Cannabis By Nikon

[snuggles]

Hey man I appreciate this, it's cool getting the inside story LOL. How you find the time or space is beyond me, you must be a busy man. I will definitely be buying the book to go along with the rest of my selection. You've written some stuff here and there before haven't you?

 

[subcool]

Hey man I appreciate this, it's cool getting the inside story LOL. How you find the time or space is beyond me, you must be a busy man. I will definitely be buying the book to go along with the rest of my selection. You've written some stuff here and there before haven't you?

I have been writing for Hightimes and Heads and Skunk and Treating yourself magazine now for almost 3 years this will be my first book though and it looks really cool its awesome so many of you are interested in it as well.

making my day guys

 

[subcool]

I hope I dont bore anyone with these images I have been growing this plant a very long time.

A Genetic Lift Off​

Apollo-13​

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Apollo-13 is one of those strains a grower could spend his life learning and one I have been working with for a long time now. The cutting we have is old and hard to work with. She is a bit picky on nutrients and has an almost vine like growth creating a very wide sagging bush that needs a lot of support to keep her from having bud flop. She has a very distinct peppery, yet also a funky rotting fruit smell. She has many different expressions according to environment. She can go from being very fox tailed with dread like airy buds in a warm room to hard tight colas in perfect conditions. She prefers a daytime temperature of around 75 degrees but does not like chilly nighttime temperatures like some strains. As she approaches harvest her fan leaves will sag and curl under making trimming a time consuming process but every bit of her smaller leaves are covered in resin that yields a red bubble hash that has to be tried to believe. Her downside is trimming. I spend a good 4 hours on just the upper portion when harvesting. The buds are covered in swirling curled sticky leaves that take loads of concentration and small scissors to clean up. I focus hard to remove all the sugar leaf as my main goal here is Bubble! I have noticed that actual sugar leaf makes the best hash. When I use pure bud I never get the same yields as with trim leaf. I think its almost a waste. So my buds get cleaned well to make more Apollo-Bubble.
The original information on this Brothers Grimm strain states that only 500 seeds were ever made so to have an original cutting is a big deal. Brothers Grimm are responsible for the famous Cindy99 and a few other killer hybrids and they were big on back crossing to there mother plants to improve stability by “Cubing” a clone only strain. Apollo-13 is Genius x p-75 the 75 indicates that 75% of the desired traits will be determined by the male that has been back crossed twice already.

 

[subcool]

This is how it works it simple terms. You have a clone only female cannabis plant youd like to have seeds of. These seeds will produce plants that display 50% of the females traits and 50% of the males. You pollinate her with a male plant keeping a copy or clone of the original mother alive. This is an outcross and these seeds are grown out and the best male is selected based on desired traits. This male is then used to again pollinate the original mother plant. The seeds of this breeding will produce seeds that display 75% attributes of the mother plant. This process is continued twice more until the strain is cubed and in theory 99% of what the mother was. Now the science is much more complicated than this but this is a good lamens explanation of cubing. In fact I find these hybrids add new life to old strains and in some cases the sibling crosses can be as good or better than the mother strain in terms of ease of growth. The Apollo-13 mother plant still is the tops as far as resin is concerned it has a flavor and consistency like no other. Its resin shards up on scissors like clay or plumbers putty and has a deep red color. A small hit of the Apollo-13 red bubble out of a bong on a clean screen is like a heart punch and leaves you making the worst grimace ever seen.
That doesn’t mean I don’t treasure my stash jar of Apollo each harvest I truly do she has a buzz all her own even though she can give you a work out figuring out what exactly she wants each run. I have been growing her in super soil now for 3 years straight in the same conditions and have her just about figured out now as to what she wants and when. She likes a lot of high Nitrogen nutrients all the way up to day 30 of budding or she will start to fade to early making harvest an even bigger nightmare with yellow leaves curled over each bud. Apollo-13 has a harvest window from day 54 all the way to day 65 for a completely different high and flavor. I always top her to make sure she has at least 3 heads and I keep her in the vegetive state ( 18 Light 6 Dark) for a full 2 months to make sure she has a solid root base and enough branch support to yield 3-4 ounces per plant in soil. I use bamboo stakes and plastic coated garden wire to keep her held up once the buds start to form.

 

[subcool]

I first saw a cutting in the mid 90’s and most of my internet friends grew her for head stash but she was considered a smaller strain because back then we really didn’t understand temperature control and most of the people growing her were doing so in a bud room with temps above 80 degrees and in many cases close to 100 which almost no strain does well in except pure sativas. Since then we have learned to keep our rooms cooler and we have seen some of the older clone only strains shine in these conditions reaching some decent yields while producing simply primo buds.​

We have used this clone to produce some amazing hybrids like Sputnik that’s featured on the cover of Big Book of Buds 3 and Vortex our current favorite medical strain it is in high demand for the happy up buzz it provides while still having a serious punch in potency a favorite of bubble hash makers to. I recently created a new hybrid we call “ The Void” using Apollo-13 and our new Querkle male that has a grape smell and purple coloring and this strain is currently a week into budding and already has a grape scent. One day I will find the male I want to work back to the Apollo mother plant until then we will have a lot of fun testing her offspring.​

Breeder Quotes​

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"Apollo 11 & 13 are from the same mother plant (Genius). The father of Apollo 13 was P.75 whereas Apollo 11's dad is Cinderella 99. Apollo 13's mother was bred from a mysterious hybrid of Jack Herer crossed with an unidentified male which seems to have given it an unusually SHORT flowering period. Its scent is a pungent “Lemon Pledge” citrus with an undertone of acrid skunk. You really taste lemons when you smoke a joint. The high is STRONG, and starts hitting you while you're smoking it, rather than being a “creeper” high. It's easy to grow, matures rapidly, and manicures easily." MrSoul ​

"The potency of A13 and Cinderella are "on par" in strength, but the character of each high is unique. A13 is a more "happy, social high" although seriously potent. Cinderella has a bit more "paranoia-inducing" high. Neither one has the "couch-lock" effect -they give the smoker an "up", energetic feeling... good for doing something physical, as opposed to lying around comatose." MrSoul ​

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From Brothers Grimm Original Discription

"Apollo 13: This skunky girl will make your eyes water with her pungent perfume. The delicate balance of Indica/Sativa makes Apollo 13 perfect for growers limited to a single strain. The long, fat colas and sparkling, sticky side branches really weigh in at harvest time. This is the type of smoke you can't hold down; it expands and “blasts off” from the lungs. The high is clear and cerebral, without a hint of paranoia. Her citrus flavor and happy high make Apollo 13 very popular at parties! Two hits and you can leave your own footprints on the moon. Flowering: 45-55 days Height: 120 - 150 cm.Yield: 400 gm/m2." ​

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This stuff is Dank boys!

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[The Effen Gee]

Man...you should see how huge my cindy 99 greenhouse lady is performing.

transplant size: 2' 8" x 2'

after one week: 4' 3" x 3'

...and can you say stable?

Amazing strain.

Thanks ChemFather.

 

[subcool]

[FONT=&quot]Creating Better Cannabis
Many people collect things as a hobby, we are no different except we collect “Elite strains of Cannabis” usually in clone-only format. In the last 25 years I have collected and grown-out hundreds of strains. I have traveled to Holland and attended the Cannabis Cup, 7 times. I’ve also lived in Amsterdam. One thing I believe is that the best Cannabis in the world is still in North America, in some unknown garden and belongs to someone without internet access. We have been lucky enough to collect some amazing examples. Some of my all time favorites are Genius and Apollo-13 by Brothers Grimm, also Killer Queen and Space Queen by Vic High. Our most potent strain is Jack’s Cleaner, a Pluton X LambsBread X Purple Haze freak, which can literally make a non-grower puke if they’re not used to her brutal raw potency. We call it the “they’re coming to take me away” stone. Now, MzJill and I continue this tradition working as a team. She has some of her own favorites as well. The Black Russian strain that gives all of our Sputnik crosses their insane purple coloring came from MzJill via Nebu. Over the past 5 years we have worked with these crosses to create new and interesting varieties. MzJill comes up with her own crosses using her favorites and even helps me pollinate when the males are ready. We grow in 100% organic soil mix I prepare myself using potting soil, bat guano, worm castings, and other natural soil builders. We feel the biosynthesis that takes place in soil adds something that cannot be measured. We use 10 gallon containers so the roots have lots of room. We would like to share with you a little of what goes into breeding a new strain.
Breeding has many complexities that I won’t begin to try and explain here today. But I think our main goal was very simple, to combine an extremely potent “Sativa hybrid” with a “heavy yielding, ultra purple strain”. The results would be a purple strain with the potency added from that parent. What gets tricky is many strains like G-13 are extremely dominant and can take over a cross. When you cross BlueBerry and G-13, usually you just make a nasty tasting, watered down version of both. This doesn’t mean that there are not good Blueberry G-13 crosses; its just breeding is not as easy as 2+2=4. There is also a big difference between “breeders” and “seed makers”. Anyone can take a male and pollinate a female. This is not breeding; it is making copies with large variations. Again if they’re sold cheap, a winner can still be found if enough seeds are grown out. The difference is the selection process of the parent strains.
The Momma’s and The Poppa’s
Selection of the mother plant (or P1) was easy, Apollo-13 is in the top 3 of my favorite strains and I think it may be the most unique strain we have. Blending potency and a bizarre putrid-rotting-fruit smell, that make it a one of a kind. Selection of a male Black Russian was not as easy. The first mistake people make in selecting a male is by choosing the most vigorous. Remember those complexities I mentioned earlier? Well, the recessive drug traits we seek are stashed away in non-vigorous males. Think about the plant in the wild, the natural progression of Cannabis is back to Hemp. The drugs strains we have today are a direct result of human intervention. Robert Clark says it better “In the wild, the early males always win the breeding contest. Without proper selection, these early males cause "acclimatization" of the variety, and a decrease in drug quality. This is the "dominant" state of Cannabis. If it were otherwise, why would we need breeders? All you would have to do is let the plants do their own thing and they would become more potent over time, but they don't. The only way drug varieties ever get better is through human intervention in the natural order.”
So, in order to find these recessive traits we choose males based loosely on the following. At time of germination are there any capitate trichomes on the cotyledon leaves? The number and frequency of non-glandular trichomes; this can be a great indicator of future glandular production. The earliest males to show sex get tossed, no ifs ands or buts. Dominant males are useless for drug (misuse of this rule has caused more hermaphrodite strains than the world deserves) Cannabis. If these basics are followed during each male selection process, then this gives us a much better chance of finding the genes we want. This is not meant to be a guide for anyone, just a basic explanation of what a “Cannabis Breeder” looks for when selecting strains to work with and/or improve upon.
Sometimes taste is the desired goal or maybe potency. I have taken cherry flavored Ortega and crossed it with Killer Queen to create a cherry phenotype called Danny Boy. Danny Boy is done in 48 days and the taste is like cherry candy. The famed Jack’s Cleaner was crossed with a BlueBerry to create Batgirl and then JCB males from that cross have created entire seed companies. Our JCB male has blue pollen sacs and drips with resin.
[/FONT] Also in the works is an Orange Velvet X Space Queen that will be our first Pineapple-Orange offering. This is MzJill’s creation so we have named it JillyBean. Orange Velvet is a PNW strain obtained from “some Hippies” as the story goes. Our goal is to create bad *** strains that we want to grow out and smoke ourselves. Once breeding pairs are selected then they are sent to BadBoy to replicate successful crosses or create insane new things BadBoy’s Astro Boy (Apollo-13 X Ortega C99).


Sputnik 1.0
Once we had the Black Russian X Apollo-13 cross complete we gave it a name. Sputnik seemed like a logical selection and I think you can see we were beyond successful. We grew-out several seeds and we found that basically, we get two different phenotypes. The first is an eye-candy lady that you see so much of, starting with pink calyx and just oozing resin; we knew instantly we had achieved our desired results. Smelling like Blackberry jam and swelling to a wonderful large cola-covered-THC-factory. I will never tire of photographing this girl. At 4 weeks the pink stared changing to a magenta color and even the trichomes took on a pink to purple coloring. This particular phenotype, we gave the name Pinky. The other phenotype (Whitey) was a surprise to me and also a valuable learning experience! Whitey exhibited no purple coloring in fact the plant was ultra-white and during flowering, she almost smelled like a “blue cream soda”. As the plant matured it took on a weird pungent smell and before it cured out a bit, MzJill and I both thought it smelled pretty foul. After about two weeks of curing I decided to give it another chance and it knocked my socks off. A grower friend, who sampled it, said it almost gave her visuals. So we knew the cross had potential. Now how to improve on her again?
Back Crossing
The concept of back crossing, again is simple in theory, you only pollinate to your P1 mother plant using sibling male offspring. Selecting a male from the Sputnik 1.0 cross we then pollinated the Apollo-13 sugar mom, using a male selected by the criteria explained above. The first cross can be explained as a 50/50 and the second a 25/75 with 75% of her make up coming from the Apollo-13 mother. That 75% cross, or Sputnik 2.0, is now complete and ready for the final stage. The seeds arrived at Dr Chronic’s on 4/20, and are now available to the public. The great thing about using this breeding method is you don’t have to stop at 3 crosses; you can always do it again and see what happens. We have a different plan though. Once Sputnik 3.0 is complete, we will then grow out 100 seeds and select 10 males and 10 females. The best will be used to create “Cubed” Apollo-13; these seeds will be stable and extremely valuable representing thousands of hours of work. These seeds can be used to create true breeding IBL’s, or used to find more P1’s for future breeders to incorporate into there genetic pool. TGA and Subcool will continue to strive for the best in new crosses and the search for recessive genetics.


This was my first article and it appeared in Hightimes with Willie on the Cover blew us away.

here are some male breeding shots

 

[subcool]

[FONT=&quot]P1-The name of the parent to which a hybrid is crossed in a backcross.
F2- generation : The progeny resulting from self hybridization or inbreeding of F1 individuals is called Second Filial or F2 generation.
F1- generation : The progeny produced from a cross between two parents (P1) is called First Filial or F1 generation.
inbred line- (IBL) - A line produced by at least five generations of sequential inbreeding, self fertilization or backcrossing accompanied by selection within and between lines so that the individuals are considered to be homozygous, or nearly so.
Homozygous - An individual possessing (receiving from parents) identical alleles for a trait is said to be homozygous or pure for that trait, e.g. plant with RR alleles is homozygous for the seed shape. A homozygous always breeds true for that trait.
Phenotype - The external (morphological) appearance of an individual for any trait or traits is called the phenotype, e.g. for seeds, round shape or wrinkled shape is the phenotype
Capitate-Botany: forming a head like mass or dense cluster, as the flowers of plants in the composite family. Enlarged and globular at the tip.
Dominant - said of an allele which by itself alone will produce a particular phenotype regardless of which other allele may be present on the other matching chromosome of the diploid pair; thus it takes only one copy of the chromosome to cause a dominant trait to be expressed in the phenotype.
Genome - the total genetic information possessed by an individual, a breed or a species.
Genotype - the invisible genetic makeup of an individual organism, which includes alleles which may be recessive and therefore have no visible physical expression.
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Breeding Better Cannabis - part 2​

I have been growing for some twenty-five years now, and I have started hundreds of different strains in my life. Recently I decided to start some Space Queen that I had stashed for many years. Vic High originally created this cross using his Romulan and Cinderella-99. I was never a huge fan of Romulan, although I liked the exotic flavor of Romberry.

This is what Vic had to say about the Space Queen cross.
“Space Queen was the only reason I invested in C99 in the first place. Ever since I heard the description of Soul's princess I knew her and Romulan would be the perfect match. Then prototype crosses between P75 and Romberry started pumping out the winners that have found keeper status in many select gardens. Each of these keepers, exhibit a blend of the C-99 and the Romulan characteristics. Space Queen is a Romulan/C-99 hybrid. Flavor and potency are sure things; both parents are known for their high potency and great highs. Lemon, pine, and pineapple all swirl in a pungent bouquet to tantalize your taste buds!! Vigor will be outstanding and you'll be able to cut back on the light intensity somewhat Flowering time will be comparable to Romberry, averaging eight weeks but depending on grower and grow environment. Yield will be above average, but she won't be a top production plant. I hope she puts a smile on a few faces.”

We started a ten pack of seeds just too finally; give this strain a run organically. We selected the best four males and best four females. I’m sure I will catch some heat from the larger scale breeders for starting with such low numbers, but it is the only pack I had to work with. Each plant was labeled and photographed each week to record progress. Resin was forming extremely early on the stalks and the undersides of the leaf surfaces. By week three of the flowering process (twelve hours of light-twelve hours of dark) each female had taken on a wonderful Pineapple-Lemon-Mango smell.

We selected the male which was the slowest to show sex, this theory is based upon “breeding selection processes” spelled out in my last article. We are looking for the ‘recessive drug traits’ in the male rather than ‘hemp dominant traits’. The male we choose was the very last to show sex and he best met all of our other selection criteria. (The other males were passed along to other TGA members for testing.) Large tight stamen clusters on a selected male is also a good indication of quality, as you can see; our dude has nice tight clusters. You can also see ‘resin blobs’ on his empty stamens. I have never before been able to see the ‘resinous glue’ on an empty stamen, mainly because I have just recently upgraded my camera and I am now able to photograph down to one centimeter. This male was tested by ‘out-crossing’ with a known ‘true breeding IBL’ Orange Skunk, known as Orange Velvet. The off-spring was grown-out to determine if the proper characteristics would be passed on. The out-cross of Orange Velvet and Space Queen was created by MzJill, the strain is known as Jilly Bean. This hot new strain is winning over gardens everywhere; with a dank orange-mango smell and more resin than the original Orange Velvet mom. My favorite phenotype smells like a candy store! We now have a male that we know will pass along the proper taste, potency and in the case of Orange Velvet, added yield as well.

The female Space Queens were labeled as follows; they also took on nick names or trait descriptions to help us keep better documentation of each.
A.[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]Smallest over-all with a funky semi-rotting smell.
B.[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]The most resinous nicknamed Frosty-Queen.
C.[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]Best internodal spacing, potency and largest buds.
D.[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]Jolly Rancher
The females grew rapidly during vegetation period.
*MzJill picked the phenotype labeled C, as the best based on internodal spacing and over all look. As they started flowering, phenotype C still stood out as the best looking, based on size and overall growth.
*The smallest phenotype appeared to have the most resin, B renamed Frosty Queen is over the top with raised trichomes, forming all the way to leaf edge and tip. This is probably the most photogenic plant. You can see the raised trichomes and amazing coverage of resin.

*There is a red phenotype, labeled as D but renamed as Jolly Rancher. It is the strangest and the most unlike the other three. It has a hint of cherry and extremely red pistils that really stand out as the colas dry. My favorite of the four is A. It is less fruity than B and C and has the smell of Genius and Apollo-13. I say it smells like ‘baby poo’ but that’s not right really. It smells of slightly rotten fruit, a slight pungency mixed with fruit and citrus. It was not a heavy yielder. The plant only yielded forty-eight grams on a five-foot bush with four heads, so she was culled. Later I recovered her from a friend and this clone became Tiny Bomb:holysheep:



This is C or our Cherry mother plant

 

[subcool]

MzJill was completely right about phenotype C. She just became a tremendous plant with large dripping colas that started plumping after day fifty of flowering. She smells a lot like C-99, she has a sweet smell that reminds me of Granny Smith Apples cooked in vanilla. She yielded more than any other plant with four mass heads that just look like showcase nugs. As Phenotype C started curing the nugs took on a candy-like smell with a hint of apples, lime-green in color with bright orange and red hues accented by brilliant resin production. In sunlight it looks like jewelry sparkling like diamonds.

At three weeks of curing the unique cherry smell of D or Jolly Rancher, seems to have faded and although the buzz is extreme, it doesn’t measure up to the other three and will be culled from the heard. Phenotype B known as Frosty Queen may be too small to keep for long term but for now she makes a great head stash with amazing cream colored kief. I still like the flavor of Phenotype A but she grows like a vine and is a bit hard to manage, so time will tell. Phenotype C will be in our garden for a long time and is used as our P1 mom for our Space Queen F2, aka, Space Jill. MzJill still keeps a jar of Space Queen, phenotype C, as head-stash. So now we have a proven male based on out-crossing with a known IBL (Orange Velvet) and we have a female of the Space Queen strain that would be a prize in any garden.

We grew out a good sized Space Queen C and placed her into flowering time, seven days prior to starting the male to assure a good amount of pistils to be pollinated. The male will start to show flowers at fourteen days and by twenty-one days the first stamen will open. We place the female in a room completely separate from our main growing area and place a fan in the room. Jill and I both like to use barely open male stamens to sprinkle grains onto each bud and try and capture the grains of pollen falling in the air. The plants spend a few days together under a 400 watt light with the fan gently blowing the pollen all over the female as each stamen opens. After three full days the female is then removed and rinsed repeatedly with water to de-activate the pollen and make any loose grains non-viable.

It takes a full forty-five to fifty days from this point (after pollination) for the seeds in this particular hybrid, to mature, every cross is different and some may take much longer to fully mature. We generally wait until we can actually see mature seeds protruding from the calyx. We pulled a test bud at sixty-five days flower and ran a germ test on one-hundred seeds and got a ninety-five percent germ rate after the seeds dried for two full weeks. The resulting cross was grown-out in test gardens. The cross took on the nickname Space Jill because MzJill was the one who knew which female was the best long before it had buds. The hybrid has quickly become a favorite because the first one-thousand seeds were given away as freebies. Usually free seeds are not primo, but in this case I had a few people tell me they liked the Space Jill more than the more expensive crosses.

[FONT=&quot]We liked the attributes and stability of the Space Queen male, now known as Space Dude. He has been used in out-crosses with Apollo-13, creating the Vortex; Jacks Cleaner, creating Jack The Ripper
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]We continue to work with this line to improve upon other crosses or to bring a ‘clone-only’ strain to seed form so that others may enjoy the dankness.


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[Roken]

Wassup Subcool? I've been a fan for a while now and love your work as a fellow grower!. I was wondering if you would be intrested In working on a strain I've created, I call it "T.K.O", which was a Tangerine kush male x O.G kush female!! I've found it simply amazing with flavor, and lots of trichome production on a prefferd 8wk flower. You can get a hold of me at [email protected], I know you would bring out the best in the strain and i would be stoked if you could consider a sow. Peace, Love, and Empathy. Roken

 

[Puffin Afatty]

Howdy SubCool !!!

Welcome to MP!!! :welcome:

A very good place to impart some of your knowledge indeed. I love your photos, the strains sound interesting too. :rofl:

:farm: I am growing a plant that may get to be a good one yet. Supposed to be a SnowWhite, but is an almost pure sativa pheno, taking as long as 16-17 weeks to finish. I am only in the 5th regeneration now, so I am still in the learning stage with Her. my photograhic skills leave much to be desired, but I have tried to document the last grow here in the grow journals thread. yield is ok, buzz is good too.

:watchplant: I look forward to more of your phine fotografy and breeding info!!!:hubba:

Thanks again for stopping by!!!:goodposting:

 

[subcool]

Wassup Subcool? I've been a fan for a while now and love your work as a fellow grower!. I was wondering if you would be intrested In working on a strain I've created, I call it "T.K.O", which was a Tangerine kush male x O.G kush female!! I've found it simply amazing with flavor, and lots of trichome production on a prefferd 8wk flower. You can get a hold of me at [email protected], I know you would bring out the best in the strain and i would be stoked if you could consider a sow. Peace, Love, and Empathy. Roken

Thats so awesome of you to offer and I am sure its worthy of the time and effort but unfortunantly we only except clones or gear from people we know really really well.

Its still an honor for someone to offer though.

Sub

 

[Roken]

Well maybe next time im in holland, we can meet up at the dampkring and swap some idea's! Peace and Love !!!!!!

 

[subcool]

I want to tell you the story of the strain Dannyboy and how it got it’s unusual strain name. Before I tell you about the strain let me tell you about the man. Growers by the nature of the game are a secluded lot. The Internet is a great way to still have some form of contact with other humans while not exposing your-self to the security risk of having people know where you live or even what you do. Running a grow is somewhat of a “ball and chain as you have chores to be done at least every 3 days and leaving a large indoor grow can always be a security risk so a grower can become secluded without this outlet.

I met a guy in 1993 that worked in the nighttime and seemed to always be online in the early mornings a lot as he ran a catering company that supplied coffee and donuts to job sites. Yes Blunt ran roach Coaches and they made great chili dogs! Over the years we became great friends meeting for the first time at the Jungle Juice Café in Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. I found out his name was Danny and from that day on we became brothers. I talked he listened and we saw the sites together, always returning to the net and telling all our friends about the cool **** we saw.

Danny always had my back and without getting to detailed he helped me get out of jail many times on his own dime. In 2001 I was working in Amsterdam for a seed distributor and Danny came to the cup for his second time in 2001 and on the second day passed away in his sleep at 38. Seems he had some health and job related stress issues he kept to himself. He was acting strange the night before he passed, winded, and I asked if he was ok, he replied he just needed to lie down and that’s the last time I spoke to him. Over 200 stoners from the Internet attended his funeral. His parents didn’t know a man could have so many friends. It seems everyone liked the guy.


The only true way I could think of to honor this man was to name my first strain after him. He was a big fan of fruity tasty strains and loved the Killer Queen harvested at day 55. Once I found the line I wanted to work with we selected a few males of Ortega X C99 and did some out crossing. The best female was named Taco by stoner friends who made a joke about Ortega being a food company. The male was selected from only 2 boys but heritage is everything in breeding and either would have been a great father. The final product is a hybrid Danny would have loved.

 

[subcool]

Tasting like Cherry Jolly Rancher Candy and just covered in thick large trichomes this plant is equally good as a head stash or a Bubble plant. It is so frosty I am sure the ratio when making bubble is very high. The dry kief from it is fruity and smooth and just lovely sprinkled on any bud. This weed smells and taste so much like cherries I was surprised at its finished color. Was just destiny and I am sure Blunt was helping from above...

From seed the plant stays very short with wide sharp leaf edges and a dark green color. Only topped once the females were just a short fat bush and as they matured very little stretch was present. Resin showed as early as 21 days and buy 30 days they reeked like Cherry gum drops. Later as the plant reached maturity it took on a solid white frost with a sour cherry smell, the first hit blew me away it was So tasty I was shocked. Once the buds dried and cured for 30 days I would just sit and smell the buds I almost got a Brandy snifter to do so. From clone the only difference in the growth was a faster finish

At First she was just a favorite of Jill and I and then Sunycheba got a cut and then Badboy was given the duplication project and while at it grew out several females all cherry and fruity and potent. The strain finishes very fast which is nice if you run a bit short close to harvest our phenotype was at least 10 days faster than any other strain in the garden. Her down side is she needs extra vegetive time to compete and yield heavy in soil she starts off slow and doesn’t hit her stride in the vegetive room till she’s over 30” tall. This strain has been around so much it has gained quite a following and recently a good friend Irishfatboy smoked some with Wille Nelson. My favorite story from his travels with Dannyboy in his stash is a buddy that was riding with him and when they stopped to break they had some DB bubble hash his friend says “ The colors are getting to me I need to lie down. Irishfatboy sent me a great picture of his buddy passed out on a beach with a huge smile on his face.

Another grower Ganjaden grew out Danny in large tubs full of soil and his results were amazing with his first harvest from a single pack of seeds coming in at over 26 ounces from 6 females. The more people grew her out the more everyone liked her.
I once did a thread on Overgrow detailing the 2001 Cannabis Cup and I mentioned Danny and his story and basically we sold out of the strain over night. We also have a Dannyboy BX or backcross that is a bit larger and more Killer Queen Dominant and that sold out as well. There are a few packs around but its not an easy strain to acquire in seed form anymore. The good news is a great cutting is pretty easy to find as more DB has been grown out than any TGA gear!



Even though not many at Hightimes knew of him or about his death, Danny was truly an American Stoner working his *** off running a business and relaxing with a nice bowl after work. Unfortunately due to the drug war it was usually brick weed, he never complained but he sure smiled when I sent him a care pack. He was the coolest dude I ever met and loosing him was like loosing my brother. He is truly the founding member of TGA and I miss him everyday.
I’d like to thank Danny Danko for allowing me to tell his story.
Respect and Honor

 

[Roken]

Nice shot infront of the dampkring!, my favorite place to sample hash!!. I remember reading about this story in high times and i'm sorry for the loss of a true friend, it seems like there isnt too many like that left. I bet he'd be honerd to know that you have carried his name on through one of his greatest passions. You are a true friend and im shure he's smiling down on you puffin a fat one!! God bless!!!

 

[subcool]

I had the idea to start 20 Vortex seeds and find the best 3 males to do a Apolo-13 cubing project. We were only blessed with one lone male out of 21 seeds started and that kind of defeats the concept of increasing our male selection pool. The good news is I ended up with 17 females. Every one a keeper in there own right. I wasn’t expecting so many females and the three I killed early in seed stage would have been no different than these but enough is enough and 17 is enough. I have passed out the extra clones to friends all over and there input will help determine which is the best clone when they finish. I Took pictures of about half of the plants to give you an idea of how nice and even they all are with just slight differences in smell and shape.

The plants were budded in square 2 gallon pots and placed in 12/12 as soon as they showed sexual maturity about 24”. I used super soil in the lower ½ and Roots soil in the upper portion. The plant were budded mainly under a 400 watt HPS in a room that was averaging 60 degrees so I’m sure they are a lot happier now under a 1000 watt HPS with temps in the 70’s. I fed the plants about a week ago as these are really small pots compared to what I normally bud in and it looks like I pushed them just right as just the leaf tips are fried a tad.

I’m very impressed with the quality and stability of this many plants from seed and over 75% look just like clones. This is a very strong line and I am extremely pleased as I have been telling people for over a year how good it is based on the 5 seed run we did last year.

As the plants in bud matured and the clones rooted we started passing the females to more local med growers to run in there gardens. While I knew one would stand out every plant was a keeper in my opinion. I kept three that I liked based on smell and structure and ran all three again through the bud room to determine which was the absolute best to me.

 

[subcool]

The three phenotypes we kept were named after Chat members on my website. Pistils, Speakers, and SuperRV311 were the tag names they received and it was a lot of fun to have each member pulling for his favorite plant.

The clones were placed in full sized 7 gallon pots and run in my normal fasion on the second run.

The Pistils variation was very Apollo dominant and tasted of Spicey Pepper and fruit. The Speakers variety was sweet and fruity but the high was mellow and not as complex as I prefer. SuperRV311 was just right with a combination taste/smell of Grapefruit and Pineapple that got better and better as the sample cured in a very large glass jar.

We culled the other two females and cloned Super to run in our main medical garden. As with many clones by the third run the plant was performing better than from seed and the buds were extremely hard and dense with a liberal coating of resin.

Everyone that tries Vortex from seed finds something they love. The females are all very similar but slight variations are present and make it easy for each grower to find one that has the taste they like the most.

Super was alone this time and on her third trip through the garden she really hit her stride and the Cola shots from her are simply stunning.
Rock hard resin encrusted Grapefruit buds with just a few ambering up at day 54. I will place her in the dark in two days and let her mature to my taste.

She has so much of what I love in a strain, the sour flavor and offsetting contrast of sweet fruit. Heavy resin and a great Bubblehash strain she will be in my garden for some time to come. Enter the Vortex and see what all the fuss is about.

 

[subcool]

Lets zoom into the Vortex

 

[Flyinghigh]

Wow Wow !!
I got lost in all that reading and thos r some Nice looking plants u got there and I just Love the Purples Colors..