Organoman commented4y ago
Don't bother with what is written on the packet, the plants don't and there are too many variables to growing that the times they give are at best, a very rough guesstimate. You still have weeks to go with these two, maybe 4 weeks or more for the more advanced one and another 6 or 7 for the less advanced one. The estimates they give are usually based on the best examples , being grown with the best equipment by experienced experts and have little in common with a person growing in a cupboard in the basement using cheap dirt and a blurple light. I believe the breeders do themselves no favours by saying strain XYZ will take 8 weeks and strain ABC will take 12 weeks. They would be much better off saying either early, medium or extended. This way the home grower would know more precisely what to expect, rather than be disappointed when the 8 week wonder strain took 14 weeks to flower.
Having two plants of the same strain grow at vastly different rates is more or less normal, each and every seed is an unique individual organic being, not a mass produced cookie cutter replicant programmed to be exact copies of each other. There will always be slight differences between each seed and this is what breeders get excited about when they talk about "pheno hunting".
It is a bit like humans, we may have the same parents but our brother and sister are vastly different to us, mainly due to the huge number of genes we have, but we all still share half our DNA with our parents.
So it is with plants, but the differences are smaller, due to plants having fewer genes.
I have always judged a breeder by how close their seedlings from one strain resemble each other, the more alike they are, the more stable the genetics of that particular strain. The bigger the differences, the more variable the genetics and perhaps the breeder of that strain has not spent enough time stabilizing the genetics of that strain before releasing the seeds on to the market, indicating to me, that perhaps greed is outweighing ethics.
I can whole heartedly recommend Sweet Seeds, they have outstandingly stable and quality genetics. After growing for 35+ years, they have become my "go to" breeder, and I have tried a lot of different seedbanks and don't give this praise lightly. They are so easy to grow and so well sorted that even a monkey could plant some seeds and obtain outstanding results without even trying. And no, I do not get rewarded for plugging their seeds!
Sorry for the digressions and I hope this helps in some way,............
Organoman.
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