Ahhh, now I see what you are doing. You are a pheno hunter, and then you want to clone the "ideal strains" for your purposes, in your specific microclimate.
Yeah, ideal phenos of specific strains. I'm entering a new phase now of specifically looking for strains that have promising phenos for bud rot and leaf mold resistance, but I haven't ordered the seeds yet. I've got 7 strains I'm interested in. In the past, when I order seeds of a particular strain, I'll grow them out and select and keep the most vigorous ones. That's what I did with my original cbd strain, and found 2 vigorous phenos, and a 3rd that was particularly indica-dominant, and with high resin production and terpene odor (like grape).
My big realization recently is that all these strains we look at, available as feminized or regular seed, are the result of breeding of indica/sativa hybrids, and the vast majority of them will produce at least 2 phenotypes when you grow them out. Some have even 5 phenotypes. These are
known phenotypes, as in... when you plant the seeds, you're going to get plants that are one of the known phenotypes. The revelation is that most of the seed sellers, and the websites that give you info about the strains, have oversimplified the situation and they won't even mention the phenotypes. Some breeders use techniques to reduced phenotypic variation, but I don't think they can claim to eliminate it. Many popular strains are known to have multiple phenos, and this is accepted and no mystery – for example, Jack Herer and Chemdawg, to name just two. These are stable strains, but they aren't what are called true-breeding IBLs, which are seed lines that produce a very high percent of a single dominant phenotype. Some examples of true-breeding IBLs would be White Widow and Skunk #1, but even those are not guaranteed to be true-breeding – it depends on the breeder and seller.
Landrace strains are true-breeding, having been stabilized naturally over hundreds of years.
(
EDIT: A bit more info on IBLs that I just posted to another thread... "I'm no expert, but F5 generation is considered the minimum to create an IBL (inbred line), or maybe F6 would be the minimum. But this doesn't mean that the seed won't throw more than one pheno. It could mean, for example, that an F5 inbred Chemdawg #4 will usually throw offspring consistent with Chemdawg #4 traits. A great example of the result of careful IBL breeding is Cinderella 99. As far as I can tell, Cinderella 99 is very stable, but in fact has
2 phenotypes.")
There's another nuance to what I'm saying in the preceding paragraph, regarding phenotypic variation. Some strains will have a particular phenotype emerge as the most desirable one, and then any reference to that strain is essentially referencing the one favorite phenotype that breeders and sellers focus on. An example of this is Chemdawg, which has 4 or 5 phenotypes. One of those phenotypes is known as Chemdawg '91, and that has become the most popular one, and people just called it
Chemdawg. I think it's probably safe to say that breeders of Chemdawg have stabilized Chemdawg '91 toward a true-breeding seed line. So, if you happen to be looking for a particular phenotype, then you should order seeds of the original strain, not a stabilized seed line of a particular phenotype.
I am thinking about my own situation, and I wonder if fans help with bud rot and leaf mold outdoors.
I have given up on that whole line of reasoning, because mold/fungus is so predominant here in my warm, wet environment. But yes, experienced growers recommend fans, for indoor or greenhouse.
I think the sunlight is better in the greenhouse section, which has walls.
I took the doors and two windows off, because there was a ton of condensation (which would surely lead to mold).
I have someone looking for a workman to remove the walls and the doors, and then reinforce a simple overhead fly... but if I cannot find one, I thought I could maybe string a power cord, and push air around inside the greenhouse.
(With no door and no windows, would that work?)
My veg greenhouse has screen walls, an open area above the walls, and "low" PVC hoops... designed for air flow and to release heat.
After a wind storm, I added these supports.
If that will not work I can leave the males out in the open are, and then females back inside, but he says that even though they are autos, they need at least six hours of dark to flower.
Are you keeping the males to pollinate the females? If so, it's a bad idea to release pollen into the area because it can travel for miles on the wind and will pollinate the buds of anybody growing in your area. Best to tent the males, collect their pollen, and put it in the fridge or freezer... others on the forum here can give you the best tips for doing that.
RE: autos needing specific night length. I'm guessing that if the autoflowering trait wasn't very strong, that might be true; however, probably most autoflowers don't suffer from that. I had a CBG here recently that was starting to flower even with the night-interruption lighting that I use. It was a photoperiod pheno, however with a recessive (weak) autoflowering trait. So, the autoflowering trait can be either strong or weak, or perhaps like a spectrum. With your autos you have growing, some of the phenos may be stronger/weaker than others in this regard. That's my guess.
So, I could set up a secondary grow room for the females with 18/6, but that would take them out of the natural outside climate, which would seem counterproductive to the goal of adapting them to the cooler weather.
OK, so it looks like you are interested in breeding them. In that case, you are also hunting for phenos... the ones with the most vigor and the strongest autoflowering expression. Beyond that, you could also select for terpene profiles and resin production, which in turn affect bud rot and leaf mold resistance. Also, cannabinoid profile... percent of CBD.
There's a breeder called Twenty20 in Mendocino, Calif., that has an interested page on their website talking about their autoflowers and breeding techniques... you might want to check it out. I'd give the link, but I think that's probably against the forum rules.
