Searching old seeds for landrace genetics


I loved the part where they scored some weed in a market in Cambodia...the look of joy on that dude's face when he made the score was priceless!

To continue my quest, I bought a worm bin setup a few months ago and have become a worm rancher, raising that black gold that's supposed to be perfect for old-seed germination, fresh worm castings. After about 6 weeks, I had enough castings in the bottom bin to throw in some fresh hermie seeds for a test, and they all sprouted. So 10 days ago I popped about 15 BSC punto rojo seeds and another 15 or so of my old hippie seeds into the worm castings. After 10 days, nothing has come up, although there's still hope.
The PR seeds were collected in Colombia in 2004, and the old hippie seeds are probably about 40 years old on average. I did not scarify, sand, soak, manually crack or otherwise prep these seeds, which I now regret.

So here's another batch of 25 old hippie seeds that I'm trying. This is the germination technique I'm using this round:

  • Lightly sand seed seams and sides with 400-grit sandpaper.
  • Place scarified seeds in aloe vera cutting for 48 hours.
  • Prepare solution of 100 ml distilled water, 1 ml Ful-Power fulvic acid, 1 drop superthrive and aloe juice, mix in blender, and bubble in germination bomb for 24 hr.
  • Prepare solution of 100 ml distilled water 1.7 ml 3% H2O2 and soak seeds in the H2O2 solution for 6 hours. I will NOT use the bubbler / germination bomb for this step because sparging the solution will strip the O2 from the H2O2.
  • Remove from H2O2 solution, towel dry and manually crack the seeds.
  • Place primed, cracked seeds in live worm castings.
  • Pray.
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May_2019_batch_seeds.jpg


May_2019_batch_aloe.jpg
 
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Quick update . I took a flashlight and a toothpick and carefully looked at some of the seeds I put into the worm bin 11 days ago. It appears that a few of the 15-year-old Punto Rojo seeds are showing signs of life, along with one of the old hippie seeds. The most recent batch of 25 old seeds are halfway through their 6-hour H2O2 bath and they will get cracked and go into the worm bins today. Really hoping I can get something to pop. Keeping fingers crossed.
 
I used to have a jar of seeds from the seventies from Rhode Island. I smoked those strains. I’d love to hear if any of these are viable.
People don’t believe we had good weed back in the day. We didn’t have the killer green indica but we did see some spicy insency stuff I have t seen since.
 
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