I hope this is in the right place.
I’ve always been a “grower” and never wanted to breed. But now that some thing have changed, I’d like to start doing some ‘breeding’ projects. By ‘breeding’ I mostly mean ‘making seeds’ for personal use/trades. But I’m also currently trying my hand with some simple crosses so I can hunt through the F1s.
One of my concerns is that I don’t have access to high level genetics. So I’m not sure if it’s worth pursuing if I only have mid level genetics. I don’t know if it would be OK to just use what I have ( but I don’t want to trade or give away 2nd rate seed). Or should I try to find a pack of really fire genetics and then try with a 5 pack??
I have a little 2X2 tent I can use, plus I have plenty of veg lights and area.
Lastly- is there a downside to using LEDs to grow the plants for seeds. Or should I move them under an HPS for seed formation?
Soooo glad I found this forum. You guys are incredible.
I’m also new, and know almost nothing compared to most of the people here. But I also plan to try and breed with minimal space. I know u can finish plants in starter seed trays. Smaller plants with bigger numbers is the plan. But if you hoping to eventually have something useful, I would 100000% start with the best genetic you can get ahold of. A lot of the work has already been done for us, and with limited space, I think its crucial to get started in the best way possible.
Funny you should ask this, we just got a new thread going to pool breeding information. Some great info already, I dropped a link to the Bonsai Sultan Method. Check it out. @Guitarzan dropped some amazing resources over there as well.
Also, remember that all the super hot fire flavor of the month strains ultimately came about because of skillfull selection from the progeny of less potent parent stock. You can always get other seed packs to bring in to the mix, but there’s nothing wrong with running what you’ve got already. You’ll learn more doing a crappy run of shitty seeds than you will waiting on the mail for the hot name brand strain to show up.
Putting stamen and pistil next to each other isn’t breeding it’s crossing, aka “making seeds.” Do that. It’s good for you.
If you start with two IBLs that are somewhat different you will get fairly uniform F1s. Their quality will inform your hunt through the F2s. That is the beginning of Breeding.
If your cross shows hybrid vigor (the progeny are more desirable than the parents) then a search in the F2 space may be warranted. Though you may have enough F1s to feed your head for years.
A great plant is a great plant regardless of the bag it came from. If you don’t want to pay $10 per seed for named breeders then trading (and getting on the preservation run lists here) is the way to find good parents.
Funny you mention those - I have the Bonsai thread open in another tab and looked through it a bit. I’m already using a bonsai method for my mom to save space and be more practical, so it looks like I’m on the right track.
I also downloaded the zip from guitarzan - but there’s a lot of material there.
I guess I’m looking for some basic ‘science’ on the breeding- heterozygosomethings, analles, and such. I need to narrow down the scope of the material I guess- “genetics / breeding 101 for dummies”.
And also some anecdotal advice from experienced growers. I like Kevin Jodrey for the most part, and I’ve gone over stuff from Subcool ( so sorry to hear about his passing) and I’ve watched hours and hours of tours of seed farms and listened to talks from the seed company owners.
I admit I like Jodrey’s idea of resurrecting the old school ‘loud’ skunks. That’s actually one of the things that lead me to look into breeding more. I really found his explanations to be high level - but easy to grasp if you understood some basics already.
He also talks a lot about the terpenes- and it seems to me that a lot of the ‘fire’ strains are mostly short duration type effects, which isn’t what I like personally.
I’m all about the quality of the effects.
I want the old laugh your ass off at everything ’ fun’ kind of herb again. But I also need something for serious pain relief for a back injury that can be absolutely excruciating ( just spent a week in agony getting over the last bout that was thankfully fairly minor.
So I’m trying to start with an idea of what I’m looking for via the effects- and then trying to determine the best route to get there.
Thanks for correcting me on the crossing vs breeding. I need to make sure I’m using the correct terms.
I have a couple of crosses going already. Some NL from Gypsy
And some kalichakra from Mandela. 4 popped and I have 2 males and 2 females. 1 male is stinkier via the stem rub, so he’s my favorite for now. I’ve crossed both the females with each of the males. I did one branch for each cross, but there’s still a small chance of some random pollination because I wasn’t super concerned about keeping everything separate. The more seeds the merrier!
I collected pollen from all the males and have it stored in wax paper inside a glass gar with silica packs in the fridge. And also some of the pollen stored the same way but in the freezer. OK, so maybe I’m a little OCD, but I want to cover all the bases and find what works.
and I have 1 SSSDH (from Res??) mystery F1 that just went to 12. I’ll do it manually with some of the saved pollen in a few weeks. All my seed making is hand pollinated so far.
My main plan so far is to find a good stud mail and start hitting other strains with it. I have some platinum super cookie something that I’m eyeing for that.
Cherry pie/OG/Durban/skunk mix.
@ RandomHumanoid
Do you have anything working now? What kind of space or lights? I have somewhere around a whopping 34 sq ft of lighted space. I’m using 4 inch square pots to keep the mothers small, but I can take clones and grow them out in 1 gallon or 3 gallon pots.
It’s been really interesting to see the ‘newer’ focus on the mini and micro grows instead of the big 20+ light set ups. We all used to drool over the pounds on the table, but now people seem to really enjoy a nice bud that was made with love and care. Always nice to see craft level work.
I think there’s a book on basic Mendelian genetics in that zip file. The original breeders bible, Marijuana Botany - An Advanced Study by Clarke is in there too.
All General Biology students start with Mendel for basic genetics. He’s the man. Clarke’s book digs into specifics about breeding marijuana, and introduces Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium which I don’t understand well enough to discuss.
I think I posted a link to DJ Short’s book in that thread too. The breeding section is good. He describes his cataloging system, talks about breeding Blueberry, it’s worth a read.
Yup. That’s how Bodhi does it. Pick good dads and you never need to bother with F2s. It sounds like you have as much if not more experience than I do.
I have done a few different-dads-on-different-branches polinations. I estimate my margin of error by how many seeds show up on branches I haven’t painted.
Clarke has some good definitions for levels of breeding purity. My grows are pretty sloppy. I keep my males together so any pollen that gets on them may get on the target females indirectly. It’s all fun for me. No one’s in big pain or depending on me for income.
On this front you may want to look in on the truly amazing work put down by @ReikoX here…
That man has dropped some serious tincture science over there. I know a lot of people have mixed experiences with edibles but there is some great stuff that can be done with tinctures for finding that sweet spot of pain relief without greening yourself into a semi-solid pile of stoner jello.
Can’t recommend that thread enough for pain management, that Green Dragon “breath” spray has been a game changer for me.
Sounds like you’re heading in a good direction with your seed making adventures already. I’m still new to it, from what I gather it’s just a matter of time and numbers. I would very much recommend DJ Short’s book as well, he was already a legend in the scene 20 years ago. A true oldschool craftsman.
Can’t thank you enough brother! That’s exactly what I needed. Clarke’s books is so old I’d forgotten about it. It looks like it’s really turned out to be a timeless classic. And it sounded so official and scholarly when you used all 3 of his names…
And I didn’t realize the link was for a DJ Short book, I thought it was just for a thread. I’ll definitely check that out too.
BTW - I’m totally stoked about your Hawaiian/ mango Haze project. Sounds like some really solid genetics. Any idea on the flowering time? I’ve sworn off 12 week strains for now. Just kills me in my tiny space.
@AllOra
Thanks for the input. My biggest concern is sifting through the F1’s and spending time growing out plants that might turn out to be underwhelming. I don’t mind ‘breaking even’ on it, I just don’t want 50% of my plants to turn out to be lame. Fear of the unknown I suppose.
I’ve been a bit lax with my pollen control, and i know I’ve had some rando pollination- but like you said, I kind of track it by how many accidental seeds show up. I was amazed at how much random pollen I found in my tent!! I used some disinfecting wipes and the all turned bright yellow! Pollen on the walls, pollen on the power cords, pollen on top of the lights and I’m sure there;s tons of pollen in my exhaust vents.
I’m liking your post in the “welcome packet” thread. I think the newbs need to put in some work to earn their slots. I think it’s important to get seeds to people that will USE them. There’s no point in getting out 10,000 seeds if no one uses them. And I hope I’m not out of line for saying that I hope the Leaders and distributors won’t be so shy about peeling off some money to cover their expenses and/or the server costs (as long as it’s done properly of course so the site isn’t incurring and new/addition liabilities or expenses).
And I’ll be so crass as to suggest that it would be OK to factor in member’s financial support when it come time to send out packets. Even a $10 or $20 donation shows a good intent I think. (I’m grabbing a prepaid card tomorrow when I’m out so I can hit the Patreon of make a direct donation.)
I wonder if it would work for individual breeders to have their Patreon??
Someone stop me if I’ve overstepped my bounds. I’m medicated and caffeinated.
The great thing about breeding is that it separates you from everyday banalities. In my case, it’s still just in my head, but just reading literature keeps my head above water and I can’t wait for a little better time to start.
I have one fixed idea that I will try to put into action. A friend has a Neville haze male, and I plan to germinate a few packs of Satori in hopes of finding one particular phenotype like I already had. Phenomenal structure, yield, stem thickness … And satava high was amazing.
I will try to go through a couple of generations and spice up my life a bit.
I will implement the selection in the F2 generation early on the basis of the Satori structure. So whatever happens …
This part will be more difficult than the breeding itself. Lol.
The average number of seeds a person procures in a year : vs : the average number of seeds a person germinates in a year, is a pretty significant difference.
As a starter project you should choose a line that you’re familiar with, grown a bunch of sisters out, and can more or less point out the exact traits you want to keep and which ones to drop.
Then either run through that line for a male like you mentioned, or run through a second line that you’re just as familiar with, looking for all those traits the first line was missing.
There’s easy mode too: run a huge number of plants from a line you’re familiar with, and cull all the undesirables. Mix all the best males pollen 1:1:1 and open pollinate all the best females. That way even if one of the males was inferior, it’ll hedge your bets that the best males are in the mix too. As long as you know what you’re looking for.
Last, and by far most important. Check the new generations against their parents and grandparents. If the progeny are not better than their ancestors, go back a generation or two and do it again.
I think some of us have anxiety about this I sure do I’ve got 20 something things I want to run next …been scrambling to come up with another dehumidifier just to run even more stuff and you guys continue to load down my mailbox diggy how many packs do you have lined up for your next search better question how many times does that change before you pop any one of my kids better have interest in this shit when they grow up cause seeds may be there inheritance
To make it worse, perhaps the best way to make quality seeds is to grow 1 thing at a time and lots of it. It’s hard to sacrifice all of the variety at your fingertips and focus on doing one thing well. Focus, attention and dedication is perhaps the biggest challenge of all.
I’m just set on doing theme runs I think I’m picking up a dehumidifier today so I can finally start the testers that I started a topic for 2 weeks ago lol I told myself I was going to run all the different bodhi hashplants misterbee gifted me but at the same damn time he gave me a million baked beans packs too …hope to have two of those done before the end of the year but I keep getting clones and I can’t say no that’s the biggest problem should have listened to that D.A.R.E. officer
I do think it would be cool if breeders stayed focused on a handful of varieties I also understand in this polyhybrid world it’s hard to stay relevant like that
My advice would be find a more stable line than anything cookies, or any of the based on clone only lines, for a male.
Those polyhybrids lines will not give you anything consistent in crosses, especially the males. To get a male of a clone only line they need to out cross it which is just adding even more genetic info into an already unstable line.
If you want a true stud male that will give consistent results if look at more stable lines to find a male. Yes it’ll probably be a little more work to find a stud looking male, but that male will cross out as a true stud. A polyhybrid male may look like amazing but it’s crosses could give you almost anything.
We’ll get there. It’ll be closer to dog breeders IMO, focus on one thing and do it well. Granted we may never have breed standards, but we may have “weed shows” that are like Cannabis Cups but not pay-to-play.
Current market says more like “find male, cross it to everything you can get your hands on, rake it in”.
diggy how many packs do you have lined up for your next search 
better question how many times does that change before you pop any 
and I can’t say no that’s the biggest problem should have listened to that D.A.R.E. officer 