Males are they even needed?
- Thread starter Sam_Skunkman
- Start date
vanilla dutch
Active member
So true GMT and @hempy. Scientifically that's how the ( cells) work. But we're not talking on that level. Just basic breeding.thanks for posting that info hookahead. You must also remember that cannabis have a male and female. Most other plant species don't.
Sorry, I thought this was what was being refuted:
rather than this:
It's sometimes hard to know who is talking to whom.
rather than this:
It's sometimes hard to know who is talking to whom.
why do males exist in the first place??
edit: rhetorical question
edit: rhetorical question
Hookahhead
Active member
Yeah sorry I got carried away, it was late and reading back that post doesn’t really relate to what I was trying to relay. Pollen competition does occur, so it may not be the first pollen grain that lands on the stigma that becomes the father. However, the real point I’ve been trying to make through all of these posts is never be sure of anything! Nature is crazy, and although there are recognizable patterns biology doesn’t necessarily follow a set of “laws” like physics or chemistry.
troutman
Seed Whore
But multiple males can pollinate one female and those seeds will have different daddies.
El Timbo
Well-known member
Part of the problem is that there is no distinction between seeds that are made as part of a breeding program and seeds that are made to be sold to growers.
There's nothing wrong with 1 on 1 crosses from the growers' point of view - indeed they are desirable if both parents are proven winners.
Breeders (as opposed to seedmakers) should be working with populations as mentioned earlier in this thread.
HalfArsedFarmer
Well-known member
In my very limited knowledge of breeding I can say males are needed.
Case and point was the third time I made female seeds.
I used Mr Nice Shit, I had A selected mother that I'd been using for 4 years.
I had read that crossing the clone to it's self wasn't the best way to produce good seeds so I grew out three more packs to find the mom that I already had.
I pollinated the new mom with the old mothers pollen whilst at the same time using my Shit male to both moms to create more seeds for friends who used them for perpetual 12/12 SOG using Cees method from No mercy...
The information that I got back was that the Male female seeds produced better plants than the female x female cross.
They grew better plants, better resistance to heat and other things.
Again a very limited sample size and only my 3rd time making female seeds but that's what came back.
I think it would be good to see the likes of Sam, Chimera, Shanti, Simon (serious)
People who are papered up in this area have a debate on here where only they could post so it didnt get swamped out with half wit posts like mine....
This is something that concerns me as A grower, there are less and less seed banks offering males that are not bag seed x bag seed x bag seed by fuck up.
As many a country song will tell you A good man is getting hard to find with all the Dutch chucking fems & the US chucking bag seed BS.
Now I know not everyone is chucking bag seed BS but 95% are.
So please if you are a breeder don't take my comment to heart.
Case and point was the third time I made female seeds.
I used Mr Nice Shit, I had A selected mother that I'd been using for 4 years.
I had read that crossing the clone to it's self wasn't the best way to produce good seeds so I grew out three more packs to find the mom that I already had.
I pollinated the new mom with the old mothers pollen whilst at the same time using my Shit male to both moms to create more seeds for friends who used them for perpetual 12/12 SOG using Cees method from No mercy...
The information that I got back was that the Male female seeds produced better plants than the female x female cross.
They grew better plants, better resistance to heat and other things.
Again a very limited sample size and only my 3rd time making female seeds but that's what came back.
I think it would be good to see the likes of Sam, Chimera, Shanti, Simon (serious)
People who are papered up in this area have a debate on here where only they could post so it didnt get swamped out with half wit posts like mine....
This is something that concerns me as A grower, there are less and less seed banks offering males that are not bag seed x bag seed x bag seed by fuck up.
As many a country song will tell you A good man is getting hard to find with all the Dutch chucking fems & the US chucking bag seed BS.
Now I know not everyone is chucking bag seed BS but 95% are.
So please if you are a breeder don't take my comment to heart.
Are males more robust?
@hempy
The Haze Whisperer
Starting off growing in the 70s i was told by the older growers to select the strongest male with in my numbers to produce seed for the following year.That was growing land race / heirloom variety's Basically inbreeding.
You would do that year after year to preserve the strain and keep your self in seed.
Then after logging onto the forums i started to read people growing hybrids or poly hybrids mostly saying you need to use more than one male to preserve all the genetics.
Then came the female sex reversal .
Now if we look at breeders like Nevil who used selected single males one being haze C the resulting work ended up being winning crosses.
He never did open pollination using multiple males one male at a time.
We know males help clean mutations help keep the next gen healthy they hold ancestral memory and i am sure do or add more so my take is males are important.
You would do that year after year to preserve the strain and keep your self in seed.
Then after logging onto the forums i started to read people growing hybrids or poly hybrids mostly saying you need to use more than one male to preserve all the genetics.
Then came the female sex reversal .
Now if we look at breeders like Nevil who used selected single males one being haze C the resulting work ended up being winning crosses.
He never did open pollination using multiple males one male at a time.
We know males help clean mutations help keep the next gen healthy they hold ancestral memory and i am sure do or add more so my take is males are important.
troutman
Seed Whore
Inbreeding is ok for short-term goals and open pollination is better for long-term goals.
Nothing stops a person from doing both with the same plants if they use clones in a
different breeding area. Just take clones from all the plants prior to flowering and
only use the best male(s) and female(s).
Then you'll have open pollinated seeds as well as your elite inbred lines.
Nothing stops a person from doing both with the same plants if they use clones in a
different breeding area. Just take clones from all the plants prior to flowering and
only use the best male(s) and female(s).
Then you'll have open pollinated seeds as well as your elite inbred lines.
@hempy
The Haze Whisperer
How would a hybrid or poly hybrid benefit from an open pollination as selection played a key roll in developing set strain.
I have inbreed a land race / heirloom line 10 generations never saw a loss of vigor potency or yield.
If the ancestral memory is stored in the DNA in theroy nothing should be lost.
The big problem here, for most of us, is that it's impossible to do real breeding with the small numbers of seeds and plants we deal with. This is why I sound negative some of the time, don't mean to bust anybody's chops. But to use the tools we're talking about, successfully preserve strains, create new ones, utilize open or select pollination, you need a lot of plants. Almost all of us are using less then 100 and most of us probably less then 10. Compared to Sam or a guy in Afghanistan or Morocco who's able to plant tens of thousands of seeds. This is a primary reason even with the best of intentions we've collectively done a terrible job of preserving genetics. Open pollinating say, 5 males and 5 females when the parent population consisted of 5000 males and 5000 females is bound to lose most of the gene pool. Not trying to dissuade anyone, we all do the best we can with what we have. I'm proud of myself and the other pollen chuckers I know. Despite $, space, time, gov't, lined up against us we've managed to keep great genetics flowing through time and space.
The biggest question I have is where someone like Sam is in breeding right now. I'm not interested in the history of Skunk #1, asking questions about haze, all that other shit. That was 40-50 years ago. I know Sam likes his sift hashish, I know he's been breeding thousands of plants for many years, what's the cutting edge of cannabis breeding in 2020? What's he smoking right now? I'd love to see what he's got after 30 years of breeding for medical purposes. Along with the other medical breeding programs and gov't facilities around the world. It'd be great if seeds of that kind of stuff were made available or clones. We don't have anything to compare what the clandestine breeders have done to what can be done with large numbers. I notice Breeder Steve has a fun project going, his million seed search. He seems like a cool guy. Send him some of your seeds and if he's got time and space he'll grow them out and tell you what he thinks about them. And keep them for himself if he likes it haw haw...
I'll be sad when males become obsolete. One benefit of males, it allows me to sprout more seeds. Select from a larger gene pool of plants. If I was growing entirely feminized I'd be sprouting half as many plants. Then having to reverse my select females to pollinate the other females which would take a lot of time and space.
As things are now I can pick my best 5 or 6 males, yank the ones I don't like. Let the keepers get rootbound in a shaded area taking up minimal space. You don't need a big healthy plant to get all the pollen you need. It's true you can't sample the male to determine potency but you have a good idea if you compare it to your females and the previous generation. Structure and stem rubs. Then you can pollinate a few branches with different males on a select female. Instead of sacrificing the entire plant to seed or sacrificing it to reverse it into a male.
The biggest question I have is where someone like Sam is in breeding right now. I'm not interested in the history of Skunk #1, asking questions about haze, all that other shit. That was 40-50 years ago. I know Sam likes his sift hashish, I know he's been breeding thousands of plants for many years, what's the cutting edge of cannabis breeding in 2020? What's he smoking right now? I'd love to see what he's got after 30 years of breeding for medical purposes. Along with the other medical breeding programs and gov't facilities around the world. It'd be great if seeds of that kind of stuff were made available or clones. We don't have anything to compare what the clandestine breeders have done to what can be done with large numbers. I notice Breeder Steve has a fun project going, his million seed search. He seems like a cool guy. Send him some of your seeds and if he's got time and space he'll grow them out and tell you what he thinks about them. And keep them for himself if he likes it haw haw...
I'll be sad when males become obsolete. One benefit of males, it allows me to sprout more seeds. Select from a larger gene pool of plants. If I was growing entirely feminized I'd be sprouting half as many plants. Then having to reverse my select females to pollinate the other females which would take a lot of time and space.
As things are now I can pick my best 5 or 6 males, yank the ones I don't like. Let the keepers get rootbound in a shaded area taking up minimal space. You don't need a big healthy plant to get all the pollen you need. It's true you can't sample the male to determine potency but you have a good idea if you compare it to your females and the previous generation. Structure and stem rubs. Then you can pollinate a few branches with different males on a select female. Instead of sacrificing the entire plant to seed or sacrificing it to reverse it into a male.
Its been a bit since I've had a good laugh 
@hempy
The Haze Whisperer
males inherit a Y chromosome from the father for a XY genotype (mothers only pass on X chromosomes)
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Only men carry a Y chromosome. Females have two X chromosomes, whereas males have one X and one Y. And, unlike the 22 pairs of non-sex chromosomes each human has, there is almost no opportunity for the Y chromosome to swap or share its DNA with another chromosome. So all the information in a man's Y chromosome is passed to his son -- and every man's Y chromosome carries a virtual pedigree of his male family history.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"The Y is somewhat unique," said Underhill "It has this unique storytelling component to it. That's why the Y chromosome was very revealing about the history of Thomas Jefferson and his descendants. What we've done, instead of looking at one family of 8 generations, is to look back over three or four thousand generations at the history of our species."[/FONT]
