Through extraordinary efforts to help seedlings survive we breed plants that cannot. This is symptomatic of our inability or unwillingness to differentiate between what is good for the plant¹ (vigor, seed abundance, adaptability, pest and disease resistance², etc.) and what is good for the grower (sexual stability, yield, growth speed, stone, photogenic bag appeal, high number chemotype, etc. )
I have helped many seeds out of their hulls. As of yesterday, I have set an intention to stop. It is easy to see that breeding-in the necessity for human intervention at that critical moment will lead to lines that cannot survive without it.
One of the drivers behind this trend is the high price and artificial scarcity of seeds. When one has paid the price of a full day’s work for seeds one is compelled to make each one count.
I suspect other things we do as growers (breeders?³) are diminishing the plant’s adaptability and hastening its extinction⁴:
- Breeding for generic, artificially designed media and nutrients,
- Intermixing lines without testing for outdoor survival,
- Maintaining pristine grow environments,
- Testing under single lighting scenarios with narrow light spectra,
- Culling to avoid natural rodelization (intersex) capability .
This is why the indoor/outdoor differentiation is becoming increasingly necessary. Does the strain retain the ability to grow and thrive in nature? Could this “Landrace” still finish if returned to its home environment?
My recommendation is to note any seedling that required “help” and avoid pairing it with other so-noted cultivars.
I choose to post this in the Breeder Lab category as it is not my intention to question the methods of people who are growing for smoke.
¹ Good for the strain, as opposed to the cultivar.
² This is good for both cannabis and its grower but may go untested in a “clean room” grow.
³ I don’t know what breeders do. I hope they take questions like this under consideration. I’m sure some do and some don’t.
⁴ Feel free to ignore my baseless hyperbole.