The Butcher's Slaughter (Breeding Journal)

[Jasonlee247]

Re: Te butchers slaughter (breeding journal)

lol, no you came out alright. .........It's everything after birth that did it.

lol j/k man, but I couldn't resist,,,,,,

Thanx butcher. i better write that down so i dont forget again. It's the L that throws me...
are you on your first bloom of the F1's? I might have missed it, sorry if it's already been posted. I'm slow tonight. lol

 

[The Butcher]

Re: Te butchers slaughter (breeding journal)

Yeah F1, now we're waiting for the plants to get bigger. Once they have matured enough to take clones off of thats when I can move on. In order to keep the pace-up her cones will be flowered, inbred, hybrid and pollinated. Obviously each on different, but at the same time, if that makes sense.

 

[Jasonlee247]

Re: Te butchers slaughter (breeding journal)

I gotcha. Cool, cool. You really got alot going man, and then there's the Seedmadness on top of that. Phew.

Well, good luck, may the Schwartz be with you.

 

[The Butcher]

Re: Te butchers slaughter (breeding journal)

So heres an update of the Purple Reign. There are 3 Phenos at this point and here they are. Please pardon some of the yellow edges, I a had a Ph situation for about 6 hours. Then results were a mild burn to some of the fan leafs. The pict of the Indica Phenos was the worst. Bummed but they rolled right back into go mode immediately.

Here you go Purple Reign
(Purple Widow x Rainbow Kush)

50/50 Pheno

Sativa Pheno

Indica Pheno

It looks like we're making some progress here. I figure another 2-4 weeks of veg. Then its on to flowering. The reason for the long veg is I would like to make sure I have a sufficient amount of clones to veg for a SOG. Thats if she pumps out some great meds. Wish me And for tuning in.

 

[Jasonlee247]

looking good man. I like how the first one looks the best. Looks to be a nice 50/50 ish indeed. I guess we'll all see which one has the best bloom soon enough! Thanx for the update!!

Rock ON!!

 

[StinkFinger]

(12th bucket of pop corn)

Rockin it Butch!
Sf.

 

[The Butcher]

One of the things I like about the strain is with the variety of phenos, all showwed signs of sex super quick. In theory that means a fast finishing plant..man oh man due I hope that's what happens here..fast flowering with great color..mmmm...I just finished cutting some clones to do test runs outdoors. We'll see what happens hopefully they'll root in time to make the June deadline...

 

[Munki]

Here's to hopin' you nail down the Purple Reign! Getting a quick finishing, color changing, and effective end product would be an instant winner. You would soon need to look to getting it into some kind of competition like a Cannabis Cup.

I'm so happy for you Butcher that your hard work is paying dividends.

jasonlee247, I love reading your contributions as well. I am vicariously experiencing the breeder's trials and tribulations through people such as yourself and Butcher and for that I .

 

[The Butcher]

Thanks Munki, hopefully one day we can all legally trade crosses and see what the world has to keep in the shadows for now.

And I agree JasonLee's contrabutions are great. J.L

 

[PitViper]

speechless

 

[The Butcher]

Thanx PIt

I know your mad busy in the Vipersnest. Its nice to see you have you over this way. Thanks again for cruz'n by.

 

[Jasonlee247]

hey thanx for the KIND words Butcher and Munki. I love breeding and your thread is great Butcher! Yes in deed, lets Breed, breed, breed! How are things coming along man? I cant wait to see how those Yield, and which pheno you'll prefer! WOOHOO!! they sure are displaying that Hybrid Vigor. thats for sure.

keep up the great job Butcher!

 

[The Butcher]

Thanks Jason

I prefer the Indica pheno, but the 50/50 is definitely catching up. And is showing a very promising life. I'm getting very anxious here. I love seeing a new cross for the first time. Especially when its my own creation.

The only down side is all the beans that were germinated came out FEMALE. Hows that? Its like when I spend 100 bucks on beans, half of them come out male. Yet I breed my own and they pop put female. I think I had a great streak of female beans. Lately all of them have been female's. But I have a feeling the next few will be male, so once I have determined a trigger date for flower, I will germ more in the hopes of finding a worthy male. If not then STS will have to be used.

 

[The Butcher]

So I was reading one of many articles concerning the breeding process and I felt that it would be good for us to all have a better understanding of the process. I always stated as I found valuable information I would post it here.

I MUST CLARIFY THAT THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN BY: NICO ESCONDIDO. ALL CREDIT IS TO BE GIVEN TO HIM.

THIS IS ONE HELL OF AN ARTICLE. MY HATS OFF TO HIM AND HIS VAST KNOWLEDGE OF CANNABIS. SO TO THAT I SAY THANK YOU NICO ESCONDIDO.

Originaly Written by Nico Escondido:

Taxonomy, Genotypes 8 Phenotypes

This is where story time ends and the serious stuff begins—so back to the landraces: These original strains all fall under the formal taxonomic classification of the genus Cannabis. However, under this genus, three putative species have been identified (though we usually encounter only the two smoking varieties).

Within the genus Cannabis, there exist the following three species: Cannabis sativa L. Cannabis indica Lam. and Cannabis ruderalis Janisch. (with the latter being the least-known variety, used mainly for its fibers). Although all of the original landrace strains belong to the same genus, they each fall under one of these categories of species as well. The plants in these three categories, or taxa, are largely indigenous to Asia, but their early histories indicate that they spread fairly quickly all around the world. The C. sativa species is most commonly found in mountainous regions [Asia, South and Central America), while the C. indica species is more often found in low-lying areas.
As members of the same genus, these species have very similar yet slightly differing genotypes. A genotype is the total combination of genes on the chromosomes and, sometimes, in other parts of the cell. Genes play two pivotal roles in an organism. First, they provide the physical mechanism by which individual traits and characteristics are reproduced and passed from generation to generation; this applies to both seeds and clones. Second, and perhaps most importantly for our purposes here, they regulate the morphological and physiological processes that determine the expression of specific characteristics in the phenotype.

Phenotype refers to the overall appearance, performance and adaptation of the plant cultivar in a given environment. Phenotypes are the traits that cannabis breeders constantly monitor in their attempts to produce better marijuana. Phenotypes are different from genotypes, and the relationship is best described as follows:

Phenotype = genotype + environment.

This tells us that various environmental factors and conditions can induce a specific phe-notype's expression by influencing genes and the role they play. Breeders who are interested in creating new or better strains will search for new phenotypes by visual inspection and comparison to previous generations of the same line. When dealing with seeds or clones of the same lineage, breeders may chose to alter certain environmental conditions (for example, atmospheric conditions like temperature or tweaking the light cycle slightly) in order to find hidden characteristics that may be desirable to smokers or growers, which were previously buried away in the genetic code of that particular strain.

 

[The Butcher]

continued...

Originally Written By Nico Escondido:

General Propagation

There are two primary methods by which cannabis plants are propagated. The first is via sexual reproduction, where the plants are propagated by seeds and designated as a specific plant line or strain. Seed germination is the most basic method for starting a particular strain. Seeds, however, are not always identical reproductions of a single genotype. As in any sexual reproduction, one male and one female plant combine to form a new hybrid seed. Unless both the male and female are from the exact same lineage, the offspring will have varying traits drawn from both parents. Finding both male and female parents of the same lineage can be difficult and, even if accomplished, it still doesn't guarantee that the offspring will express identical phenotypes.

A second method for plant propagation is an asexual technique in which plants are propagated as clones. Clonal propagation is fundamentally different from seed propagation in that clones originate from a single parent plant (in the case of marijuana, it's almost always a female plant, unless a breeder needs loads of pollen from a male). Clonal propagation is fast becoming the most popular choice among growers because it allows them to know exactly what they're getting from the mother plant. Clones are especially effective for larger grows and commercial operations, as they generally propagate faster than growing from seed and eliminate the chore of weeding out unwanted male plants from the garden.

Also, seeds are becoming harder and harder to find—at least for free—as the quality of marijuana increases. This is because the most potent marijuana is seedless, or s/nsem/'((a (meaning "without seed"). Still, seeds can be procured in a variety of ways, most of which will cost the grower a little bit of money.
Buying seeds directly from breeders is often the best way to obtain true-breeding, quality seeds. However, buying seeds from reputable seed banks (retailers) or larger distribution companies is another a safe and viable method. Of course, the best way to secure seeds of your favorite strains is to pull them right out of the bag of ganja you just bought from your marijuana supplier. This requires a bit of luck, though, as most quality strains are grown in isolation, without the presence of male plants that can pollinate buds and thus create seeds. Still, even the best ganja will sometimes naturally become hermaphroditic and self-pollinate, producing a few rare seeds. Hermaphroditic plants can often be a grower's best friend.

A major problem in breeding is how to produce seeds without diluting the desired genetic line. Because seeds require pollen in order to form, breeders need to find both a male and female of the same strain that possess the particular phenotypes that the breeder wants. Sometimes, finding a male plant of a particular line can be daunting, as more and more growers turn to clonal propagation, thereby shrinking the male plant population significantly. Some breeders force their plants to become hermaphroditic via the use of chemicals to solve this dilemma. This is also how breeders have come to create the new and trendy feminized seeds. However, the plants grown from these seeds often have stability problems and high rates of hermaphroditism themselves.

 

[The Butcher]

continued...

Originaly Written By Nico Esondido :

Selection of Phenotypes

The selection process in creating new strains is one of the most important aspects of breeding. Selection is the process of finding both a male and female plant from specific genotypes with which to produce seeds. Selecting different genotypes for use in sexual reproduction will result in the creation of a new hybrid strain. Selection of a male and female from the same genotype (line) will result in a new generation of that same genotype–one that may or may not express the same phenotypes of the parents.

Breeders are most often interested in crossing two different genotypes for the purpose of inventing a strain that will have new and desired characteristics, such as a different flavor or aroma or degree of potency. Sometimes breeders choose to use the same genotype for both the mother and father in order to strengthen characteristics that are already popular but not quite stable (meaning that they don't always reappear in the offspring).

In order to have a successful breeding program, breeders require lots of space that will allow them to make selections from hundreds or even thousands of plants. Selection is done by visual inspection of the plants in their mature state. Breeders look for basic characteristics in a population that they found favorable in the parents. These characteristics can include height, color, resistance to mold or insects, or any one of hundreds of other traits. The bigger the selection, the better the chances of finding the exact right parents.

Once parents of the same genotype are chosen, they are crossed either with each other in the hopes of uncovering hidden phenotypes of that same line, or with completely different genotypes from a different or previous selection to create a new hybrid line. When crossed with the same genotype, an inbred line (IBL) is created. This can be good, as it creates a homogenous garden for the grower, but it can also lead to reduced size and productivity–a condition known as inbreeding depression–if it's continued over multiple generations. In the casewhere different genotypes are crossed, the resulting genetic line will possess hybrid vigor, whereby the offspring show better size, strength, potency and yield than the parents, not to mention new sets of exciting phenotypes.

When two parents from differing genotypes are crossed, the result is called an F1 hybrid. An F1 hybrid is the first generation of a new strain. F1s usually show excellent growth and vigor, but are sometimes unstable. As such, breeders will produce hundreds of F1 seeds to grow out and then select for the desired traits. Once the selection is complete, a breeder may choose to recross this new hybrid with one of the parents in order to stabilize or strengthen a particular characteristic. This is known as backcrossing. In order to backcross to the original parents, breeders must have an in-depth knowledge of both the strains they're working with and how genes work.

How Genes Work

Genes are the basic units of heredity. They provide the coded instructions within DMA that lead to the expression of hereditary characteristics. Gene pairing creates a pattern of genetics that is unique to each plant. These gene pairs can be likened to a zipper, where each side comprises a specific gene–one inherited from the mother and the other from the father.

Gene pairs are denoted by a pair of letters: CC, Cc, Nn, nn, and so on. Capital letters refer to dominant genes, while lowercase letters refer to recessive genes. Different letters refer to different traits of the plant, and any letter can be assigned to any gene pair when creating a breeding program.

An essential part of understanding how genes are expressed is to understand the relationship between phenotypes and alleles. As we've discussed, a phenotype is a summary of all the recognizable characteristics of a plant (smell, color, height, etc.] brought about by environmental conditions. An a/(e(e is the specific, alternative form of any one gene or characteristic. This differentiation is important to remember because it can help breeders isolate the specific traits of a phenotype that are desirable for the next generation of offspring in a breeding program.

Essentially, breeders try to figure out the frequency with which the alleles of a particular trait are expressed. A principle of genetics known as the Harvey-Weinberg Model states that dominant alleles will not necessarily always have the highest frequency (or appearance] within a population, nor will the recessive allele always have the lowest frequency. This means that when creating hybrids by crossing two different strains, the dominant traits will not be spread to the entire set of offspring, nor will the recessive traits die out completely.

Knowing this, breeders will map out their breeding program by assigning letter values to every possible allele of a given phenotype. This is why having lots of space for large-scale selection is so important to the breeding process. In order for breeders to ensure they have uncovered every possible allele, they first need to grow out large quantities of each parent and then an even larger number of their offspring. Once this is done and a population of a given gene pool is grown out, breeders can calculate the frequency of occurrence for a given trait by dividing the number of a specific type of allele by the total number of alleles in the gene pool.

Once a breeder selects those traits that he or she wants to breed into a new strain, they can determine by the frequency of those alleles whether or not backcrossing should be done in order to attain, or bring out, those desired alleles. If the frequency of those traits occurs in only a small percentage of plants, the breeder may decide to try backcrossing to a parent that possessed that allele as a dominant trait, thus redefining that allele and possibly making a more dominant trait with a higher frequency of occurrence.

 

[The Butcher]

continued...

Originally Written By Nico Escondido :

How Seeds Are Made

A seed is a matured ovule that contains a living embryo. Seeds are usually the result of sexual reproduction between two existing lines of cannabis, whereby a male plant pollinates a female plant. Sometimes, however, seeds are produced by a single parent plant that has become hermaphroditic and self-pollinated. (This most commonly occurs in female plants.)

Seeds have three main components; the embryo, storage tissue/food supply, and a protective covering. Female cannabis flowers, which are the buds we smoke, contain ovaries that hold eggs awaiting fertilization. Male cannabis flowers look like tiny bunches of bananas, but are really sacs full of pollen. These pollen sacs are called calyxes. In nature, where both male and female plants grow wild, pollination occurs during storms, high winds, and via animals or insects that transport the pollen. Male plants tend to grow taller than their female counterparts, which helps in this natural process. Pollination usually occurs from the middle of the growing season onward, depending on the region and climate.

Breeders, however, take a different approach, especially when growing indoors. Because most breeders have implemented very specific breeding programs in which they are searching for, replicating or trying to draw out certain known alleles, they must be very careful how they pollinate seed crops. Female plants in breeding programs are grown in strict isolation, and male plants are kept housed separately until the female flowers are ready for fertilization. This is known as selective breeding. On the other hand, cross-pollination, or pollination by multiple male plants of varying lines, is a breeder's worst nightmare.

Breeders most often want the fertilization of their female plants to occur somewhere between the third and fifth week of flowering. This really depends on the strain being grown and the average finishing time of that strain. Most breeders will try to pollinate no less than four weeks prior to harvest; otherwise, the result may be non vi-able seeds. It can take as long as six weeks for some females to produce viable seeds.

Males can drop pollen starting from 12 hours after their initial calyx formation and can continue for up to four weeks after. It's important to know that under a 12/12-hour photo period, males will produce their highest amounts of pollen—but males can drop pollen at any time, even under a 24/0 or 18/6 vegetative photo period. This is why many breeders try to manually collect pollen from isolated males in places far away from their flowering ladies.

There are two methods for pollinating female flowers. The first and most obvious is simply to move a male plant into an all-female flowering grow room (or tent, which happens to work very well for breeding projects). This technique will allow an artificially "natural" pollination to take place, with fans and airflow replacing the wind and carrying pollen to all the female plants in the room. Still, this method may not result in even coverage.

The second technique, alluded to above, is to methodically apply pollen to the female flowers manually. To do this, pollen from males must first be collected and stored. This is fairly easy to do and involves simply tapping a calyx and catching the falling pollen in a container that is non-transparent and can be sealed airtight. (But be sure to label your pollen containers carefully!) To manually fertilize females, breeders will use small brushes or cotton swabs, dipping them in pollen containers and then gently applying the pollen directly onto selected buds. This process is very popular because it doesn't require pollinating the whole plant, which means that some select buds can still be kept without seeds.

After pollinating the female plants, it is crucial to maintain the same 12/12-hour light cycle that the flowering females have been on. Disrupting this photo period can have adverse affects on seed production—to say nothing of the fact that anytime a grower changes the photo period abruptly or in mid-cycle, the stress put on the plant can trigger a hermaphrodite effect, causing the creation of both selfed (i.e., a hermaphroditic parent fertilizing itself) and standard seeds. This will render the breeding project virtually useless, as the two types of seed will be indistinguishable.

One last important point worth mentioning is that, in some instances, pollination mistakes can actually be reversed. Pollen is easily removed by washing down female plants with fresh water, which will render the pollen nonviable. While this may disrupt trichome development, it will also prevent the production of seeds and save unnecessary headaches.*

 

[Jasonlee247]

Great info man. Very interesting and great read for those of us who like the breeding aspect of our beloved plant.
Thank you Butcher!

I hope you dont mind I copied a page to put up in my journal. thanx!

 

[The Butcher]

Its all good. Its a long read, but very informative. The article gives a great perspective on breeding.

This journal is all about educating the cannabis community on the aspects of breeding. Whether it be professional or amateur, in my opinion theres just not enough hard evidence of any breeding programs.

At the least we can have enough information together on this one thread to help solidify it as a great reference point for all present and future breeders.

 

[Jasonlee247]

I agree. I think there are alot of hobby breeders out there, but I also think that with little knowledge that is out on the web (and hard to find good info too) your thread will really help out new breeders. Thanx for sharing with us! WOOHOO!!!