Landrace Genetics 101

TheMadDabber said:
Well van. I do know environmental stress leads to a much higher male to female ratio... I believe growchy posted a link at some point in his purple journal
Click to expand...

I have heard that....but I was curious if that was a reaction to the stress and it changed itself......or are they generally born in a gender neutral state and then the environment conditions cause them to lean one way or the other.

In my mind I would think its predisposed to be one or the other, but I suppose it also makes sense to have the plant have the ability to adapt to its situation and do whatever is best to ensure the genetic line gets passed down.
 
It's really interesting if you think about the natural life cycle of cannabis. In the spring when growing conditions are cool and moist and there are a lot of nutrients available you think they would be more likely to come out female but in the middle summer when it's hot and dry and there are less nutrients such as nitrogen available maybe the plant would be more likely to come out male to increase the chance of pollinating all those lovely spring females just in time...

:tokin:
 
Van Stank said:
I have heard that....but I was curious if that was a reaction to the stress and it changed itself......or are they generally born in a gender neutral state and then the environment conditions cause them to lean one way or the other.

In my mind I would think its predisposed to be one or the other, but I suppose it also makes sense to have the plant have the ability to adapt to its situation and do whatever is best to ensure the genetic line gets passed down.
Click to expand...
But in that case they would not survive in the wild imo. Because most of the plants in a certain environment would have to be all male or female because of the same starting area and nutrients in that case which rarely happens I would think.
And why can you take a sample of a leaf during early veg send it to a lab and get a result of male or female when tested.
 
Islandgrow said:
But in that case they would not survive in the wild imo. Because most of the plants in a certain environment would have to be all male or female because of the same starting area and nutrients in that case which rarely happens I would think.
And why can you take a sample of a leaf during early veg send it to a lab and get a result of male or female when tested.
Click to expand...

I don't know, thats the reason I am asking. I tend to think in terms of black and white, little grey areas. So to me, I naturally identify something as either Male or Female......not wait around a bit and see. But all the points brought up by TS and Fert make me question if anyone actually knows at what point the sex is determined.
 
Van Stank said:
I don't know, thats the reason I am asking. I tend to think in terms of black and white, little grey areas. So to me, I naturally identify something as either Male or Female......not wait around a bit and see. But all the points brought up by TS and Fert make me question if anyone actually knows at what point the sex is determined.
Click to expand...
I would think from pollination . And when you have a lot of males it is just the luck of the draw . Or Murphy's law lol
 
Van Stank said:
OK, so can anyone clarify this for me?......... Is the sex of the plant predetermined prior to planting or is there truth to the manipulation of the sex throughout the growing process. I believe I remember reading somewhere that higher levels of nitrogen lead to more females, and of course Sue with her banana peel. I kind of always assumed the sex was predetermined, but wasn't sure. Just curious
Click to expand...

Well I think that's really the big question. TS posted this from Dutch Passion

From literature and our own findings it appears that the growth of a male or female plant from seed, except for the predisposition in the gender chromosomes, also depends on various environmental factors. The environmental factors that influence gender are:

• a higher nitrogen concentration will give more females.
• a higher potassium concentration will give more males.
• a higher humidity will give more females.
• a lower temperature will give more females.
• more blue light will give more females.
• Fewer hours of light will give more females.

It is important to start these changes at the three-pairs-of-leaves stage and continue for two or three weeks, before reverting to standard conditions.
Click to expand...

If you give me some time I can go find some white papers that mention dioceious varieties being found with higher percentage of females in the wild, but the funny thing is we're more used to seeing more males in our indoor grows.


What it seems to me is that cannabis has genetic sex and physiological sex. So for example in the case of a plant slated for making feminized seeds, we know it has an "xx" genotype and that pollinating another "xx" genotype if it will result in all "female" plants, but what we're really saying is that they will be all "pistillate" plants. Because the plant you're reversing to male is always a genetic female (xx chromosome), but due to some environmental influence ( light schedule, nutrient level, silver application ) the genetically female plant produces staminant or "male" flowers. It becomes genetically female, but physically male.

A more clear way to think of this I believe is to stop thinking about plants as male or female based on whether they bare pistillate or staminant flowers. I really like what Radogast had to say about this and I'm going to look more into the terminology he has used, but I do think that when discussing cannabis that saying a plant with pistillate flowers ( i.e. the kind we like to smoke ) is "female" may be a misnomer, because genetically speaking it could be whatever kind of genetic code unless we test it via laboratory.

Which brings me to what islandgrow was talking about, because with labs like phylos they can test DNA for specific "male" or "female" markers, but are they telling us that a plant is "male" or that it has a gene to produce staminant flowers? In this instance, the terms "male" and "hermaphordite" are less important than the fact that there's a gene marker which shows it will produce staminant flowers--in other words it will throw pollen.

Maybe we can shoot an email over to phylos and see what they think about this? If anyone is up on the genetic science of cannabis it's them. But my opinion is that while genetic sex of cannabis may be determined by DNA, physiological sex (as we define by staminant or pistillate flowers) is subject to change.


TorturedSoul said:
Post above that: More information for me to read, consider, attempt to digest. I appreciate the opportunity, as always when given the chance to increase my knowledge. I am thinking that the sex of the cannabis plant is determined by "XX or XY" - but that this is a separate thing from the question of whether or not it will have a tendency to produce opposite-sex flowers in non-survival situations. And I wonder if this thing, whatever it may be, is somehow connected to one or more other traits that we find desirable in the species. That, although we often try to "breed it out," we end up adding it back again as we try to improve (or... "improve" ) any given strain/etc. in ways that we feel to be important. Like... if it is somehow tied to potency (that old Thai strain rocked my universe, lol), nearly psychedelic effect (ditto), shorter flowering period length (didn't seem to be a quality of the Thai, but...), or something else entirely, maybe?
Click to expand...

I think that's a really good point, and it would stand to reason too if plants were using this as a "survival mechanism" like we think, that they would have had to rely on it more often and more times than the types of cultivated hybrids we tend to cross them out with trying to add in those new traits. We may be unwittingly adding in a tendency toward this survial-mechanism by incorporating those genetics.

However, that would point to it being an inheritable trait, which brings back into question if there's a genetic "code" for that to happen. Like maybe all cannabis has this survival mechanism, but some varieties have programmed their code to resort to it more readily than others. I think some real strong anecdotal evidence for this would be when people take a strain that's known to go intersex, and then use a "stable" strain that hardly ever does to make a more "stable" cross.

It all points to the "tendency" to go intersex being an inheritable trait in some some variety's genes, but the "ability" to go intersex being inherent in the overall genome of cannabis itself. In that sense, then it would be good for growers practically speaking, because we don't really need to root out the ability for it to go intersex, but just the tendency for it.



This all makes me think of something I didn't know about covered by a cannabis gene lecture that I just love to post around.
YouTube

He talks about a lot of different stuff in this video so if it seems like I'm trying to tell you information you already know, please do give it a watch, it's fascinating. I think the bit that's pertinent to this conversation begins at about 6 minutes to 12 minutes. So he's talking about mutiations effecting biopathways where enzymes like THCA synthase and CBDA synthase are unable to function as effeciently, and this producing strains that produce high levels of THC if their synthase gene is working, and not if it's damaged, so on and so forth right?

Well, if the physical sex is determined genetically, we still do not know exactly what these genetics are programming the plant to do in order to manifest that sex physically. Harking back on the STS, CS points of applying silver, I wonder if anyone knows the specific function this has on a plant that makes it produce staminant flowers? I've only heard through hearsay that the silver blocks the binding of ethylene, and so the plant cannot produce pistillate flowers like it normally would, and thus produces staminant instead. Now, is this because the plant "knows" or has some kind of cognizant recognition of what's happening and can produce those as a backup plan, or is the silver blocking an enzyme that would normally interact with ethylene, and in the absence of this interaction staminant flowers are produced instead of pistillate. I've played around with it myself, and it does seem like the amount of staminant flowers that occur due to the treatment is somehow effected by the amount of silver applied; low doses seems to cause a high ratio of pistillate to staminant flowers ( so buds with nanners ), but high doses seems to cause a high ratio of staminant to pistillate (pollen sac clusters with a few pistills poking out here and there). It does seem like the foreign element of silver effects the biochemistry in a scalable way, and suggests maybe there is some kind of "ethylene synthase" enzyme that's effected by the silver and without the ethylene, the plant would just produce staminant instead of pistillate flowers, and with the amount of pistillate flowers produced being proportionate to the amount of ethylene available.

SO wild conjecture I know, absolutely no way I'd ever be able to prove such speculation, but I don't think the specifics are as important... Who knows if it's ethylene blocked, but what I'm saying is that perhaps there is a biochemical reaction that reads the DNA blueprints and that is what determines the physical manifestation of the plant's sex, but because of mutations or other breakdowns the plant is unable to produce this special "pistillate producing" element, and reverts to a default staminant form without it.
 
TheFertilizer said:
Well I think that's really the big question. TS posted this from Dutch Passion



If you give me some time I can go find some white papers that mention dioceious varieties being found with higher percentage of females in the wild, but the funny thing is we're more used to seeing more males in our indoor grows.


What it seems to me is that cannabis has genetic sex and physiological sex. So for example in the case of a plant slated for making feminized seeds, we know it has an "xx" genotype and that pollinating another "xx" genotype if it will result in all "female" plants, but what we're really saying is that they will be all "pistillate" plants. Because the plant you're reversing to male is always a genetic female (xx chromosome), but due to some environmental influence ( light schedule, nutrient level, silver application ) the genetically female plant produces staminant or "male" flowers. It becomes genetically female, but physically male.

A more clear way to think of this I believe is to stop thinking about plants as male or female based on whether they bare pistillate or staminant flowers. I really like what Radogast had to say about this and I'm going to look more into the terminology he has used, but I do think that when discussing cannabis that saying a plant with pistillate flowers ( i.e. the kind we like to smoke ) is "female" may be a misnomer, because genetically speaking it could be whatever kind of genetic code unless we test it via laboratory.

Which brings me to what islandgrow was talking about, because with labs like phylos they can test DNA for specific "male" or "female" markers, but are they telling us that a plant is "male" or that it has a gene to produce staminant flowers? In this instance, the terms "male" and "hermaphordite" are less important than the fact that there's a gene marker which shows it will produce staminant flowers--in other words it will throw pollen.

Maybe we can shoot an email over to phylos and see what they think about this? If anyone is up on the genetic science of cannabis it's them. But my opinion is that while genetic sex of cannabis may be determined by DNA, physiological sex (as we define by staminant or pistillate flowers) is subject to change.




I think that's a really good point, and it would stand to reason too if plants were using this as a "survival mechanism" like we think, that they would have had to rely on it more often and more times than the types of cultivated hybrids we tend to cross them out with trying to add in those new traits. We may be unwittingly adding in a tendency toward this survial-mechanism by incorporating those genetics.

However, that would point to it being an inheritable trait, which brings back into question if there's a genetic "code" for that to happen. Like maybe all cannabis has this survival mechanism, but some varieties have programmed their code to resort to it more readily than others. I think some real strong anecdotal evidence for this would be when people take a strain that's known to go intersex, and then use a "stable" strain that hardly ever does to make a more "stable" cross.

It all points to the "tendency" to go intersex being an inheritable trait in some some variety's genes, but the "ability" to go intersex being inherent in the overall genome of cannabis itself. In that sense, then it would be good for growers practically speaking, because we don't really need to root out the ability for it to go intersex, but just the tendency for it.



This all makes me think of something I didn't know about covered by a cannabis gene lecture that I just love to post around.
YouTube

He talks about a lot of different stuff in this video so if it seems like I'm trying to tell you information you already know, please do give it a watch, it's fascinating. I think the bit that's pertinent to this conversation begins at about 6 minutes to 12 minutes. So he's talking about mutiations effecting biopathways where enzymes like THCA synthase and CBDA synthase are unable to function as effeciently, and this producing strains that produce high levels of THC if their synthase gene is working, and not if it's damaged, so on and so forth right?

Well, if the physical sex is determined genetically, we still do not know exactly what these genetics are programming the plant to do in order to manifest that sex physically. Harking back on the STS, CS points of applying silver, I wonder if anyone knows the specific function this has on a plant that makes it produce staminant flowers? I've only heard through hearsay that the silver blocks the binding of ethylene, and so the plant cannot produce pistillate flowers like it normally would, and thus produces staminant instead. Now, is this because the plant "knows" or has some kind of cognizant recognition of what's happening and can produce those as a backup plan, or is the silver blocking an enzyme that would normally interact with ethylene, and in the absence of this interaction staminant flowers are produced instead of pistillate. I've played around with it myself, and it does seem like the amount of staminant flowers that occur due to the treatment is somehow effected by the amount of silver applied; low doses seems to cause a high ratio of pistillate to staminant flowers ( so buds with nanners ), but high doses seems to cause a high ratio of staminant to pistillate (pollen sac clusters with a few pistills poking out here and there). It does seem like the foreign element of silver effects the biochemistry in a scalable way, and suggests maybe there is some kind of "ethylene synthase" enzyme that's effected by the silver and without the ethylene, the plant would just produce staminant instead of pistillate flowers, and with the amount of pistillate flowers produced being proportionate to the amount of ethylene available.

SO wild conjecture I know, absolutely no way I'd ever be able to prove such speculation, but I don't think the specifics are as important... Who knows if it's ethylene blocked, but what I'm saying is that perhaps there is a biochemical reaction that reads the DNA blueprints and that is what determines the physical manifestation of the plant's sex, but because of mutations or other breakdowns the plant is unable to produce this special "pistillate producing" element, and reverts to a default staminant form without it.
Click to expand...
Hmmm this is even more complicated than the chicken or the egg question. Which came first. Or since this is about canna I should say the seed or the plant .hahahaha I think the plant btw.

So if you spray a male plant do you get female flowers ? If it does. Then some of that reasoning doesn't apply it would only make more male flowers due to ethylene being blocked . Or am I missing something .
 
You're correct, CS and STS work by inhibiting Ethylene which is necessary for pistilate flower to form. Without the hormone ethylene you get staminate flowers.
 
In a standard biological male, you get 'ball sack' growth at the crotches of the plants followed by male flowers. These flowers release large amounts of pollen based on male (XY) chromosomes.

In a late flowering female plant, you may get a nanner shaped growth which releases a tiny amount of pollen based on female (XX) chromosomes.

These two organs don't seem at all like each other, so I don't think of nanners as male.

- - -

I have never tried Colloidal Silver and STS, but heard they produce pollen based on the female (xx) chromosomes - thus 'father' feminized seeds.

Do CS & STS mutated flowers look like nanners or natural born male flowers?
 
Pennywise said:
They look more like typical staminate flowers
Click to expand...

Yeah I would agree, though I haven't seen a ton of staminate flowers.

Here's some shots of some staminate flowers I produced with varying levels of CS. Sorry for the blurry pic, but you can see how much pistils there still are in the cluster.

IMG_20170526_091332.jpg


This is on another plant that was sprayed very late, you can see how it has "nanners", just one little staminate flower open on a pistillate cluster

IMG_20170623_133826.jpg

IMG_20170623_133802.jpg


These were more successful full reversals, but you can still see some pistils

IMG_20170701_124033-1.jpg

IMG_20170701_124334-1.jpg



Then this was the same plant about a week later, as if all the pistils had just disappeared, but if you look real careful you can still see one pistil near one of the lower nodes

IMG_20170703_164302-1.jpg

IMG_20170714_154031.jpg
 
Pennywise said:
They look more like typical staminate flowers
Click to expand...

And they produce a lot of pollen, so CS & STS treated female plants are chemically induced selectively sequentially hermaphroditic, truly hermaphroditic on treated stems. But they are not genetically altered, (although they might be epigenetically altered,) so they have that great advantage of releasing pollen with female (xx) chromosomes.



I found a wikipedia entry on Plant_reproductive_morphology containing the definitions.

Gynoecious: having only female flowers (the female of a dioecious population); producing seed but not pollen.
Subgynoecious: having mostly female flowers, with a few male or bisexual flowers


So we could say cannabis is a dioecous plant where late flowering Gynoecious (female) plants may become Subgynoecious
 
Islandgrower, as far as I know you can't turn a staminate plant to pistillate with CS/STS, just make a pistillate plant produce staminate flowers.

One interesting caveat, is that a few people who have tried to use CS for this have ended up with staminate flowers that don't produce any pollen.
 
I found an article in researchgate, _A_major_quantitative_trait_locus_conferring_subgynoecy_in_cucumber

In Cucumus Sativa (cucumber), subgynoecious traits were found to be semi-dominant over monoecious traits - but that says nothing about Cannabis Sativa (Marijuana) which would be comparing subgynoecy to dioecy.

It did however conclude that the subgynoecious traits (nanners?) were in genetically different places than the auxin and giberelin influenced ethylene processes of stress induced hemphrodism (light, heat, CS &STS?)

:passitleft:

I wish I truly understood what I just typed.
 
Awesome thread!

Was wondering where you guys go hunt for hard to find seeds (sold out, legendary strains that are no longer distributed, or simply small batch breeders packs...).

I was on FB groups for a while but got ripped off twice and decided to stop.
IG has been better but I got unlucky again recently... Hope it's not a trend on IG.
Been using forums but it's hard to find what your after and I heard of people being ripped off too on some other forums.

Any other option you guys use???

Thanks
 
Islandgrow said:
Genes are such an Interesting subject and the infinite possibilities once reaching f2 in a cross shows how fickle the genes are and that we have only an inkling of understanding the matters and issues of how the genes are "selected "to be used by the plant. In the end the plants will survive maybe just not in the manner in which humans want but in a way that they will be unbothered by us. And they will survive to perpetuate their own kind. Hahaha I love this topic and the possibilities.
4b93c5546847cf012ea04f61a33a763c.jpg
Click to expand...


Yes indeedy.. humans have "some" effect probably a little more than the weather but less than weather and environment together.

I "think" our input to plant genetics grown naturally and non-gmo, is .05% as we manipulate environment and weather. Without us the plants will return to what they were b-4 humans.

humans = eye-blink

We have our own path of genetics... We come from worms 500 million years ago. Well 500 mil years in a 4.7 billion year old planet... another blink... well maybe a .05 eye blink. Food for thought.
 
:yummy:
 

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