What’s good OG? Hope everyone who sees this is doing well.
Planning an ambitious breeding project and hoping to attempt stabilizing a few strains.
Supposing that I produce something worthy, would it be better to self-pollinate or backcross?
Also, is it worth trying to create an inbred line, or is that more for the purpose of selling genetics?
Thanks in advance for any direction — it’s very appreciated.
Selfing would give you S1(feminized), backcrossing will get you regular seeds. So thats one thing to consider.
I also think with a backcross you could lock down certain traits your looking for where as an s1 you get what you get. I could be wrong here though.
I would go backcross 100%. While fem seeds are cool, I much prefer regs these days as they provide a grower with more opportunities.
Personally I’d prefer to keep males/females and pollinate the most diverse group possible (minus absolute mutants/runts) S1 can produce some similar offspring but normally it’s a total crapshoot with the gambit of the genepool poking through here and there sporadically . and backcross ing is great but ideally you will work through at least three generations for the cube, I prefer a polyandric backcross if I’m going that route as well.
Thank you @Slammedsonoma420, @DougDawson, and @TopShelfTrees1 for sharing your perspectives. So:
Selfing maintains genetic fidelity best but by limiting the gene pool can also lead to inbreeding issues.
Backcrossing maintains genetic diversity but requires more breeding to seek to approximate the original.
Selfing instantly produces a high-fidelity IBL whereas backcrossing can eventually lead to producing an IBL with more potential for improvement.
Does this basically mean that when seeking to preserve a genetic line, it’s necessarily a tradeoff between holding on to the past vs. seeking continual improvement?
Never really thought of it that way but yes basically for the most part. Your points are correct , there’s so much literature and videos etc on breeding it’s an absolutely overwhelming wormhole to dive into. Imo it’s better to have a basic understanding and learn as you go…. More fun too 
Selfing can be used to evaluate plants. The one that smokes best isn’t always the best breeding stock. Say you pull 3 keepers from a line. By selfing them and growing their respective progeny you get to see which passes the traits you are looking for more reliably.
When inbreeding, selfing is 3x more aggressive than full sib mating.
Backcrossing once can be useful to reinforce certain traits. Its usually done early in a breeding scheme.
In a sense, yes.
When preserving you’d be looking to use as many plants as you can manage and open pollinate. Then repeat about every 15 years or once germination rates drop deblow 50%.
It’s possible to gently swerve a line over years by open pollinating but doing soft selection, where you would trim back males of less favorable phenotypes to encourage one’s that suit you best to dominate.
“Population genetics”
Thanks for your response, very thought-provoking. Trying to keep track of them all:
Breeding Stock
Whoa, m i n d b l o w n. Care to explain in more detail?
Preservation vs Improvement
So inevitably it’s seeking to improve the line anyway, rather than “preserve”? 
Aggression in Breeding
Could you explain “aggressive”? 3x sounds Mendelian. Is this about dominant vs recessive traits?
Long-term Preservation
Awesome formula. And very hopeful for preserving lines over the very long term. Would love to hand down some seeds to my seeds haha
Practical Weed Magic
The gentle swerve…sounds magical. Drawing from an amazing genetic pool and selecting the future generations of your own weed village
Greetings @setgoals,
I spent the last year on a breeding project similar in scope that was intended to create a “Feminized Seed” version of a popular “clone only” strain.
In the process, I reversed the original clone for pollen then pollinated a sister clone for S1 seeds. Those seeds were grown out and then backcrossed with pollen from the original clone. The next step will be to grow out the back crossed seeds and see if they are closer to the mother clone.
If you go the S1 path be aware that your S1 seeds may not be very homozygous, producing a variety of very different phenotypes leaving you to decide which ones to move forward with.
If you are interested in more details on this approach, here’s a link.
Best wishes on your project,
-Grouchy 
Sure.
There’s an old grower saying “your favorite plant or expected keeper will change 3 times during a run, once in veg, once in flower and again in the pipe”.
If you’re planning to breed, I’d surmise it would change a 4th time. First let’s define what’s a good breeder plant. A good breeder plant would be one that is homozygous for a certain trait or, if you’re lucky, traits.
Let me add to the aforementioned exemple. You grow 50 plants of a certain cross/line, pick the best 10 females, smoke test them and keep the better 5. You would then self each of the 5 to find out which passes chosen traits more consistently. Usually the difference will be marked and top around 50% of progeny showing the trait/s. Other families that don’t make the cut could be in the low 10s in percentage.
This plant. The one that passes chosen traits consistently is a good breeder plant. It is not necessarily your first choice to smoke. Could be 4/5 for smoke but 1/5 for strong babies.
Look at Beyoncé’s parents. 
Selfing is said to be ~3x more aggressive because it relies on a single input and will double up on genes to show what’s what, kicking lonely genes to the curb in the process.
Stabilizing a line involves zeroing in on a certain phenotype, or, bettering the mean of the line while taming the extremes, giving rise to more of the same but statistically less of stellar, outlier specimens.
A line can be worked to the point where it’s accumulating more negatives in favor of a couple traits and can become “too inbred” “close to the breaking point” and thus be better used in a cross.
Rinse repeat…
If you look at how quality auto are bred it will show you how DNA Legos are put together and shine light on many important breeding principles.
From the ground up
Auto x photo = fast
Fast x fast = 25% of them autos
Auto x auto = 100% auto
Congratulations, you have an auto. But it’s crap 
So you rinse and repeat.
You cross your auto to a photo breeder cut to infuse your auto with.
Your auto x breeder cut of choice (z smell) = fast
Fast z crossed to fast z = auto z
Auto z has the smell, cool
Cross auto z with a photo breeder cut with superb high
Auto z x photo superb high = fast z superb
Fast z superb x fast z superb = auto z superb
Each step requiring selection
Block by block
Piece by piece
Fantastic response — thanks for the breakdown. And that old grower saying is a keeper
When you say that selfing shows what’s what, is this like revealing latent parts of its genome? Still trying to make sure I understand that part
Basically selfing picks an allele from both parents (itself and itself) and gives the opportunity to map which trait breeds true by “doubling up” without introducing outside genetics as in the case of a test cross where we also look for what is being passed down but cards could be blurred if the plant you outcross to also has similar genes.
Did the first parent bred true for type of high or did its combinaison with the second parent complete the right sequence for the type of high to show up.
If you look at OG kush for exemple… why did it become so popular and was eventually crossed to everything?
It’s good.
Well? Is that it?
It just so happens to breed true for many favorable traits. Also happen to self really well.
Same is true for a vast majority of the mainstay lines. The Bubba, Chem, skunk etc
From 2011
Look up a punnett square calculator
Then compare these conditions
Heterozygous recessive
Heterozygous dominant
Homozygous recessive
Homozygous dominant
Now self them, and tell me what you see 🫡
