Big Bertha

[koshiva]

Finally I got round to posting big bertha, first time useing image shack so thumbnails and blah...'click em I guess'...and prob for the best for 56k friendly

Firstly I'd like to dedicate this thread to sureshot in honour of his tireless efforts to create the grow faq...this is for you sureshot

Ok so here is big bertha...the pics don't really do her justice, she stood approx 8 foot tall, but her girth was what made her so massive...biggest plant I ever saw. She was primarilly indica in origin, but had been back crossed with a sativa, then re-crossed with a skunk,then again with the original indica. The original indica strain came from Holland...those crazy dutch lol...it served me well for many years.

One thing which was quite neat about bertha, was that she came from some very old seeds. The seeds were a cross between sk#1 and sk#2 and looked small,some pale, and germination rates were poor. Well, never judge a book by its cover...naturally bertha was selected from many, but it just goes to show that old seeds(5yrs) can do special things. I know others also recieved some of those orginal seeds(sk#1xsk2) and ruled them out, well they're loss. And if your wondering, bertha yielded 3 1/2 lbs of well manicured nugget, a true mamouth. Alot of that is down to digging a very big hole, integrating lots of manure and compost, plenty of water, lots of sunshine, and folliar feeding on a weekly basis.

Bertha was tied up alot too, branchs that is, so that her energy could be more better directed into folliage and bud production rather than stem...if the weight of buds is too much for a plant,or thrashed about in the wind, it must dedicate more energy into stems to support them. Give the plants a helping hand and they like that. All it takes is love and effort. I confess I had somewhat of a relationship with this plant, as I do with all of them, but this one was special. You ever tripped with a plant? That was totally unreal, as much as it was strange,sitting beneath her canopy, stroking and caressing her...I could feel the entire being contained in that organism right back to the beginning, all those generations of plants, looking down on me, through me, through one plant, acknowledgeing me. Now most won't understand that, thats natural too...its mostly between her and I

One bud of bertha was pollinated and this new strain is now known as budforce, named after said yhkan member....so if you have those seeds, do something with them

Again I reiterate, this is for you sureshot

She started out small



Some tips


A little bigger


Much bigger


Top view


Fattest girl I ever saw

[koshiva]

A few buds from the old girl

[koshiva]

A pollinated bud for the next generation


After the first cut


A late bud


And a couple of the stalk

[Flamingnun]

lol more like a tree than a plant man!
how much did she yield in the end?

[Mescalito]

Awesome Kosh! Some babies i planted outside gerw almost as big as that abuot 2 years ago. I completely didnt expect it. It was a good thing it was remote because i could literally smell my way to the plant from a 1000m away! The smell.. another thing i underestimated.

M

[v3d4]

beautiful!

[D3mIh]

i cant see the pics

[Mescalito]

^Then the only logical conclusion is.. you are blind. Please consult a doctor if you are still unsure.

M

[thcbuz]

Beautiful amazon girl you did there Dude.looks like a malawi stalk I grew a couple of years ago.it never quite finished because I didn't get her started early enough.but I had to cut her down and I've still got the stalk.its about a 51/2 foot walking stick you can't hardly reach around with your fist.remember bedlam.he sent me the malawi beans.still without the plant quite finishing I got around 21/2 pounds off of it.

[Dandaweedman]

Damn those are nice pics of a beautiful plant Kosh.
Glad to see them finally. She is quite the lady that one.

[koshiva]

dankashun comrads I've got a collection of 3 stalks now, one is a walking stick from 2000 which was also part of the bertha line and which yielded 2 1/2, another from 1998 called skink yielded 1 1/2...skink was a fine strain, shame I only ever grew two plants since I left the black film container in the sun for a few hours and fried the beans, but my that was a fine strain...a cross between sk#1 and my favourite sativa which goes back to 1987. The original sk#1 also came from holland and I have yet to come across another strain quite so stinky and resinous, but its in bertha somewhere. The thing I like about that sk#1 was that it was so resinous water would fall off it like water off a ducks back...so mould was a complete non issue unlike so many of the modern skunks too often bred for large buds more suited to indoor. I much prefer more slender, compact buds dripping with trichomes...bertha was somewhere between the two...and the stalk is more like a small base ball bat.

And thcbuzz, I have heard so much about Malawi gold...those african strains can be ridiculous, did I ever tell you about the time I smoked with pigmi's in the heart of the congo? lol..that was some session let me tell ya...surrounded by massive plants...I had the whole tribe cracking up when I showed them how its done.

Bertha didn't quite realise her potencial either, on a few buds mould did start top develop so she had to be pulled earlier than I'd have liked...it got too warm and humid...and had she gone full term, well at least 4 1/2lbs. I would still like to grow the 'super mamouth' which would equate to 5lbs or more...just aswell when I grew bertha I only had a total of 5 plants....and the other 4 were piddly sativa's.

So the moral of ths story is to always select your very best plants and cross them, and give some seeds away...because too few growers give much back to the wonderful plant and instead just wish to take advantage of her virtues.
One thing I can say though, generally in my own experience, is that if you cross two strains which are totally different, the offspring display hybrid vigour and just pump....as soon as you start to inbreed, vigour declines. ...blah blah

[Cerebro]

Nice, very nice.
Not much more to say.
Well done, mate

[KoolAid]

beautiful

[budmanawsome]

*droolling*

[D3mIh]

OMG SOO GAY AM I THE ONLY ONE THAT CANT SEE BIG BERTHA!?!?
pls pm me the pics

[budmanawsome]

yes your the onloy one that cant see them get on aim and ill send them to yea

[D3mIh]

k playwithknives3

[budmanawsome]

your welcome

[D3mIh]

thnx ^
big bertha is a big beautifull bitch

[Peace seeker]

WOW! just wow

thats one big mama.

I remember seeing a pic of her stalk once in another thread. Good job Kosh.

and by the way, i also miss Sureshot.

if you talk to him give my regards.



we all gotta meet one day