Dear Friend & Premium Subscriber-
It's been a few months since we talked about phenohunting.
Yes. It's possible to pheno hunt genetics in a hobby grow.
Here's the thing: It's faster to phenohunt 20 seeds if you have room to grow out all 20 and care for them accordingly.
Here's the other thing: It's also easier to care for and pay attention to less plants.
Translation: You don't have to hunt all of the seeds, all at once, to hunt them.
This is now my second pheno hunt in a 4x4' grow tent (Technically, the fourth if you count one failed attempt at a side by side and another round of all males).
Each time, I started with 5 seeds or less. I have friends that have hunted through countless packs only growing two seeds at a time.
Hunt according to your space and time.
It will be hard to see differences between your plants if you are growing more than your space allows.
It will be hard to pick up on nuanced traits and expressions if you are growing so many that you can't keep them healthy.
It will be hard to maintain cuts of your plants if the number of plants exceeds the size of your cloning space.
It will be hard to hunt if you don't have the resources to do it right.
In my case, I am limited by:
Space (physical canopy space)
Cloning (both ability to clone and ability to keep moms and clones around)
Plant Counts (Every area is different)
Time (I cannot care for more than a certain amount of plants with my schedule)
For these reasons, a hunt for me is 2-5 seeds.
If they are regs (M/F), 4-5 is ideal for my setup, allowing for the potential of 50% males. (I gender test before flipping to save time and resources).
If growing fems, two is enough to do a side by side, but three seems to be a sweet spot for me, increasing the odds of getting multiple phenos.
In my grow, I have to account for both my hunt and keeping a supply around during each cycle.
That means that half the tent is reserved for proven cuts, either selected or acquired. This allows us to have flower and hash as needed should the hunt turn out less than exciting. Absolute worst case, half the tent is garbage and we still have half of the harvest to enjoy.
My current hunt is Banana Daddy R1 (Banana Hammock x Grand Daddy Purp) by Ethos Genetics and I'm growing three seeds.
I chose this variety for a few reasons:
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