Cubing - A myth by Chimera

[Charles Xavier]

Greetings Tobor

Well responded and well met.

I believe I understood where you were coming from: you seek Chimera's personal opinion on the merits of 'cubing'. This is why I was sure to state: I couldn't speak for him, while instead I offered the conventionally accepted view on the validity of the breeding technique.

When reading the first article, lend weight to this 'epilogue':
I hope this was clear, I know it can get confusing, and I may not have explained it well enough- sorry if that is the case, I'll try to clear up any questions or mistakes I may have made....Chimera

That says to me: "I understand what I'm about, but I also understand that I may not have expressed it fully." The second article, in my mind, goes about furthering said expression. So, it is not difficult (nor inappropriate, I think) to infer an evolution of thought in terms of the refinement of the base concept.

But I digress....

Sincerely,
Charles.

 

[Charles Xavier]

Greetings British Hempire

Always a pleasure to read your posts. Your responses tend to offer a considerable degree of common sense; a perspective that is not only practical, but applicable.

This "inference": Backcrossing is not the most reliable method of stabilizing traits that are expressed co-dominantly or ones which are polygenic....C.X.

should be coupled with this 'implication': Backcrossing can be the most reliable method of stabilizing traits that are expressed homozygously, particularly ones which are monogenic.

In other words, you have the point of it.

Sincerely,
Charles.

 

[British_Hempire]

Thankyou Charles. Chimera's article would be of far more practical use to people if it was written in layman's terms, as words like polygenic and heterozygous don't mean a whole lot to me, not having ANY biology education at all apart from 1 year of Biology at school when I was 12. I went to a very bad, old-fashioned secondary school and was not allowed to do chemistry or biology or physics as they were scared i would blow the school up! lol Instead I was forced to pick woodwork, metalwork and graphic design, so as a result I am great at DIY but have no grounding in the sciences whatsoever.

But I have a decent brain on my shoulders and love to study and learn and I feel that learning just enough science to be able to apply the knowledge in a practical way to enhance my garden is sufficient, if I had plenty of money I would take a biology degree by distance learning but that's a pipe dream so I'll carry on studying in an ad-hoc manner, after all, Sam the Skunkman has zero academic training and is completely self taught which has worked out great for him, lol.

I'm interested in cubing because I have an exceptional Mexican that is by far the best medicine for my depression and I want to preserve it as a seedline. I don't know if it is truebreeding or not, don't know what traits are dominant or recessive, but I will find out through practical work. My Purple Afghan line is very stable and uniform, so I chose my PA male to begin the work as it will be fairly easy to identify the PA phenos in the F1s and I will take the most Mexican dominant male and BX him to the Mexican cut I think.

When I have some experience of backcrossing and cubing I will have more comment to make, but at the moment, I'm at the bottom of a precipitously steep learning curve lol.

 

[thcnology]

Cubing...so still not quite a myth, you just need to sort of know what your doing and have a little bit of luck. Much like anything else, don't overthink it.

 

[Tobor the 8th Man]

Charles you are an excellent writer and very concise when explaining things. Yes you do let the 4 syllable words fly but that is way cool IMHO.

Are you the leader of the X-Men or the disposed king of Zembla in the poen "PALE FIRE"?

Nice flag British Hempire! I am interested in cubing and S1 (coloidal silver) seed making. Keeping a bunch of "elite" cuts perpetually going gets old. I have found that I was happiest growing from seed and making my own seeds. I invested so much money in seeds and then got sidetracked by clones. I'm getting back to my roots...well...seeds...LOL!

Take care people.

 

[Karma Genetics]

wow this was a great read.

 

[The Kind Man]

Great thread with great information. Someone paid attention in biological anthropology class :tongueout As you can see, there are a lot of factors involved in breeding cannabis. That is why these fine ladies and gentlemen take many years to stabilize these crosses, so we, the consumer, can enjoy the fruits of their labor. I tip my hat to them all.
|The Kind Man|
|Scientia Ipsum Est Vox|

 

[InvisibleM]

Cubing.......a myth.

Here's breeder chimera's take on the subject:

"you’ve just discovered the biggest myth (IMNSHO) of marijuana breeding- it is a mistake that almost EVERYONE makes (including many of the most respected breeders!).

Backcrossing will not stabilize a strain at all- it is a technique that SHOULD be used to reinforce or stabilize a particular trait, but not all of them.

For e.g.- G13 is a clone, which I would bet my life on is not true breeding for every, or even most traits- this means that it is heterozygous for these traits- it has two alleles (different versions of a gene). No matter how many times you backcross to it, it will always donate either of the two alleles to the offspring. This problem can be compounded by the fact that the original male used in the cross (in this case hashplant) may have donated a third allele to the pool- kinda makes things even more difficult!

So what does backcrossing do?
It creates a population that has a great deal of the same genes as the mother clone. From this population, if enough plants are grown, individuals can be chosen that have all the same traits as the mother, for use in creating offspring that are similar (the same maybe) as the original clone.
Another problem that can arise is this- there are three possibilities for the expression of a monogenic (controlled by one gene pair) trait.

-Chimera"

I've never heard one breeder state that all of the seeds they sell would be keepers. If you get one or two that are that is all you need, so Backcrossing is VERY important. If you have the grail plant like I do then it makes all the sense in the world to save those genes by inbreeding to the mother until all of the genes in the seeds are just the mothers and all other genes have been eliminated.

Resin is what breeding is all about, the other traits are all secondary... now I believe the genetic makeup of resin must be very complex, so it may be impossible to get a daughter plant with exactly the same resin (high) as the mother plant. But I have gotten a daughter plant that is very close to the mother at the 11th inbreed... I'm at the 13th now but won't be able to grow any more out because of the plant limit laws....

 

[gulf island]

good info myself.i have for the last 2 years grown early wonder skunk from a breeder named solar warrior he hase been back crossing and stabalizing this plant for 30 years.i started 30 seeds each year and both years i had 14 females all 14 female seeds pheno were so close you couldnt tell them apart other than a slight diffrence in height.another plant i did last year was bonkers from next generation seed company and it was also the same 14 female seed plants and other then a very slight diffrence in height all the plants were almost identical.the bud was identical.

 

[therealpaco]

Chimera, can you explain the value of "down line" breeding. I think I have wraped my head cubings benefits and draw backs. Sorry if this a silly question, I studied history.

 

[ufo]

There's no way. Cubing produces true results.

 

[arkady2300]

Incredible thread to read as I embark on a breeding project. It really illustrates the amount of work that is involved in the process of making a strain of cannabis that is reasonably stable.

 

[fyahburner]

thanks for the add

 

[stonedgrower]

i may have a brain tumor now, but i think i got it down

 

[N3v3R]

this is exactly what i was looking for. thx for taking the time to share this info.

 

[Tripples]

Thanks man - That will really help me with a UK clone prject I have

 

[carbon]

perfect. thank you.

 

[Hash Master]

heavy stuff

 

[Venom818]

Good info fellas.THANX

 

[jo4ey]

Great you explained what I was reading last nigt. I picked up Greg Greens Grow Bible out of my library because I knew there was a section on breeding in there. I now understand that squareing or cubeing doesn't necessarily stabalize a trait. Great explaination bro.