Breeding talk for everyone to understand

[Dirtbag]

Basically, what breeders do today is sprout thousands of seeds looking for a genetic winner, and then they self it, and sell feminized seed. Almost none of the breeders save a few are making true breeds by taking lines out to F8-F9, stress testing them and tastefully outbreeding and backcrossing until they have a stable seed variety.

 

[Chad.Westport]

And tomorrow we'll be buying super strains that have been scientifically engineered to resist pm, have pink pistils, a certain terpene profile and over 30% THC. Traditional breeding is going to be only for hobbyists in another 10-15 years time. Do you think this may be why breeders aren't investing their time to make IBL anymore, the S1 route is the quickest to the goal before they become obsolete?

So really, we're doing dinosaur work, but it's fun, it's what we have and you never know when you find that diamond in the rough.

 

[growsince79]

And tomorrow we'll be buying super strains that have been scientifically engineered to resist pm, have pink pistils, a certain terpene profile and over 30% THC. Traditional breeding is going to be only for hobbyists in another 10-15 years time. Do you think this may be why breeders aren't investing their time to make IBL anymore, the S1 route is the quickest to the goal before they become obsolete?

So really, we're doing dinosaur work, but it's fun, it's what we have and you never know when you find that diamond in the rough.

Its all fun. But for the average hobby grower, f1s are the best they get. I personally made and grew f3s once and had no desire to even try f4 after that disaster.

 

[Chad.Westport]

I've enjoyed the process and will continue. I'm not so sure I want that super strain when it inevitably comes out, but my best suggestion is for everyone to make seeds and preserve genetics. So many of them have been lost to time and trends. Share with your fellow growers and slowly raise the worlds consciousness. This project for the Farmers cut is a great way of doing just that :)

 

[Grownsince95]

As a curious on looker, does cannabis plants have dominant and recessive traits similar to almost every living creature? If so then the out come of crossing would have to be a crap shoot, since its not a math formula where the number of variants can be predicted. Like 33% this or that. So in any cross then it stand to reason two great parents don't guarantee an improved or complete mix of the starting parents. I have seeds I made 10 years ago and each year i grow out 20 or more. From season to season I get different plants. But both parents were of the same lineage and a stable strain. Was this due to recessive traits coming out? Texada timewarp is the strain, from Jordan of the Island seeds

If you are growing out an F2 generation yes, you will get a big variety of phenotypes expressions so the plants can look dramatically different from one another.

 

[Grownsince95]

As a curious on looker, does cannabis plants have dominant and recessive traits similar to almost every living creature? If so then the out come of crossing would have to be a crap shoot, since its not a math formula where the number of variants can be predicted. Like 33% this or that. So in any cross then it stand to reason two great parents don't guarantee an improved or complete mix of the starting parents. I have seeds I made 10 years ago and each year i grow out 20 or more. From season to season I get different plants. But both parents were of the same lineage and a stable strain. Was this due to recessive traits coming out? Texada timewarp is the strain, from Jordan of the Island seeds

Let's make an over simplified list of pretend plants and traits to use as an example.

We have:
Mom: Purple, Sweet smell, low THC and early ripening

Dad: Lime green, Gas smell, high THC, late ripening.

The goal: Purple, Gas smell, high THC and early ripening.

The rub is...you have no idea what traits the parents are homozygous for. Each parent has the 2 alleles inherited from their parents, but can only contribute one in their gamete. In some cases the traits will be homozygous, meaning both alleles are identical so the parent is always passing off the same allele for a given trait. In most cases (especially with cannabis) the traits are heterozygous, meaning the parent carries different alleles at a givin loci, and will RANDOMLY pass on either during reproduction.

So for our example let's lay it out like this: upper case Dominant and lower case recessive.
Purple = p
Lime = G

Sweet = S
Gas = g

Low THC = L
High TCH = H

Late = f
Early = E

So our parents look like this
Mom: pp, Sg, LL, Ef
Dad: GG, gg, HH, ff

These two plants will NEVER make Purple offspring no matter how many times you try!!

That cross would theoretically make:

Lime green, sweet, Mid potency, early flowering. With the occasional late flowering gassy one.

 

[Chad.Westport]

Just so everyone can follow -

Homozygous = When a particular gene has identical alleles (versions) of chromosomes inherited from both parents, the gene is homozygous. A homozygous trait is referred to by two capital letters (XX) for a dominant trait, and two lowercase letters (xx) for a recessive trait.

Heteroezygous = In heterozygous plant, a gene pair (alleles) contains two different genes controlling different traits of a character in an organism. (Xy, xY)

Allele = An allele is one of two or more versions of a gene. An individual inherits two alleles for each gene, one from each parent. If the two alleles are the same, the individual is homozygous for that gene.

Loci = A locus is the specific physical location of a gene or other DNA sequence on a chromosome, like a genetic street address. The plural of locus is "loci".

 

[Grownsince95]

So our possible cannabis babies could look like this:

pG, Sg, LH, Ef: Green, Sweet, Mid, Early
pG, gg, LH, ff: Green, gas, Mid, Late

The F2 is where the magic happens! So now our possibilities are:

pp, gg, LH, ff: Purple, gas, mids, late
pG, Sg, LH, Ef: Green, sweet, mids, early
GG, gg, LH, ff: Green, gas, mids, late....

And on and on and on...But did anyone catch the big 300 lb gorilla in the room?

Why do I keep coming up with "mids"? Because some traits are codominant and will express as an in-between of the two.

...yeah I know. My brain is totally fried rn.

 

[Grownsince95]

If you notice in my example "dad" is a totally homozygous "stable" parent. But as soon as you cross with any plant that is hetero for those traits you open up that pandoras box

 

[Grownsince95]

Just so everyone can follow -

Homozygous = When a particular gene has identical alleles (versions) of chromosomes inherited from both parents, the gene is homozygous. A homozygous trait is referred to by two capital letters (XX) for a dominant trait, and two lowercase letters (xx) for a recessive trait.

Heteroezygous = In heterozygous plant, a gene pair (alleles) contains two different genes controlling different traits of a character in an organism. (Xy, xY)

Allele = An allele is one of two or more versions of a gene. An individual inherits two alleles for each gene, one from each parent. If the two alleles are the same, the individual is homozygous for that gene.

Loci = A locus is the specific physical location of a gene or other DNA sequence on a chromosome, like a genetic street address. The plural of locus is "loci".

Thanks @Chad.Westport I didn't mean to jump ahead

 

[Chad.Westport]

Thanks @Chad.Westport I didn't mean to jump ahead

You explained it well. I just wanted to make sure it was breeding talk for everyone to understand. lol :)

You and I reach the same point before our brains start to melt. Its a real physical sensation.

 

[Grownsince95]

You explained it well. I just wanted to make sure it was breeding talk for everyone to understand. lol :)

You and I reach the same point before our brains start to melt. Its a real physical sensation.

Thank you! And I gave a grotesquely over simplified example. Not even taking into account that there can be way more than two alleles for any given trait and sometimes multiple genes must combine to form traits.

Human blood types are a good example. We have A, B, and o. You can only carry 2 of the 3 though and those combinations give us our 4 blood types. The rh protein, the + and - aspect is determined by a different gene with only 2 alleles so you can only be one or the other

 

[Grownsince95]

I can't wait to start chucking some pollen around!

 

[growsince79]

I can't wait to start chucking some pollen around!

Just be sure to have an ample supply of a+buds in case things go south. Also, when you make your first f1s make a lot of them. They might be the best. If the 3rd gen isn't any good, you might not want to grow a 4th.

 

[Grownsince95]

Just be sure to have an ample supply of a+buds in case things go south. Also, when you make your first f1s make a lot of them. They might be the best. If the 3rd gen isn't any good, you might not want to grow a 4th.

Yeah, I'm going to finish the 2 runs I have going now and then pollinate when nothing else in the room has pistils lol. I'm in a 10x10 space with tents stacked on top of tents The chance for cross contamination is basically 100%

 

[Grownsince95]

In fact, I almost pollinated the whole neighborhood not too long ago

 

[growsince79]

In fact, I almost pollinated the whole neighborhood not too long ago
View attachment 1049084

When they get to that point, you can cut one or two branches and put the in a vase in another room and toss the rest. The cuts will open in a couple days, and you can collect it and pollinate only select branches. If you do decide to do a full seed crop, keep in mind a carbon filter wont stop pollen. Last year I had a hundred of bees trying to get in.

 

[Grownsince95]

I'm intent on turning that colossal mistake into something positive. At the time I was too devastated to think clearly and wasn't "ready" so they all got tossed. But because I was keeping a "mom" I now have dad to take cuts from

 

[JSH1973]

Look at Real Seed Co! They've got all kinds of legit landraces.

Or just PM me sometime next year. I'll be hunting a few Afghani lines starting around January.

Any chance of getting on your Christmas card list
I would love to collect a fair good collection of Afghan strains for my future project of making old school Afghan Hash

 

[Aqua Man]

Muhahaha <----- evil laugh. Now I need to learn how to read :/