaller baggies, repacked and distributed out, where they probably spent some time in peoples pockets and being handled yet again. Its not really a representation of what the bud is like straight out of the jar.

Other than that i think they were overly critical of the nugs, but they were judging the 420 cup, so thats the kind of judgement thats needed.

Love the notes lads, cheers for posting em!