Understanding breeding, how to achieve the best an strongest high, false beliefs an inbreeding depresion

Breeder's Lab
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The males show the same exact traits though. You can completely tell the males apart the same as you can the females.

The stem rubs are comparable between phenos in the same line across male and female plants.

Overall flower structure, how those balls are hanging on that male is the same exact way the female flowers will grow in at least a good portion of his progeny, and comparable to his sisters.

The trichomes on the pollen sacks, leaves, and stems all have a smell and terpene content the exact same way his sisters do. You can tell smell and flavors apart across phenos this way. You can even dry and smoke the sacks to equate the high that specific male may impart. No you won’t be able to gauge true potency that way, but you can gauge it against his brothers.

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The males show the same exact traits though. You can completely tell the males apart the same as you can the females though.

No they do not. No you can’t. At best you can get hints.

What does a stem rub tell you? Nothing. At best it might give you a hint.

What does smoking the plant tell you? Nothing. Smoking male flowers isn’t the same as smoking female flowers. At best it might give you a hint as to relative potency.

You are pissing in the wind, wasting your time, and quite likely wasting good genetics by thinking you can do good, accurate selections from males. The female is what you smoke, and that is where you should be doing the majority of your selections.

Furthermore as I explained, this is completely beside the point anyhow, because there are many hidden traits you cannot observe and cannot select for, period, whether it be male or female plants. I’m talking about things like horizontal and vertical disease resistance genes. Any plant you cull risks losing these traits, particularly early on in a cross when those traits may be concentrated in certain plants and totally absent in others. By doing selections only from the females, you allow as many males as possible which could potentially be carriers for good traits, to carry their genes on to the next generation.

If your goal is just to create as quickly as possible some one off elite clone to make money off of, sure, throw caution to the wind, do heavy inbreeding, work whatever voodoo magic you think you’re doing to select males, then quickly arrive at a crowd pleasing result. But if your goal is to grow and maintain a population of healthy plants that can be sustained and continually improved over time, i.e. to form the backbone of your breeding operation from which you can select individual females to work further, you are totally fucking yourself with this mentality of cherry picking individual plants. You cannot sustain a healthy population that way.

As far as trichomes on males go, that’s a perfect example of the foolishness of selecting males. What do trichs on a male tell me? Nothing. I don’t smoke male flowers, and the trichs on male flower parts do not necessarily correspond with anything special in the female offspring. A male with no trichs whatsoever just might turn out the strongest weed you’ve ever smoked, while a male covered in trichs just might be bland and shitty weed. You have no way of knowing exactly what traits are contained within an individual male or female plant, and a male producing trichs is a complete waste of energy for that plant because we do not smoke the male.

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I personally wouldnt let all 20 males go for first gen…i would defo select only a few males and kill the rest. Maybe even just 2 males to start the entire population off with…after that i would go hands off.

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I cull down to 2 males (usually) as well.

Cheers
G

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You can, it’s pretty obvious to me when I take time to really look at and learn my plants.

Stem rub, like flower smell/flavor/taste are media and time dependent. Comparing plants at the same age grown with the same nutrients in the same type of setup can totally help tell your pheno’s apart if you took the time to understand the parents and where those smells are originating from. I have followed known stem rubs to find the only pheno with a ~10% rate of showing up in a line, at 10 days into veg, based on virtually no other trait. I didn’t know it was for sure the one until halfway through flower, months later. The plants don’t just put it out there for no reason. It absolutely tells you something. but you need to quantify it.

It’s not. It’s not a very pleasant experience either I’ll tell you that. Vaping is better but you can definitely get high off the pollen sacks. You can tell the flavor from the trichomes on those pollen sacks, assuming you have a potent male. The trichome rub on those sacks is the exact same as if it was female brachts/calyx’s. It is the same genes producing those trichomes across the line. You can tell the qualities of that high the same way you tell the qualities in the females. It works. No it’s not the best, but it’s better than disregarding them completely

The trichomes are the plants main defense mechanism…

I can 100% agree here. In the same way that the frostiest best looking female can produce nothing but garbage offspring. The real fact is, no one knows anything until they make the cross and test the beans.

No we’re not here to smoke male sacks, but you are breeding with them so whatever they’re bringing is coming through in the offspring. I like to know what that is exactly. In the end though, it all comes down to that Combining Ability.

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Again it kinda depends on parents and how much diversity you want/need to sustain.
Edit, im literally in the process of selecting my starting parents for this very thing. I live on 40acres

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Well, what can I say? You’ve just fucked yourself, right out of the gate. You bottlenecked the hell out of your strain in the very first generation, gaining nothing of value whatsoever.

What basis can you possibly use, in the very first generation of a cross, to justify culling good males? One that falls over in the wind while all others are fine, then OK, cull that one, you won’t hurt your genetic diversity. Culling all but one or two, for arbitrary reasons, based on guesswork? Absolute madness.

Even if you did the same with the females, just selecting one or two female from the F1 while leaving all the males, it would be a BAD MOVE.

The first generation of a cross is the absolute worst possible generation to be picking and choosing individual plants. The WORST possible time, by far. Now if you’ve already grown out ten generations of plants, gradually selecting over time to improve uniformity while allow genes to shuffle around with each generation, OK, maybe you can select both males and females with a heavier hand. First generation? NO. You are nowhere near ready to be culling any but the most obviously worst and shittiest plants.

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These two three gallon buckets contain all the males from two different grouping of plants that I’ve got going outdoors this year, which I am crossing together, in the early stages of breeding a line. As you can (sort of) see, there is a wide variety here, from the tall lanky plant that’s only just begun flowering, to the short ones with lots of male flowers already. Which male to use? The correct answer: ALL OF THEM.

Note however that there were two males which did not make it this far. All of the pictured males were first planted in the ground and allowed to grow and prosper as much as they could, before being uprooted and put in the buckets, which will now be moved around to pollinate the two plots here in a few weeks. Two males had a very difficult time and were swallowed up/killed out by the heavy competition from native vegetation. Both of those only got about 2 foot tall and then died out. I have no problem with losing those two males. This is exactly the sort of “male selection strategy” one should use early on. A very light hand, ideally 100% Mother Nature doing the selection. If a few die out on their own here and there due to competition with weeds, while others survive and thrive, that’s exactly what I like to see.

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I have not fucked myself…i wont be printing out my entire breeding program outline and synopsis in the hopes of proving my approach will not “fuck myself” i appreciate what you’re doing so keep doing it, while i watch

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Another example: this is one of the “simplest” lines I have going, which is descended from only two strains: pre-2010 Serious Seeds Bubblegum (one feminized female) x two Lashkar Gah males. This is one sprouting of the F4 generation, selected from the nicest four females from an F3 sprouting. There was approximately 2/3 females and 1/3 males in this grouping. Females on the right, males on the left, three undetermined in the center (one of which has since shown itself to be male.) I pulled away eight random females from the group for use elsewhere, to be pollinated by some Cookies and StarDawg males. Picking and choosing individual males? Absolutely not. Nowhere near that point. Open pollination, baby. Can’t wait to see what the next generation holds.

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Many years ago when I first started growing, I remember asking on another weed forum what I should expect yield-wise if I were to take a plant out of a 12 oz drink cup, dig a little hole in the ground and put it in, add a little fertilizer, and walk away? The answer: “expect nothing.”

Well, does this look like nothing? No idea what the yield of this particular plant will be; probably not too high, as it’s rather “sativa” dominant, but it doesn’t really look like “nothing”, now does it?

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Even the smallest plant from this grouping is a pretty respectable size, despite intense competition from the native vegetation here in rural Tennessee:

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How many of those “professional” bred cannabis plants can grow and prosper like this, on their own with no babysitting? And how the hell does one breed for such a result, if you don’t let the plants grow out naturally, compete with Nature as best they can, and then select the best females, rather than starting with preconceived notions about the males?

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I agree with only culling once numbers permit it.

One thing about preservation, when you say all efforts are futile (loosely paraphrased hah) because every new generation can and will move the line away from its original self, you make it sound like a preservation run happens every few months when in reality they should happen as infrequently as possible/only to refresh stock say every 10 to 15 years to prevent exactly that.

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Ive got what i think is a good grip on the underlying schematics and genetic motions per se…im just wondering now about execution of said 300 pop run.
Edit, once i find the mom dad i want to run. I breed them, run those seeds (f1’s) and what you guys say is to keep most males in that f1 open pollination for renewal and preservation? Whereas i think i would go with less males in that very first f1 open pollinating

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Outdoor is one way to do it. Away from civilization and balcony cookie plants if possible :grin: this would give a much better idea of where the line is at regarding health.

If your are stuck inside and don’t have a warehouse/large space at your disposal I’d suggest rackings. 3 tier racks, 1 or 2 gal pots and let it rip. A 12 x 12 room for 300 is plenty, if running 100 a 10x 2 x 8 3 tier rack can accommodate such a project. A wall of green. :+1:

I have 61 Bahia landrace seeds at my disposal.

Step 1 is to open pollinate the fuck out of everything. Yes everything. You only cull once numbers permit it.

Step 2 stash half of new gen seeds. Second half is for playing for the next 10-15 years.

Step 3 pop however many you want/can 30-50 or more. Cull those with truly unbearable defects. Pollinate.

Step 4 again, grow some more and suicide the worst ones.

Now if you are one to take risks, you can try to keep, idk, say 10 in rotation and pollinate, test, grow more of the second gen, if a new plant dethrones one of the 10, then bubye.

The goal would be to find a smaller group of plant with divergent genes who give rise to 1 or 2 favorable phenos. That way you somewhat stabilize a line while still having enough diversity to maintain health.

GL

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Oh ive got the room…i just feel that first pairing can help steer future gens with less wild swings. If we are doing them only every 10yrs, then i don’t want the second run to have massive gene diversity if im trying to somewhat maintain traits right? I dont want every durn male…just a few? Is this flawed logic? We’re talking “we want them to be somewhat same 20yrs from now”…ok so dont put every damn male in there! Lol

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Well… the thing about males is they can only be judged by their progeny. All else is pretty much meaningless.

By only keeping one, you run the risk of ending with price Charles looking next gen :ok_hand:

By running multiple, any bastard genes would be culled in the next gens.

You can 1:1 all you want, but even if you manage to make a line look good, the bottleneck would run it into the ground.

The only time, I think, it could be acceptable to 1:1 something to the ground is if your were to intentionally inbred it to hell, take 2 steps back, and cross it with another “2steps from hell” line

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1:1? I think we have diverged somewhere

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Naw you’re right, the 1:1part, I answered something that was never asked hahaha

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All good, so here’s where im at…
300 plants=140 males 160 females all f1’s
Faceguy says you can cull down to 25% max…35 males…that’s crazy to me for an f1 preservation run

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We’re at to keep a few males vs most males when pollinating

Ya,

I’m not as rigid as faceguy on subsequent generations, to me that’s only for the first time you run/get something. That first time I wouldn’t cull anything.

Then, as long as you have pounds of back ups, truth is you can apply pressure however you want it.

Second time around, you can pop 30-50 and cull much heavier and keep 6f/3m if you want…

Perso I’d keep 10/5 or somewhere around those

When you feel to f3, f4 you can really target some traits, and try to better the odds of xyz

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No shit…run wide open first run?

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