It was a thought experiment about whether there can be an F1 without P1’s. Scissor-hanz answered the title question perfectly, with an excerpt from a textbook. It’s one of the first couple posts.
Long story short. There are no F1s when mixing polyhybrids with polyhybrids, and greater than 95% of crosses do not deserve a name.
Amen!
Nobody likes that answer but it’s true.
I’d venture further to say that half of the plant variation you see is environmentally caused.
How about if I said there are no Cavendish banana seeds?
That is the type you buy in a shop, you know, what everyone thinks of as a banana…
"Nearly all the world’s bananas produced for export are of a single variety, the Cavendish, and its days may be numbered.
That’s because one of the traits that’s made the Cavendish the world’s most popular banana is also its achilles heel: it’s seedless, and therefore sterile. Farmers must clone each plant, resulting in a lack of genetic diversity that leaves the world’s, er, top banana highly vulnerable to disease."
http://theplate.nationalgeographic.com/2016/01/18/yes-we-may-have-no-cavendish-bananas/
Honestly that would be a false statement as well. Cavendish are not limited to your store bought edible type, and there are plenty of dwarf varieties with a Cavendish label. I am well versed on the subject and used to have 23 varieties in my collection before cats.
As for taking cuts, it’s pretty unnecessary. They throw volunteers constantly. You can also cut an entire tree down and within a day or two it is already sprouting new growth.
Another blanket statement. That is not what “Everyone” thinks. If I am from Thailand, I don’t even know what a Cavendish banana is.
There are many edible banana’s and many of them have seeds.
How about if I said the only Cavendish banana you would see in a UK supermarket?
(this is like talking to my wife, the point gets lost in semantics and finding the right way to say a sentence that will not descend into just a hunt for the acceptable phrase so the actual discussion can continue)
You know full well that globally the most popular, common, banana (the Cavendish) is a clone and the point of saying that in this thread was to point out the vulnerability of cloning as opposed to producing a stable breeding line. A point that is not invalidated by there being other varieties that do produce seeds.
That said, TIL that there are bananas that produce seeds at all. I honestly thought there was just plantains and clones.
Sorry if that was a little short, I really get tired of arguing the toss on the internet.
Apparently the good bananas went through the same problems back in the mid 1900’s and the delicious Gros Michel were replaced by the hardy Cavendish. If you get the opportunity to ask someone who has tasted both, they’ll tell you today’s bananas are bunk.
That is the extreme end of the spectrum though, and it could absolutely happen in large commercial environments if it’s determined that one specific clone is THE clone for commercial production.
Cannabis isn’t bananas though.
Banana plants are not easily grown in any closet across the globe. Consider instead, if you will, tomatoes. When you buy a pack of beefsteak tomato seeds and end up with all grape tomatoes and yellow Roma tomatoes, you’re going to be confused, at best.
DJ Short once said that you should expect to buy three packs of Blueberry to find that one keeper plant you’re looking for… At $180 per pack?!?
As a new grower, I find this whole thread depressing and alarming.
If I am considering buying seeds or clones that say they are ‘BlueDazHazycookiedieselkittyshitkicker’, I then spend time looking up that strain on-line to see what traits it has as far as effects, how tall it gets, average yield, etc etc etc. I want to know what Im getting, so I look it up.
BUT - you guys are basically saying all that info is for crap? There is no telling what Im going to get from the grow?
I guess I shouldnt be too surprised. My first grow made that sort of obvious in retrospect. I grew 2ea seeds of Northern Lights and 2 seeds of Critical CBD from a reputable seed bank - Nirvana. There were very large differences in how each plant grew. One Northern Lights and one CBD were stunted runts and the other two grew bigger, faster, taller, bushier with about 24% higher yields than their sisters.
As a consumer, I dont like that amount of variation. If Im buying something with a certain label and certain advertised “specs”, I expect it to fall within a reasonable range of those specs, or I feel like Im getting ripped off.
This is what you seem to be afraid of. There is speculation that Salvia was kept as clones for so long it is very hard to find plants that produce seed.
http://www.sagewisdom.org/clones.html
Seed raised plants are valuable because they are genetically unique. Unfortunately, Salvia divinorum seeds are extremely rare. For reasons not entirely understood, this plant almost never sets seed. Botanists have never found seed on plants growing in their native habitat. The first published description of S. divinorum seed was that of L.J. Valdés. He had managed to produce seed by carefully hand-pollinating greenhouse grown plants; unfortunately those seed failed to germinate. A.S. Reisfield was the next person to report successful seed production. Many of the seeds he obtained germinated, but the plants were not maintained.
It’s no less depressing for us, I assure you. 
As a new Grower who is looking for information, you’re already ahead of the curve, though. Just use that information to guide your wallet.
Sorry I’m on a bit of a tangent on this subject.
This isn’t directed at any OG family I swear.
I’m no “breeder” but I’ve worked in the ag community my whole life and all of these fools are full of crap.
The “breeders” have quite the dog and pony show going here, chock full of wives tails and psuedo science.
If it takes three packs to find one then it isn’t a strain at ALL Period.
He’s simply done no work to it, the odds of a blueberry are the same for random bagseed.
From the domestic dog to Crenshaw melons, the average Joe farmer has selectively bred everything we see by simply selecting what they like and breeding it, to it’s like, culling undesirables and repeating that process.
Punit squares, genetics, and microbiology help but it’s not rocket science and we’ve been quite successful at it since shortly after the Paleolithic era.
They claim it takes a talent, good eye, fairy dust, thousands of plants dozens of generations and then try to sell us “1in every 30 seeds is a keeper”
It’s time to grow and breed our own, pass the seeds along and FREE THE WEED.
Buy a bag of seeds grow them pick a male and female you like, and cross em.
Plant that generation pick a male female you like that are similar to mom and dad and do it again.
If you don’t find any then skip breeding, harvest flower and plant more seeds from that generation next round.
you’ll likely find the ones you want again and cross them.
Rinse repeat untill they all turn out the same.
It’s not “BREEDING” but it will get you a plant that you can be proud of and call your own.
Pollen chucking with a purpose! Lmao
It is “selective breeding” and as you point out is the most tried and true method known, so yeah it is “Breeding”
Manual Like Override 
PS 2 plants isnt really enough we should be using 5-6 plants to maintain diversity
Agreed, really as many as you can. Multiple males multiple females but anything is better than paying 200 bucks for mystery secret prize seed packs.
MJ growers never seem to get that.
You don’t hear as much talk about the quality of the high compared to the chatter about fruity smells and frosty buds, many with short lived highs that you quickly build a tolerance to.
I’ll take bud that tastes like broccoli with no ceiling and a high lasting 3 - 5 hours over some Banana cheesecake smelling bud with a 20 minute buzz.
Absolutely! Hydro/soil, hps/led,6.0 pH vrs 5.5, temps in the 80s vrs temps in the 70s, good drainage, bad drainage, Humidity, elevation, season, moon phase, bacterial load etc. etc.
Every variable will effect total outcome, and all breeding can do is make it less drastic.
It’s nature vrs nurture every time.
Id be the freak looking specifically for that broccoli terpine profile though lol.
I used to breed decades ago until all my breeding stock was taken. I had some ‘interesting’ strains and was working towards stabilising some of them. Then I had a knock on the door…
These days I monocrop, something I used to criticise.
But back on topic, your post contains a lot of good words. Either a breeder is making a particular F1 cross from two known plants which breed true, in which case all the seeds will be uniform and vigorous but not true breeding, or you are stabilising a line to again get uniform plants that also breed true. Everything else is just splatting paint on a wall and hoping it becomes art.
For only one in 30 seeds to be a keeper, you are crossing F3 plants and selling those seeds as being as good as the original cross. This shows a vast lack of breeding knowledge and an equally large willingness to rip people off…
I would only disagree with one thing.
I would say the technique you describe is breeding. You have selected parents based on desirable traits, bred them, selected children for traits, bred them over generations, and stabilised your strain. Whether you end up with anything better than what is currently available would not be certain but I would call that breeding. Like you say, liking what you see, culling what you do not like and breeding what remains to get better individuals that breed true has been done for thousands of years and developed what we use today for food, textiles etc
I agree. The strain I have is one I have been happy with for nearly 20 years. It was unbelievable then, and even today it is still one of the strongest about. Every single day, for decades, I have yet to not get as strong a buzz as I ever did. I do not think it is possible to build up a tolerance to it ( or trust me I would have 
)
Lately I have been talking about environment with my go to guy and how that is as important as the strain you grow. In the near future, I will be working to get my RH% dialled in.
As I have always said, you can turn a good plant into a bad one but you cannot turn a bad plant into a good one…
Thanks for the kind words, and truly in my estimation this is breeding as you say.
I’ve had to tiptoe around in other forums because a post like that one usually gets flamed on hardcore lol.
It’s interesting with the polyhybrid question because, if you throw it all out and just breed selectively you can salvage or start a new.
I’d say working with a polyhybrid, simply forget it’s parentage and treat it like a box of Legos, building what you want from what you get. Simple selective breeding would be the only way to cut through and stabilize the trash and make a respectable strain.
Your post was full of truth. If you get flamed for speaking the truth that says a lot…
I could have quoted the last three paragraphs as well. Excelent post my brother @Morgwar ! The unabashed truth! IMO. 
“Bananas are a great example of how well standardization can work.”
Yup. Currently theres one main type of banana, and its losing a battle against a fungus all over the world.