Legitimate breeders/ best practices... name names if you want

@RickSanchez

I think it’s just that hobby/small growers don’t have the resources. If you want to select for certain traits it is better to have hundreds or thousands of plants to choose from. If you are only able to grow four or even a dozen plants you won’t have the diversity.

Not saying it can’t be done. Just that someone with more resources at their disposal can do it much better.


I wanted to answer you with a testimony on Almeria greenhouses but it’s too hot, and everyone will understand the brands that are involved in this unethical production. I’m trapped.


This one is less problematic and is a part of our common culture.

One more time i get you rick, i understand. And this video, at its time, produced the same amount of dreams and frustrations in my mind of “private breeder”(name it like you want, you allready known what i mean about that). I don’t regret, it pushed me to want to taste it. At the start in thinking like you that i will improve mechanically the genpool, over to fix my weakest methods, and at the end to enjoy my humble freedom like never to have stopped to produce shit for the mass (sorry lol).

Off course, a skilled breeder in an optimal and legal condition will have everything to success and to outperform every actual commercial standart available. But it will happend only in another planet imho ^^ This kind of operation mean to earn nothing during 5 years with the daily cost of a plant/factory. These times are over since a while, today the truth is that you have a maximum of 6 month to develop something to throw on the face of the most uneducated. With this insane timing, there is no quality upgrade just in pushing the walls. It’s just a question of scale of production, nothing else.

Now, more in deep. To recognize a true breeder from the fake one is in fact very easy. Ask him the tracking of all the pedigree that he’s selling as his own “work since centuries from a fossile seed in a gigantic lab with a team of 50 skilled and well paid specialists”. You will see that it’s very rare, and that you will get it from the unexpected “hobbyist” mainly.

I respect your idealism and you wish for a clean, transparent big company, but i think that you must add some water in your wine to understand that to promote the return of the private breeders wave (like in the OG v1) is a salvation for all of us and the only leverage we have to change this business that pushed the fiesta too far.

The majority of the main lines that we grow today (not so numerous for real), have known terrible conditions with technologies that have nothing to have with what we can get today. I think that you’re sincere, but i think that to avoid this factor of the equation is dishonest and lead to remove the only leverage we have on the market : these mad stoners that sacrify theyr security and theyr own need of weed to continue to roll the dices.

Now i’m speaking from here, one plant in the garden and my life can be destructed. I can understand that with the big changes that are in moves in USA actually, the cultural frontier can produce asymetric truths.

But seriously, don’t be nihilist with these guys that have fun with theyr pollen. They are so rare now, and nothing bad can happend to your customs if you let them play the darwinian game of breeding. Don’t be affraid, they will be selected and unselected by the connoisseurs just like the big names. There is no harm to let them work on theyr tiny spaces, the reverse is not true imho. You have enough experience to can impress a newcomer, it’s a responsability to weight your more radical points of view.

I think we are in agreement. What the customers want, at least from what i see in the shops, is high THC content. (This is for finished product not genetics) I think this will evolve though. People will become more discerning, maybe start looking for specific effects or aromas, And the industry will evolve to chase the demand. Starting with the big growers in legal states and being followed by breeders and sellers of seeds to enthusiast growers.

You’re very pessimist and idealist in the same move finally. Disturbing ^^ I share the whole extrapolation on the form.
I’m more harsh on the switch, i think that people will be more pushed by the saturation. By nausea more that by awareness. Then start to search all weeds that are made for themselves, over eating what is in the newest add.

big growers->breeders->resellers->customers is your hierarchic sequence for the changes to come.

But big growers need specimens that are allready ready to run and competitive, asked. If it’s a manner to say that only big growers can produce new fire genetics to give to breeders, that’s a challenging opinion that i respect.

On my side I dare to say that any hierarchy in our green world is fake, for real. It’s the chaos presented like something that is not, and i like it finally. I personnally don’t want any change on this side, except more people aware of how the things are truly done and from where.

This is what I’d like to know more about. Anyone can sell seeds and be a breeder, but who is actually advancing the breed and who is just making seeds. I’d like to support the former.

It’s not the fact to sell seeds that make you a breeder, but more the act of creating them. I say “creating”, not producing even if i’ve encountered somes producers more skilled in breeding that the breeder for wich they worked lol

Your last sentence loop on my consideration about how to recognize a true breeder from a fake one. But i can’t resist to answer.

who is actually advancing the breed : the money.
who is just making seeds : every breeder finally ^^

Think of it this way; say you are growing 10 plants and you want to increase mold resistance. So you set up conditions that are conducive to mold growth. Hopefully at least one of your plants doesn’t develop mold and you use that one for your breeding program. The chances of all 10 developing mold is high though. But if you have 1,000 plants…you are 100 more times more likely to find one that is what you are looking for.

The problematic there is that you see it not like a constant effort but like a one shot game. I will trust more a breeder that push 100 specimens by rounds of 10 during 5 years with complete tracking that a breeder that push 100 specimens in one round that unselect only all mold specimens. It’s hard to believe i guess, but i bet an oz that the first breeder will have the mold resistant strain and the second, a fake one ^^

The selection is a process that eliminate specimens. But that’s not the finality and it can’t be ultra simplified like that.
You have linked traits, you have genetic pressure, you have to deal with the recessivity of the best specimens etc … and you can’t do that without a minimum of three generations behind if you don’t want simply play the lottery ticket, smoke them all and keep the best. Maybe the mold weakness is linked with terpens that you don’t want to lose, or with auxin levels that make the specimens tremendously hard to clone etc … so maybe you will forced to create multiples inbred lines that must be selected in same time and eventually plan a backcross program between the twos lines to find a good compromise … it’s never as simple that deal with one trait. Everything is linked with something in this plant, and it’s why it’s so passionnating to breed it.

@MadScientist

Try to support me bro, that is what overgrow is for, to support each other, please don’t try to get the idea out of my head, because first of all, you won’t succeed and second, i’d like to have friends who support me, not the other way around.

I agree, it’s time to come back in sane foundations. War is only usefull for the banks and the weapons manufacturers.

@Kalgrae

Thanks for the share, i was not aware of these practices.
Yes i agree, i mostly consider breeding by inbred lines and reduced genpool. But i don’t dare to say that it is the only way. I known some guys that create fire only by feeling too, and i respect the sensibility they put in theyr work.

You’re wrong one detail. It’s the reverse, i take no risks (i’m not talented) and i pay it with the extra time that it cost to do that this way.

It’s hard to believe maybe but you take more risk to create a F1, because this fucking heterosis lol, that in manipulating slowly the sub groups of one inbred genotype worked in multiples lines. You have the number of fail safe that you decide to have, with the ability to come back in each generation if needed and to do retro-selection. I will defend this method in a biased way for sure, it’s not neutral or objective, but it’s truly a way that everyone can follow with results. The only skill to have is constancy and detailled registration of all specimens, and of course a project behind lol

@BogSeeds

Anyone can breed, and it’s not rocket science. Intuitions and Redfield type signs guide me. Each cross is a crap shoot and u never know what could be born. I always told people to go for it and a lot did just like me. Often my strains were used because I was an early American breeder who became popular back in the old Overgrow days.

I can’t thank you enough to share that on this debate, and to have released this holly Lifesaver lol
Your name have a weight in the balance, it’s important.

@lotus710

Imagine how easy it is to get customers when you sell seeds for 1/2-1/4 the price of every other seedbank out there.

I remember when Nirvana landed in the market with prices divided not by 2 or 4, but by 10 of hacked strains ^^ Prepare you for the war and worries that gypsy have known, in this case lol btw, it was a revolution that i had underestimated very badly for the long term trend.

There seems to be an abundance of recent anecdotal evidence indicating that some breeders are changing the genetic makeup of some of their established strains.

This is a practice that is common since a while, it’s just that now the blood is too washed to the bone so the customers can feel the cycles just in flowering the plants. I totally agree on the transparency. I think that from the 100% opacity, we can reach something in the middle that is fair for both sides.

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@Fuel I wish we both spoke the same native language! You seem to have a similar philosophical way of thinking, but unfortunately I don’t think I’m getting any of the nuances of what you are trying to say. I’ll reread your post and reply later.

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Wouldn’t surprise me at all that some seed vendors make the ole switcharonie. Anyone remember PotPimp? How bout Mr. C over at Cannetics/Cannazon, or the guy that owned The Seed Depot a couple of years ago?
:rage:

To the OP personally I don’t have a problem with S1 seeds. I can see where they would be great for a closet farmer, or anyone with a lack for space. I don’t use them and have no plans to create them. I have seen some great plants from them, and some really mutated he/she’s, but mostly just bananas and not true hermaphrodites. They are normally twice the money, so other than space saving, I’m lost at the what seems a sudden craze over them. Most of my breeder friends don’t mess with them either at least not yet.

I don’t think breeding is hard, but what I call breeding seems a lost art as a whole now of days. There are still a few guys who do it, but they are far more pollen chuckers swinging this and that. More power to them if they can pull it off, but their days I feel are numbered. I’m guessing there will always be a market for flowers, but that also seems to be on the downward slide due to the huge increase in extracts and the like.

In today’s market if you’re in it for the money, you kind of picked the wrong job honestly. Very few will make it solely from making seeds and that’s how it should be.

I’m sure there are many men who can be trusted but my mentor and inspiration has always been Nevil Martin Schoenmaker.

It is quite unfortunate, but shame on the consumer for not knowing the difference at the end of the day.

What kind/kinds of things are you wanting to know specifically?

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The more information the better! Often when I try to research a strain or breeder all I find is marketing BS. I’d like to know what their philosophy is and how they are trying to accomplish it.

Maybe some information about why they picked what they picked and how they grow it.

I don’t know really. More than “this is this crossed with this” for a start.

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There are a few sites, mostly seed vending sites that have forums where you can ask questions. ICMag may be the largest today, but there used to be a bunch. I am pretty lucky in that I know quite a few breeders on a personal level and rarely do I venture out too far.

What I did personally was create a site to develop my work and document all of it along the way once I decided I was going to release some of my work. It is mostly made up of real friends meaning people who I have known a long time. I’ll also add a person here and there who make a candidate to test things as I move forward on projects that would take me years to do by myself. Chances are if I get asked a question about a certain parent, I can quickly reference my notes and do a “Show and Tell”.

I feel you on the hype though. Lots of it floating out there for sure.

I certainly do my best to answer questions when I can. I’ve also learned when to just stay away.
:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Excuse me: my poor English not allows me to understand fine your arguments, but…what relation Almeria’s Greenhouses has with the threads thematic?

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That’s the point, you have to made the link yourself. It’s like the thaï units of Nirvana back in the days, not really a secret behind the mirror.

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Excuse me, friend. Im not English speaker n I cant find the link by myself…Sorry.

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Yea, no rant slander campaign. A few posts here is enough. No time for bullshiters. I have been making seeds and crosses for a long time, it is not hard. A 4 year old could make better seeds than rare dankness. I give “breeders” one chance. Why, because there are real breeders who do sell decent stuff. If people are not using 1000’s of plants for selection, I am not interested.

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How about this, everyone wants to see how real seeds are made, next year (to busy now) I will start a new project of seeds. No bullshit here, i will go to a field of no less than 4-5000 plants. I will select the best 3-4 females. Now, unlike strain hunters or other “breeders” I will remove the buds and 80% of the plant mass. I will dig up the plants, bring them home and start to reveg them. Pollen will harvested and saved, males dug up and reveged if possible. ( some males once they flower, don’t like to reveg.) than, once the females are vegged, healthy, I will hit them with pollen to make free seeds for everyone Except “breeders” ( you gotta do your own work)

  • another note on males, they should be covered in tricomes. Something you don’t see from “breeders” - kinda makes you wonder. I will have pictures soon. I have been on pause for a while and I am just getting started again.
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And for those who don’t like feminized seeds, I will do some stress runs on the moms and also make guaranteed stable female seeds for free also. So people can see that It is the breeders, not the genetics.

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Sounds fun @Viva_Mexico. What about just taking some clones of the plants you want to use? It might be easier and less stressful for the plants and you…Or do both, cut clones then dig up and reveg, belt AND suspenders style .

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@Viva_Mexico
In all case, i can’t wait to see a so sexy selection operating in outdoor. And for distributing the seeds for free to guys that need it … woo! Keep the vibes high and make the show man ! I will be hoocked to your thread for sure.

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We have to overgrow the world.

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A fine discussion…

It takes time to stabilize a strain and knowing your strain is required to maintain it.

I don’t know how some companies come out with so many strains but I mainly work to maintain the quality and integrity of our genetics.

The skill of growers in the process can’t be overstated. Some growers show me how it’s done and when it’s with my genetics they often make me feel proud.

I want to die happy. I will die happy thanks to the love and respect so many have given me. Please forgive our errors and yours too. When we can forgive ourselves perhaps we will forgive others as well.

Honesty is the best policy. If I told lies I would never remember them or what the truth actually is.

Be excellent to each other… BushyOldGrower :sunglasses:

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And… Party on dude!!!

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I will always prefer supporting mom n pop breeders. How can you put love into the mass production of a million beans?

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One grows a Porsche, the other a bicycle!

Hehehe

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I was happy with the Bros Grimm gear I had. Loved Genius and the Apollo’s. Shantibaba and The Flying Dutchman’s strains turned out well. In the end it was homemade crosses I picked up C-bay that were stellar. Things like Vietnamese Black from Anon, Webfish’s X13. Along with Bros. Grimm breeding stock and few gems obtained in clone form.

There was a guy named Dankmaster from the old OG and CW who made the most potent Airborne G-13 cross that I think has ever been produced. G13 X Fig Widow, a limited number were sold by Heaven’s Stairway under the name Omega G. That was some seriously don’t try to drive potent weed. Everyone I smoked it with swore it was “laced with opium…or something”

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I burned some Airborne with Soul and Duke Diamond just last year they were playing with. Was hands down the thing that impressed me the most from the dried products I was able to sample. Quite epic!

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