What is an F1, F2, and IBL?

An IBL (inbred line) is a genetically homogeneous strain that grows uniformly from seed.

A hybrid is a strain made up of two genetically unlike parents, IBL or hybrid.

When you cross two different IBL strains for the FIRST time, it is called the F1 generation. When you cross two of the same F1 hybrid (inbreed), it is called the F2 generation.

The process of selective inbreeding must continue at least until the F4 to stabilize the recurrently selected traits. When you cross two specimens of an IBL variety, you get more of the same, because an IBL is homozygous, or true breeding for particular traits.

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Still learning, but is F2 a back-cross?

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What is an F1 hybrid?
Posted by Vic High on February 13, 1999 at 22:09:27 PT:
This page isnā€™t about ego trips and pissin contests to see who knows the most. Itā€™s meant to be about sharing info and furthering our understanding of cannabis genetics. So hereā€™s a step in the right direction. Anyone else want to join in?

What really is an F1 cross?

Well defining the terms P1, F1, F2, homozygous, and heterozygous can be a simple task, however, applying them to applied genetics can often create confusion. Depending on your point of reference, a plant could be described as any of these terms. For our specific field of interest itā€™s important to further define these terms to reduce confusion and protect the consumers. First Iā€™ll provide the classic scientific definition of these and other related terms and then Iā€™ll dive into each term into detail.

Heterzygous - a condition when two genes for a trait are not the same on each member of a pair of homologous chromosomes; individuals heterozygous for a trait are indicated by an ā€œAaā€ or ā€œaAā€ notation and are not true breeding for that trait.(Clarke)

Homozygous - the condition existing when the genes for a trait are the same on both chromosomes of a homologous pair; individuals homozygous for a trait are indicated by ā€œAAā€ or ā€œaaā€ and are true breeding for that trait. (Clarke)

  • Now the heterozygous and homozygous terms can be applied to one trait or a group of traits within an individual or a group of individuals. Depending on your point of reference, an individual or group can be considered both homozygous or heterozygous. For instance, say you have two individuals that are both short (S) and have webbed leaves (W) and have the following genotypes.

#1 = SSWW #2 = SSWw

They are both homozygous for the short trait but only individual #1 is homozygous for the webbed leaf trait. Individual #2 is heterozygous for the webbed leaf trait and would be considered a heterozygous individual. As a goup, they would be considered heterozygous in general by some and homozygous by others. It would depend on your point of reference and the overall importance you place on the webbed leaf trait. Most would consider it to be heterozygous.

For example, the blueberry cannabis strain is considered a true breeding homozygous seed line because as a whole the many offspring have a similar look and produce a similar product.

However there are often subtle differences between the plants of characters such as stem colour and potency. When taking a close look at blueberry, you will find heterozygous traits, but because of the whole overall look, we still generally consider them homozygous for the purpose of breeding programs. Using dogs is another way to explain this, take a dobie for example, you can tell the difference between dobies, but you can tell a dobie from another breed. Ya follow?

Hybrid - An individual produced by crossing two parents of different genotypes. Clarke says that a hybrid is a heterozygous individual resulting from crossing two seperate strains.

  • For the purpose of seedbanks, a hybrid is in general, a cross between any two unrelated seedlines. ANY HYBRID IS heterozygous and NOT TRUE BREEDING.

F1 hybrid - is the first generation of a cross between any two unrelated seedlines in the creation of a hybrid. F1 hybrids can be uniform or variable depending on the P1 parent stock used.

F2 hybrid - is the offspring of a cross between two F1 plants (Clarke). What Clarke and other sources donā€™t make clear is do the two F1ā€™s need to be from the same parents? By convention they donā€™t. As well, german geneticists often describe a backcross of an F1 back to a P1 parent as a F2 cross.

OK lets say we take blueberry and cross it with romulan (both relatively true breeding of their unique traits) to create the F1 hybrid romberry. Now lets cross the F1 romberry with a NL/Haze F1 hybrid. Some could say this is a F1 cross of romberry and NL/Haze. Others could argue that it is a F2 cross of two F1 hybrids. Gets confusing doesnā€™t it? Now lets cross this Romberry/NL/Haze(RNH) with a Skunk#1/NL#5 F1 hybrid to create RNHSN. Now some would argue that RNHSN is an F1 hybrid between RNH and SK/NL seedlines. Others would call it an F2.

So what does this mean to the consumer? It means that a seed bank can call a cross whatever it wants until the industry adopts some standards. This is what this article will attempt to initiate. Clarke eludes to standardising these definitions but never really gets around to it. Fortunately other plant breeding communities have (Colangelli, Grossnickle&Russell, Watts, &Wright) and adopting their standards makes the most sense and offers the best protection to the seedbank consumer.

Watts defines an F1 as the heterozygous offspring between two homozygous but unrelated seedlines. This makes sense and gives the F1 generation a unique combination of traits; uniform phenotype but not true breeding. This is important in the plant breeding world. This means that when a customer buys F1 seeds that they should expect uniform results. It also means that the breederā€™s work is protected from being duplicated by any other means than using the original P1 (true breeding parents). [There are exceptions to this by using techniques such as repeated backcrosses (cubing the clone)]

F2 crosses are the offspring of crossing two F1 hybrids. This means that they will not be uniform nor will they breed true. However, F3, F4, F5, etc will also share these characteristics, so to simplify terminology for the seedbanks and seedbank merchants, they can all be classified as F2 seeds in general.

What does this mean for the preceeding example? Well, the blueberry, romulan, skunk#1, NL#5, and haze were all P1 true breeding seedlines or strains (another term that needs clarification). Romberry, NL/Haze, and SK/NL were all F1 hybrids. Both the Romberry/NL/Haze and the RNHSN would be F2s. Within each group the consumer can know what to expect for the price they are paying.

Few cannabis seedbanks (if any) and their breeders are following these definitions and are subsequently creating confusion within the cannabis seedbuying community. This is a change that needs to happen.

Note: this is a rough draft to be published to the internet. Hopefully in time it or something similar will be used to help establish an industry standard. Any comments and critism is welcome to aid in the production of the final draft. Small steps like this can only benefit the cannabis community over the long haul.

REFERENCES:

Clarke RC. 1981. Marijuana Botony Ronin Publishing, California
Colangeli AM. 1989. Advanced Biology notes. University of Victoria, BC
Futuyma DJ. 1986. Evolutionary Biology Sinauer Associates, Inc. Massachusetts
Klug & Cummings. 1986. Concepts of Genetics 2nd ed. Scott, Foresman, & comp. Illinois
Grossnickle & Russell. 1989. Stock quality improvement of yellow-cedar. Canada-BC Forest Resources Developement Agreement (F.R.D.A.) Project 2.40
Watts. 1980. Flower & Vegetable Plant Breeding Grower Books, London
Wright JW Introduction to Forest Genetics Academic Press, San Francisco

Re: What is an F2 hybrid? - longer post
Posted by MrSoul on February 14, 1999 at 08:02:30
In Reply to What is an F1 hybrid? - longer post posted by Vic High.

Vic_~
Some folks may find the development of your points a bit difficult to follow due to some typos that cause contradictionsā€¦but I knew what you meant {8o)_~

I agree thereā€™s a need for all cannabis aficionados to have a standard glossary. I agree with the terminology you suggest and have always used it.

The subtlety of the F2 definition needs a bit more clarification IMO. I suggest the convention that an F2 be the offspring of members from the same F1 generation. Using your F1 Romberry example, an F2 Romberry is the offspring of two F1 Romberry parents. Your mixed F2 hybrids are what most of us have been simply referring to as a ā€˜multi-wayā€™ hybrid. But technically youā€™re right that itā€™s an F2 because it is a generation created by two F1 generations.

The recombination potential of these two types of F2 should be emphasized. While an F2 Romberry may exhibit traits ranging over all the possibilities inherent in the genetic palette of Romulan and Blueberry, the ā€œmixed F2ā€ has almost infinitely more possible genetic recombinations due to the larger genepool of NL, SK#1, Haze, Romulan and Blueberry.

Having made the above clarifications to your comments, Iā€™d like to expand on the subject of F2ā€™s just a bit. More people should be aware of the IMPORTANCE of the F2 generation in breeding.

Itā€™s easy to be confused by terms that have more than one interpretation, depending on the context. F2 seeds are generally considered by the seed-buying public to be an inferior product. This may be a true statement for example, in the case of a seed bank selling Jack Herer seeds WITHOUT STATING that they were created by crossing two Jack Herer plants from Sensi Seed Bankā€™s F1 stock. These seeds are an F2 generation of Jack Herer in the classic definition of the term. The F2 generation is NOT going to produce the same results as the F1 in terms of the similarity of the plants in the groupƖthey will vary in their characteristics rather than all of them being essentially identical. Such a scam rips off the buyer expecting a uniform crop of Jack Herer.

Now hereā€™s the ā€˜kickerā€™ because of the negative connotation of the example of an F2 above, some have the mistaken impression that any member of the F2 generation is undesirable as a plant. This is NOT necessarily true. Quite the contrary; the F2 generation is a treasure trove of possibilities. The recombination of genes produces a variety of different plants, among which there may be individuals of great value. This is actually the source for future true-breeding strains. A breeder who recognizes an outstanding and unique individual from an F2 group can work with it to create a true-breeding hybrid strain such as was done with classics like Skunk #1 and Northern Lights. The methods to accomplish this task vary, but back crossing to the original unique plant is typically a part of a process which ultimately must accomplish the goal of creating a strain which breeds true for all the important traits which made the unique individual so valuable.

I hope the above will enlighten.

Re: Soul - thanks for the F2 additions
Posted by Vic High on February 14, 1999 at 10:40:34
In Reply to Re: What is an F2 hybrid? - longer post posted by MrSoul.

I too wanted to expand on the subject of pros and cons of the F2 but didnā€™t want to further complicate the original post. This is all going towards a genetics section at the BCGA webpage. Mind if I add your additions? I think your points are very important.

Now your Jack Herer example brings up an interesting point that I was trying to make. Jack Herer is a multi-way cross between a skunk/NL and a haze wasnā€™t it? We talked about this in the the past but I can exactly remember the concenses on which way it was created. Was the skunk/NL a stabilized inbred line at the time of the cross? If I remeber right the initial feedback of Jack Herer was that it was variable but that there were excellent individuals within the mix. If this was the case, then it would seem that the Skunk/NL was a hybrid and not a true breeding seedline. (If Iā€™m wrong about this particular example lets just assume otherwise for the sake of argument since many new ā€œstrainsā€ are from hybrid parents.)

Even though Jack Herer was technically an F1 hybrid of the SK/NL and haze, it could also be said to be an F2 seedline. For the purpose of the seedbuyer, which term would be more useful? By calling it an F1, is the consumer being mislead into what to expect from the seeds? But then calling them an F2 makes it hard to distinguish them from the more variable knock offs.

I think creating a standard where all seedlines coming from unstabilized parents should simply be considered to be F2 in general. This would help seperate the serious breeders from the not so serious. It would also put pressure on the breeders to slow down and take their time when making new strains.

Your princess is a good example of this. Itā€™s a killer clone and you could have simply made crosses with it and called them F1s even though they would behave like F2s. But instead you are taking the time to stabilize her genetics by cubing. You have created a sound building block for the developement of new true F1 hybrids.

Once the designation of F1, F2, and IBL (inbred line=true breeding) is standardized, it would make it easier to standardize pricing structures and bring them in line. Now both F1s and F2s are valuable in their own ways, but generally speaking one would need less F1 seeds than F2 seeds to find what they are looking for. Therefore F2 seeds should be priced lower than F1s. Also, anyone under the sun could make quality F2s from a relatively small number of F1s so this should also affect the pricing by lowering it.

But what about the IBLs? Well these can be the most valuable of all the seedlines so at first one would expect them to be the highest price. However, because of their true breeding nature, if they are priced too high, it would make it easy for someone to create a less expensive knock off as I have with blueberry. Many breeders simply donā€™t release the IBLs to protect their investment and will instead rely on creating F1 hybrids for market.

Itā€™s a tough call to decide what should be priced higher but supply and demand will probably dictate that a true F1 will be the highest priced seeds. Then the IBLs, followed by the F2 seedlines. I suspect that there should be a further breakdown in the F2 catagory to distinguish between original F2s (technically F1s or mixed hybrids) and their knock-offs.

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Thanks for adding, Iā€™m linking other topics:

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Thank you for posting up, great info, Iā€™m glad some of the ā€˜realā€™ icons of the industry (both public and private) still lurk the halls of this new old school (OG). Iā€™m just as old, smoking as long, but NEVER ever had access to this kind of information before the net and before these brave souls ā€˜put it out thereā€™ to the public. I am humbled, and very grateful to OG (old and new) and its contributors for continuing to share this work.

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You are doing a great job here man, canā€™t say enoughā€¦

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good reading material. thanks guys.

Great read! Thatā€™s by far the most in-depth explanation Iā€™ve ever come across Sub! Thanks guys!

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Please correct me if i am wrong. Is a back cross when you take a strain or specific phenotype and cross it into itself using some method of feminization so that the seeds are ā€œStableā€ and generally come out more or less like the mother ? sorry if completely wrong hard to find good info! Glad i heard about OG back up! Never was on the original site but heard lots of it

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back cross example. you breed og kush fem with a haze male and get oghaze, you find a sick pheno and cross it with the mom or dad depending on what your breeding needs are

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ahh gotcha , Thanks! Clarified that up for me

Cheers!

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No prob. What you mentioned about fem breeding is called selfing. Its when the plant produces pollen trying to pollinate its self to survive

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Yes , didnā€™t word right but also just ment feminizing in general to keep a specific pheno in seed form, For example clone only strain is Gorilla Glue #4 if i am not mistaken ? If you take 2 clones and reverse one to pollinate the other it would create a GG#4 Seed as no male has altered it and not creating a new strain or genotypeā€¦ I thought that was back crossing, But thank you for clarifiying ! I may have not been the only one. or maybe I am! lol (Used GG#4 as Iā€™ve only seen it used in crosses and never a seed of itself)

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Thanks for the reverse example, now itā€™s clear.

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@Subcool: Still the same breeding genius as to original OG. Your mission seems to be explaining the technical ins/outs of breeding to those of us that are having a hard time grasping them. Nice down to earth explanations. :thumbsup: Keep it up, we really appreciate it. :peace::heart:

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Great start here. May I suggest Subcools definitions be broken out and be added to with the terms for alleles.
Excellent explanation of what is done in breeding to achieve homozygous seed by the breeder.-

FaderVader
Guest
#7FaderVader, May 13, 2009 Last edited by a moderator: May 13, 2009
Breeding and growing cannabis strains is all about manipulating gene frequencies. Most strains sold by reputable breeders through seed banks are very uniform in growth. This means that the breeder has attempted to lock certain genes down so that the genotypes of those traits are homozygous.

Imagine that a breeder has two strains: Master Kush and Silver Haze. The breeder lists a few traits that they particularly like (denoted by *).

This means they want to create a plant that is homozygous for the following traits and call it something like Silver Kush.
Silver Kush
Pale green leaf Hashy smell Silver flowers Short plants

All the genetics needed are contained in the gene pools for Master Kush and Silver Haze.The breeder could simply mix both populations and hope for the best or try to save time, space and money by calculating the genotype for each trait and using the results to create an IBL.

The first thing the breeder must do is to understand the genotype of each trait that will be featured in ideal ā€œSilver Kushā€ strain. In order to do this the genotype of each parent strain for that same trait must be understood. Since there are four traits that the breeder is trying to isolate, and 4x2 = 8, eight alleles make up the genotypes for these phenotype expressions and must be made known to the breeder.

Letā€™s take the pale green leaf of the Silver Haze for starters. The breeder will grow out as many Silver Haze plants as possible, noting if any plants in the population display other leaf colors. If they do not, the breeder can assume that the trait is either homozygous dominant (SS) or recessive (ss). If other leaf colors appear within the population, the breeder must assume that the trait is heterozygous (Ss) and must be locked down through selective breeding. Letā€™s look closely at the parents for a moment.

If both parents were SS there wouldnā€™t be any variation in the population for this trait. It would already be locked-down and would always breed true without any variations.

With one SS parent and one Ss parent, the breeder would produce a 50:50 population ā€” one group being homozygous (SS) and the other heterozygous (Ss).

If both parents were Ss, the breeder would have 25 percent SS, 50 percent Ss and 25 percent ss. Even though gene frequencies can be predicted, the breeder will not know with certainty whether the pale green leaf trait is dominant or recessive until they perform a test cross. By running several test crosses the breeder can isolate the plant that is either SS or ss and eliminate any Ss from the group. Once the genotype has been isolated and the population reduced to contain only plants with the same genotype, the breeding program can begin in earnest. Remember that the success of any cannabis growing and breeding program hinges on the breeder maintaining accurate records about parent plants and their descendants so that they can control gene frequencies.

Letā€™s say that you run a seed bank company called PALE GREEN LEAF ONLY BUT EVERYTHING ELSE IS NOT UNIFORM LTD. The seeds that you create will all breed pale green leaves and the customer will be happy. In reality, customers want the exact same plant that won the cannabis cup last year or at least something very close. So in reality, you will have to isolate all the ^winningā€™ traits before customers will be satisfied with what theyā€™re buying.

The number of tests it takes to know any given genotype isnā€™t certain. You may have to use a wide selection of plants to achieve the goal, but nevertheless it is still achievable. The next step in a breeding program is to lock down other traits in that same population. Here is the hard part.

When you are working on locking down a trait you must not eliminate other desirable traits from the population. It is also possible to accidentally lock down an unwanted trait or eliminate desired traits if you are not careful. If this happens then youā€™ll have to work harder to explore genotypes through multiple cross tests and lock down the desired traits. Eventually, through careful selection and record keeping youā€™ll end up with a plant that breeds true for all of the features that you want. In essence, you will have your own genetic map of your cannabis plants.

Successful breeders donā€™t try to map everything at once. Instead, they concentrate on the main phenotypes that will make their plant unique and of a high quality. Once they have locked down four or five traits they can move on. True breeding strains are created slowly, in stages. Well known true breeding strains like Skunk#l and Afghani#l took as long as 20 years to develop. If anyone states that they developed a true breeding strain in one or two years you can be sure that the genetics they started with were true breeding, homozygous, in the first place.

Eventually you will have your Silver Kush strain but only with the four genotypes that you wanted to keep. You may still have a variety of non-uniform plants in the group. Some may have purple stems, while others may have green stems. Some may be very potent and others not so potent. By constantly selecting for desired traits you could theoretically manipulate the strain into a true breeding strain for every phenotype. However, it is extremely unlikely that anyone will ever create a 100 percent true breeding strain for every single phenotype. Such a strain would be called a perfect IBL. If youā€™re able to lock down 90 percent of the plantā€™s phenotypes in a population then you can claim that your plant is an IBL.

The core idea behind the true breeding technique is to find what is known as a donor plant. A donor plant is one that contains a true breeding trait (homozygous, preferably dominant for that trait). The more locked down traits are homozygous dominant the better your chances of developing an IBL, which does not mean that the line of genetics will be true breeding for every trait, but rather that the strain is very uniform in growth for a high percentage of phenotypes.

:smoking: Hope that helps

https://forum.grasscity.com/threads/what-is-ibl-strain.387690/

about halfway down this page.

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Hey everyone,

This article explains the difference between Hybrid F1, IBL, BX, Landrace and Heirlooms, as well as Self-pollinationā€¦

Happy to answer any question :innocent:

what would the correct term for this cross be?
first I made an f1 hybrid of lebanese landrace x dank sinatra. then I f2ā€™d the lebanese sinatra selecting a lebanese dominant male. I grew female f2ā€™s and reversed one of them to pollinate another lebanese sinatra female, the same strain and generation from a different mother pheno. would this be considered a femenized f3? or is there a more specific term for this?

(I wasnā€™t sure where to post this question, feel free to move this if needed.)

I am probably wrong though I would call this F2S1

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Makes sense to me, thanks MomOnTheRun. this is the first time Iā€™ve experimented with making femenized seeds or reversed females so Iā€™m still trying to wrap my head around it.

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