The Quest for Long-Lived, Perpetually-Flowering Auto Strains.
Hi there Denizens,
Normally, when growers grow an auto strain, they kill the plant at the first
harvest. This is because enthusiastic growers, keen to maximise their yield,
harvest both the flowers and the leaves. If growers harvested only the
bud, and left the leaves in tact, then the plant is apt to survive the harvest
and then flower again, perhaps immediately or perhaps according to the
photo-period.
It's theoretically a very interesting question: On what basis will an auto-strain
flower, after the first harvest ? Will it be perpetually flowering ?
Or will it regress to photo-period flowering ?
I've just got through reading a dozen articles about the health benefits of
CBD and some of the other terpenes/terpenoids in cannabis. Importantly
for the old, CBD is neuro-protective and neuro-restorative (eg after head
injury or stroke). CBD has already been shown stop the progress, even
reverse the decline, of neurological conditions such as MS, Parkinson's,
Huntington's, Alzheimer's, ALS, etc. And let's not forget those suffering
chronic pain with rheumatism, or one of the arthritic diseases, spinal
pain, stomach pain... etc. CBD triggers our opioid receptors to provide
an analgesic effect (analgesia without addiction side effects!)
There's also the bone restorative function of CBD (which is of
obvious utility in treating and reversing oesto-arthritis and bone
de-calcification in the elderly)
Imagine your grandparents, or imagine a friend or relative with a chronic
disease, perhaps one of the dementias, perhaps MS, perhaps arthritis or
rheumatism. Perhaps their energy levels are low, or perhaps they have
a reduced ability to focus on tasks, perhaps they have a limited range of
movement.
What would be ideal for these people, is to provide them with a small
auto-flowering cannabis variety, that might be grown at home, or in a
greenhouse, that has these features:
(1) that it's long-lived.
Currently, growers kill the plant at the first harvest
and hence don't get to see the plant's potential for supplying multiple harvests.
And hence they don't realise that, probably, this plant is _not_ an annual.
This plant could go on flowering, year after year for 5, 10 or 15 years.
(2) It's perpetually flowering
We all know how an auto behaves when flowering for the first time: It goes
straight from the seedling to the flowering stages with no vegetative phase
in between. Imagine an auto cannabis strain that lives for, say, 5 years.
How will the auto-flowering cannabis plant behave _after_ the first harvest ?
Will it flower perpetually ?
Will it revert to flowering according to photo-period ?
(Probably, the answer is that, some will send up new shoots for new flowers
almost immediately, and others revert to photo-period flowering).
My purpose here, is to encourage you all to not destroy your auto strains at
the first harvest. Instead, only harvest the bud, not the leaves, allow the plant
to survive the harvest and then watch to see what happens.
(a) Will your auto immediately begin sending up new shoots for new flowers ?
(b) Will your auto live for 5, 10 or 15 years.
If your answer to (a) is yes. You're already onto a winner. Everyone will want
seeds from a perpetually flowering plant.
If your plant survives the first year, then again, you're onto a winner.
Why ? Because the yield of a plant, depends on the development of it's root system.
Your plant's root system will be more highly developed in year 2, than it was in year 1.
And hence the bud harvests are going to be heavier too. Year by year, it will render
more and more bud. Of-course, it will help if you give it more 'bucket room'.
We can develop auto strains that are:
(1) long lived, ie. multi-year lifespan
(2) perpetually flowering.
(3) And that this task will prove to be relatively easy and very profitable for
those growers that take my suggestion seriously.
The Ultimate Low-Maintenance Cannabis Strain.
If you identify a plant that is perpetually flowering, _everyone_ will want those seeds.
A long-lived, perpetually flowering auto strain can be selectively harvested on an
ad hoc basis every week or so. It would require a minimum in terms of time,
attention and resources. It would be the ultimate low-maintenance cannabis strain.
The same plant could offer up medical MJ for old people, such as your grandparents,
for people confined to wheelchairs, or for people with a limited range of motion, and
for people with cognitive impairments or difficulties in focusing on tasks.
The Life-Span of Auto Strains:
Some autos, perhaps most autos, _must_ carry the genes necessary for multi-year longevity
since, even for F1 auto-hybrids, one parent is short lived and one parent is long lived.
So we might expect 50% of the seeds from an F1, Ruderalis X (sativa/indica) hybrid to
exhibit. That's based on a naive probabilistic distribution of the genes. In practice we might
see 25% of plants have a Ruderalis lifespan, 50% of plants have an intermediate lifespan, say 5 years,
and 25% have a lifespan of, say, 10 years. In that scenario 75% of autos have a multi-year life-span.
But consider that many autos are crossed to another long lived sativa or indica in the F2 generation.
And perhaps another indica/sativa cross in the F3 generation. Probably, the only trait of interest
to the commercial breeders is the auto-flowering trait. With each new generation that an auto
is crossed with a sativa or indica, multiplies the chances that seeds of this cross, will have multi-year
longevity.
Perpetual Flowering Cannabis Strains:
If you have an auto, that lives, say, 5 years. What are it's flowering patterns going to be ?
Maybe it will it be perpetually flowering ?
Will it somehow revert to a photosensitive flowering behaviour
(presumably genes inherited from one of it's long-lived ancestors)
We already have famous examples of perpetually flowering sativa plants on the Island of Reunion.
And perhaps it would be a successful and profitable project to cross Ruderalis with one of the
perpetual weed strains from Reunion.
See the Strain Hunters report for this.
I feel it's important that growers consider the potential for long-lived and perpetual-flowering
auto strains. Such plants would require much less in terms of time, attention and resources.
The development and distribution of these strains would be a huge benefit to many older people
and many people with medical issues. (And one day, if we're lucky, that will be us)
The growers/breeders that develop and stablise a long-lived, perpetually flowing auto strain, will
make themselves famous and wealthy. The seeds of such a strain will fetch hansom prices, i'd
like to predict prices of $10 to $20 per seed. Those seeds would be very much in demand, every
'amateur' grower would want them.
The utility of these strains to the elderly, the infirm, the invalid and those with chronic diseases
would be immense. We're not here long. We should try to do some good in the world.
best wishes
cryptolab
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Originally Posted by The Aspie Toker
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