Hey, OG’s. I understand that “selfing” a feminized plant will not result in identical offspring, particularly pertaining to polyhybrids. However, would some percentage of the progeny be extremely close?
For example: If someone hunted a keeper, but had to shut down their grow for a year (god forbid). If they “selfed” that keeper and got, say, 100 seeds. With a later hunt through the seeds, would you be able to find something that’s extremely close to your original? I realize there probably isn’t a black and white answer to this, but I was curious how varied the offpring might be from the above situation.
A skunk is a perfect caricature of what is a poly, in being one of the most predictable and stable line of the main classics. This witch hunting against polys VS uniformity is a mirage, a Don Quijote trend. Don’t fall in it.
It mean selecting a mother plant to smoke, based purely on what say the cone. What stoners do (were doing) since ages.
I’m against the reversal to preserve anything, but the process is not involved in this equation. But your knowledge of the initial genotype. If you don’t map it enough, the difficulty is the same no matter if your outcross it, reverse it … name any other method.
So to make it predictable, everything revolve around why you selected the initial female and its genetical entourage. No matter the method chosen.
I was actually doing the math on this the other day. Just gonna copy and paste, maybe someone can correct me if my math is wrong. If not, it looks pretty dismal.
Definitely not a copy most of the time… dunno, maybe my math is wrong, but assuming one gene pair per chromosome and all heterozygous pairs, with no linked genes or crossover to complicate things, I’m coming up with about a 0.09% chance of getting the stars to line up on an exact copy of the mom. As far as close, it depends what people consider close, I guess… and what kind of numbers we’re talking about to determine the things people find most important. If you only need to get 3/10 chromosomes to line up, that’s about a 1/8 chance, which isn’t too bad - one per pack on average. Most people aren’t gonna care as much about things like rooting speed, leaf traits… maybe nutrient needs and purpling? At that point you’re looking at a 3.125% chance, which isn’t nearly as good.
For an oversimplified 2x2 punnett square with 2 possible options “G” dominant characteristic and “g” recessive characteristic…
If the trait in the female plant to be selfed is homozygous dominant GG, then the trait will appear in all S1 progeny.
If the trait is homozygous recessive gg, then the trait will appear in all S1 progeny.
If the trait is heterozygous Gg, then the female mother expreses the dominant trait, but the S1 progeny will be (25% GG), (50% Gg), and (25% gg).
2x2 punnett squares oversimplify things because some pheno expressions depend on more than a single pairs of alleles. There are many more possible outcomes.
What making S1 does for sure is it preserves the genetic mix possible from the mother female within the population of S1’s. It does not allow any additional variation potential into the progeny.
It don’t, it’s a statistical demonstration asked by Bateson to have a big picture on massive scales. Just math freaks, and they were very clear about it in their demonstration.
Just the fact to hand watering individually each plant destroy the model of the punnet square and then the hardy weinberg model.
I’ve done a lot of fem crosses and selfing. I would say that you get quite a few plants that looks like the parents of the mother and different mixes of your mother plant. It’s not impossible to find identical plants but it’s not 1/8 and the reason is because cannabis have a huge range of different polygenic traits. I’m prepared to stick my neck out and say that a majority of traits in cannabis is polygenic.
This means that the traits you are looking for are an expression that is formed from many different autonomes and you need all the correct autonomes to get expressions you desire.
Thanks for the explanation. I’ve read over the basic ideas from Mendel and studied the punnett square pea illustrations quite a few times over the years, but I’m not convinced I’ll ever fully grasp it all.
I haven’t grown a lot of selfed strains, or fems that aren’t autos for that matter, but I’ve grown 50+ Cereal Milk S1 (limited trees). After all I’d read, a lot on this forum, I was expecting a lot more variety than what I’ve encountered. Most of the plants look and grow similarly, and the most common aromas are similar to mom.
I’d imagine it’s strain specific, but in this case, finding a nice expression of mom is easy. I’m sure there are some that self better than others. But, if I’d grown the clone and then went hunting in the seeds, I’d be pleasantly surprised. In this case, I did it in reverse…
If the aim is to try and stabilize the expression of as many of the original ‘traits’ as possible, then keep a recurring mother, self it, grow out the seeds and mother again (or of course use stored pollen), pollinate the plants that most resemble the mother, rinse and repeat until you get enough consistency that you can live with. The more you self like this, the more the likelihood of inadvertently introducing negative traits that may not pop up for a generation or two. There is something to be said for not going overboard with selfing and just dealing with a bit of variation, it’s not that hard for things to go pear shaped. Vigor and resistance to pests and diseases can decline etc. Myself I plant more beans and cull what I don’t want.
The thing about traits and punnets here is that few of the traits we are interested in are simple, they are virtually all complex traits, so punnets might suit a single specific trait… like say purple pistils?, but when it’s polymorphic i.e a trait that involves more than one gene, then they are not very instructive beyond a broad concept, you couldn’t use it as the basis for your selection for example. Mendel was forgotten for a long time before his ideas were rediscovered, if he had access to today’s genetic tools dude would be doing crazy stuff lol. Imo select your favorite by eye and effect, aroma, structure etc. and you are doing the same as probably 95% of plant breeders, no need to overthink it, just keep seeds of each generation as backup for if/when you take a wrong turn.
I’m into the BX3 gen of a reversed clone-only strain and I have yet to find anything remotely like the original hyper-hybridized mother plant.
Two dominant phenotypes appeared in the S1 seeds and both are still present after multiple back crosses with reversed pollen from the original. The good news is that the intersex instability vanished and chemovar profile survived, but the plant structure and growth habits are completely different.
Thanks for your input. I was particularly curious to hear some “real world” examples. It really seems to be that, like most threads about genetics I’ve tried to wrap my head around, the answer is “it depends”. Awesome stuff.
@GrouchyOldMan , I’ll definitely be digging into that. I just ordered some of the fem Frankie seeds, among others from @JohnnyPotseed and I couldn’t be more excited to get them going. Thanks for the information.
Frankie is serious business!
I have a cutting from @GrouchyOldMan
She is skunky and spicy and sweet. The smoke is very smooth and leaves a nice taste in the mouth. I go easy with her though! A little bit is really nice, but one hit too much and Frankie will put me on my ass.
As far as close, it depends what people consider close, I guess… and what kind of numbers we’re talking about to determine the things people find most important. If you only need to get 3/10 chromosomes to line up, that’s about a 1/8 chance, which isn’t too bad - one per pack on average. Most people aren’t gonna care as much about things like rooting speed, leaf traits… maybe nutrient needs and purpling? At that point you’re looking at a 3.125% chance, which isn’t nearly as good.
