Jeremy Plumb, director of production science at Prūf Cultivar in Portland, OR, predicts radical change coming to the cannabis industry. “Within three years,” he predicts, “none of the plants that we’re growing currently will continue to be produced, and there will be unbelievable new varieties as a result of marker-assisted hybridization and trait-based selection.” Plumb believes that we’re “at the beginning of an inferno of new cultivars coming forward.”
Here’s the entire article.
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/18/8638
17 Likes
Thats a pretty good read. I think its a bit too rosey on the power of marker assisted selection in Cannabis at the moment. To say we won’t grow any current varieties in a few years is totally unrealistic. The germplasm is too undefined. Even if you can develop markers for traits based on already characterized, homologous genes from other crop species, you need to know what germplasm is available with the desired allele variant, and it needs to be already embedded in, or easily transferable to, agriculturally appropriate germplasm. Unless we can just create an entire genome de novo or CRISPR unreasonably large stretches of it, there is still a long time before Cannabis ag will be dominated by varieties from the biotechies.
13 Likes
I for sure want to see the plants covered from stem to tip in frosting hehe, that sounds like a hash makers dream, although as you say, it will be a good while still.
Even then, likely Ag will go for the profit more than quality, connoisseur grade will be a thing for even longer.
3 Likes
Yea, a vegging plant covered with trichomes could be pretty useful. I would like to see it.
2 Likes
To get my 10 letters . . .
BS BS BS BS BS
11 Likes
I, too, must humbly agree…AIN’T HAPPENING!!! EVERYBODY, enjoy the weekend, stay safe and, you heard it before, be well.
5 Likes
That article is 1.5 years old, so only 1.5 years left. Good luck with that.
12 Likes
I’ll bet him a million bucks I AM still growing the same plants I’ve been growing for 20 years in another year and a half 
16 Likes
Im sure that gene mapping will and has opened the door for a relatively new kind of breeding, and that in the years to come big pharma and industry in general will do its best to monopolize the whole market. In doing this, it will probably make it more difficult to find our modern cultivars. Time itself also seems to do this, as seen in the huge hunt for rks, a strain that was quite popular in the past. I think that this emphasizes how important places like OG are in reproducing and freely sharing genetics all over the world, because it will undoubtedly help ensure the existance of what we are growing for years to come.
8 Likes
Thank goodness for our “landraces and heirloom” thread!!!
7 Likes
I don’t believe things are going to change radically. Marker assisted breeding might be a useful tool, and perhaps some companies will be able to do some pretty amazing things with it.
But what do they even know about what you or I like? Their strains will be flat and 1-sided just like the current legal market. Maybe they’ll make the highest THC strain ever, but who cares? If they made 100% pure synthetic THC, would you stop growing completely? If you could theorize the “perfect” strain, what would it even be? If you found it, would stop growing everything else?
My opinion is that variety and sentimentalism are irreplaceable. Some of the things that bring us the most joy aren’t quantifiable. We still grow the strains of 30, or 50 years ago, not because they’re the most potent 1 hit strains, but for other more personal reasons.
21 Likes
I totally agree @lefthandseeds couldn’t have said it any better.
3 Likes
It’s going to be the small outlaw grower who will still have the old school strains and will be the ones keeping all the great cannabis alive the taste and terps With potency is what we are after and after all we grow what we like and need
I read about The possibility Placing a Patent on cannabis wow then we will need to stay outlaws and under the radar can you just imagine how much someone with a patent
Will charge just for a seed
5 Likes
They keep messing with genetics we are going to have problems! Shit is fine now, people are just gullible and there’s assholes trying to manipulate you into giving up your money.
2 Likes
You can have my seed collection when you pry it from my cold dead hands.
10 Likes
Try to explain that theory to the 10th generation growers from Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, China, Africa and, all the “Stans” you can find on the global map. See how far you get with that nonsense!!! They have been growing their unadulterated cannabis for centuries. Good luck enforcing a Patent there!!! Another solution in search of a problem. ALL, stay safe/be well.
7 Likes
if you buy vegetable seeds, you see heirloom varieties sell out before all the hyrbrid stuff. no matter how far science advances and is able to create the “perfect” version of beans, watermelon, tomatoes, or cannabis, i think people who want quality will always go for old school versions. i want to walk to my garden and pick the same tomatoes that were in gardens a 100 years ago. i want to harvest and cure the same bud that was in some dudes joint he was smoking watching jerry and the boys at winterland in '77. will i try some new stuff, sure. will i always wind up trying to score the oldest beans i can to see if they will pop and what magic will come out, bet your ass. sounds like forums like this one will be key in keeping old school genetics documented, alive, and in the hands of growers who want to dig into the history of an amazing plant. i love all the crosses ive made and the ones i see you folks creating but i think we can all pretty much agree that if someone offered up a legit bag of beans from 60 years ago, pretty much anything in the stash would be up for that trade. i grew up reading high times and drooling over buds in those pages. when the opportunity arises to score those beans, i take it. that’s what will always peak my interests. ill read the grow logs when folks work their magic on new cultivars but ill keep chasing down the legends i grew up on for my personal garden.
10 Likes
I dont see myself letting go of my Hollyweed or my Cherry Queen cut anytime soon. So, Im guessing im gonna be growing the same plants in 3 years. Nor will i get through my seed collection in my lifetime.
8 Likes
I think legalization allowing full scale breeding operations with thousands of plants to select from will have much more of an effect than this…at least for the foreseeable future.
2 Likes
I think it’ll be quite the opposite.
If baby boomers are americas largest cannabis consumers then the old varieties will have the nostalgic and sentimental feel they’ve been missing. Especially with today’s growing technques, the old cultivars will be better then ever and will always be the hot ticket with an older generation.
The millennial generation might see this type of science happen in their life time but I doubt it.
4 Likes