The Bonsai Sultan Method: Typological Breeding for the Non Breeder, Beginner, or Pro with Little Space.
By JoshuaHazen @ MrNice


Dear Nevil, Howard, and Shanti,
I have decided to disclose my method of breeding in all of its simplicity, for the sake of this website and its cause, which I believe to be, above all else, for the benefit of improving and preserving the plant itself. I posted in this section of the forum because, above and beyond simple breeder support, this thread is also a plea and a guide to those who grow but don't breed.
I will be introducing this method in several chapters, which I will be completing over the next week or so. I will try to release 2 chapters per day.

Special Thanks to all of you and my new found friends at MNS, I have written this for everyone, so please, enjoy.
Sincerely,
Joshua Hazen.

Note: I am introducing this article here for the first time. As always you should check the laws of your area, so you can design a program that is in compliance with those laws.

Chapter 1

Why Breed? The Ganja plant is an amazing organism. I believe she has her own sentience, and like all plants, she has a very simple charter, with but a single mandate: Be Fruitful and Multiply. She has given you so much, why don’t you give her something, the only thing she truly desires, the only thing she really wants: to reproduce sexually. If not for her alone, then do it for yourself as well, not only will it help you increase the yield and quality of your setup over time, but more importantly, it will give you a level of independence and control that you simply cannot get any other way. You will become an island. Now if things go to hell in a hand basket, or even if your favorite strain gets discontinued, your personal strains will be safe with you.

The idea behind this method is to be able to breed selectively using a large sample within a very small space.* In fact the Bonsai Sultan method only requires around four square feet of floor space in a corner preferably,* going up to the ceiling, and can accommodate close to a thousand plants.* Initially, though most likely, one would not start with that many, so one would only need two 4 ft shoplights double fixture fluorescents to start with.* It can be set up for around $100. The Bonsai Sultan Method is primarily for people who want to preserve and improve the strains that they are working with, and it allows one to breed using a male plant without endangering the cultivators’ main All Female seedless harvest.
It is about proper timing, and the fact that the male plant, like all the plants that will be pollinated, is a bonsai, and very small.* Effectively, it allows virtually any setup to become a scientifically based, quickly evolving horticulture, simply and cheaply, utilizing parts which can be gotten from any hardware store, and with comparatively little effort.* By utilizing the simple principals of selective breeding it is possible to improve one's yield considerably by custom breeding, finding and selecting that super clone, out of a sample of hundreds, in the case of the 4 square foot model.

Goals
Goals are very important. Every breeder should have a goal or a set of goals, when breeding, and these goals become the hypothesis.
More on this later for now lets get started on the more practical aspects of growing using the Bonsai Sultan Method.

Supplies

First of all lets go over the things you will need for beginning the bonsai sultan method. It is a short list.

1) 2 four-foot double fixture fluorescent lights.
2) Notebook and pencil
3) masking tape, thread and ballpoint pen.
4) Power strip and extension cord(s)
5) 2 four foot 2inch X 14 inch shelves
6) Heavy duty black plastic sheeting
7) 2 timers
8) Mylar
9) 288 2 inch containers
10) 128 3 inch containers
11) 72 4 inch containers
12) Good dirt.
13) Good fertilizer for vegetative and separate fertilizer for flowering.

It is very simple. You will build 2 shelves, the first shelf 2 feet above the floor and the second 1 and a half feet above that. And you will hang one shop light from each one by chains, so it can be raised and lowered. Then you will drape the whole thing in black plastic with a staple gun, on the outside and the Mylar underneath it.
That is it, now you have two bonsai breeding chambers, one 2 ft tall on the floor and the other 1 ½ ft tall right above it. If you ever want to expand it, just add another shelf on top.

Alternatively you can build 2 foot by four-foot shelves with 2 shop fluorescents on each shelf if you feel you need more space.

Generally, when one is selectively breeding for typology, in other words, choosing the best plant for intended use, from a given sample, the larger the sample is, the better.

I will be posting the next chapter, later this evening.

Thanks for the encouragement guys-- Here is the next installment.

Chapter 2

Breeding philosophy: * the philosophy behind the method is simple. * To use an anachronism from the military: * Keep it KISS simple: Keep It Simple Stupid.

* Another military saying: * Assumption is the mother of All **** ups. *

Don't get caught up in irrelevant details, why are you worried if the leaves are fat or skinny, are you going to smoke the leaves? And if you were going to smoke them why would it matter if they were skinny or fat? Beginning growers often make this mistake; they want fat leaves because they like indica, or they want thin leaves because they like sativa. Well if you are growing a hybrid, you might have to choose between 2 plants, from the same seed stock, one might have thin leaves and one might have fat leaves. Which one are you going to choose? A beginner might choose the one with fat leaves and eliminate the one with thin leaves, when unfortunately in this particular instance, it was the very plant with the thin leaves that had the short budding cycle and dripping buds he was looking for, or vise versa. He made an assumption, that because it had fat leaves somehow it was more “indica” than its sister, and in this case it was a wrong assumption, and he lost the very plant that he had been looking for. Assume nothing, and only make a judgment call when you have to.

Selection is the single most important factor in any breeding program. In the Bonsai Sultan method, we keep it KISS simple. We only have 4 major things that we select for. In order of importance they are:

1) Potency/high,

2) Over all vigor and structure,

3)Yield of dried harvest

4)length of budding cycle

1)potency/high

This is the single most important factor of any breeding program. There is only one real reason we grow this plant: That is for the effect it gives us when we smoke/consume it. Lets not put the horse before the cart. It doesn’t matter how heavy it is, how dense it is, how much it stinks, if it doesn’t get you high its worthless. Every person has their own unique idea of what the ideal bud should smoke like, so as breeders we are all going to have at least slightly different ideals regarding what exactly constitutes the perfect high. As a breeder your first and foremost goal should be getting as close to this personal ideal as you possibly can. Of course flavor and aroma fit into this category as well, but are lesser components.

2)Overall Vigor and Structure

Vigor refers to the general health of the plant, its ability to grow fast, resist disease, etc. This is very important. Again it doesn’t matter how stony or heavy yielding the plant is, if it can’t resist disease and it grows like crap, even if it is the stoniest **** on the planet, you will be lucky to get any bud out of it at all, and as a grower you don’t want to be dealing with a weak and sickly plant. You want a plant that grows like a champion, laughs at spider mites and practically grows by itself. This makes your job much easier. Structure refers to the shape of the plant, and what kind of structure you want depends on your growing setup, but as growers we all have ideals about what the perfect structure is. My advice is, keep an open mind and don’t be too judgmental. Look at the plants that yield the highest in your garden, what is their structure?
Generally the ideal structure in my opinion, are stout plants with thick strong and dominant stems, that have tight inter-nodular lengths, but not too tight, those giant buds need a little space. The plants that have secondary and tertiary shoots, which grow and bud prolifically are also a great advantage in most gardens. If the plant has the vigor, and the highest yield per square foot in your garden, then it has the structure you are looking for. Structure is primarily a function that is desirous to yield.

3) Yield of dried Buds per square foot

This one is a no brainier. But just remember, the heaviest plant is not necessarily the heaviest plant per square foot, and again keep an open mind regarding structure, because you may find yourself pleasantly surprised by a plant who’s structure did not fit your preconceived ideal. The structure that yields highest in one garden may not be the best for a different garden, and that is why it helps to custom breed the perfect plant for your own unique brand of horticulture.

4)Length of budding cycle

Again this is a no brainer, but just remember that shorter is not always better, it varies from strain to strain, but there is a length of budding which is ideal for yield versus the time it takes to mature. I have had plants with budding cycles ranging from 25 days all the way up to 140 days within my strains. The plant that was ready within 25 days was totally mature and it was very fine bud, 50% NL5XHaze, unfortunately a 5 foot plant only yielded 18 grams. I was however, able to use this particular plant as a parent to breed many very short budding and highly potent and desirable high yielding specimens, which I have crossed with promising haze throwbacks that have had too long of a budding cycle to be practical. I don't think anyone would argue that length of budding cycle is not important, and generally, most of us are on the lookout for a shorter cycle as apposed to a longer one, within reason, but in our program we have to be careful not to sacrifice potency and yield in the name of a shorter budding cycle.


This is all there is to it. It is quite simple really, if you stay focused, and don't get caught up in irrelevant details you will be able to select superior plants from your sample, and this is the single most important thing you can do for your breeding program.

The next installment is coming soon.

Chapter 3

The key to breeding with the scientific method, is reserving judgment, observing and recording data, and utilizing a control group. In the Bonsai Sultan Method, the main Seedless Harvest becomes the control group, more on this in later chapters.

After you have been breeding your strain for a few years you may come to notice certain markers, but don’t put too much faith in these markers. Always record everything. And be sure to label. In the Bonsai Sultan Method, we label with masking tape. Each container is double labeled (2 pieces of tape with same label per container). When the plants are large enough, you can label them again at the first branch. By using a piece of thread and some masking tape. Just drape the thread around the branch and fix it with the tape. You can write on the tape when it is still on the roll, and make sure to use a standard Bic ballpoint pen. Labeling is one of the simplest yet most important parts of any breeding program.

It is important to isolate variables and keep all variables constant, so that you can make sure that all your plants have the same environment, that way you can isolate the genetic factor.

For example: if you are growing 2 plants in different soil, and one does better than the other, it becomes very difficult to say that one plant is better than the other because of genetics. Maybe one soil is better than the other, and that is why the plant appears so much better. So it is very important to make sure that all plants are treated exactly the same. Same soil, same fertilizer, same type of light, etc.

Generally you want to use as much of the same materials for your Bonsai growing as you do for your setup, this is so that you know the plants that perform well under the bonsai method you are going to be ultimately using in your main garden, so you want to select plants that will do well under those conditions. Of course you can’t keep all the variables the same. This is easier if you grow in dirt.
Don't worry if you use a hydroponics system, you will still want to use dirt to start with for your bonsai breeding even if you have a hydroponics system. The secondary and final selection process will insure that your strains are tested in whatever final medium you use, for your main setup, and the rare specimen that has trouble with hydroponics can be eliminated at this time, if you are using a hydroponics setup.

Chapter 4


Now for starters, you will probably have just a few seeds plus whatever mother clones you may have. This is great. In the Bonsai sultan method, hermaphrodites are avoided like the plague, and destroyed whenever they show themselves. This means you will need to find a natural male for your clone mothers. What kind of strain do you want for your male? Well that depends on what you are trying to do. The odds are if you have a particular clone mother that you favor over all your others than you will want to use that as your primary mother, but if you have more than one mother you will want to use all of them. It is called the Sultan method because you will only be using one male to pollinate all of your females, per cycle. This is one of the primary features of the bonsai sultan method. Of course on the next cycle the odds are you will use a different male but it will be just a single male. You will select the best male out of many. I will explain the method you will use for selecting males later. Occasionally you will find yourself in a situation where you are having trouble deciding which male you want to use because they are both so great. In this situation you can use both, provided they came from the same packet of seeds. Generally, you will choose your male based on its genetics prior to selecting, so you will only be keeping and selecting males, from the already decided cross. You may use as many as the top 3 males, of the same batch of seeds. But usually one male will stand out heads above the rest, so usually you will just use one male. Just to be clear, even though on some occasions you may use more than one male, on those occasions the males will ALWAYS be from the exact same seed stock, IE the seeds will come from the same female. You will NEVER use more than one type of seed stock per cycle of breeding for males, NEVER. This is the like the 1st commandment of the bonsai sultan method, and it is the pillar on which the method is founded. Generally you will have just one or two crosses per cycle which you will be focusing on even though you may be growing as little as just a couple plants or as many as thousands.

Chapter 5


If you are selecting a strain to use as a male you will want something that compliments your female, in terms of what you are trying to accomplish. I will site the following fictitious story as an example to help you better understands what I am talking about.

Joe Grow is using the bonsai sultan method to improve and preserve his stock. Joe has 2 mother strains, one that he uses for production, and the other he uses for his personal smoke.

For example, he originally became interested in breeding because he wanted to preserve his 2 clone strains, primarily one, which he had gotten from Neville’s Seed bank, a strain which you might be familiar with: The Haze. He had noticed that it was experiencing some minor genetic drift, which hadn’t affected potency or yield, but it had worried him nonetheless. Also he had gotten some seed out of some crazy Humboldt county bud purchased directly from the grower in mid September, only 3 little white seeds from a whole. This “ounce” was a small round nugget broken off of the largest bud he had ever seen, and this “small” nugget actually weighed almost 40 grams, and the single bud it came off of must have weighed well over a pound. Well 2 of these little seeds had sprouted and they were both male. He had been toying with the idea of making seed, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.
he crossed the best male into his two clone samples, The haze and his other strain, which was the best female for production, selected out of hundreds of plants from all sources, for its extremely high yielding indoor capacity. It came from an unknown source, a miscellaneous bag of the kill, but it outperformed all else for yield, with Giant buds and easily made the grade. He named it simply: The Giant. It had a 70 day budding cycle
The Giant was his main production strain, wildly outperforming all else he had, and debilitating stony with a creeping high, that took at least ten minutes to hit you.
He then grew seeds of the Humboldt Haze hybrids, and crossed it into the original haze, the original Giant, and a female of the Humboldt Giant. He kept the best clone for personal smoke, it was the best thing he had ever smoked outside the original Haze. Satisfied with these seed crosses, He promptly put them on the shelf and forgot about them for several years. He had accomplished this first goal of preserving his carefully collected and tested strains.

Then a disaster forced him to shut down and he lost all of his clones, which had been the culmination of many years of collecting and testing. The thing that crushed him was losing that original Haze clone. You can bet he remembered those seeds pretty quickly. When after things cooled down, he decided to take it back up again, he had a new goal.
His Goal was simple, KISS simple, he wanted a plant that tasted and smoked like haze, but had the structure of the giant, with the early budding and other dynamite features of the Humboldt.
Joe's own personal quest had started, and the gratification of seeking and finding that perfect strain became an obsession, with rewards that He had not even contemplated.


Lets start with those first two Bonsai seed harvests that Joe grew before his big calamity.
The production plant gives very heavy plants and looks like an indica, but is in fact a indica/sativa hybrid. It expresses itself as a giant indica. This plant he labels G (for Giant) for ease of recording. G is an extremely high yielder that came out of bag seed. In fact it is far and away the highest yielder Joe has ever seen, which actually says a lot. It has very stony bud, with a typical indica creeper high, it is devastating and lethargic, it also has immense bag appeal. It has a 70-day budding cycle. Joe’s other plant is a Holland Seed bank original, the NL5Xhaze. This plant he labels H. For those few who aren’t familiar, H is also an indica sativa hybrid, however it expresses itself primarily as a sativa. It is also quite high yielding, however it has a 100-day budding cycle. It has the greatest high Joe has ever experienced. The high lasts 6 hours, and can be smoked several times a day without building up a tolerance; the high is overwhelmingly trippy and hallucinogenic. To make a long story short, it is the bomb. Joe grows a single clone under fluorescents, and keeps it for his own stash because frankly, now that Joe has tried it, nothing else will suffice. Even though he smokes it with his friends few acknowledge it, everyone wants the G. Joe doesn’t really understand this, maybe they are scared. So he just grows it under a couple of shoplights fluorescents in a small box, and gets a few zee's per cycle, enough for him and his friends, cause Joe prefers bong hits.
Joe has a couple of goals. He would love to cross his G with his H, but all he has is clones, and they are female. So what is he to do? Well he needs a bridge. He wants to shorten the budding cycle of both plants, so he needs a fast budding plant. He wants something that is very stony. He does several crosses over a period of years but only one comes out solid and stable. This is a variety from a small Mountain Town called Peyonia, and people call this stuff Peyonia Kind Bud, so he labels it PK. The buds have bright red hairs are covered in crystals and have a delicate but powerfully sweet and fruity aroma. The high is amazing. The plants express themselves as short indicas, but due to the flavor and character of the buds, Joe suspects that there is some sativa hiding somewhere in this strain, possibly Hawaiian, or Colombian. Whatever the case it is some of the finest connoisseur bud Joe has ever smoked. Joe had crossed this with the haze, several years ago, and is thinking of using this strain; he has around 40 seeds of it. But then he scores some weed from a dude up in Humboldt County. Which changes everything

In the end he decides to use the Humboldt county strain, because it is some of the very stoniest, most potent and clearheaded **** he has ever smoked, and the fact that it was an outdoor and he had purchased it in mid September, stem crackin’ dry and nicely cured. He crosses this male into both the G and the H. But wait there is a problem, this stuff is called Humboldt, it also starts with an H, so now, The H becomes the HZ and the Humboldt becomes the HU, problem solved. So for the first cross he does, he has one male HU and he crosses into 2 females. HZ and G.
So now he has 2 new strains. Joe always makes sure that the male is named first when he labels his seeds. For example he now labels his 2 strains.
HU/HZ and HU/G. For his second seed crop he now has more strains, he of course uses a HU/HZ male and crosses it with everything he has, but for some idiotic reason, he doesn’t pop any of his PK/HZ s, oh well he is new at this and it just doesn’t occur to him.
So now out of his second seed crop, he chooses a male HU/HZ and crosses it with HZ, G, HU/HZ, HU/G

So now he has the following strains from seed:

First cross:
HU/HZ and HU/G


and from seed
HU/HZ//HZ , HU/HZ//G , HU/HZ//HU/HZ , HU/HZ//HU/GR

He is primarily interested in the first 2 crosses, HZ/HU//HZ this is ¾ HZ(NL5XHAZE) in case you didn’t notice. Of course in addition to recording this on the seed packs he is also recording it in his notebook.


Now he has a starting point. He has something that is 75%Haze (NL5XHaze) and 25% Humboldt County, and he also has something that is 25% Haze and 25% Humboldt County, and 50% Giant Indica

Chapter 6

I will continue this story later. For now let’s get back to the Bonsai Sultan Method. Joe Grow has a bonsai breeding setup like the one outlined above with 2 growing chambers, each one powered by one standard double fixture four foot shoplights fluorescent light.

For starters he just had 3 clones of HZ and 3 clones of G and he had two plants of Humboldt from seeds, He was hoping for a male and a female from these seeds, but all he got was 2 males, one was far superior, so he kept that one (more on selecting males later), and destroyed the other.
For all of this he only used one of his chambers. He could have used much more clones if he wanted, then he would have gotten much more seeds, but alas he used just 3 of each. For the purposes of breeding, 3 clones of the same strain still equal one plant, and there is no need to differentiate, IE, all seeds from 3 identical clones can be stored in the same pack.

Now keep in mind that in his main grow room, he is growing a crop of G, in the normal fashion, he also has a cloning chamber/veg room, and a small chamber, where he grows haze.

He starts the plants in 2-inch containers and keeps them root bound in 2-inch containers for around a month or longer. He waits until his main all seedless harvest of G plants are 2 weeks from harvest, then he puts his seedlings on budding, this way by the time he harvests his G, the males will almost be starting to release their pollen, and they won’t affect his All female harvest of G clones. Also the male he selects is of course, root bound in a 2-inch container, and he leaves it in the 2-inch container. Once the male flowers are fully formed but have not yet released pollen the male is trimmed down to just a couple of dominant branches and the trimmings are baked in the oven at 300 for 30 minutes, insuring that all the pollen is destroyed. The remaining branches that have pollen will open in a couple of days. Once the flowers start to open, this male in a 2-inch container will be used like a magic paintbrush, and Joe will paint all of his bonsai females with this male, lightly brushing all the females, with the male. He will do this every day until the male has released most of its pollen (around a week or 2), then he will destroy the male in the oven. He worries a bit about his haze female he is growing for his head because it is a long way from finished, and doesn't want it to get seeded. But he finds to his relief, because it is in a different room, and the male is so small, he finds that his precious haze stash doesn’t even have a single seed. Of course he always wears different clothes, and washes up well, after handling the male.

When he puts the seed plants on budding, he transfers his clones from 2 inch to 4-inch containers, because he has the space. If he didn’t have the space he would have put them in to 3-inch containers or not transplanted them at all. If he had any females from seed he would have transplanted them as well. When he transplants, he breaks up the root ball using a sharp knife. He cuts the root ball on all four sides by making 2 incisions going down through the bottom and then up to the other side; the cut should be ½ to 1 inch deep. He uses an exacto knife to make sure the cut is not too deep, but any knife will do as long as he is careful, and sterilizes and does not cut too deep. He starts fertilizing with a ½ grow solution when the plants reach their 4th or 5th leaf set. He switches to a bloom fertilizer at full strength when he switches the light cycle to 12.


Chapter 7



His second seedcrop is more interesting, he plants 40 seeds of the HU/HZ and 10 seeds of the HU/G and keeps 10 clones of the HZ and 10 clones of the G. As always, which is a prerequisite of the bonsai method, he starts both clones and seeds in 2-inch pots, with a 24-hour light cycle. (I recommend 24-hour light cycle for all vegetative growth especially in the bonsai chambers.) After 5 weeks again the timing is appropriate as he is 2 weeks away from harvest in his main flowering room. After about a week and a half the bonsais start showing sex. He is keeping 2 males of the HU/HZ, that are clearly heads above the rest, he was having trouble choosing a favorite between 2 so he just kept them both. He winds up with 29 females and kills all males except the 2 he will use. Up until now all plants have been vegging in just one of the chambers. But now he is left with 50 plants, He decides to use both chambers and transplant everything into 4-inch containers. He could flower a maximum of 72 plants in 4-inch containers, using both chambers. If he would have more than that, he would use 3-inch containers for transplant, but in fact he could just leave them in 2-inch containers if he had to. He flowers out the plants successfully on 12-hour light cycle. He winds up with just a couple of grams off of each plant, and anywhere from 20 or 30 seeds to as many as 100 seeds per plant. He uses old fashioned t12 fat, cool white shop fluorescents, because these stay cool enough where the plants can grow straight up into the lights so they are even touching the bulbs. He tries to find a style of stoplights where there is as much space between the 2 bulbs as possible.

After he has been painting his females with his male, for around a week or 2, he bakes his male in the oven, to insure that it won't keep throwing pollen.
His plants are starting to flower and produce seeds. He is fertilizing them full on with bloom. When the seeds are mature, it is time to harvest the buds.
When he harvests the tiny little bonsai plants, he makes sure to leave the little bottom shoots that he had saved when he was pruning (more on this later), and he harvests the main stem, at those shoots, leaving those little bottom shoots, for regeneration.
When he harvests the little plants he places the whole plant with stem minus fan leaves, into an individual paper post envelope, standard letter, or 8X11, depending on size of bonsai, writing the abbreviated name (in pencil) on the envelope.


Chapter 8


Selecting Males

Of course, the main thing you select a male for is by its genes. So before you even plant the seeds you know which strain, or seed stock you are going to select your male from.
When you select males from among that preselected stock, you are primarily looking for 3 features, and it is not arbitrary crap you read about somewhere, like stem thickness. It is something you can measure and record. Here they are in order of importance:

1) High Factor: You want it to be stony, however you like it. With the male you can't be too choosy because you will be smoking leaf. You will test it for stoniness, by finding small veg leaves, 1 ½ inch diameter leaves, and dry them out. Make sure that the leaf samples to be tested are the exact same size(leaf stoniness varies according to size of leaf). Then first thing in the morning right when you wake up, wake and bake. Take 2 dried leaves pack them in a bong first thing in the morning right when you wake up, and take the single biggest hit you can and hold, and hold it for as long as possible, exhale, wait a few minutes and then rate on a scale from 1 to 10. Only one bong hit per test, and only test one sample each day, right when you wake up. Do this a couple times with each sample, if you have time. You will be surprised what a variation you will find, and if you smoke right when you wake up and you have a superior strain, you will also be surprised by how high you will get. Note: if you can finish the bong then you need to use more leaves. There should be enough material in the bong that you can't finish all of it.

2) Vigor and Form: This is just like a female. You know that plant; the one you are just praying will be a female? Well when it turns out to be a male, you select that one, provided the leaf is good and stony.

3) Length of budding cycle: Usually, the earlier flowering males are more desirous, because generally people prefer a shorter budding cycle.

These are the three factors that can easily be isolated and measured, and these are the only three factors that you consider when selecting males for the bonsai sultan method. Keep it KISS simple and you are bound to come up with a winner.


Pruning your bonsais: Generally, you can let your bonsais grow naturally and don't prune them at all in veg. Just let them grow strait up into the shop lights. Once they start budding, you can prune any of the side branches that don't make it up to the lights, but make sure that you leave the first 2 sets of branches at the bottom, but you can prune the bottom branches down to their 2nd leaf sets. It is very important that you keep these low branches, because you will be regenerating your plants, and you will be clipping your plants down when you regenerate them and they regenerate best from these lower branches. Generally you should do all the pruning at once, a couple weeks after you transplant and switch light cycle to 12 hours, when they are showing sex, then you can eliminate males and prune females at the same time. Prune the males as you start testing them for potency. Remember, you will prune the Keeper(s) a second time when the male flowers are fully formed, just before they open.

Chapter 9


Back to Joe Grow.
So Joe has now harvested all of his females and they are drying in individually labeled envelopes. For example he has like 18 HU/HZ females so he labels them 1-18 IE HU/HZ 1 HU/HZ 2 etc, and he is careful to make sure he numbers both the envelopes and the potted plants.
Once he harvests the plants, he makes sure to leave the bottom branches that he left when he was pruning and puts the plants back on 24 hours, he prepares the plants for revegging in several ways. First of all he is very careful to remove all calyxes that have seeds or partially formed seeds with a tweezers, this is very important. Secondly he snips any yellow leaves. It is just fine to leave part of a leaf, IE if it is half yellow and half green, he snips the yellow part and leaves the green part. Larger leafs can be trimmed down to size. If there is an empty calyx that had a seed in it, make sure it is removed with tweezers. Also make sure to leave calyxes that do not have any signs of seed production. It is these calyxes from which new growth will spring.

He waters them with vegetative fertilizer of a solution at 1/10th strength. He keeps them moist but not too wet and generally treats them like cuttings. He drops the lights so that they are around 4 inches from the plants. It will take around a month or so for the plants to start regenerating so he is patient.
Once the individual plants have dried in their little envelopes it is time for the fun part. He is going to rate them in 4 different categories, and he will write their ratings right on the envelopes. Oh yeah he has already rated them for vigor and structure, when he rates them he does so on a scale from one to ten.
He also knows when they are ready; he records the dates that he takes each one on the individual envelope. Remember that seeded bud matures much quicker.
Now that they are dry he can weigh each one. Generally when weighing them it is best to remove all the leaves and stems and just weighs the seeded bud. Generally the plants just yield a couple grams each, so he needs a very accurate scale. Again he records the weight right on the envelope.
After he removes the leaf and stem from the buds he places the buds back into the envelopes, and now comes the fun part, he can start testing and rating the buds for smoke. He stops smoking for 3 days to a week before he starts testing. He waits at least a couple hours between tests. The higher rated ones he tests twice. He tests by taking a single bong hit. And he makes sure that he uses the exact same amount of bud for each test. Once he tests the plants again he rates on a scale from one to ten, and writes the rating right on the envelope.
By the time Joe is finished testing all the plants, with all the information he has gathered he has been able to select 6 plants that he will continue regenerating. These are the 6 best plants after being weighed and rated. If you have the space it is good to keep the best 10 percent of the regenerating plants. If your sample is just too large, then keep around 10 or 15. He destroys all the other plants that he is regenerating and just keeps these 6. He kept all until was able to differentiate through selection which he was going to keep. He winds up with 6 HU/HZ He doesn't keep any HU/GR, as he was just growing these so that he could cross them into the haze. So now he has converted the bottom chamber into a mother chamber, and it now has 6 HZ/HU females regenerating. Once they start putting out shoots he will wait until he is taking cuttings off his main G mother for his main crop.

Then he will take cuttings of these regenerated plants at the same time he takes his main cuttings, and he will grow 2 of each of these in his main grow room, as female clones alongside his main G crop. Now, his main G crop becomes the control group, and he is testing his subjects, the 6 varieties of HZ/HU against this control group. This is where he really finds out what his new hybrids are made of.


OK let’s take a look at what seeds Joe got out of this last seedcrop. He had 29 females from seed plus his 2 varieties of clones
Of his females, 23 were HU/HZ and 6 were HU/G His 2 males were HU/HZ
The Clones were HZ (NL5XHZ) and G (Giant Indica)
So he winds up with 23 varieties of HU/HZ //HU/HZ These he labels as F2 HU/HZ because it is essentially HU/HZ crossed with itself. Because HU/HZ is an F1 hybrid this is an F2 hybrid.
Now the best 6 F2 HU/HZ specimens, the ones he is regenerating, he divides out and stores and labels separately. The rest he stores in one packet, labeled simply misc. F2 HU/HZ.
With the HZ/HU//HU/G since he did not keep any mothers, he separates the top 3 that have the best overall ratings and stores them each separately. The remaining he stores in one combined pack labeled misc. HZ/HU//HU/G.
He also winds up with HU/HZ//HZ which if you think about it, is ¾ HZ and ¼ Humboldt
and he winds up with HU/HZ//G
These are his 2 most important crosses and the main reason he did this seedcrop, the others are just bonuses. Oh yeah he copies the info on the envelopes of his keepers into his notebook, along with other relevant notes.


Chapter 10


Now Back to Joe Grows main crop. He mainly grows G because it is very heavy and people seem to love it. This time he is growing 12 clones of haze hybrids along side his G clones. His G clones represent the control group, and ultimately he is looking for something that will beat G. The Haze hybrids perform very well, and they are all quite similar to one another. He is surprised to find that most of them actually finish just a bit ahead of the Grover, in around 65-70 days. While they have quite an impressive yield in finishing, of course they can't compete with G for yield. He is not surprised, in all his years of growing he has never seen anything that competes with G for yield, but in his opinion, the quality of the smoke is miles ahead. It is very similar to the HZ in appearance but lighter green, and the flavor is very fruity, with strong haze undertones. Joe is in love with one in particular, and saves that particular clone. But he still prefers the original pure HZ. In the end he keeps that one clone and grows a couple every cycle, so he has some variety for his head. Satisfied that he has preserved his strains, he puts the seeds in a drawer and forgets about them for a couple of years.
Then in a disaster, he loses all of his clones. Now he is thanking his lucky stars that he made those seeds. The main thing that devastates him is that fact that he lost the HZ. So now he feels he just want to find a few super strains that combine the best features of the Hz and the G. In his quest however, he winds up creating many unique haze hybrids that he could never even imagined.

Chapter 11


The Bonsai Sultan Method is driven by specimens, this is to say, that in your first generation you will be using tested clones and possibly untested seed (in terms of grown). It is important to find the most potent seed you can, and stock that compliments your clones. What are your clones’ weaknesses? Try finding superior strains that are strong where your mothers are weak. IE you might have a plant that you really love it is very potent, but it has small buds and is low yielding. Well you may want to mix it with something that is also very potent, but is known to be a heavy yielder. Whatever strains you use, just remember, you are looking for the very best specimens, and don't be judgmental, let them finish, and see which are the best, scientifically, by measuring, albeit testing in bong, to weighing entire plant, to recording the length of the budding cycle, and recording data.


The first thing Joe does of course is cross a superior male of the HU/HZ//HZ (3/4 HZ) into everything he has. He wants to get, as much HZ into his strains as possible, because the main thing he is looking for is something that smokes like HZ, the other 2 factors are secondary.
He has, PK/HZ, HU/HZ, F2 HU/HZ, HU/HZ/G, HU/G, HU/HZ//HU/G
Now he focuses on 3/4HZ///HU/HZ//G because these plants seem to produce the haziest offspring and they are dynamite, in form, and yield, He inbreeds the very best specimens from his samples to F3, expanding to about 5 shelves.
Selecting from a huge sample In the F3 generation, he finds a remarkable specimen, who is uncannily like the original HZ, except that it is much heavier, and has a budding cycle of around 75 days, with wild fruit undertones. It has its own character, he didn't invent it, he discovered it, and it has its own character He names this Mother the HHG, and starts back crossing it into all kinds of his other lines. He always uses the Bonsai Sultan Method.
He creates lines, from this original superior mother: the HHG, and using males, from all different crosses of this mother, as well as her mother, he eventually finds several different mothers become the foundation of several lines. Through decent common sense and carefully recording genealogy, Joe has unwittingly become a line breeder. He assumed nothing and only did one thing, looked for superior specimens from his sample according to the 4 simple criteria for which he was selecting, in order of importance: Stoniness, Vigor/Form, yields, and length of budding cycle.
It is important to note that his setup has been evolving this whole time, and he is now experiencing record yields, beyond even the original Giant. This happened gradually, over several generations.

His All female seedless clone room is filled 75% with his dominant yielding plant, and 10% is dedicated to connoisseur and backup clones, and 15% of the room is dedicated to R&D, that is the clones he has taken from the regenerated bonsai hopefuls. So every once in a while one of these hopefuls beats out the dominant mother in terms of quality and yields.

When that happens, he does a test harvest, and gives half of the dominant mother's grow spaces to the up and coming hopeful. This is a competition, if the hopeful wins she becomes the new dominant mother, and the old mother goes in part to the connoisseur and backup section of strains. At this point his system just evolved, it is better then it was before. Joe is surprised how quickly his system evolves using this method.



Chapter 12

Now Joe Grow has evolved into something of a breeder and his plants have been evolving right along with him.
He finally has something that for his specific purpose is better than anything he has ever had. His new mother HHG is 50% original HZ and 25% Humboldt, and 25% Giant. But phenotyopically, the bud is mostly HZ, with Hu undertones, and its form is like the Giant, with giant buds, except the bud material is like the haze. The Giant was fluffy bud, but the HHG is very dense, not quite as dense and the original HZ, but close. He got this result, by simply growing everything out not making any assumptions, and withholding judgment until the plants had budded out. He also got this result, by selecting based on his 4 categories, and religiously testing his males for potency. Nature took care of the rest.
He always labeled everything, and recorded all the definitions of his abbreviations in his notebook, just to be safe.

Chapter 13

When inbreeding using the bonsai sultan method one simple rule, generally, is not to go past the F3 generation. Generally if you follow this rule you shouldn't have too many problems with weakening strains due to inbreeding. Generally you will create many lines, so as long as you keep track of your genealogy, you will have many combinations to choose from, when line breeding.
Generally in the Bonsai Sultan Method you are going for Heterogeneity, not homogeneity. This is because generally, when you are propagating with herb you are using clones. So in the Bonsai Sultan Method you want a very wide variety of expression within your gene pool so that you can select that one mother that is perfect. By cloning her you will get the perfect homogeneity that you are looking for. In my experience, plants with diverse genetic backgrounds, tend to make very stable clones, much more stable than plants which are inbred.
Joe started with just 4 different strains, 2 clones and 2 seed stock varieties. The clones were: The NL5HZ, and the Giant Indica. His seed stock strains were: The Paonia Kind (or Kine), and the Humboldt County Deathbud. Now the genes within these strains are extremely diverse.

NL5HZ- is most likely Afghani with a hint of Thai on one side, and a pure sativa hybrid -Thai, Columbian, Oaxacan, Indian on the other.

Giant Indica- Unknown, but phenotyopically it is an Indica dominant sativa indica hybrid.

Humboldt County Death- This is a classic old school variety scored from a classic Humboldt bushman. It has the best of old school genetics, most likely an Afghan Hawaiian hybrid, acclimatized to Northern California, for many generations.

Paonia Kind (Kine)- phenotyopically its form is pure indica, but the flavor and nature of the bud tells a different story, it has short compact plants that appear 100% indica, however the buds are fruity, dense, and covered in long exotic red hairs.

For now, with this kind of genetic Diversity, Joe finds that his strains are very phenotyopically diverse. Even within the same seed stock, no two plants are the same. The one thing they all seem to have in common: they are all very exotic and stony and each one is definitely its own unique connoisseur level smoke.
This does not bother Joe in the least because Joe grows his main crop from clones, so when he finds that super plant, he simply makes it into a mother, and then he has the perfect homogeneity that he needs for his indoor setup.



Chapter 14


Stabilizing strains, or going for Homogeneity is generally referred to as creating a “pure breed” or true breeding strain, and it is a very difficult thing to do properly. It can be done but it is beyond the scope of this write-up. These are advanced breeding techniques. If you master the Bonsai Sultan Method, you may eventually want to study and learn how to do this. However, the Bonsai Sultan Method is a simple and easy way for beginners to vastly improve and custom modify the strains they are working with. And in terms of propagation for the average grower, it is actually more desirous to have a heterogeneous sample to work from, this is because the average grower uses clones, and only uses seeds to select a mother plant from.

The average cultivator is primarily concerned with growing all female seedless harvest, and the Bonsai Sultan Method represents a simple way for the average grower to breed without jeopardizing his seedless harvest. Not only will you be able to preserve your strains, in the form of seeds and vastly improve the strains that you are working with, but you will also guarantee the independence of your setup. You will be able to stop cultivating for years at a time without jeopardizing the safety of your strains, because they will be stored safely and compactly, in the form of seed.

Right now the current status of cultivation of this wonderful plant is in a legal gray area and it is difficult to say if the current trend of tolerance will last.

There are significant powers right now in both the government and the private sector that are organizing huge resources, in an effort to control and regulate this wonderful plant. We all need to work together as a community to safeguard what we have. I believe one way to do this, is for everyone who is growing to also breed, and for the beginner, and the non breeder, this method, represents a simple, viable and very effective way to do this. If every medical grower, who purchases these seeds from the Holland seed banks, learns how to breed on his own using this simple method, then the powers that be, whether government, pharmaceutical or other big business interests will never be able to deprive us of what is naturally ours.

By increasing the amount of breeders in the world, we will also be increasing the gene pool of the plant. Then seed banks like MNS, can become like the hub of a sort of co-op, where local breeders, when they come up with superior strains, through forums like this one can share these strains with the community, and send these strains back to the seed banks (especially MNS) where they can be further improved and perfected by experts. It appears to me that this is already going on right here at MNS, and it is this forum, which has inspired me to disclose this simple method.

Now is the time. We are blessed to have Neville in our midst, he basically bred all the strains on which the Holland scene was founded, and it seems, MNS represents a new movement of the original masters. We must seize this moment while we have the opportunity. We do not know how long this window will remain open. By working together, and breeding, we can secure the future of this venerable plant for ourselves and those around us.

END

Thank You,
Sincerely,
Joshua Hazen
__________________


Appendix A: Bonsai Sultan Method for Outdoor Grows.

Basically, the method for outdoor grows is the same as for indoors grows. This alternate is also for the individual who just does the occasional indoors grow and does not grow perpetually. The main difference is timing. If you are growing outdoors you will want to start your bonsai grow about 4-5 months before you start your outdoor grow. Refer to Chapter 9. You will do everything the same, except, instead of putting your test clones into the indoor grow room, you will put them outdoors with your main clones. If you are an outdoor grower growing from seed, then using the Bonsai Sultan Method, you will switch to growing clones outdoors, this will drastically improve your yield. If by chance you have some kind of problem with clones, that is OK, you can just regenerate as many of the bonsai females as you need, and place them outdoors. Remember you will first need to get your indoor plants used to sunlight, before placing them in direct sunlight. Start them in a place where they will be in shade with about 1-2 hours direct sunlight, for a couple days, then gradually move them to a place that gets more direct sunlight each day, until they can handle full sunlight this takes about 1 week to acclimate them.
Alternatively if you are set on using seed outdoors, you can just use the seed from the best plants that you get from your bonsai seed crop. But be sure to save some seeds for the next generation bonsai seedcrop. If you do it this way be sure to do your bonsai seedcrop around 6 months before you plant outdoors, because it is good to let the seeds cure for a month or 2 before planting them. This allows you to produce your own seed, in the bonsai method, freeing your outdoor harvest for an all-seedless female crop.