Hi all, I want to try my hand at doing a little breeding in my grow room. It's nothing much to write home about, only 12 plants legal at the moment, and working with a mixed up bag of genetics that I know nothing about the origins of. Not the ideal scenario (to say the least) for doing any kind of serious breeding, but right now I'm just experimenting and learning. Plus, if I can mix and match a few plants and end up with a good quantity and quality of seeds for my own use, that would be great.
So, first some background info on what I'm working with. I started with two indica bagseed strains, both of which seemed to have pretty good genetics. The most prevalent of these is a strain I call W1. This one appeared to be heavily inbred, heavy yielding, thick stems, fruity colors, i.e. commercially oriented. It's the kind of strain where every tenth plant seems to have some kind of weird mutation. For example one plant in my grow last year topped itself and grew two shoots. Another I called "shaggy" because it had very short internodes and LOTS of leaves. A few of those females popped a few nanners due to heat stress, and I used this pollen on sisters to make seed. I also brought in pollen from males of unknown (but said to be "good") strains, one of which ("W2") appeared to be hybridized with sativa characteristics like extensive branching and larger size.
So I germinated 12 seeds out of this grab bag, and out of that I got one slow grower I killed early, one hermie, and 10 females. Most of these plants appear to display characteristics reminiscent of W1, especially one ("freak") that is showing similar weird mutations. This one had a strange leaf mutation early on, and as it got older, both branches coming out of one node appear to be of whorled phyllotaxy, with ridiculous numbers of leaves and a ginormous bud at the end.
One thing I noticed all of these plants have in common is none of them have the "indica" style branching like W1 had, it's more of the sativa style with moderate to high branching. I am assuming W2 may be showing its influence here.
Out of the 10 plants, I have identified 4 that look really good and appear to have positive traits I'd like to pass on to subsequent generations. Other plants seem to have various problems/unwanted traits such as extremely curled leaves (due to cold night temperatures I think; cold tolerance is a must for me), not enough leaves, a couple appear to be susceptible to nutrient deficits (showing chronic magnesium deficiencies which I can barely hold at bay, probably in part due to the small container size, but I prefer plants that flourish in restrictive conditions), etc.
Out of the four "good" ones, two of them are big, bushy, sativa-leaning phenos, with apparent cold tolerance, lots of branching and lots of leaves, nice dark green looking with no hint of nutrient deficiency, just overall great looking plants that are flourishing. The other two seem to be more Indica leaning, shorter in stature, showing sex and budding out earlier, etc. One of these two is the freak described above.
Out of the four, the two very best ones are the freak, and one of the big sativas.
I also have a batch of STS mixed up, so I am ready to start reversing and doing some crossing.
So here's my questions. Given the constraints of what I'm working with here, what would you recommend crossing with what? My thinking is that I should reverse a branch on each of the two best looking ones, and use that pollen to self each plant, and to cross the two, with pollen going both directions, labelling and separating each resulting group of seeds. Maybe a cross in one direction will yield better results than the other direction, or maybe I will get some kick ass seeds out of the selfing, so this way I will have all bases covered.
I also thought it would be good to cross each of the best two with its "similar" partner, for example use the best looking sativa pollen on the other sativa, and the freak indica pollen on the other indica. This way even if I find out too late that there is something terribly wrong with the genetics of one of my "best" plants (say, a latent hermie trait), I am still likely to get good results from the other crosses.
Is my thinking sound? What other wisdom can the more experience breeders share with me regarding a good strategy to use here? Also, what approach (generally speaking) would you recommend taking for the NEXT step, once I have seeds from all these crosses? I really like the looks of the best sativa, it is a fantastic looking plant, and I think it would be nice to get a line of nice sativa seeds going...but at the same time, I value indicas too, so it would be cool if I could get a second line going with earlier flowering. Or, I could just work on developing a single cross of the two, with all the best characteristics of each. The actual highs, aromas, etc are secondary to me at this point; I know I will enjoy smoking any and all of these plants, so I figure I can work on isolating those characteristics later, if it even gets to that point. Right now my top priority is having seed that consistently produces big, beautiful, healthy and vigorous plants, that will handle anything I can throw at them in this indoor setting, with small pots, cold temps, and other less than ideal conditions.
Any and all info here is appreciated. I do have some knowledge of genetics, botany, etc, but my breeding knowledge/experience is very limited and I am eager to learn. I know I'm not going to breed the next Kush or anything from this experimentation, but if I can get batches of seed with great characteristics that work well in my specific growing conditions, and learn something in the process, I would consider that a success. Thanks!
So, first some background info on what I'm working with. I started with two indica bagseed strains, both of which seemed to have pretty good genetics. The most prevalent of these is a strain I call W1. This one appeared to be heavily inbred, heavy yielding, thick stems, fruity colors, i.e. commercially oriented. It's the kind of strain where every tenth plant seems to have some kind of weird mutation. For example one plant in my grow last year topped itself and grew two shoots. Another I called "shaggy" because it had very short internodes and LOTS of leaves. A few of those females popped a few nanners due to heat stress, and I used this pollen on sisters to make seed. I also brought in pollen from males of unknown (but said to be "good") strains, one of which ("W2") appeared to be hybridized with sativa characteristics like extensive branching and larger size.
So I germinated 12 seeds out of this grab bag, and out of that I got one slow grower I killed early, one hermie, and 10 females. Most of these plants appear to display characteristics reminiscent of W1, especially one ("freak") that is showing similar weird mutations. This one had a strange leaf mutation early on, and as it got older, both branches coming out of one node appear to be of whorled phyllotaxy, with ridiculous numbers of leaves and a ginormous bud at the end.
One thing I noticed all of these plants have in common is none of them have the "indica" style branching like W1 had, it's more of the sativa style with moderate to high branching. I am assuming W2 may be showing its influence here.
Out of the 10 plants, I have identified 4 that look really good and appear to have positive traits I'd like to pass on to subsequent generations. Other plants seem to have various problems/unwanted traits such as extremely curled leaves (due to cold night temperatures I think; cold tolerance is a must for me), not enough leaves, a couple appear to be susceptible to nutrient deficits (showing chronic magnesium deficiencies which I can barely hold at bay, probably in part due to the small container size, but I prefer plants that flourish in restrictive conditions), etc.
Out of the four "good" ones, two of them are big, bushy, sativa-leaning phenos, with apparent cold tolerance, lots of branching and lots of leaves, nice dark green looking with no hint of nutrient deficiency, just overall great looking plants that are flourishing. The other two seem to be more Indica leaning, shorter in stature, showing sex and budding out earlier, etc. One of these two is the freak described above.
Out of the four, the two very best ones are the freak, and one of the big sativas.
I also have a batch of STS mixed up, so I am ready to start reversing and doing some crossing.
So here's my questions. Given the constraints of what I'm working with here, what would you recommend crossing with what? My thinking is that I should reverse a branch on each of the two best looking ones, and use that pollen to self each plant, and to cross the two, with pollen going both directions, labelling and separating each resulting group of seeds. Maybe a cross in one direction will yield better results than the other direction, or maybe I will get some kick ass seeds out of the selfing, so this way I will have all bases covered.
I also thought it would be good to cross each of the best two with its "similar" partner, for example use the best looking sativa pollen on the other sativa, and the freak indica pollen on the other indica. This way even if I find out too late that there is something terribly wrong with the genetics of one of my "best" plants (say, a latent hermie trait), I am still likely to get good results from the other crosses.
Is my thinking sound? What other wisdom can the more experience breeders share with me regarding a good strategy to use here? Also, what approach (generally speaking) would you recommend taking for the NEXT step, once I have seeds from all these crosses? I really like the looks of the best sativa, it is a fantastic looking plant, and I think it would be nice to get a line of nice sativa seeds going...but at the same time, I value indicas too, so it would be cool if I could get a second line going with earlier flowering. Or, I could just work on developing a single cross of the two, with all the best characteristics of each. The actual highs, aromas, etc are secondary to me at this point; I know I will enjoy smoking any and all of these plants, so I figure I can work on isolating those characteristics later, if it even gets to that point. Right now my top priority is having seed that consistently produces big, beautiful, healthy and vigorous plants, that will handle anything I can throw at them in this indoor setting, with small pots, cold temps, and other less than ideal conditions.
Any and all info here is appreciated. I do have some knowledge of genetics, botany, etc, but my breeding knowledge/experience is very limited and I am eager to learn. I know I'm not going to breed the next Kush or anything from this experimentation, but if I can get batches of seed with great characteristics that work well in my specific growing conditions, and learn something in the process, I would consider that a success. Thanks!
