Breeding

[Meek246unruly]

Hi there everyone.
Recently i have a sativa female(im not sure what strain) and i pollinated if with a indica male.im wondering what the seeds will produce,what dominant is would be or can someone explain what are tging things to expect.
Im new to breeding so i need some help.
Thank alot

 

[Papageno]

No not really. There are very large books about how to breed properly. It takes many generations of selective breeding to get something consistent. It takes multiple generations of back line breeding to enhance a trait. Once I found a shortish description on one of the sponsors web pages that gives the gist how how breeding works but honestly we are talking college level 400 series course after you have a lot of knowledge. The basic explanation I will post below is just scratching the surface of how it works and how you do it.

Now before I give you that nugget I will explain what you have done. You have generated what is called an F1

F1 hybrid - Wikipedia

Which tend to have high vigor and are fairly uniform. What you don't have is knowledge of what it is. They tend to be fairly in the middle between both parents and may contain all of the downsides of both or all of the upsides of both or somewhere in between...you just don't know. But the line itself is fairly uniform and good for growing in large quantities. Just like with people if to parents of different races have children then all these children come out fairly similar and may tend to take traits from the parent whose genes are stronger and older and more uniform...but the skin tone will be fairly consistent for each child.

Now the real issue is if you breed those again then you have F2's which can be allover the place from the same flower. So In F1's you could get anything but they are all the same. In an F2 they can be anything from the grandfather to the grandmother or anywhere in between. And this is where you can start selectively breeding. You take for example an F2 male that has leaves of an Indica with the growth pattern of a Sativa and breed that back into the line of the original grandparent Indica line and you can start to make a real tall indica line.

It takes not less than 6 generations of breeding doing things in a specific way to develop a strain that is consistent and reliable.

You need to be growing 30 or so plants at various stages (like the F2 stage) in order to have decent selection of about 15 males and females to choose from. Plus you breed a few different combinations and keep doing some selective breeding as you go in multiple parallel paths until you have desired traits. So you need space to grow like 100 plants to really do this in a way that gets you optimized options to make the best of choices.

Then after 6-8 generations (that you grow longer than a normal grow) so around 3 years down the road of very knowledgeable breeding practices well documented you may have developed a new strain that is consistent and preferred. Again an F1 is consistent but may not have preferred genetics.

And at the F2 stage which is where things start to get interesting you may have an awesome bushy plant that is low on resin and THC...so you don't even know until you run them and then try them if they are the right ones to be back breeding. Now usually they are not worse then the grandparents but 2 recessive genes may combine and create something you don't want but looks cool. So you want to clone them and keep them going while you Finnish off the grow and test and see. So it can be a while considering more like 8 months to double grow parent then seed the clone.

Oh yeah and if you are not starting with landrace strains then you really ought to know what you are doing.





Cannabis Genetics 101: Stabilising a strain - Sensi Seeds Blog


ISBN 9780972072410 - Breeding for Quantitative Traits in Plants (2nd Edition) Direct Textbook

 

[Spitz]

Thanks Village... Assuming you have a "stable" strain and grow out 2 females (call them A and B) from regular seeds. If you turn plant A to produce fem pollen, what can you expect from seed offspring of AA and AB?

 

[Papageno]

HA!!!! Winner winner chicken dinner!!!!!


I have no idea!!!! But I have often thought about that. Once I learned how they make Fems I thought "Hey what if they took female pollen from one plant and seeded another?... would that make strong Fems?!?!?!"

But actually that is something on the side...

What you are saying is what if I have a stable strain and inbreed it...that gets more of the same.

That should be no different than breeding a male with a female of the same genetics.

I would however bet heavily that doing this doesn't make for better Fems. I bet if it did they would do it.

NOW if we have two different land race Fems and used the silver on them and cross pollinated 2 very different genetics then that might make a stronger Fem F1 that may not be so weak.

I suspect that this stuff has been thought of by the experts but if you wanna send me some silver I will give it a try... LOL


I meant to update the other post with this. The real problem wiht just breeding without know what the stock is that the problems I explain above can be totally out of control. F1's are very popular and lots of seed sites advertise these are F1's. The reason is the enhanced vigor. They grow much faster. So a good proven F1 (which again is very consistent) is a great thing to grow. but if you cross 2 of those with 4 grandparents you have just gone completely off the rails. It will take a long time to fix that mess. And this is the real issue with random home breeding. Many people start putting things together and before you know it you started with a wolf and ended up with a chihuahua...no one wants a chihuahua...

 

[DRM Ranch]

Marijuana Botany by Robert Connell Clarke published by Ronin Publishing, Inc. is a good source of info for exactly what you are asking.

That said, it takes many breeding cycles of any plant back to itself to draw out and eliminate recessive traits. Breeding a plant to itself and selecting for a particular trait reduces genetic diversity.

Breeding two unrelated plants together increases genetic diversity.

With two unidentified strains you end up with seeds that could produce an entire gamut of different looking, smelling, tasting, plants with a wide scope of effects that range from weaker to stronger than the parent plants.

From your seeds, select the ones that match your idea of what an improvement over the parents is. Don't bother working with the ones that don't turn out as an improvement.

 

[Papageno]

That's the scratching the surface I was talking about. I mentioned back breeding in the beginning but didn't want to go into it. That is where it gets very difficult to explain because there are multiple complex ways of doing it.

 

[DRM Ranch]

That's the scratching the surface I was talking about. I mentioned back breeding in the beginning but didn't want to go into it. That is where it gets very difficult to explain because there are multiple complex ways of doing it.

Back breeding always seemed simple to me, at least in theory. In practice however...it can take a lifetime and a small fortune to get what you are looking for.

By way of example, I bred a particular species of lizard for a decade looking for a single trait that occurs very rarely in wild populations prior to finding what I was looking for. I kept hundreds of pairs that produced around a dozen offspring from each pair yearly. The venture will never pay for itself even with my success. I did it for myself more than anything.

A serious breeding program needs a very well defined goal that you can easily identify.

Let's say your two plants have the following traits; a) yields great b) smells like C4 (new vinyl shower curtain) and you want to combine those qualities.

You reverse a branch of both, clone each plant to retain your original genetics, pollinate both plants with the others pollin. Collect seeds, grow, clone to retain genetics, flower, test your results for yield and smell, cull any that aren't matching your goals (including the clones of those that didn't match your goals).

It can take tens of thousands of seeds to get to your goal of a high yielding strain that smells like C4.

When you find that strain let me know, I love the smell of C4 (thank you army)

 

[Papageno]

The real problem with explaining back breeding is not the idea of it. It is in practice there are many ways of doing it. For example the 6 generation version I explained is the fastest form of back breeding that assumes you are narrowing a single trait. For only slightly more complexity it can take 10 generations. You also can back breed one grandparent or both and the way to successfully do that is not obvious.

Like I said there are very large books to explain it but even drawing a visual tree for just one of the ways of doing it is not easy. And there are many ways of getting half way there and the adding something else and then back breeding again.

This stuff can not be explained in a post.

 

[Bumble]

The real problem with explaining back breeding is not the idea of it. It is in practice there are many ways of doing it. For example the 6 generation version I explained is the fastest form of back breeding that assumes you are narrowing a single trait. For only slightly more complexity it can take 10 generations. You also can back breed one grandparent or both and the way to successfully do that is not obvious.

Like I said there are very large books to explain it but even drawing a visual tree for just one of the ways of doing it is not easy. And there are many ways of getting half way there and the adding something else and then back breeding again.

This stuff can not be explained in a post.

Are you doing any breeding VI?

Bumbles Desert Oasis - The Mystery Seeds - Volume 1

Peaceful blazing

 

[Papageno]

Not at the moment. For me it is more of a hobby these days I will get back into after I move. I am shut down right now getting my home ready to be put on the market. So I am only doing some outdoor that should be done soon.

I have these 2 clones I put in the ground the first week of February that I like to call the hedge. I have chopped half off 8 times and have been supper cropping like mad for a month now.

And after my last grow I didn't harvest this one all the way.

And I am regrowing it out back...again only because it'll be done or molded soon.

But if you want a bit more on breeding...I made a journal for showing how to grow cheap anywhere without fancy nutes. I tried to talk about as much in there as possible so I could just link people to the explanations instead of typing it every 3 weeks.

Here is where it kind of gets interesting on breeding.

VI's - Subcool Based - 2 Worm - Multi-Strain - Mother Hunt - 2016

 

[Bumble]

Not at the moment. For me it is more of a hobby these days I will get back into after I move. I am shut down right now getting my home ready to be put on the market. So I am only doing some outdoor that should be done soon.

I have these 2 clones I put in the ground the first week of February that I like to call the hedge. I have chopped half off 8 times and have been supper cropping like mad for a month now.

And after my last grow I didn't harvest this one all the way.

And I am regrowing it out back...again only because it'll be done or molded soon.

But if you want a bit more on breeding...I made a journal for showing how to grow cheap anywhere without fancy nutes. I tried to talk about as much in there as possible so I could just link people to the explanations instead of typing it every 3 weeks.

Here is where it kind of gets interesting on breeding.

VI's - Subcool Based - 2 Worm - Multi-Strain - Mother Hunt - 2016

Thanks so much! I'm probably not gonna win the cup, but definitely am interested for self sufficient growing. Love those outdoor girls. What a monster! Lol

 

[Papageno]

I used to have a perpetual in the 90's where I did lots of breeding. It is real easy just also easy to do in a way that is a waste.

Done correctly ...breeding for traits properly takes space. You want lots of throw away plants really.

But if you are breeding to keep yourself going there are 2 very simple ways of doing that.


1) Most obvious is get a single line that is well inbreed like Gorilla Glue #4 and keep inbreeding it and you are good to go. By some 10 pack of regs ...nuf said. I do show how to safely collect pollen in the journal at some point too.


2) F1's are Great, very consistent and rapid growers. Get 2 things you like that are strong and old and cross them and stop there.

In either case you can get thousands of seeds from one plant if done overboard. Getting a few hundred is like dropping a rock.

From those few hundred you can clone till the cows come home.

In 2014 I resurrected seeds I had in storage labeled 1996. Some I got up had no label but likely were even older as I got this labeled pack from a friend well into my breeding program. Not easy but they do last a long time. So a few hundred seeds from even just a single F1 run will get you a long ways.

for my soap box rant... (I know not everyone can clone but it takes way less space than properly breeding)

You want to think of a seed as a hunt for a good mother. Once you have an easy to grow strain that clones well you keep that line going. People have no troubles growing for years on a single plant. 4 years before the genes start to fail is not uncommon.

Most people do not appreciate the genetic diversity in there and / or only have this seed right here to grow. But it is highly variable. Even within a dominate strain some phenos will clone better. Those are the magic beans we keep cloning forever and are truly highly prized. All truthful experienced growers will tell you about the strain they kept alive too long. It is always good to be on the hunt but when you strike gold you don't grow it once. That is just sacrilegious.

I don't typically keep mothers I just clone and clone. If a seed isn't to my liking I stop it and keep dropping beans in cycle till I have good easy to use high quality clones.


Now if what you have is some bag seed and just don't wanna buy seeds...there is really nothing to be done. It could be anywhere on the genetic line towards being a land-race strain. All you can do in inbreed and pray and keep selectively inbreeding and praying. You must consistently select the same traits to inbreed.

All 3 plants above I show are clones...of freebies I got with my 10 pack. The one in the planter box I ended up getting around 14 plants in 3 grows (if you include this outdoor) out of that seed before I shut down the grow. That is not very many in reality.

You can clone a lot in 4 years. And that will keep you from buying more beans.

 

[Bumble]

Makes sense. I've got a few 10 packs of some regs(cheese, nor.lites-MSNL,buzz lite gear and incredible bulk-gorilla seeds) I'm throwing outdoors next season. I'm hoping to get my tent dedicated to breeding. Ive a few packs of autos but they seem more effort and energy than worth. Most guys I talk to are running an 18/6 lite cycle to get any type of yield. Originally got the tent for the autos but I'm veering back to my trusty photos. I ran some NLautos outdoors this round and no comparison. I've a 5 pack of some G14 Haze and we're thinking of messing with next month. Thanks for the help and support.

Bumbles Desert Oasis - The Mystery Seeds - Volume 1

Peaceful blazing