my daughter got her masters in botany with a paper on mushrooms and her work breeding them. she is not a mycologist though. she also has never cloned pot although she used to grow it and was pretty good at it. she never knew i did and i didn’t know she did. ah the results of outlaw growing. she is still a botanist, she just specialized in mushrooms instead of cannabis. she also doesn’t need a genealogist to help her in her breeding attempts.
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I’m going to say generations of farmers are breeders without the piece of paper. I’m definitely in favor of education and getting rid of bro science
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Having the education allows for proper hypotheses, without the education it’s just guessing in my humble experience.
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all hypotheses are just guesses. with enough real world experience you can have more accurate guesses than with education. education is just someone else’s experiences written down, maybe tested maybe not. i’ll take 20 years experience over a 4 year degree any day, as long as they’re good and produce good results.
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Educated guesses are not the same as uneducated guesses
Somebody can do something wrong for 20 years and that experience is moot. I’ve seen it in the culinary industry my whole career from people that never got educated, cooks that call them selves chefs without earning the title etc…
Both would be better, Cannabis brings such an enthusiasm at all levels. From the first seedling to the most complicated growth regulators. If the cabbages grow better on the west end of the garden, you don’t need a degree to know That’s where to plant them. If it’s your intent to further the genetic expressions of certain phenos, then you would be well served with some educational background in genetics.
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Breeding is both art and science.
I got my degree in botany from the University of Phoenix. Only took about 16 hours.
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Very well said.
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Hahaha, sign me up!!!
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when backed by enough experience they are educated guesses. you can get education in the classroom or in the field. that’s why i qualified it with “as long as they’re good and produce good results.” someone who does something wrong for 20 years and produces something fantastic is not wrong. chef, painter, carpenter, or whatever the field.
@Hashpants nobody is concerned with the genetics of phenos, they are interested in the results. you can get those results with genetic engineering, experience, classroom education if it’s of quality, or any number of combinations of the three or others i don’t know. if they are interested in just genetics, then ask yourself why. if the answer is to produce quality weed or a certain high or pain relief, then see the first part of this paragraph. now i’ve been wrong before and there certainly could be folks interested in just the thing for it’s own sake.
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What’s that they say about art? You need to learn the rules before you break them?
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I broke a bunch of art and they kicked me out of the British Museum.
not if you’re writing or re-writing them.
Take quality plant A. Mix with quality plant B…
There’s your BA
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Mind blown, boom!
I guess what I’m getting at is an industry based on frauds, thieves, liars and gate keepers the only way I see things going forward is to educate people properly because it has been tainted by people chasing dollars as opposed to actually advance the plant the history is more than muddy and feel that the only way to start to legitimize and clear things up is by education.
One thing I notice and don’t understand is the culling process. If you seek potency and effect, why do breeders cull for stem rub and growth habits. It seems like any seeds that throw runts or weirdness or less than super vigor get culled right away.
The way to move things forward is:
- Have a goal and work toward it
- Don’t do it for money
You’re correct that the current sale of most cannabis seeds is dogshit. Most people making quick money from seeds are doing so because those that are buying them are usually brand new to growing. They have no way of telling apart hard worked genetics from two random plants smashed together with a good name.
That said, there are people that are doing real breeding work. And I would bet a lot of them don’t have a degree. You can learn whatever you want from the internet these days. All of the scientific papers are available to read. Textbooks available to buy. Going to a school and getting a degree is great. Although I don’t value it any more than someone that gathered that information on their own.
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Oh yea, I agree that you can learn on your own but having credentials will be the future for cannabis. The truth is those people in the cannabis industry that did learn on their own and are doing thing’s properly are few and far between and they are getting left behind because they put time in. I see breeders that I once highly respected popping out crosses like crazy now just to keep up with hype while doing their reputation for actually breeding and conforming to be a mere pollen chucker. as cannabis is normalized people are going to ask for paper work and references just like every other industry does. That’s just the way it’s going and unless you follow the trend you will get left behind. Graphic artists that worked by hand and stencil that didn’t learn to go digital with the computer era via reeducation got left behind and the same will happen for people not getting educated with cannabis.Won’t happen over night, the boomers need to die first lol.
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