Hey all, I wanted to ask some info from some of our more experienced pro level breeders. As everyone knows, when it comes to weed it can be difficult to filter out the ’ stoners lore’ from anything evidence based, so I figured he might be just the place.
So I am an amature breeder, in that I mix and make my own strains, I have always done this, primarily because back in the day, in Oz, getting decent genetics was a ‘real’ challenge, with the predominant strains being reasonably stringy weak sativa of SE Asian origin. So when something good came along, you kept the seeds and worked on them.
Now that seeds are easier to come by, I still get more of a buzz from growing out my own creations, it’s just a hobby but I do take it seriously.
So, one of the things that comes up frequently is around so called poly-hybrids and phenotypical variation, up until fairly recently I had been finding a good pheno and inbreeding util I got an acceptable level of consistency and then I woudl use that for cross breeding. These days I am not so patient to spend the 8 or more generations minimum needed to semi stabilise, so I have take to crossing phenos with traits I am seeking to introduce, and then growing out a dozen, picking the best pheno, take a cutting from it, then self seeding it, then I grow out 12 of the seeds of that as well as the original cutting, I then self the ‘mother cutting’ and only select the plants with the attributes I am seeking that have carried over from the ‘mother’, sometimes in a dozen this might be none and I’ll do another run. I repeat this 6 or so times and by the end, I have something that comes out pretty consistent.
I get many shun fem seeds, but I honestly, apart from the occasional funky recessive gene coming out have seen no difference in my own experience. I do also make regs, but space is an issue.
So, I guess the question is, how does this approach differ from the way knowledgeable/credible pro breeders do it and what issues if any am I likely to encounter with this slightly lazier approach other than a lot less predictability for a few extra generations? Thanks!
Not a pro, by definition, 
but the issues I might expect to come up from too much selfing would be doubling up broken recessive genes.
Whenever the opportunity arises, if you take more than one plant, reverse a clone of each and pollinate all of them you can keep genetic diversity high in all the traits that don’t matter, while still chiseling the strain down into the picture you’ve got in your head.
Let’s decompose your process, it’s pretty exotic as it, but i think than you forgot to develop the finality you’re seeking. It don’t help to understand what you’re doing and why ^^
Round 1 : “inbred 1” seeds
Round 2 (long) : “inbred 1” micro-selection + reference cut extracted on veg backups + S1 seeds of the reference
Round 3 : S1 micro-selection + making the S2 (?!) + selfing again the cut to make S1 (?!)
So, you end with :
- the living reference (motherplant reg)
- the S2 seeds
- the S1 seeds (second batch)
From this point, you need to explain what you want to do with these three materials to be more clear. Also why making another batch of S1, instead producing a big load the first time.
For now and on the paper, to make 6 inbred generations is faster than your partial process. I miss something i think.
I am not so patient to spend the 8 or more generations minimum needed to semi stabilise
F3, F6, F8, F25 … the plants edict themselves the rules in term of stability. Reaching the F8 is not a garanteed at all to be more stable than a F5 or even a high grade F2. On the sweet tooth #3 by example (which is a BX initially) i’ve waited the F7 generation to see the very first segregation of this incredible sap. So the stabilization process will start in F8 … take care about “absolute rules”, by definition they can’t be universal.
In marketing yes maybe, but in practice the “semi-stable” state don’t exist, it’s on or off. And it don’t depend on a given filial generation at all.
how does this approach differ from the way knowledgeable/credible pro breeders do it and what issues if any am I likely to encounter with this slightly lazier approach other than a lot less predictability for a few extra generations?
For now, your process appear full of intermediate steps if i extrapolate (i suppose than you will BX the S1 and the S2 on the cut, or something else like that). So in fact i don’t see it as a “lazzy-easy way” but more like a mixed and long process for now.
The most used “shortcut” since ages still the BX, even in the animal reign. Behind the term BX, it exist a ton of different methodologies and strategies but the concept stay the same : using a recurrent reference to modify the segregation dynamics of the line. To narrow it very fast on a limited potential. Within one year, you can hit the BX4 without headache and a reduced workload of 50% in term of selection. To give an idea, most of BX of the market are BX1 and BX2 only.
I think than you need to enter more in details, specially on your goals and your context. Breeding is just a toolbox and there is no tool than can be used for every cases.