How do you know if you’ve grown good CBD MJ?

[Boatshoe]

I have some seeds I’m very excited about. They’re a cross, African orange (high thc sativa) X ACDC (high cbd, low thc). They’re from the local, best dispensary in the world (uh-oh), and a local breeder. So high thc X high cbd.

I’m super excited by this, I’ll start them in the new year. A high cbd and medium thc sounds like a mellow medicinal smoke. Super groovy.

Are there other hybrids like this that you’ve grown? I use large amounts of cbd edibles, but don’t know how to reckon the amount of it. Any advice?

 

[Oldbear]

I use large amounts of cbd edibles, but don’t know how to reckon the amount of it. Any advice?

It can be calculated if you have some information about the amount of cannabinoids in the starting material.

 

[Boatshoe]

It can be calculated if you have some information about the amount of cannabinoids in the starting material.

I’m not sure what you mean. I have seeds that are a F1 hybrid. Let’s assume, The father is 20% THC, 1% CBD. The mother is 1% THC and 20% CBD. I can’t average those together and conclude I’ll get 10% THC and 10% CBD.
You know what I mean? My mom has red hair and my dad has brown hair. I don’t have 50% red hair, but I have brown hair and my sibling has red hair.
i can smoke it and probably tell if the THC is high or low. Plants in the same batch of seeds will vary.
How do growers of CBD strains know they have a good yield?

 

[Boatshoe]

... mom has red hair and my dad has brown hair. I don’t have 50% red hair, but I have brown hair and my sibling has red hair.

Actually now my hair is 100% white, just like my mom’s.

 

[Chris Scorpio]

Not quite as simple as that, but kinda close
Also depends on harvest time, early more CBD late more THC . Harvested my ACDC to late and the CBD dropped quite a bit

Best way is to test it .

I've crossed ACDC with a few strains and got great CBD % in them.

 

[Oldbear]

I’m not sure what you mean. I have seeds that are a F1 hybrid. Let’s assume, The father is 20% THC, 1% CBD. The mother is 1% THC and 20% CBD. I can’t average those together and conclude I’ll get 10% THC and 10% CBD.
You know what I mean? My mom has red hair and my dad has brown hair. I don’t have 50% red hair, but I have brown hair and my sibling has red hair.
i can smoke it and probably tell if the THC is high or low. Plants in the same batch of seeds will vary.
How do growers of CBD strains know they have a good yield?

The only way I know of would be to get lab tests done on the mixed strain.

You have tickled my little brain though. There might be some sort of standard or normal/predictable result
of cannabinoid levels of mixed strains like in your example. Any calculation assumes too that you know the real cannabinoid levels of each of the parents.

I used to have hair.....

 

[Boatshoe]

The breeder did not provide lab results, I’m a bit surprised. I got them at Harborside and they are a leader in CBD development and in lab driven breeding. They were the first to start testing and breeding for high cbd. I sent them an email to request info. I wish I could go to the Emerald Cup today, they will be there.
It’s nice to hear you had good results @Chris Scorpio. I have high hopes for this.

 

[Oldbear]

I found this. Its a series of 4 articles that are quite interesting.

How Strain Genetics Influence THC:CBD Ratios | Leafly

 

[Oldbear]

Another one:

Cannabis Genetics And Breeding Made Simple
September 3, 2018
When selling cannabis to customers, it’s easy to get inundated with lots of scientific jargon and insider terminologies. We talk about indicas, sativas, hybrids, cannabinoid ratios and terpenes, but how do all of these aspects factor into the seemingly random nature of breeding?

Let’s take a shallow dive into cannabis genetics and simplify how a breeder might understand the process. For our examples, we’ll focus on the two most prominent cannabinoids, THC and CBD. These two compounds are the most prized and therefore the most valuable, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages for recreational customers and medical marijuana patients.

The plant’s DNA produces different types of proteins or enzymes; THC and CBD are in turn produced by one particular type of protein (called “synthase”). Strains that produce higher amounts of THC—such as Durban Poison or Blue Dream—do so because they contain many genes for the THC synthase protein. Strains with higher amounts of CBD contain many genes for the CBD synthase protein.

But higher THC strains don’t usually make a lot of CBD, since the relationship between THC genes and CBD genes is inversely proportional. In other words, the more THC that a plant produces, the less CBD it’ll produce (and vice versa).

The additional THC (or CBD) genes for a high-level strain come from a process called gene duplication, or repeating the genes in the DNA. This is a somewhat random phenomenon that may be responsible for most new genes seen throughout natural history. A plant like cannabis is especially prone to a lot of repeated genes, simply because it can handle them.

Controlling genes
Trying to control genes can be tricky business. We’re talking about tweaking individual molecules at the DNA level. It’s much easier to take advantage of natural processes, which is precisely what breeders do.

Imagine that we want to breed our very own 1:1 THC:CBD plant for patients. To do this, we simply take a high-THC strain and cross it with a high-CBD strain. We produce only four seeds. By probability alone, we should get four plants with the following traits:

• One with high THC and low CBD
• Two with the same level of THC and CBD
• One with low THC and high CBD

So essentially, we should have two 1:1 plants for every high-THC and every high-CBD plant we grew. After we get our test results back, we can keep those 1:1 genetics by simply inbreeding; that is, we take the 1:1 plants and cross them with each other.

“Mr. Soul,” the moniker of the man who bred the world-famous Cindy 99 strain, recommends a cubing process for breeding out undesirable traits. To cube, he advises growers to “breed the ‘son’ of a pollinated mom, then breed the ‘grandson’ with her, and on and on to delete male genetics and preserve the females.”

Although this may sound somewhat shocking, plants are accustomed to inbreeding in this fashion. They’ve evolved in a way that minimizes the negative effects to near-negligible levels.

Within three or four generations of inbreeding the 1:1 plants, we’ll eliminate the high-THC and high-CBD strains. We’ve got a new strain that consistently produces 1:1 plants.

Breeding for other traits
The process we’ve just described works similarly for making strains that consistently produce high-THC or high-CBD plants. We find the ones with the traits we want, inbreed them, then keep the new genetics. For instance, if we want high-CBD plants, we cross the high-CBD strains with one another until we get rid of any high-THC or 1:1 plants. And so on and so forth.

Other traits like high yield, short stalks or purple flowers may also be inherited. Unfortunately, this model works only for certain types of inherited genes. Many of the traits that growers want today, such as terpene production and resistance to pests, drought and so on, may not be inheritable. Much of this is still being figured out by plant geneticists and computational biologists.

The future of cannabis breeding
Currently, several laboratories in the U.S. are constructing genome maps for Cannabis sativa. We’ve long had the DNA sequence for cannabis, but we don’t yet have the genetic map. A map will tell us where the genes are located on the DNA sequence. This is important, because until we have this map, most breeding procedures are just guesswork. We’re relying on trial and error to breed the traits we want, which means wasted seeds and wasted resources.

But with a genetic map, we’ll know which strains to cross to get the traits we want—and we’ll keep those traits in the lineage.

“In the 18 years of my career in computational biology,” said Syngenta’s Keith Allen, speaking during last October’s CannaGrow Expo in Denver, “I haven’t seen a field advance in genetic understanding as quickly as I have with the cannabis plant.”

TBy Randy Robinson

 

[Boatshoe]

That’s an excellent reference, @Oldbear. It’s got some references in the footnotes too. That will give me a good bit of reading. Ill see if I can suss out whether to expect the simple average of the parents levels.
Still, CBD can seem pretty subjective. If I grow two plants, which to keep as a mother? I guess I’ll have to make a judgement call, get some others to,try it too. A lab test is like 250 bucks I think.

 

[Boatshoe]

My dream is to breed 5% CBD and 12% THC with early harvest so I can grow it outdoors here. So I may cross it with some early skunk that I have and maybe do some back crosses (cubing).
These are f1 seeds so they might not be stable.

 

[Boatshoe]

That summary explains it well. The scientific reference describes exactly the hybrid I have, high thc x high cbd. There are four outcomes,
1. High thc, low cbd
2. Half thc, half cbd
3. Low thc, high cbd

And the half thc, half cbd is twice as probable. So when I grow my seeds, I’ll get one of those four and most likely 1:1 or some thing close. I didn’t see any mention of other regulators that make that ratio vary, so to get 2:1 when the “balanced” e1+e2 occurs. Those are the factors that need to be bred to tune it.

That’s helpful to my understanding. Thanks again for finding it @Oldbear