Welcome in the second part of what was planned to be an usual glossary. Like a Chem#4 with a bad CEC, it’s mutating a bit. But the gain of time for later is enormous, each section seen during the “Glossary & Slang” will permit to directly enter in the core of the subject later, without caring much about interpretations.
It mean less words to explain the same things, and more words to give practical keys. If you’re here, after two walls of text … you’re a brave anyway. Like an hardened of seedling.
For this version i will try to go more in depth finally in the sexuality of cannabis, over just the main principle of its classification.
I don’t wanted to waste my time on it and i wanted to let the gaslighting on hermaphroditism of this plant make its darwinian job. But the pressure to accept the shit show is so much strong these days, that it’s becoming toxic. I don’t know how i will handle it in staying concise and not arid, but i will try my best. Maybe i will break again the limits of words-per-post just with this section ^^
Joke aside, the subject is full of traps and quite difficult to transmit without dictatorial leads. It’s someone that have started in breeding, in guerilla crops, with a ghanaian directly sourced and quite herm that write these words. Your first true ride in breeding is never an innocent step for your late philosophy.
WEB-GB-Catalogue Varietale 2019.pdf (3.3 MB)
Before entering in the rabbit hole of Alice, go check this (reduced for weight) catalog. It’s pleasant but show a bit that for hemp its an industrial standard. Whatever is the use of the plant, it’s just a parameter. The last strains in the end are the more expensive, the “top shelves”. Check also if you have well integrated the Chapter One and guess what the names mean ^^
It also show that the dioecy and the monoecy of the lines are not specifically linked with a speciality, but that the catalog mostly sell monoecious strains. Get other catalogs, make patterns yourself.
Behind the very simple classification, it’s a manner to perceive hermaphroditism with cannabis and hemp that is very important to integrate. It’s not about the kind of herm or the individual expression of them.
It’s all about their weight in the line at a given time. One time that you integrate it rightly, dealing with herms whatever you want to do with it, become much more clear.
You can edict your own rules of tolerance based on your own protocols. And to move the cursors from one line to another, from one generation to another. This part can’t stand a golden rule. Sometimes you have to screen out hardly, other times to be more careful to don’t lost an important trait in the battle.
But you can’t take decisions if you don’t have ratios to deal with, and it mean to count the herms naturally triggered and the latent ones. Both are agents of chaos for your selections, but they aren’t indicating the same thing for the line individually.
Without entering too much in details for now, you should stay pragmatic when your consideration belong to the classification of the line. Due to the inherent dominance of herms until they reach a maximal point (that vary among the strains), if you hit the 50% mark you can already consider the line as monoecious, as a drug cultivar breeder.
For the dioecious state of one line it’s a bit more complicated to handle and revolve more around the males than the herms. One more time it’s not about the individual phenotypes and their expression, but entirely about the dynamic of the line.
In staying in the situations the more hard to handle, you can have a perfect grow of the females of the batch but that turn all herms just before or during the senescence. You can’t decently consider it as a dioecious line, on the whole there is a majority of specimens having both sex expressed and it don’t enter in this classification. The culprit can be the lack of adapted conditions to triggered them earlier, but also simply the genetic itself.
In another hands, if you got only a single warning on less than 10% specimens (1:10 for a standard pack of seeds), it don’t enter in the other classification as well. Even if you have a zero herm politic.
It’s very important to keep the head on the shoulder with these two tribes, and to separate this consideration with your goal and/or your philosophy. It’s just all about the ratio.
To counteract the dynamic that you see growing, you just have to refine your strategy in term of male’s selection most of the time. Like reintroducing males in a S1 line by example.
Most of details are here to show you that if your decision should be fully contextual, the classification have to be rigid and only determined by the ratios that you get. It’s not only keeping clear your mind, it’s also a true gauge.
Let’s make a gentle pause in presenting the three sexual expressions involved in these two classifications now. Behind the male/female/herm triumvirat, some basic mechanisms and a kind of hormonal flow to handle.
It’s not complicated, the difficulty is more to stay enough elastic to accumulate different layers of simple concepts.
The domination of feminized seeds in the market since 20 years is mostly due to the inherent difficulty to isolate the different sexual expression early, at a juvenile stage. Until the hormonal activity of the plants is enough strong to clearly show the inherent floral activity of each sex : the well known “pre-flowers”, mostly shown first by the specimens at the nodal and apical spaces.
Beside the internet noise, the vast majority of growers don’t have any interest in breeding. But more to find a way to be self-sustainable in term of final product and eventually, to consume grades of weed that no longer fit their needs : prices, quality, availability … if the equation of each stoner is different, the constraints not much.
So the vegetative stage of cannabis have this particularity : males, females and herms don’t show any reliable sex-linked traits during this phase.
I crossed the path of some growers able to detect by instinct a good ratio of females in large arrays, with tight deltas of errors each time. And when you try to draw a rational pattern, it’s nearly impossible. Mix of instinct, individual sensibility, experience … maybe a prehistoric reminiscence in our own DNA lol
I’m not a part of this club of rare specimens, but i understand them with my inherent bias : i literally “smell” the herms. For me they have a specific odor, latent or not, that i will describe as a specific range of musk. But it’s complementary with how i consider the shape, the experience on the line and my own sensibility as well. And i’m totally unable to explain it rationally.
Now let’s swim in something less funny and that i find really interesting to explain more in depth the sexuality during the vegetative stage : “reading” the DNA of seedlings to isolate the male from the females.
It’s not an esoteric thing like i just quoted previously, but a professional service offered among various type of company. From the most serious brand like Canna, to “home based” company operating this service to home kits that you can buy and use without any DNA engineering degree.
This is the toy used by companies, i took for example a middle tier stuff. The range of the prices is quite wide and depend on the versatility, the capacity and the depth of datas harvested. From 4 digits to 6.
But it work the same way.
This how look like a home kit.
Fundamentally, it’s the same shit and the same procedure. The difference being more a question of productivity and versatility Testing manually a dozen of specimen is not the same game than an arrays of thousands, and multi-testing each specimen even less. It’s not only used to detect males, but also to detect hemp genetic in the specimen, various pathogens, viroid and virus (covid and HLVd included), and much more.
Let’s restrict the sight to the sole sexuality in vegetative stage, and let’s dig how is working this kind of screening.
First the procedure itself, it help to demystify a bit the actual tools but also to put on the table something important in term of selection. One stone two birds. Don’t worry it’s not a tutorial of something you can’t really do in your kitchen ^^
The ADN step
The strategy vary as the requirement of the tools used but it’s all about to prepare the genetic material (for the subject, generally a sessile leaf) to be processed. The sample is “cleaned” from useless DNA, but also transformed in a “loud version” enough exaggerated to be readed. The reagents used are generally correlated with the detection aimed also, to “highlight” the portion requested.
The PCR step
The tools (reagents included) used take the lead and to exploit the reaction. Shortly, it’s basically an oven than you set to have multiples cycles with multiples temps. From a simple centrifugal tool to a fully automated “all-in-one” unit that even deal autonomously with reagents. It permit what is called “amplification”, that you can consider as an exponential multilayered version of the original sample. Fundamentally, like a draw on a tracing paper that you multiply enough to be bold and clear.
The DATAS step
From there, the operator proceed the datas harvested. From a simple color reaction to complex multi-layered graphs in passing by something more close to a more wide sequencing. It’s where the differences of strategies become interesting to handle the further point of views more related to our dirty hands and underground crops (for most).
The cheapest/faster/easier way is to simply focus on the main cannabinoids. Females being prone to get you baked at the DNA level (still fresh seedlings), it’s a simple way to directly go straight to the point. Multiple strategies are available, more or less reliable, but globally it show very decent results for conventional grow (producing weed).
I gave a bit more than necessary in this diagram, but i think that it’s also an important point for a few collateral breeding’s considerations.
For now, let’s consider that the CBDa and the THCa are the pillars of PCR tests. It’s directly testing the potential of the plant at the DNA level the propension to be psychoactive, in an absolute way.
And it offer with smart reagents the results to split the males from the females and the herms.
The principle is simple : the males being not “build” to be directly psychoactive while flowered and even with the amplification of their DNA, their THCa and their CBDa levels are not enough strong to be highlighted during a PCR. Making the test quite ON/OFF in regard of the females and the herms.
For the PCR : not potentially dank = males.
Reagents are quite diversified in term of quality and specificities, but just in turning around the THCa/CBDa there is a ton of applications used.
At this step it’s already easy to known technically, then genetically, that the sexuality of the specimens are set from the seed formation. And that this sexuality at the DNA level is splitted only in two functional categories : male and female/herms.
Now two new toys to dig a bit more the subject, one more known than the other : the chromatography.
My diagram of cannabinoids to present the actual pillars of a lot PCRs screening being a lot incomplete, it’s a good transition to enter in the flesh of what matter a lot in breeding : chemotypes, the ID card of a given genotype and by extend its variations in phenotypes. An amazing tool for breeding, with its own dead end traps. We enter more on pure biochemistry, but it have its importance. And yes, for sex linked traits ^^
To stay on the leads, consider that the chromatography have various declinations. Just like the reagents of PCRs, and that at one point of accuracy they can eventually become complementary.
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Gas chromatography (one the most used since we test buds exhaustively) : fast and reliable, it’s declined in various types of detections that include also the measure of the mass. To stay short, an inert gas is used to project the compounds in the detector, then computed.
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Liquid chromatography : Look like considered as the new Rolls with High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), but my technical level and my lack of exposure to this tool don’t help much to qualify this. It’s the same strategy than Gas Chromatography but gas is replaced by pressurized liquid.
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Spectrometers : My use of this category is abusive, because it can be a modular option, but for the sake of the simplicity it concern mostly specialized toys that are very portative and cost effective, then more compliant with a “breeding on the field” from my point of view. The concept is to replace gas and liquid by an optical beam, giving reliable leads for breeding without unnecessary accuracy. I just want one asap.
Now back to practical breeding a bit, and with a share that matter a lot for me at this point. And that, after all this high tech show, can be quite disturbing i guess : to handle the refinement of a given chemotype, the “human guinea pig” stay the gold standard.
Like we saw a bit, the chain of precursors of cannabinoids is a messy one. By example, not all the THCa will be transformed in THC during decarb or drying process, directly and indirectly (THC have its own sub-compounds). You can apply this from the terps to the last cannabinoid of the chain. And this is this inefficient mess that give a soul and a specific high/stone to a specimen.
And it was quite easy to verify empirically if a breeding only dedicated to scientific performances can outperform a more traditional approach. Spoiler : it doesn’t, at all ^^
A bit more than 12 years ago and with the access to a pool of some (true) patients via Treating Yourself, two lines of my set were highlighted for their weight in a better recovery and /or better management of difficult equation in term of pain but also in term of comfort. Don’t worry, these lines were extinct for good in favor of bland fems pissed overnight at one point. Yeah a bit salty, but also to clearly say that there is no bible to sell right here and right now ^^
One was enough “narcotic” to help to lower and even cut off opiates, offering the freedom “to pass some good times” without being a zombie. This line was quite high in term of THC/CBN ratio.
The other was more like an emergency bud, hitting hard directly, not long lasting but totally unceiled with various profiles. The line was more rich than the others with a balanced high score in term of THC/THCv/CBN, and a daughter line of the first.
I took the decision to push further and to use the chromatography as the unique leverage to deal with the concerned chemotypes, just for the sake to get better averages on performances and on the human side. I just spammed Canna Spain with arrays of samples during three generations, and took my decisions solely with the results of the chromatography.
The failure was miserable because both totally lost their initial utility/value. The negative feedbacks were absolute and a true consensus. Not a single case/profile was working in the sense of this kind of selection lol
They even their “soul” in term of chemotype, from my point of view. And not specially more potent that the previous “traditional” revisions.
The first line was just reinforced drastically in THCa and CBN (lucky shots), the other in THCa and THC (more on averages streamlined on upper levels). Making it even more crazy to consider, it’s the same segment of the chain.
This (almost) little digression contain in fact for me the factual and empirical proof, as a farmer with leverages on genotypes, that the entourage effect is a practical leverage in breeding. And that nothing can replace the accuracy of human’s receptors to gauge a whole chemotype.
By extend, screening by PCRs large arrays of seedlings with the sole goal to only keep the stronger THCa averages don’t lead to any mechanical improvement in term of grade of the weed, following the same logic and experience as well. Machines never tell (for now) what will be transformed, losted and keeped at the phenotype level on the whole chain and what it mean in term of psychoactive balance.
Let’s return on the DNA matter for the latest tool i will present : the gel electrophoresis. It’s quite dangerous to picture it as the “next level” of a basic reactive PCRs that you can do at home without any genetician degree, specially when you use the same “amplification” or even the same genetical models to compare (called “primers” most of the time). It handle DNA, RNA and molecules. But the level of skills necessary and the very demanding procedure don’t make it a “possible toy” for most of us. You need people trained during years to don’t have biased results.
Just consider it as eventually more exhaustive in a way that it can offer less narrowed vision of what is studied, and it revolve around a compound i like quite a bunch lol The agar (i simplify, there is many sorts). Used in tissue culture, used in genetic applications, used in the shroom’s games and even to glue my high grade blunts (tutorial coming soon) ^^
The principle is not a big deal to handle : the genetic material is poured on an agar plate that is electrified (not high voltage) to pass the said material through the electrified porosity of agar. Not much different that making water hash with multiple microns sheets actually, same technical concept.
This is something you saw at least one time already, even if you’re not specially swimming in the breeding subject for your hobby. It’s the “datas” harvested by the process of the electrophoresis.
I will just quickly explain what you’re seeing, it’s less complicated that it looks. The goal of these results is just a male’s detection using the MADC model (MADC2 exactly). Over a dioecious samples (up) and monoecious samples (bottom).
Same concept that the PCR procedure we saw previously (amplification), but with a bonus in the soup called a “marker” that will reinforce (or instantly hybridize) a specific spot.
In the universe of the dirty hands the concept of genetic markers is used as well. As dumb that crossing a SPG to a Blueberry … then screening out all tinted seedlings massively during a BX program. Or using epigenetics leverages to highlight congenital chlorosis not linked with a variegation ^^ Elasticity baby !
On the top left you can see a column called “L”, for genetical ladder. It permit to compare and to “weight” the data. The numbers on left are just like the microns of your water-hash bags, the depth indicating a specific grade of the retained material. The difference being that with DNA, these grades indicate more an identity of what is retained. And the more highlighted, the more weight/amount stacked.
On bottom right, for the columns M and F, i must commit a blasphematory shortcut to keep it simple : let’s call it a “primer” that is acting like a model to read the results by comparison.
With all these explanations, you can already see in this agar (and many more) that the monoic specimens have some particularities :
- Almost nothing amplified in the dioecious male’s range inside the monoecious specimens.
- Monoecious specimens are following the dioecious female’s lead and structure like fucking clones.
- The amplification of the dioecious male model can be superimposed on monoecious specimens quite well, if you ignore the unique portion lacking.
This Japanese agar is quite specific, and have a prevalent weight in my own grid of reading. The study is old, and i discovered it on the late, early 2000s. You can already see in this agar the difference of “yield” between the dioecious males and the dioecious females.
On left with arrow, the specific 730 bp band of males. In the center, a “primer” with its markers indicated on the right.
“A male associated DNA sequence in a dioecious plant, Cannabis sativa L.” (Koichi Sakamoto,1995)
Often quoted indirectly but not often taken in count in its context and as the reliable firestarter it was back in the days (for cannabis applications), it’s the genesis of the MADC(1) marker related to dioecious cannabis males. Since you can find various declinations identified by different numbers at the end : MADC2, MADC3, MADC4 …
What is interesting is the making of the MADC1, done with a RAPD strategy. The acronym mean Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA, to be short this is a method used when you don’t know shit on the initial DNA.
Basically the same case that when you have to map a new F1 10pack made from unknown parents; “unknown” being considered as “direct parental lines not already mapped previously”.
Now it’s time to care about the chromosomes, and to come back a bit in the farm. In front of one seed, and in staying purely in the sexuality of cannabis, you have different levels of determinism.
The historical one.
Drug cultivars were improved in outweighing the dioecious form over the monoecious form. It simply permitted to obtain the modern “recreative” cannabis that we have. The simple term “sinsemilla” is an ode to this long and old journey.
The specificity of the sexual chromosome of cannabis
The male chromosome outweigh the female chromosome in dioecious expressions : simply because he carry the genotype mechanically by its polymorphism.
Making it a “bigger” container even in regard of its structural length or its capacity to print the females and the monoecious variations in the progeny. Which is not the case of females, that print only the monoecious variations. At the point to make feminized seeds reliables if the autosomal traits influencing the sexual expression are rightly screened for the selection of the pollen donor.
The weight of the autosomal traits in the expression of the genotype
And it belong entirely to the breeding strategies.
Monoecious x Monoecious = exponential increase of the part of autosomal traits, that at one critical point make the genotype almost fully epigenetic. The stability being then entirely dependant on the number of unwanted expression screened out and not the reverse : it’s how the hemp industry drive monoecious lines with two digits generations. It’s not an evolutive breeding, it’s a quantitative one in favor of the best traits.
And this is something that still today very darwinian with the grade of feminized releases, breeding monoecious lines with the rules of the dioecious lines don’t lead to a competitive grade. Because females can’t carry the genotype the same way than males, structurally but also in term of weight in the genotype.
You have now all keys in hand to best handle the sexual expression of your cannabis ^^
Don’t forget the most important leverage on your kung fu : the elasticity of your mind.
“Screening” and “screening out” isn’t specially a personal slang, but i’m using it quite extensively to express something a bit more methodic behind. The same expression can take different values : “screening a wounded line” don’t necessary mean for me the same dynamic that simply “screening the herms”.
And i like the image of gold panning. It have a bunch of similarities.
The spot : Like finding the right river and the right current to hunt, breeding is screening a genetic flow where currents are the subgroups. It project quite well i think that you have to learn the ground and to adapt to it.
The mud : You have to screen a lot of mud easily watered down to find the integer golden nuggets, and the ratio in term of volume is quite similar.
Let’s take what i’m doing the most since now one year : screening the herms.
I’m not doing it the same way with all strains and all lines. I adapt the leverages to trigger them accordingly to what is promoting them the earliest possible (to make space and replace them on the fly eventually), and for multi-strains rounds i’m dialing a common sweet spot. I don’t germinate lines randomly.
As you can see here in real time, i’m not really torturing them either. It’s important to find a juste middle to be also able to cumulate different kind of selective pressures and by this way, to gain time.
If you push too much an epigenetic factor, it’s specializing your round around it for the expressions you will get.
Let’s say that for this line i’m aiming an improvement in term of yield from the previous generation. All seeds are launched directly in 12/12.
So i choose to discard from the reproduction all specimens below a certain level of root mass.
At this point i can cull the specimens below the standard aimed, to replace them with new seeds on the fly.
Or keeping them as “rejected” to map them : to find linked traits with low density of roots : to keep a failsafe living stock is shit happens but also just to fill the blunts.
The other constraint of selection is too screen out the auxin freak that stretch vigorously, because let’s say that the chemotype of the p1 from where it come isn’t interesting.
I can start to cull, then replace eventually by new seeds. But i keep the best representation of :
- rejected specimen with not enough roots
- rejected specimen with not enough roots + correct stretch
- rejected specimen with enough root + incorrect stretch
Just to map this during the round (finding eventual linked traits), most of the time i keep them for the blunts but for the example let’s say i’m drastic and that i’ve enough stock of seeds of this line to launch them in loop to fill the holes.
Let’s say also that i’m applying an epigenetic leverage known to trigger herms in this hydro strain : long dry cycles in soil.
I generally keep the phenos around until it become dangerous, to see if the male’s flower take the lead on the female-herm or if the female flowers take the lead on the male-herm. It don’t change my will to discard them from the reproduction but can teach me what is the level of torque at work on herms.
At the end of the stretch, I take early samples to evaluate the potential of the specimens in term of potency (males and females) that let them the time to fully declare. Herms culled before the pistils become plushy.
This case can look quite hard compared to the magic punnett square filled by faithfull stoners but is quite realistic with an average commercial release today.
I’m ending in this example with a cornelian choice :
- pollinate the female #1 and #5 with the male #6 to reinforce the root production on both progeny + the potency on the #5 potency.
- create two lines with unique pairing : female #1 x male #3 (making an average), female #5 x male #6 (reinforcing roots/potency).
- using only the best pairing of this set, and to wait for the next wave to be sure to get only the most of the line for the goal decided.
It’s something that can’t really be decided before having the plants under the nose, but it’s a moment to prepare at the start in writing your priority, the final goal and to note rightly the plant tags (with an extra like vigor by example). The total of datas collected will be the decisional help you eventually need.
My advice for the fresh meat to don’t be lost in front of the plants :
You want increase the potency and the vigor ? Make two parallel lines, and specialize them on one trait.It will not increase the time needed if you germinate both lines at a time and screen them at a time also. But it will lower the pressure on you and make the game of linked traits way more easy to handle. You can plan a meeting later in generations, when you’re ready, when the line is more know or the both.
Ok let’s go for another post then ^^ This “little glossary” is vegging like a fucking California Indica lol
Fucking the Discourse limitations is becoming a personal challenge now 