I think we should start a topic on basic breeding info…Or even post links to known breeders talking on it!
this would be a great topic. i just read dj shorts book. it was very informational on selection and breeding. i recommend anyone trying to breed to read his book!
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I would add as well books from Robert Connell Clarke.
Happy thanksgiving to all.
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Well I guess I need to start buying books, over looking on the web for any info I can find! Thank you both for sharing the info
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I’ve compiled few basic facts about breeding of cannabis.
Breeding is not as hard as it can seem for a first sight… It is about finding right “worthy” strain and improve it further with some effort. Professional breeders do same steps as I’ll describe in following paragraphs, they are just more carefull to have sterile and controllable environment and hermetically sealed and separated chambers to control pollination of selected females with selected male pollen.
Many seed breeders will tell you not to make your own seeds but this is your choice. It is not for everyone because it takes a patience and experience. Patience because the process of finding right phenotype can take years and experience because selection is very subjective matter and you should know what to look for when selecting potencial keepers.
Everything starts with seeds, so get right pack and plant some seeds. Growers usually select potential females for breeding from at least 30 seeds (remember that ~50% will be males). It is recommended only to use regular seeds for breeding. What factors are making a phenotype true keeper? Well this depends on taste of each breeder and differs according to their experience. You can select for speed and hardiness in the veg stage and you can select for structure of the phenotype initially. Sometimes you might select based on smell or amount of resin but until you try the buds you can’t really select for taste and potency. That is why it is good idea to select 2-3 nicest females and 2 nicest males for another round of pollination.
Usual way is to duplicate all plants during vegetation time as clones and then keep one part in vegetation for future mothers and other part us to flowering to check for traits you are after (and to test potency). Then after you found plants with traits you are after, you can use your backup clones to make mothers (for cloning) and flower them (or their clones) to selectively pollinate them. You can discard clones of plants you didn’t choose for futher development.
Always having backup mother that you can clone and use clones to flower and pollinate again is wise choice. Exactly what are professional breeders doing. When they need to produce batch of seeds from their favourite cross, they just carefully use same clones everytime and it produces consistent and stable results. By isolating the best clone mothers, they do the same thing you can do.
Breeders take the genetics of the others and cross a likely prospect in hopes of creating a New Line or they isolate particularly good phenotype of one strain. By always selecting the best specimens for breeding you can improve each generation.
Whatever line you have, the real task is finding the ideal specimen. It may take time but cloning allows the grower to keep the same phenotype for future breeding if the plant is worthy. Breeding is fun and anyone can possibly isolate a super new strain and become world famous pot seed breeder…
Read more about cloning in following threads: here, here and here
Some breeders prefer to replace clone mothers after 3 sets of clones have been taken. Of course mothers can survive for many years if you care about them. Clones can be taken from clones without deterioration without deterioration, contrary to a popular myth.
What factors to look for?
- Yield
- Plant Structure (branching, vs single cola)
- Flowering speed
- Hardiness of growth
- Mold and disease resistance
- Taste, smell, potency, etc.
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Why don’t use feminised seeds for breeding?
They have been produced by stressing female plant to produce male flowers and resulting (female) pollen was used to pollinate itself. This plant is missing part of genetics information, because it has only female genetics. Seed producers are using Colloidal Silver or other substance to induce stress and make female plant produce male flowers. Plants from feminised seeds sometimes produce male flowers and are not so stable as plants from regular seeds. This unstability leads to hermaphrodity.
Why don’t use hermaphrodites for breeding?
Remeber that you don’t want hermaphrodites in your garden. If you see a male flower in a female don’t let that plant breed (this happens with regular seeds too). This pollen sometimes produced by hermie females will create all females but the percent of hermies will increase and pollute your garden with worthless seeds. Never allow a hermie in anything but a very small garden and never breed them. Remember to remove unwanted males from the flowering room before your breeding program ruins your whole crop.
How to pollinate?
When you selectively pollinate a plant remove it from the area to do so. Place about the least amount of pollen you can imagine on your finger (or brush) and pollinate the stem pistils and a couple lower buds only. You will usually get too many seeds and the pollen can spread around so use it very sparingly. Everyone uses too much the first time so take it easy.
Let the partially pollinated plant stay out of the room for a day then shake it a bit and return it to flower room. You can rinse the pollinated plant with water to further reduce the risk of pollen spreading to other plants. A separated seeded plant area is ideal but not mandatory. Of course pro breeders have hermetically sealed separate chambers for each of seeded plants so that pollen cannot spread from one plant to another and contaminate other crosses. They basically have one cross in each chamber.
Making seeds requires a lot of the plants energy and if you want a lots of seeds you have to wait a bit longer in flowering and pollinate fully. Fully pollinated plant can produce about 10.000 seeds if it is healthy bush so be sure you really want it :).
Seeds storage
Your seeds will last a couple years at least but as the time passed the germination rates will decrease. I’ve succesfully kept my seeds at sealed container and frozen in a fridge for many years. Also germination rate doesn’t affect the genetics in any way.
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Yeah many breeders are against feminizing. For example legendary Eddie fro Flying Dutchmen was against feminisation of seeds.
The truth is that it is the trend now, because it makes growing much easier for beginners. They don’t need to power lightning for males, don’t need to have multiple cabinets to keep clones or mothers nor they need to know cloning.
So for end-user market it doesn’t make much sense to offer anything else than feminised… Of course I think regular will be still needed for serious breeding work and in demand among breeders. I think that FD hasn’t been much competitive and although he had some really fine genetics, he wasn’t probably at much profit. I know he later (~2009) sold his seedbank to Sensi Seeds. They are now producing his lines also in feminised versions.
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Speaking of production of feminized seeds: Also Gibberelic Acid (GA3) has been used to mutate female flowers to induce male flowering and pollinate itself… This way is not so much effective, because plants also stretch to much…
There is some article about GA3 in FAQ also:
Also there is Silver Thiosulfate (STS) which has same results for feminization as Colloidal Silver. But it is hard to find.
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Is this describing replicating the f1 generation? I’d love to get into cubing and stabilizing but the amount of males you’d have to go thru seems humungous, I pollenchuck, and thats fun, but, sadly I am considering selfing females instead, I’ll show myself out…lol
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I disagree with your bias against CS feminization. If you breed the feminized mother with a male plant’s pollen, the sex chromosomes will return to male-female, or use feminized pollen from another plant and there should be no issue making another feminized generation.
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May be true but the female side of the genes will be saturated with ‘unnatural’ dna sequences. IMO that results in hillbilly cousin daddy syndrome. Or flawed successive generation like dogs exhibit ie Labrador retrievers with bad ears and hips, which is a plague these days (and the now almost extinct Irish Setter). It really doesn’t take long to show. But for plants at the end user stage, doesn’t really matter IMO.
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Again, I’ll agree to disagree. I assert that would only happen through selfing unstable genes. Normal inbred lines are preferable. The only anomaly is the male sex chromosome is female.
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@BadVoodoo Are you suggesting that using hermaphrodites (although displaying just small number of male flowers within female inflorescence) for breeding is acceptable?
I suppose that normal inbred line is created by pollinating new female offspring (possibly repeatedly) by single original male (both male and female genes are included).
More on stabilizing is in FAQ:
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IBLs, S1s, and Hermaphroditism are separate things.
Strains like Romulan, Afghan Kush, Durban Poison, Bubblegum, and Deep Chunk are IBL.
Please don’t put such ridiculous words in my mouth. Of course herms are not a positive thing to grow.
Edit: Rereading, this sounds a bit more harsh than it sounded in my head. Hope no one took it that way.
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All good, it just shows your passion for the plant, we all share that passion!!
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STS can be formulated from home using chemicals found on amazon.
The results and application is very different from CS. But the mechanism of silver on ethylene inhibition seems to be the same.
I for one had problems with CS, I dont know why its popular. STS is my prefered method for S1 projects.
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Hi I’m new to the culture of marijuana just started my first grow couple weeks ago I’m interested in later on down the line learning how to breed any books someone could recommend, title author and where I could get them, thanks in advance
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I’ve noticed feminised plants are less tolerant of stress factors and from what I understand they are technically considered ‘gmo’ because reversing a plants sex with hormones and silver solutions isin’t really a natural process.
Mandala seeds is another good breeder who does not really recomend feminised seeds although they offer a few feminised strains.
They are def more popular especially with new growers who don’t want to go through the hassle of sexing and growing out males for nothing…
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That definition would classify everything except completely wild plants as GMO since selective breeding is not a natural process either.
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The whole thing about “not breeding with feminized seeds” is based on feminized seeds created from breeding with intersex plants (hermaphrodites). Most reputable breeders do not do this (reversing a plant with hormones or other means not by stressing plants that are prone to reversing sex) Their feminized breeding stock is not intersex so the offspring should not be either. Bag seeds are much more likely to be the result of (unintentional) breeding with intersex plants than feminized seeds from a trusted breeder.
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