Pic of a cool OG Kush seedling

DaveInCave said:

I do agree about Dinafem, all my experiences with their strains so far have been super positive (as user though, not as a grower).

But some of the things I read in this thread make me wonder, how can someone who is not an expert know what strain he is actually getting from a breeder, and
how can one separate the marketing crap from actual facts and make informed decisions about what strains to grow?
Are we only limited to trial and error?

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You just gotta look for reviews and grow journals and try to make a judgment based on all opinions you find. That's the only way really. Sometimes it turns out that other people don't have that good of judgment though and find that out the hard way, by wasting money on bad seeds.

Whether or not the strains are what they say they are is hard to know, other than by other peoples opinions who have tried the real strain before. If a company is passing off shit as a certain strain, it usually gets figured out by people who try it.

Dinafem has videos of their grow facilities and you can see the plants there. That won't tell you the true potency but at least you can see what type of buds they produce. The OG seed production plants they showed were furry with trichs so I assume they have reasonably high potency though, coupled with the reviews I've read which said it's super-potent. BTW I recently read about a strain by Elemental called True OG which supposedly gets up to 30% frequently. Hard to find the seeds in stock though and are costly.

DaveInCave said:

I do agree about Dinafem, all my experiences with their strains so far have been super positive (as user though, not as a grower).

But some of the things I read in this thread make me wonder, how can someone who is not an expert know what strain he is actually getting from a breeder, and
how can one separate the marketing crap from actual facts and make informed decisions about what strains to grow?
Are we only limited to trial and error?

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Excellent question.

In the beginning of the Cervantes grow book he recommends contacting breeders direct to see who responds. And who to trust comes from the info exchanged.

I did this and get my seeds direct from a breeder and have had no real problems and have grown great stuff for years now.

Even the breeder says he has nothing but problems with many seed banks. They expect everything for free and then short the breeders.

Guess those same very popular seedbanks should be trusted by us for our medicine? Not me. It's too important to us.

And the reviews online for seeds are not from professional growers. mostly new growers or struggling ones that think the seeds are the main problem.

Most of the seeds from the big companies are fine. I get good results from supposedly bad companies all the time.

I grew a Cali connection Deadhead og that was truly phenomenal. If you search you will find tons of hermie threads. I didn't see any male parts or stress seeds at all. Just great buds.

Dinafem since the topic is about them produce stable reliable genetics. Everyone loved the Dinachem. But it had a typical flat overbred stone. Really potent but sleepy and boring. I like harder to grow elite genetics. Like original diesel and lemon Thai crosses. Not commercial seed mill stuff. They don't mention it but the large breeding companies use seed mills so you get a volume commercial product. And not the work of the original breeder. So it has to be back crossed a lot for stability. This reduces the quality of the high in my opinion. But makes the grow easier.

And mostly the results are in the hands of the grower and their environment. Some growers get 12% thc from the same clone another gets 24%

Sorry for the long post.

MichiganMedGrower said:

Dinafem since the topic is about them produce stable reliable genetics. Everyone loved the Dinachem. But it had a typical flat overbred stone. Really potent but sleepy and boring. I like harder to grow elite genetics. Like original diesel and lemon Thai crosses. Not commercial seed mill stuff.

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HELL YEAH!!

What do you mean by seed mill? Dina produce seeds in their own facilities as far as I know. I've read that they also produce seeds for other people, like the other people give them the breeder plants or seeds and Dina does the seeding for them. So maybe that's what you mean by seed mill. I've read a comment by a Spanish guy who said Dina aren't highly regarded there, he was the guy who mentioned them producing seeds for others actually. But maybe he had an axe to grind or something.

The reviews on the Dina website seem positive, though maybe they screen out the bad ones. Here's a sample;

I've been an indoor grower for over 13 years now and by far Dinafem's OG Kush is the best I've ever grown! It is my all time favorite. It's an okay yielder in my opinion, but has super rock hard buds covered in trichromes. The rock hard buds and trichrome coverage makes up for the average yield for sure. Perfect plant for indoors since it does not stretch too much after the flip. Also handles minor stress like under/over watering and high heats very well! Also clones very easy and is a great mother plant since she needs little attention. Has a great head high that lasts around two to three hours. If your a connoisseur this is a must have for sure! And even if not still it's a must have. This is a strain you order more than just one of because you will for sure want more. Just an all around great strain from Dinafem. Keep up the great work Dinafem, I sure do appreciate it!

The Madgardener

source

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Maybe it puts so much energy into resin production that the weight yield tends to be lower than average. Still they said yield was okay. The review right after that one is also interesting, a Cali grower seems to like it, and I'm sure he could get whatever strain he wanted there.

Like the title says, these get gigantic outside producing rock hard fist & golf ball sized pieces. All I run now in northern ca. Germinate & top early for best results.

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BobCajun said:

What do you mean by seed mill? Dina produce seeds in their own facilities as far as I know. I've read that they also produce seeds for other people, like the other people give them the breeder plants or seeds and Dina does the seeding for them. So maybe that's what you mean by seed mill. I've read a comment by a Spanish guy who said Dina aren't highly regarded there, he was the guy who mentioned them producing seeds for others actually. But maybe he had an axe to grind or something.

The reviews on the Dina website seem positive, though maybe they screen out the bad ones. Here's a sample;



Maybe it puts so much energy into resin production that the weight yield tends to be lower than average. Still they said yield was okay. The review right after that one is also interesting, a Cali grower seems to like it, and I'm sure he could get whatever strain he wanted there.

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If you quote the comment or call with @User Name I would know you were asking me a question. I jump around between 2 forums and can easily miss a post like this. Just a tip.

A seed mill is like a warehouse cash crop grow. And everything you are using to debate your decision is just their advertising.

My breeder is now in Spain and hates those guys. Only hates the DNA crew more.

But I had decent results and have only read the same. But is sure is not connisour quality. It is stabilized for beginners. That is the volume seed pack market.

At least they work the plants properly. They follow classic methods. Most of the "famous" strains of the week these days are pollen chucked from one borrowed male.

If you are worried about plant size and stability I think dinafem is a good company. But it would be better to learn more about plants and why you are having trouble.

I grew ok Blue Lemon Thai in the beginning. And I panicked from late nanners that are actually common to the ECSD and the Thai in it. But now from the same seeds in a volume pack I grow fantastic BLT. It took some time to learn to grow it. It is very heavily sativa leaning and picky some phenos.

I hope some of this helps.

Hey @BobCajun

Real OG Kush is a stretchy monster. Not easy to grow and surely not compact as marijuana plants go.

This is a vegging CH9 OG Kush x Trainwreck. It needs to be topped properly to get it to start stacking properly. Both strains tend to grow like branchy vines. But can be managed and trained for our purpose.


She was one tall stem with no branching just last week. She won't grow like a little Christmas tree. Pick a strain like white Rhino for that.


And here are some pics of the Dinachem. It stayed reasonably compact and made huge frosty buds. It isnt much like real Chem at all though. More like a high THC indica with a stony out of focus high. Would be great for cash cropping. Got 5.5 oz from a 3 gallon pot of ocean forest. All dense bud and she was not picky on fertilizing

MichiganMedGrower said:

If you quote the comment or call with @User Name I would know you were asking me a question. I jump around between 2 forums and can easily miss a post like this. Just a tip.

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Valid point, I should have hit reply instead of just posting. I thought you were watching this forum anyway so didn't bother. I will from now on though.

About the strain, as always it's a try and see kind of thing. I found the reviews positive but they're personal opinions and therefore subjective. BTW why does your breeder not like Dina? You didn't actually explain.

If the OG turns out stretchy I may end up sticking with the Dwarf Chrystal. Some people say the strain is one of their favs and very potent and tasty, others say it's nothing special. We'll see.

DaveInCave said:

I do agree about Dinafem, all my experiences with their strains so far have been super positive (as user though, not as a grower).

But some of the things I read in this thread make me wonder, how can someone who is not an expert know what strain he is actually getting from a breeder, and
how can one separate the marketing crap from actual facts and make informed decisions about what strains to grow?
Are we only limited to trial and error?

Click to expand...

make friends, trade cuts, form opinions about your palate, be happy running cuts or chase seeds stemming from (ha) parents whose lineage agree with your palate. Or punt and pray.

BobCajun said:

Valid point, I should have hit reply instead of just posting. I thought you were watching this forum anyway so didn't bother. I will from now on though.

About the strain, as always it's a try and see kind of thing. I found the reviews positive but they're personal opinions and therefore subjective. BTW why does your breeder not like Dina? You didn't actually explain.

If the OG turns out stretchy I may end up sticking with the Dwarf Chrystal. Some people say the strain is one of their favs and very potent and tasty, others say it's nothing special. We'll see.

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Pete at CH9 has been cultivating genetics for meds (he suffers illness) since the early 90's at the start of Medical in Mendocino. He loves the plant and he wants to help people get the best. He is not wealthy from it. He has been featured multiple times in the big book of buds.

He says that dinafem and companies like them "have no Soul". They only breed for money. And they ruin the magic the plant offers in doing so.

He is a French speaking Frenchman living in Spain for years so translation has always been tough but he says my rooms have soul. And I grow each plant individually with its own nute mix each time and love them like pets.

So I take his meaning that it is just business to them.

I still liked the plant from dinafem. But it had a boring low high. If you know what I mean.

Bet it tested in the 20's for thc though. That's all the industry cares about anymore.

I sure wouldn't suggest the strains I am growing if you don't want to train and feed difficult cultivars.

But his "Jack" would give you a better high and an easy short plant that only ever took me 9 weeks for the longest flowering pheno. He bred that long ago from a mix of pollen including the old original sensei seeds jack Herrer. Power plant and hash plant. And a mazar for the Afghan structure I believe.

Those plants are long gone but live in the seeds.

If you are looking for potent couchlock. I can't help you. I am in a permanent quest to grow weed like I enjoyed in the early eighties in New Jersey.

CannaBruh said:

make friends, trade cuts, form opinions about your palate, be happy running cuts or chase seeds stemming from (ha) parents whose lineage agree with your palate. Or punt and pray.

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Those are luxuries for the people who live in legal countries, what about us underground cabinet rats?


My vision when I think about the post legalization world, is that strains will be sequenced, and you will have a way to know what strain you actually have, and what are the things that make a given strain better than another.
Unfrotunately since I'm no longer an active researcher anymore, I don't think I will take part in this effort, but I really think it should be done.
Sequencing is so cheap these days, even transcriptome analysis is not as expensive as it used to be.

BobCajun said:

Valid point, I should have hit reply instead of just posting. I thought you were watching this forum anyway so didn't bother. I will from now on though.

About the strain, as always it's a try and see kind of thing. I found the reviews positive but they're personal opinions and therefore subjective. BTW why does your breeder not like Dina? You didn't actually explain.

If the OG turns out stretchy I may end up sticking with the Dwarf Chrystal. Some people say the strain is one of their favs and very potent and tasty, others say it's nothing special. We'll see.

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One thing many people tend to forget when they talk about potency, and types of highs, is that like any psycho-active drug, our perceptions and feelings of its action is purely subjective and individual. There were so many times we were smoking with a group of people, some got high, some didn't, some swore it was the best thing they ever smoked, some said it sucked.

I think only people who sell to large groups of people can gather the data to start ranking based on customers choices.

MichiganMedGrower said:

Pete at CH9 has been cultivating genetics for meds (he suffers illness) since the early 90's at the start of Medical in Mendocino. He loves the plant and he wants to help people get the best. He is not wealthy from it. He has been featured multiple times in the big book of buds.

He says that dinafem and companies like them "have no Soul". They only breed for money. And they ruin the magic the plant offers in doing so.

He is a French speaking Frenchman living in Spain for years so translation has always been tough but he says my rooms have soul. And I grow each plant individually with its own nute mix each time and love them like pets.

So I take his meaning that it is just business to them.

I still liked the plant from dinafem. But it had a boring low high. If you know what I mean.

Bet it tested in the 20's for thc though. That's all the industry cares about anymore.

I sure wouldn't suggest the strains I am growing if you don't want to train and feed difficult cultivars.

But his "Jack" would give you a better high and an easy short plant that only ever took me 9 weeks for the longest flowering pheno. He bred that long ago from a mix of pollen including the old original sensei seeds jack Herrer. Power plant and hash plant. And a mazar for the Afghan structure I believe.

Those plants are long gone but live in the seeds.

If you are looking for potent couchlock. I can't help you. I am in a permanent quest to grow weed like I enjoyed in the early eighties in New Jersey.

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Alright then, if your breeder friend's only gripe was Dina's lack of soul then that won't be a problem for me. Could be robots for all I care, long as their seeds produce killer shit. Thanks for sharing your experiences though, all viewpoints are helpful in getting a full picture.

DaveInCave said:

Those are luxuries for the people who live in legal countries, what about us underground cabinet rats?


My vision when I think about the post legalization world, is that strains will be sequenced, and you will have a way to know what strain you actually have, and what are the things that make a given strain better than another.
Unfrotunately since I'm no longer an active researcher anymore, I don't think I will take part in this effort, but I really think it should be done.
Sequencing is so cheap these days, even transcriptome analysis is not as expensive as it used to be.

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The futuristic reality is there won't be any need for the plant. The science developing is synthesizing canabanoids. The money is in pharmaceuticals. I have said this since the 80's. If pot ever becomes legal they will just make cannabis pills.

They have already patented every thing they need on the plant and in processes.

They can't regulate plants like they do pills.

MichiganMedGrower said:

The futuristic reality is there won't be any need for the plant. The science developing is synthesizing canabanoids. The money is in pharmaceuticals. I have said this since the 80's. If pot ever becomes legal they will just make cannabis pills.

They have already patented every thing they need on the plant and in processes.

They can't regulate plants like they do pills.

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I don't disagree, I definitely think the pharma industry will push as much as they can to squeeze as many dollars as they can out of the plant and the legalization, and that's not necessarily all bad. If they can isolate a molecule, make a pill and patent it - good for them.
It will expire in 25 years and then you will be able to buy a generic for a $1 if you really want to.

On the other hand, Cannabis is a cultural phenomenon, like alcohol, like tobacco, there's no stopping it, you can't patent it, unless you make GMO strains (they will come for sure).
There will always be high demand for the plant, and it's going to get easier and easier to acquire in plant form.

BobCajun said:

Alright then, if your breeder friend's only gripe was Dina's lack of soul then that won't be a problem for me. Could be robots for all I care, long as their seeds produce killer shit. Thanks for sharing your experiences though, all viewpoints are helpful in getting a full picture.

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I didn't say I agree with his hippie like reasoning. I said I found he weed boring and overbred for the high it produces. It only produced lows mostly. It was ok in my opinion. It didn't stand up to anything else I am growing. But it was easy money.

DaveInCave said:

I don't disagree, I definitely think the pharma industry will push as much as they can to squeeze as many dollars as they can out of the plant and the legalization, and that's not necessarily all bad. If they can isolate a molecule, make a pill and patent it - good for them.
It will expire in 25 years and then you will be able to buy a generic for a $1 if you really want to.

On the other hand, Cannabis is a cultural phenomenon, like alcohol, like tobacco, there's no stopping it, you can't patent it, unless you make GMO strains (they will come for sure).
There will always be high demand for the plant, and it's going to get easier and easier to acquire in plant form.

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Good point!

But very few people grow or brew comparatively. And less and less will keep growing over time from failure and inconvenience and I am sad pot will end up regulated just like alcohol. And not as a natural medicine for the people at all. And I don't want their pot or pills. I want mine.

MichiganMedGrower said:

I didn't say I agree with his hippie like reasoning. I said I found he weed boring and overbred for the high it produces. It only produced lows mostly. It was ok in my opinion. It didn't stand up to anything else I am growing. But it was easy money.

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I see. If it's a stinker as some say it may not be the best thing for indoor growing anyway. I'm just trying it out. You find it boring, maybe so will I. Probably just be another big letdown. Worth a try anyway. My guess is that I won't even notice a major difference from other strains I've grown. I'm actually more interested in good bud structure and growth characteristics than absolute potency or type of high. You can look at test results for the exact same strain in anaytical 360 and find one sample with 7% THC and another with 26%, so it seems to be more how it's grown or which pheno is chosen than the strain. You can find Kushes on there with very average potency. I've seen low potency GGs on there too.

cindysid said:

So, does that mean that leaving a plant in darkness for awhile before harvest might increase potency? I've wondered about that.

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No, not really. It's the thing that effects the plant to increase the THC production.
Night or dark, is just the "time" that the plant does that action. More dark does not increase the action.

MichiganMedGrower said:

Wow. I do not know where to start with your mis-information.

Barely any UV-B gets through the safety glass (which has a safety strip to extinguish the bulbs if the outer glass breaks) of a standard mercury vapor lamp.

Only the reptile specific bulbs offer any.

The 4% thc increase that has been reported in videos and verified is from John Berfelo a few years ago when he tested cmh vs. hps vs. led. I have posted it many times. He did not know it was the uv and better spectrum of the 315 cmh at the time.

And ed Rosenthal discovered uv-b raises thc in cannabis in the 70's.

Cannabanoids are not only produced at night. But it is true they can be degraded by intense light.

And none of us are going to reach the light saturation point of cannabis. It is a high sunlight plant and we can't get close even in 24 hrs. It's just harder to meet the plants needs in high light conditions.

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More gets though then you think. Your even cautioned on the UV emitted by 400w MV bulbs.

Borosilicate glass does block some but, not all. It emits more then MH does, and that's been found to "work" on a limited basis.

There is a high output UVB specific T5 that's been out about a year or so. VERY powerful and it must be kept around 30" away.
So the "only" repti bulbs thing is bunk.....

Did you know that the glass in hoods - including your beloved CMH, is borosilicate......At least many of the better ones are. it's stronger and harder to break - so it gets used. So then. UV gets though but, at reduced amounts over what the bulb produces..

Yes, more of us reach the Light saturation point then you think....it's not as impossible as you think.....

Dr. Who said:

More gets though then you think. Your even cautioned on the UV emitted by 400w MV bulbs.

Borosilicate glass does block some but, not all. It emits more then MH does, and that's been found to "work" on a limited basis.

There is a high output UVB specific T5 that's been out about a year or so. VERY powerful and it must be kept around 30" away.
So the "only" repti bulbs thing is bunk.....

Did you know that the glass in hoods - including your beloved CMH, is borosilicate......At least many of the better ones are. it's stronger and harder to break - so it gets used. So then. UV gets though but, at reduced amounts over what the bulb produces..

Yes, more of us reach the Light saturation point then you think....it's not as impossible as you think.....

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No. My cmh is in an open vertical reflector. And Phillips bulbs actually put less uv on the canopy than ushio or max par. But more spectrum. They designed it to put down usable uv though.

Your mv does not put out any measurable uvb.

I looked it up to be sure when I posted. Only the reptile bulbs put down any usable uv-b. You have uv-a

I don't have time but any search for uv and mercury vapor will show this.

And it's still a reflective mess to mount a round bulb under the reflector. Common sense should kick in there. Would make a mess of the spectrum too.