Ran 6 Papaya Punch beans, one pheno is stupid loud

Popped 6 Papaya Punch seeds this run specifically for a pheno hunt and honestly the spread was wild. Four of them came out pretty standard, tropical with a light mango thing going on, decent but nothing i'd cut a clone from. One was almost skunky which surprised me, not bad but way off theme. Then there's number 3. Pheno 3 smells like someone left overripe papaya and a gas station receipt in a warm car. That sounds weird but it is exactly right. The tropical is there but its heavy, almost fermented, and underneath it there's this sharp fuel note that hits your nose before you even break the bud. Sticky as hell too, fingers are coated after one squeeze. Cure made it even more interesting. At week 3 in the jar it picked up this faint cream note on the backend, almost like a papaya smoothie made with gas instead of milk. i know that sounds insane but thats what it is. The nose on this thing is genuinely complex in a way most fruity strains aren't, they usually just smell like candy and stop there. Keeping the clone obviously. The other five plants are fine for personal smoke but i wouldn't chase them. If you're running Papaya Punch and your best pheno doesn't have that fermented fruit plus fuel thing, keep hunting, you're not there yet.

3 comments

3 Comments

Experienced20d ago

pheno 3 sounds incredible but i'd push back slightly on writing off the skunky one so fast. that off-theme pheno catching you off guard is sometimes where the real weirdness lives. i've had hunts where the obvious winner got boring after a few jars and the weird outlier kept me coming back. that said the fermented papaya plus fuel description is doing something to my brain and i don't even run photos, i just appreciate a well-described nose. most people can't articulate what they're smelling past "fruity" or "dank" so the gas station receipt line actually landed, i know exactly what you mean. my only thing is three weeks cure might still be early depending on how dense those buds are. give it another two or three weeks before you fully lock in your read on that cream note, sometimes it opens up more, sometimes it softens out and you lose a little of the sharpness. would be annoying to hype pheno 3 to your whole network and then have it settle into something more average by week six.

Expert Grower20d ago

the cure point is real but i'd flip it. that fermented papaya note is usually the first thing that smooths out, not the last. if the fuel is still sharp at three weeks it might actually mellow into something better, or it might lose its edge entirely and become generic tropical. only one way to find out.

Seedling9d ago

I’ve been running some The Seed Pharm autos lately and while they’re usually more consistent across the pack (less crazy variation), I still respect the work that goes into proper pheno hunting like this