Stopped by to say hi to the Gruber..........and curiously watch your grow of E.S. As you may or may not remember, this strain began my feud with Dr. Greenthumb a few years back. I grew a full room of 24 of these, and it turned out to be my worst grow in over 20 years. The strain has a nice yield but poor over-all quality with little taste, smell or buzz. Dr. Greenthumb later admited to a moderator (I believe from RIU and it was posted for all to see) that he lost the parents and was basically starting over with it. I grew the feminized version for those who care. The seed stock I got was his newest release then(maybe 2+ years ago now) and they were terrible. I also found that the strain takes weeks longer than is posted on Dr's website.
There are maybe 100 reviews I could find on this strain and with Gruber's growing skills, this will be a fairly unbiased review I imagine. There is a lot more bad reviews than good for sure though....and most of the good reviews are either from old seed stock OR clones from mothers of seeds long ago. I have not seen much good on the newer stuff, but I haven't looked lately either. Dr. Greenthumb always uses the old standby, "grower error" when he responds to a bad review. Well maybe sometimes, but not in my case. They grew great, and were healthy til the end- but just didn't live up to expectations.
So, I'm giving you a chance to prove me wrong and I wish you a great grow! And to be fair to you, I won't post again since it's not my thread til you're done to either congratulate you or say "told you so".
Sounds good.
Lets keep these as the only two posts about this until the end. I don't want to enter into that old debate and have it dominate this journal.
I must admit that when I decided to run the ES i thought of you and the issues you had.
I can promise that i will do my best to remain unbiased and the lab report at the end should help clear things up...at least a little bit. The numbers don't always tell the whole story but that's about the best we can do as far as unbiased reports go.
As for the things you have said about the strain " lost parents/mother" etc. Can you please PM me a link to that quote? I've looked for it and can only find people talking about it but Ive never seen the original. You mentioned it was told to a Mod here at RIU? I certainly hope its not the Mod I'm thinking of because that person turned out to be pretty much untrustworthy.
And, for the record. Doc completely denies having ever said that to anyone and denies losing the original mother and i believe him.
Also, I know that Docs listed flower time was somewhat of a concern and was used as evidence of him having lost the original. The person claimed that it was originally 42-45 and then Doc changed it to 42-52 days and that was somehow an admission that he had to remake the strain. Well, if they would have looked a little further, they would have found that the original flower time for ES was a straight 55 days. So, my guess is that observing the plant over years of time has slightly changed Doc's opinion on finish time. But, all in all, not by much.
Which just says to me that Doc still takes the time to observe the plants and make adjustments to flower times as needed, and then inform customers on his website. I certainly know that I have misjudged finish times on my plants many times over, and have taken that into account the next time i run them.
Now, i would like to talk a little about potency. Ive seen people say a strain has "average" potency and then I see a test on it and its about 19%. I don't care who you are but if you think 19% is average, then you don't know very much about potency. Period.
All that does is make me think the person has an axe to grind.
Average is about 11-13%, so if this comes in at 15% or higher, please don't tell me its average. We may never fully understand the entourage effect and how some strains ive smoked at 16% seem more potent then some at 20% but it happens. It could be that its all individual preference and/or that they just effect us all differently. Who knows?
Those of us that have the option of choosing which great strain out of many great strains to smoke, can get a little spoiled and have unrealistic expectations.
And, there are those of us that don't think its good unless it tests above 20% and tastes like a skunks ass. But, i am not one of them.
All of this is just to say that if this plant tests anywhere above 16% it will be in my opinion "strong" by lab standards and if its near 19%, then its "very strong". My patients and my own personal smoke tests will have to fill in what the lab can't but in that case you will just have to take my word on it.
As for taste-
I don't like hay.
If it tastes like hay i will be very disappointed and will report that. It doesn't have to be the strongest and best flavor in the world of weed for me to like it as long as it has other great qualities. But, taste is as close a criteria for "make it or break it" that exists for me.
Finally, finish time.
I will go by what i see and will be taking samples to test at 42 and 52 days, etc. However, I will let the lab be the final judge because they include a detailed visual inspection of the trichomes that i will share.
Oh yeah....one last thing. I have a patient that smoked ES years ago and says it was one of the best he has ever tried, so he will be a great person to test this out on.
He will be the most unbiased person i can find that actually has the experience of smoking the "old" version, if such a thing actually exists.
So, you've told your story in my journal and i've answered it back. Let's have this be the final word on it for awhile and not start nit picking each others posts because it could go on for days and days. lol.
Thanks for a civil post stating your opinion...i was hoping you would stop in for a look.
