Maximum Macro

[FONT=&quot]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.”

Pollen Free Falling
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[FONT=&quot]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.
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 ass 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).

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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 is Whitey

(This was Jills Idea)
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.

[FONT=&quot]The earliest males to show sex get tossed, no ifs ands or buts.

Wow, I'm impressed. Makes perfect sense, now that you mention it. I've been going the other way, with good results, but little consistency in phenotype. But, I guess I'm still a breeder/aspiring seed maker. Keep posting and I'll keep reading!!!
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Wow, so nice to read a very intelligent thread about a hobby you obviously are passionate about, with beautiful pics to help my mind imagine for days. I learned stuff from here, thats for sure. Keep up the good work, and thanks for sharing your gathered knowledge on this side of the weedweb

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 shit 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.

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!

We have just released in limited numbers a Dannyboy X Spacequeen hybrid I named Danielle, which will be a limited offering and is available now at Cannaseur.com. We are making Dannyboy 2 but the Taco male was lost and the new cross will not be released until I am satisfied its better than the original. Dannyboy was also used in Sunychebas cross Black Cherry, the Black Russian father gave this hybrid a vivid magenta coloring in some phenotypes there aren’t many left in stock.

Even though not many at Hightimes knew of him or about his death, Danny was truly an American Stoner working his ass 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

Subcool can be found at Cannabis Forum, Cannabis seeds and Cannabis Seed Auction from Breedbay.
Subcool & TGA Genetics are available at cannaseur Seeds

Subcool, you are a true inspiration. Thanks very much for all the amazing info and incredible buds/pics. I may just be purchasing some of your seeds this year, I love the sound of your strains. I look forward to more tutorials

wow every single on of those thumbnails are.....beautiful.

seriously it put tears in my eyes.

So you have worked hard for 8 weeks! You have invested money into equipment and possibly genetics; you have invested time and dedication to get to this point. How can you tell when it’s time to harvest your gooey girls? Well ‘fire one up’ and let’s take a look at the best way to be sure you’re harvesting at peak potency, or at least you will better understand what happens in the final weeks, so you can harvest for the specific type of high you prefer.
The harvest window is one aspect of the craft which unfortunately, gets over looked or the grower simply doesn’t have the patience to wait-out the last few days, to insure max THC content. Some strains are better harvested before their peak THC production and some are better harvested after their peak THC production. This is what Robert Clark wrote in his book “Marijuana Botany” about trichomes and what they tell us; “The elevated resin heads appear clear, since fresh resin is still being secreted, often being produced in the cellular head of the trichome. At this time THC acid production is at a peak and CBD acid levels remain stable as the molecules are rapidly converted to THC acids, THC acid synthesis has not been active long enough for a high level of CBN acid to build up from the degradation of THC acid by light and heat. Terpene production is also nearing a peak and the floral clusters are beautifully aromatic. Many cultivators prefer to pick some of their strains during this stage in order to produce marijuana with a clear, cerebral, psychoactive effect It is believed that, in peak floral clusters, the low levels of CBD and CBN allow the high level of THC to act without their sedative effects.”
What the hell does this mean?
When growing Indica hybrids, unless you want to end up on the couch, it’s best to harvest when the trichome heads are fully formed but before they start to cloud over and turn amber. According to the maturation time of the specific strain this could take as little as five days or as long as two weeks. If you allow an Indica to go too long you can dramatically affect the taste and high. Fortunately going too long is not a real problem for most people. I like to study close-up photos taken with a high resolution digital camera; however an inexpensive hand-held microscope works wonders. It almost looks like you are in an alien world when looking at resinated buds using fifty-times-power.
With the Sativa dominant hybrids you want to make sure that all the trichome heads are fully formed and also about thirty percent amber. Letting a plant mature beyond this will risk flavor as well as, the finished smoke may be harsh with very little “high”. There are exceptions as I mentioned; Haze has three different harvest windows all being very late into flower. It is every grower’s job to learn what he or his patients prefer in the terms of “High”.
We have not yet addressed yields because if you are at the third stage of floral maturity with fully form trichomes, then we will have to assume most strains have packed on all their final weight. Even then, there are variables but we can use the guide-lines spelled out below to help gauge the best harvest window for your plants based on the trichomes.

1.Fully formed but still clear will provide a cleaner ‘up’ high with less sedative effect; this is the best window for heavy Indicas.
2.Fully formed and turning slightly cloudy or milky; this is probably the best time to pick most hybrids available today.
3.Fully formed completely cloudy or milky with at least thirty percent of the heads turning amber; this is usually best window for the late maturing Sativa’s such as Haze. This is also a good window when using the plant primarily for Hash production.

Take for instance the Jacks Cleaner harvested at fifty-six days; all trichomes are still visibly clear with very few turning cloudy. At this point it has a very ‘up’ high and an ‘in-the-head’ buzz. I get some good visuals and the lemon flavor is sour and a tad tart. The same plant, left just one more week at sixty-three days flower; the trichomes have turned milky white and a good portion, about thirty to fifty percent, are deep amber almost the color of cola. Taken at this time the smoke is heavy and thick, the lemon zing has been replaced with a musty sweet lemon smell that reminds me of ‘Lemon Heads’ candy. The high is now all body high and very much a sedative. We would smoke this only as our night time medication. It is almost an example of a plant taken too late, however we do this because of the medicinal properties she takes-on at this late stage.
Another example is Killer Queen. At forty-nine days flower, she has a candy-like smell and taste with that same ‘up’ high. If you were to harvest her at sixty days flower, she becomes ‘Super’ Killer Queen, with a more skunk-like smell and a thicker trance-like high.
The mistake to try and avoid is harvesting before the trichomes are fully formed, so as mentioned in the guideline; most growers whom use this method, harvest at the point in which the majority of the heads are cloudy. Harvesting before this window will produce bud that is less potent, containing less essential oils and trepans, causing your finished stash to take on a grassy or green taste, even if it is dried and cured correctly.
Another good method would be harvesting some of the more mature buds, usually being the upper or main colas. This will allow more light to shine down on the lower portion of the plant, not only will the buds mature further but they will also pack on some extra size.
If you have a nice digital camera with a macro feature, try taking some close-up photos and use a photo editing program such as Adobe. This will allow you to zoom in close so you can see what the necked eye cannot see. If this is not an option, Radio Shack sells battery-powered hand-held microscopes for about fifteen dollars.
Take advantage of this information, it will help maximize the results of your favorite strain, or help you determine the harvest window of something new.



Jacks Cleaner

Jacks Cleaner again

The Third Dimension

In these pictures you can see a plant that in my opinion was taken to long and lost some of its flavor

those look like little mushrooms...seriously...that's awesome.

here are some close ups I took of a Hashball I made and then shaved some off to smoke I liked the effect it had up really close.

Droool Keep em coming. LOve the hash ball macros. You should bite your nails though Subcool, its a bad Habbit J/K

I been trying to stop I'm kinda hyper though.

One day I made some kief and placed it in a small baggie and into my wallet. The heat and pressure formed it into a small slab of hash and wallet hash was born

Wallet hash awesome.....whats in your wallet?

Absolutely breathtaking these pictures and post have been. I feel accomplished just reading the past 4 pages.