I was recently listening to a utupe discussion with Kevin Jodrey talking about a new project called The Greatfull Head. I think it’s a cool project and I’m not trying to hate on it. They have collected hundreds of elite clones scrubbed them clean of all pathogens and are going to sell those plants to the public. One claim they have is that this is a way to prevent bottlenecking and preserve genetic diversity of cannabis. This got me thinking about how much genetic diversity you can get from 1000 plants versus 1000 seeds. I’m not a biologist and have not done any “research” on the topic on how one would measure genetic diversity and how to compare seeds and clones but I’m guessing seeds beat clones by many folds. So how does in your opinion hold up the claim that you can protect diversity via the collection of clones if you compare it with the diversity preserved in seeds?
don’t the clones also contain all of the dna available in the seeds? hard to spread the male dna around with female clones though. i’d have to agree with you on principal.
Let’s assume your clones can be male or female and you have the option to reverse the sex of the clones you choose.
With clones : You store fixed phenotypes that you blend. Sarcasms aside, without any exhaustive documentation on the said cut sold, each, it’s just giving nothing more that the amateur-world is already giving and that we all know. I’m not talking about “testers” rounds but a true phenotracking of all the cuts sold.
The effects on the global genpool is already consumed since a decade in my opinion, and the consequences already a fact from which to learn. Breeding is vulgarized and popularized like the flowers-grow is.
With seeds : You store blends able to output better than the initial reference (if you start by the same clones), the quantity of work and specimens to obtain it only belong on the preliminary work done.
The effects on the global genpool is also known, and generated a golden age of seeds way before the fems were popularized.
Thinking about it (keep in mind we are on overgrow, I might be stoned and I don’t know much about biology) I come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter if somebody chooses 1000 clones or 1000 seeds. Both store the same amount of information (genes, alleles). Correct me if I’m wrong or what might be a better way to measure genetic diversity in this context.
Even in being picky with the context : 1000 seeds of the same male/female VS 1000 seeds of unique pairings … the difference can’t really be quantified outside an arbitrary delta. It’s enormous in term of possibilities (seeds) VS a finite number of combinations (clone).
It would depend on the 1000 seeds and the 1000 clones. Take 1000 seeds from the same parents vs 1000 clones from all around the world and the clones win. Take 1000 seeds from only the best THC buds vs clones from hemp to skunk and the clones win again. Take 1000 seeds from varying genetics from around the world vs 1000 of the most popular clones and the seeds win by a landslide.
I think what they are selling is retrievable genetic diversity. Not only is it there, it can be precisely retrieved at any time relatively easily. That is something that cannot be done with seed.
of course they could be both, and reversing isn’t easy. the problem is, outside of certain areas of the planet, you’re one good power outage or snap of bad weather away from losing the genetics whereas seeds can be preserved for quite some time. not that it’s a bad idea, just that it’s a bad idea for the only method of preserving genetic diversity. and that’s just an opinion based on initial observation. there may be other things i missed, happens a lot since i don’t know much about this field yet.
You know this is a total lie right? Jodrey ran the worst nursery in Humboldt. He was known as the king of russet mites. Many a farm failed because of that scam artist. Now hes just repackaging it to people who don’t know his terrible reputation. Tissue culture doesnt “scrub clean” plants like they are advertising. If you look into reviews of all these old dudes selling “classic clones”, the vast majority are people callin them out as fakes, or getting nasty sickly plants.
Seeds will always win. Clones are great to keep around. But its not a viable model long term. We have to remember cannabis is an annual plant, although we can keep em around for years, its not what they want to do. Which comes back to the most clones being sold nowadays are fakes anyway. Jodrey and his friends dont have some “magical plug” where these amazing old clones are being stored. Its all just trying to make a quick buck on new growers who don’t know better. Which has been Jodreys scheme forever. Never forget he describes himself as a “lifelong hustler”, not someone whos looking out for the community.
Clones are good for making seeds that’s about all. Unless you like to grow the exact same bud every time. Boring 
That is sure. To ask my question differently: How much genetic diversity can you possibly preserve in a finite number of seeds or in clones and is there a difference between the two?
The practical problems of storage are interesting but my focus is more on how much genetic Information can you store in seeds or clones. I might be dumb but I think a clone is nothing else than germinated seed and both store the same amount of genes or alleles.
This is like the old chicken vs egg question/argument.
I believe clone onlys are the best preservation of genetics, but we could not have gotten to those genetics without centuries of selection/phenohunting of seeds …
Defining preservation of genetic diversity would be a good start. Does that mean preserving the most amount of known cuts? Does that mean preserving the potential for most known cuts?
There will never be another Wilt Chamberlin or Albert Einstein. If they aren’t around does that mean we are less diverse now? If they were still around would that mean we would be more diverse than we are now?
Only heard he was involved with Phylos who have a bad reputation an allegedly ripped of people by stealing there genetics or something.
A quick search found a paper from 1991 that describes the process:
Maybe the context I gave to my question was a little misleading. It was asked more as a hypothetical question if one could store more genetic information in number of clones or a seeds. Disregarding the question how to choose which clones or seeds.
I’m not convinced an here are regulars on overgrow that buy 500$ clones. I wouldn’t pay it, my limit is more like 40$ for a Triploid seed. Maybe this guys are shady but I don’t see the incentive of selling bad clones maybe not totally unique clutivars but producing plants that are able to produce top shelf flower should not be a problem for a nursery.
I was hoping a biologist might jump in and tell us how to define/measure it in the context of the question. My understanding is that the genetic diversity of a population is measured by the number of its genes/alleles. More alleles means more diverse. The maximum number of alleles for a clone or a seed are the same in my understanding. On this abstract level disregarding the fact that in reality a lot of our clones/seeds will be genetically similar because they are already selected for certain properties.
Hes had more than a few issues like that yes lol
Im not trying to say tissue culture wont clean out any pathogens. But its a very expensive and long process to do maristem culture. And from a lot of anocdotes Ive been hearing, its nowhere near a guarantee. A lot of times they have to do the whole process mutliple times to “clean them”. I cant find it again, but I heard an interview with some PhD in Canada trying to put on the biggest TC nursery in the world. But he made it very clear the biz model was around massive production vs advertising cleaning dirty cuts. It just seems like another really shading promise from a really shade dude lol
Why not both?
I ran a commercial nursery. It can be making money hand over fist. But when i was doing it, it was all in person, so if you sold bad plants people could track you down lol. Now they just ship em and you deal with it.
Ohh that couldnt be more far from the truth lol. Most of the people I knew running nurseries in the day were the ones that kept having crop failures and had to pivot the biz model. Dark Heart Nursery is a perfect example. And theyre out of business now. For spreading HPLV, and making huge claims they found the magic cure with tissue culture. Needless to say, it worked out very poorly for them. I tried some DH cuts a good 5 years ago now(allegedly tissue cultured) and they were so dudded they grew about 3 inches in a month. Sitting next to plants growing several inches a day. And Wonderland(Jodreys Nursery) was even worse about it. Noone seems to be asking why Wonderland got shut down lol. Expecting people like that to bust out “1000 unique and amazing” strains out of nowhere sounds like a classic scam if Ive ever heard one. Just a point of perspective!
Difficult and time consuming, yes
But it’s important to be factual
Meristem tissue culture takes specialized training and is difficult. It’s time consuming and you have to do it properly and then re test if you’re, let’s say, trying to remediate for hlvd. And you’ve gotta re test a few times. All of that isn’t cheap.
Regular tissue culture can help with vigor and fungal infections (think powdery mildew, etc.) This is what most people know to do and it’s the most common service. Real meristem tissue culture can cost like 10k if you’re not doing it inhouse.
That being said, I’m glad you were honest about what you thought of jodrey. scene can boost a lot of hype icons who just want the bag.
Also, i almost forgot
Regarding the first question
Whos preserving these seeds? Let’s say it’s 8 seed packs of regular seed, 132.5 packs, round up to 133 different 8 seed packs of regular seed.
Who is storing this? For who?
Who picks?
It all depends on this, right?
If you say like, mega hypothetical, we’re able to fund a 50 year seed fridge time capsule, 133 packs selected by bodhi, for diversity, then grown in the year 2075 for clones to be distributed or seed increases done to be distributed,
Compare this to like 1000 clones, for 50 years
I’d say the seeds are better, but this is because seeds are easier to store.
So really, it’s the scenario that dictates the question
I love you both, this is conversational.
Why. Who’s giving a shit in 50 years about a specific named strain? This sounds like my mamaw trying to rationalize buying a grandfather clock. As an investment. The grandkids will want it in their formal dining rooms.
Plants want to be grown. I’m not against tissue culture, or DNA sequencing, or any science you want to do. Don’t pretend it’s for the benefit of the plant, it’s for the benefit of some dudes wallet, or ego.