New Cannabis Breeding Project (Sannies Sugar Punch X C99)

I Wish I had the space for an extended, full time cannabis breeding project. I like to make some of my own crosses and with good pheno selections it is possible to do some breeding even in a small space.

So here is how to make weed seeds. Making weed seeds is easily doable even for a small grower. This is just about simple crossbreeding really. It takes much more time and space to run a bonafide cannabis breeding project.

Sugar Punch is one of the strongest strains I have ever grown and also one of the highest yielding. It is often sold out but if you can snag some it is definitely worth growing.

I lost my original cut but luckily I crossed it with a Cinderella male and preserved at least half the genetics. Which half? Time will tell but I am pretty certain I can get her back or maybe even something better.

My grow mostly leaned towards the haze in the cross but one girl leaned more indica and that is the one I chose to work with. It is very vigorous and perfect for a 12/12 from seed grow. Very tall with long node spacing and mostly haze type flowers.

So my hope is the C99 will tame it a bit. Maybe shorter node spacing and maybe earlier maturity. Some of the more haze dominant girls look like they could grow forever.

These were 12/12 from seed because I wanted to sex them early due to space limitations.9 plants 7 girls. At the 6th node and about 3 weeks old. Most lean towards the SP but a couple look more like Cindy doms.

Real cannabis breeding involves selective crosses to lock down the traits you are after. Breeding cannabis can be a complex and long process to get a stable seed line.

What I am doing here is a simple cross at this point. More like pollen chucking which is what many “breeders” do and why there can be so many pheno types in a bag of seeds. I wont know if it is worth taking it further than that until these are grown out.

The mom was a selection from my sugar punch grows. Big chunky colas, super frosty and devastatingly powerful high. A bit earlier and more indica dominant while the rest were more haze leaning.

And yes the cola in back is part of her too.

I am always looking for that special pheno type to appear in my grows and this girl was really special.

I crossed her with a C99 male from Mosca’s C99BX. I had 4 males that were similar in appearance.

But when I smoke tested them, one had a much stronger buzz to it and that became the daddy.

Yes you can get high smoking the leaves from a male plant. Not wasted, but buzzed.

It is a good way to see if the males will pass on potency. There is no THC in male flowers but there is some in the leaves.

 Punch Sugar Genetics

Sugar Punch is a cross of  a special Super Silver Haze cut and The One which is also a clone only strain.

Unknown or Legendary – The One-F1 Blueberry Sativa X Killa Queen/NYCD http://en.seedfinder.eu/strain-info/The_One/Unknown_or_Legendary/

I think my cut leans towards the blueberry but what ever it is, it is some of the strongest smoke I have ever had. Strong head high combined with very narcotic body high.

Growing her presents a variety of different phenos but all super potent and the stickiest plants you have ever seen. Even the stems are covered in resin.

Sugar Punch X C99 Cannabis Breeding Project Week 4

The ladies are now about 4 weeks from seed and were just transplanted from solo cups to 1 gallon pots.

They were also topped today at transplant time. Because I sexed them early under 12/12 lighting they had small flowers on them. That was one reason why they were topped but also these Sugar Punch girls were pretty tall and I am trying to bush them out.

I am hoping the Cinderella in the mix may keep them a bit shorter and result in earlier maturity too. Sugar Punch is a fem cross so there is no male and so I chose to use my best C99 male as the father.

How I Breed Cannabis In A Closet

First I am sorry but I did not save any pictures of this. But my cannabis breeding project process is fairly simple.

I use a large cardboard box about 2′ by 3′ and hang a 125 Watt CFL grow light rated at 2700 Kelvin and 5000 lumens from the top. It is set to a timer to run 12/12.

I used gallon containers in a drip tray inside. I need to keep plants small through pruning but also my cuts have been preflowered. It takes them a bit longer to root this way and by then they are flowering and stay small. Alternatively you could take cuts and spray them with a PGR since you are not going to smoke any of this.

The box is placed in my grow closet. It can be in veg or flower mode. Veg mode wont affect it because the box is mostly closed and no light gets in. So the worst that could happen is a hermie but we are raising seeds so who cares.

If you time it right in veg the male in the box will be done before you flip. Spray it with water to kill any stray pollen and remove it.

You can spray your girls down with water after they have been pollinated and place them along side other plants in your flower room safely.

If your plants are flowering in the same space you need to be very careful not to spread pollen to them. Water will kill male pollen. Pollen can stick to clothing or even your skin so take precautions any time you open the box.

You need to remember these are for seed so they do not need to look pretty. They just need to pollinate and ripen. Once they are pollinated grow them like any other plant but they will need some extra time to ripen their seeds.

Crossbreeding Weed With The Bag Method

Another method that works for crossbreeding weed is the bag method. You can collect male pollen in a bag and then tie the bag to a flowering branch on a female. It is pretty easy to do. Here is a video that explains how to crossbreed cannabis:

Sugar Punch x C99 Week 5

So it has been 5 weeks from seed and one week since these girls were topped. They are bushy and look good. I am going to take clones of them all.

I have noticed that sometimes clones grow differently than the plant they were taken from. That plant is around one time but the clones can be used over and over, assuming they are stable. Old time growers tell me you should flower a clone 3 times to make sure it is stable.

I am not sure how far I am going to take this. At least not at this point. If I get some really good phenos I can just run them as clones. I have 2 males so I could also try to stabilize a seed line from these.

Sugar Punch is a complex hybrid of 4 or more strains and both parents are fems. Sannie never tried to breed with it because he felt it was too unstable to create a line and also because there were no males.

So here they are at 5 weeks. They are taking off and probably need to be flowered soon or they will be monsters. I really have at least a month before I can do that and these don’t need a long veg.

Sannies Sugar Punch X C99 Day 1 Of Flower

Things were getting crowded in my veg tent so it was time to move my Sannies Sugar Punch X C99 girls out. I took cuts of them all and placed them in one of my flowering closets.

So Mothers Day is officially their first day of 12/12. They aren’t mothers yet but some may live on and raise young. I always like to flip on holidays for some reason when it’s possible. Just makes it easier to remember without having to go back to my notes.

Some of these ladies will probably get big. I have some that look like they take after the Sugar Punch, some look like a mix and 1 looks like a Cindy 99 knockoff. But really it is still to soon to tell what I have.

They will share that closet with some Dark Plasma girls for a few weeks until space opens up in my other flower room.

So here are pics of 3 of them. The others are in back of the Dark Plasma and hard to get a shot of. These also seem to lean most towards their Sugar Punch mom.

I am already feeling sticky leaves on these girls. The plant on the left is starting to show flower pistils already and the others are right about there too.

Sugar Punch Cannabis Breeding Project Day 6 Of Flower

Things are off to a fast start and these girls are really full into flower now. They are sharing a closet with some White OG which will be done in a week. At that point I will spread them out so they have more room to grow.

They are being fed at 690 ppm and pH is 5.9. They are on top feed drip being fed for 15 seconds every 2 hours while lights are on. They are in 1 gallon plastic grow bags filled with Canna coco. This is a recirculating system.

My goal with this breeding project is to find a girl like the Sugar Punch mom that I lost. Hopefully the C99 will tame the stretch a bit and shorten the flowering time.

So my goal is not to grow huge plants but rather find the right pheno. With coco you can use much smaller pots than soil and let them get root bound.

Using a continuous feed drip feeding and small pots you need much less nutrient because everything goes right to the roots and the roots don’t need to search for nutrients.

In a way this is similar to an aeroponic system of feeding except coco is the medium. Maybe I should call it cocoponics.

Cannabis Breeding Project Day 30

So these plants are well into flower although I do not know how long they need to flower yet. When you are crossing 2 strains it is sometimes hard to tell what you will get.

So far it seems the Cinderella 99 has really dominated the cross. Plants are much shorter than the original Sugar Punch which would be well through the screen by now.

I don’t know if flowering time will also be shorter. All phenos are very sticky and have a sweet fruity smell to them. Some are short and are C99 dominant. One is very short, a few are medium sized and a few are taller than the rest.

One of the taller ones looks like it might be the one I am after but it’s still early in bud development so I cant say for sure. It does seem to have different flowers. Most remind me of C99 or haze like but the one I have my eyes on seems to be stacking heavier and bud hairs are much heavier than most of the others. Hoping I get a hard stacking shorter plant similar to the mom.

New Cannabis Breeding Project Day 42

So day 42 is here for my Sugar Punch Cindy girls. The Cinderella 99 really has dominated this cross. They smell sweet and fruity like both strains do. But they are much shorter than Sugar Punch and some look like some will finish in about a week. Here is a shot of my 7 girls.

Sadly I am not finding what I am looking for. I was hoping to recapture my favorite Sugar Punch pheno. The middle plant in back is the only one that is even remotely close. I will probably keep her and the plant to the left of her.

Sometimes clones develop differently than seed plants and that is what I am hoping for. It’s not that these are bad plants but I can grow all the C99 I want and these are not much different. Here are some shots of the ladies.

Sugar Punch X Cindy 99 Day 47

Seven weeks into this grow. Don’t really like what I am seeing. Cinderella 99 has dominated this cross and there is only one plant that resembles the mom I wanted to recreate.

If I had more plants I might have a chance of finding her. With only seven plants chances are much slimmer. Breeding really is a numbers game, unless you get lucky. So I chopped all the other plants down. They were fruity and sticky, probably really potent, but just not what I am after.

The plant I kept resembles the mom only smaller. I think she will go 60-65 days. She was the largest of the bunch and has the hardest buds. Some other phenos were pretty loose. They will probably make some nice rosin though. Here’s pics of the keeper pheno:

I will reflower her because clones are sometimes different than the seed plant they came from. I am hoping she will show a bit more of the Sugar Punch next time.

Meanwhile she still needs time to fill out and size up her buds so I will probably take her 2 more weeks and then I will update here.