Business of seed genetics

Breeder's Lab
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yo . i would be interested in hearing from people on what their perceived methods of cultivation would be for professional seed companies.
i am interested in breeding and often find myself giving thought to the topic. Especially when it comes time to buy seeds.
i dont really think that all methods are the same and its clear that there are methods ranging from simple pollen chucks all the way to heavy selected multi generational back crossed to hell specialised parents.
here is my take on what i think goes on …
-parent plants are selected from clone or seed
-parent plants are multiplied / cloned and seeds are made
-as time goes on new parents are introduced possibly if there are problems or the parents are back crossed with progeny.
So it all seems like there is not much room for improvement of evaluation, especially if the said company is producing 500 strains ( sensi seeds) outsourced to farmers in spain etc.
what are examples of the work that goes into it ? strain development ? it seems that all the work is basically this
1- selection of parents
2. evaluation of offspring
3. modifying / replacing parents

interested in hearing from people what they think

cheers

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Not like this at all lol. I knew some white label grows in cali, and theyd literally just pop 10k seeds, let all the females and good % of the males rip. Package up the seeds untested. Theres really no selection or anything. Some places will get parental stock thats already line worked to some degree, but not always. And that doesnt mean its already consistent. These are just big ag grows. Theyre worried about turning a profit as fast as possible, not quality or consistency. Ive even seen them try to spin it as “10k plant pheno hunt” when in reality its just 10k seeded plants with no slecetions. They also seed out the neighbor farms, and literally get ran outta town pollinating everything with junk genetics. Adam Dunn and DNA did it to some old farms we knew well. My lil hash company made a lotta wax from that seeded out garbage even. We could a had several 5 gallon buckets worth of seed, but tossed it all. Wasn’t even worth growing, despite all the females being tried and true clones.

Of course there are indie breeders that actually develop lines and all that. But theyre not the majority of the market. Its about a fast cash grab, not making something that people will be excited to grow. The vast majority of the people buying these seeds are new growers who dont know better yet.

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no doubt theres wolves about. . of the seed makers out there who actually try to produce seeds from reliable genetics… what methods do you think they use ?
is the idea to get a killer parent combo and then just make seeds from the same parent plants forever ? i know that a lot of seed places are churning out polyhybrids 4-20 times a year but thats nothing to talk about really . its a no brainer. although … you may get stable results if you are breeding good genetics …i do not know. im interested in some examples of what a professional horticultural company would do ? cheers

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indie breeders ?

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Smaller scale breeders that arent back by investors. Most of these bigger seed brands are corporate, and just astro turf to pretend to be independent. The biggest examples these days are brands like 20twenty and Humboldt Seed Co, amongst a lot of others.

I run lots of smaller scale breeders and theres tons doing great work. My current favorites are Bodhi, CSI, and 707 Seedbank. All really brilliant dudes doing super cool work.

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Take desirable plant a
Mix with desirable plant b
If you like the outcome proceed.

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yeah . keep it simple . just curious what would be the norm for horticulture pros in cultivar creation.
given your statement - the “outcome” has a limited number of pathways or unlimited if taken in other certain directions. cheers :slight_smile:

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Once you hit F2s the variation can become substantial and you can make selections there.

Working the line takes work.

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Some guys save pollen for this purpose. For me it’s really not practical to keep mothers.

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Yup bodhi does solid work , i got madd respect for him he breeds alot from landrace and gives back to our community

Independent breeders aka craft farmers

I cant speak for everyone, but i breed from landrace and will save pollen but i dont keep mothers either and i refuse to breed with s1/fems but i will release a fem line but not breed with it, if that makes sense? I sometimes will Bx but i perfur not to also i would rather use multiple males but i love diversity in a line but i do have plans for a couple IBLs but not many . I feel it can breed the magic out, one must be careful with ibls

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1AA2F26C-B4C9-40B1-8F53-11002E447D88463Ă—640 16.8 KB

This is what it takes for a IBL it can get complicated . This is why its rarely done anymore and why most of the modern market is just a bunch of poly hybrid X poly hybrid X on poly hybrid . Very few actually take the time to breed with good sustainable practices, like bodhi for example ps an ibl takes more alot more than the image above i just used it as an example of the work it takes the P lines is only the bases of an ibl once you establish a P1 you want to p1x p1 then breed it back over and over till you get a stable IBL modern ag only requires 70% of the offspring to be like the P1 to be considered ibl

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Nowadays, anyone can have a seed company. Which can be a good thing, a bad thing, or just an ok thing. I’m a really small scale breeder, and have been selling seeds for about 2 and a half years. I’ve been making my own seeds since around 2016, so there was a period of time in between me first making seed, and selling seed. I first and foremost make seeds for myself. If I’m not interested in it, then I won’t make it. That gives me a lot of freedom to do what I want, and also allows me to put my passion into my work. Which matters imo.

My first inclination when making seeds is preservation. I once had a police scare almost 10 years ago, and had to kill all of my cuts and ditch them. Nothing ended up happening, but lesson learned. From that point onward, I started making seeds so that I wouldn’t lose genetics if I had to ditch plants for some unforseen reason.

When it comes to breeding itself, the first step for me is to envision a cross that I want to make. Or if I’m doing a preservation run and I have cuts around, those will get pollen too. Those are kind of random, and not always thought out. But oftentimes those are some of the best creations. Usually though, I’m thinking of genetic combinations in my mind. I like to also be doing a preservation run, or a seed increase concurrently with a breeding project.

For example, MOB Magoo. I was offered the MOB cut by Electric Stoner in late 2022. I knew at that time that I was going to make that cross. I didn’t end up getting the cut until June of 2023, but I started the Blue Magoo BX3 seeds in Jan. I went ahead and made BX3F1 seeds with 2 males that I liked out of the pack, and hit every female. The other male sucked, and I tossed him out. I saved some pollen from each male, and eventually got MOB and flowered her out. Then I made the cross. Later I made Urkle x BMBX3. So out of that came a couple of hybrids, and I have 1000s of BMBX3F1 seeds to hunt through.

Ok, so now I’ve got a new hybrid. What next? Well, I put out the word on IG that I had made a new hybrid, and needed testers. So a bunch of people volunteered, and I sent out seeds on my own dime, and I also popped about a packs worth myself. Unfortunately some of the testers never grew the seeds, and some did a half assed job testing. Those guys will never be able to test for me again. It sucks, but it’s part of the process.

Then it’s a waiting game… After a few months, I get the grow reports. I decide to release the hybrid. So I get back on IG and promote said hybrid. MOB Magoo in this case. From the time I made it, to the time that I started selling seeds at GLG was about a year or so. So as of late Aug/early Sept 2024, MOB Magoo was officially released.

At this stage, the project is only at F1. This is not the end, but only the beginning. From this point, I can further line breed to refine, backcross, outcross, S1, etc. The amount of work that it took to take a cut and cross to another cultivar was a lot. Maybe it’s not a lot of work to some people, but to a guy with 4 kids, a wife, a full time job, a dog, and 2 cats, it takes a lot of time and effort. But it’s a labor of love. I’m not getting rich making seeds. If I were some money grubbing, pollen chunking two bit seed salesman, sure I could just S1 a bunch of stuff, or even lie about lineages like the big White Label breeders do to sell maximum amounts of seeds to unsuspecting first time growers who don’t know any better.

But that’s not how I roll. I want to make seeds that growers are excited to grow. Seeds that growers will love. I want people to grow out my work, and feel the enthusiasm that I had when conceiving of it. I want to make crosses that when you see them you say holy shit, I’ve never seen anyone make that before. I don’t want to be the guy who’s making the 100th Cookies cross. I mean more power to the people who do that, and if they love what they are doing, who am I to judge? But I love what I’m doing. Everyday is not sunshine and rainbows, don’t get me wrong. It’s a lot of midnight waterings, and a pissed off wife because I’m not in bed yet. A lot of tired mornings too.

But no complaints here. Cannabis is a way of life for me.

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This is what we do here

And this is why we have the little green dots by our screen name. It helps us to see who is trust worthy , but i try out new guys too because thats how they did me and if we catch someone being dishonest and selling stuff they shouldn’t we blast them all over the web in hopes that it never happens again. It seems you have found the right place my friend , welcome home bro ps we also share rare genetics with in our community this serves as a living seed bank :grin:

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Damn man sorry to hear about the police scare or lack thereof years ago…btw my wife and I have been sleeping in separate beds for years now. Best decision ever haha at least for us since both different sleepers and I’m hypersensitive to noises.

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I read that the Swedish share the same bed but have different covers so nobody ends up stealing them all.

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Nice to meet you. Yes, it does seem like I’m at the right place. I’ve been a member, and am a member at several forums, but this place has a really great vibe.

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Bodhi doesn’t breed…
Just preserving, most of the times that F1 of the something he preserve has no relation to what he began with, hence he is not breeding.
But it looks like he have the elite clone collection to try, that’s a start

An IBL can be reached via selfing aswell if your starting clone is elite enough

Keeping the P1 or P2 is essential if you wanna take shortcuts, if your F1 generation didn’t yield a pheno you can use, you can cross to the P1 that has that trait and have better chances
It’s all about minimizing the gene pool to your selections
The more plant material you’ll have (clones that hold your desired traits) will make it easier and faster.
The more numbers you’ll run you have a better and faster chance to find the traits you want in 1 plant and that will allow the next generation to be more prone to what you selected, faster.
It’s all about plant count and the genepool you can use.

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That’s too bad. I never thought this irresponsibility (crime?) could lead to something like this

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If anyone doesn’t listen to This statement loud and clear, they’re doing themselves a great disservice. Boogie laid out the game 1000% accurate in a well explained manner. This is why guys like him, me and many others constantly try to stear people away from brands like 420 fast, Barney’s, rqs, ilgm, ethos, hsc, etc. they prey on new growers with no experience to compare anything to

It must be said, 90% of all cannabis sees that produces a female will look halfway decent like it’s worthy of being grown on the surface, as you gotta really fuck thing’s up to make budding plants look shitty. But its about effect, smells, flavor, etc. not pictures.

Some of the ugliest bud as judged to modern day mainstream cannabis community, is some if the Best bud you’ll ever never encounter. like legit chems, sours, kushes, hazes. Old Afghanis etc. all would definitely loose beauty contests against cookie’s hybrids, but at the same time stomps Thier tits in the dirt

Heres a list of good breeders;
•Bodhi
•CSI Humboldt & pirates of the emerald triangle (N’Specta)
•Professor P dynasty genetics and relic seeds
•707 seedbank (shabud)
•Souvenir seed (pipsweed)
•Kingdom organics (the rev from Skunk mag)
•Lucky dog (skunk va)
•Authentic Genetics (One of My favorite, Todd McCormick)
•Skunktek (pricey)
•T-square manifestations (terry)
•AK Bean brains
•Mz Jill
•backyard boogie himself is a good breeder , im growing out his bodhi repros now, and they’re vigorous, will go outside come spring.
There’s quite a few others, but google results will have you buying ilgm and crop kings and cookie’s
Paradise seeds is still pretty decent as far as Dutch goes as is serious seeds (Just do your due diligence and don’t believe the originals are still the same)

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There are not true ibls in cannabis.

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Good to see you found OG. I’ve seen your pics on IG.

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