Something that has bothered me...

[jj7leaf]

Alot of talk about companies falling from grace, some switching the fathers and mothers of tried and tested varieties. But why?

Without going into the IBL's and BX lately, I understand the value of IBL's and backcrosses. and I know that every breeder wants to breed and create or even better "His" strain. But I know the way I run, If you find that keeper female in your heirem you are not letting her go if you can help it, even if you breed her out to an outstanding male example and get the Holy Grail. You are not going to throw away the clone mother, you are going to hold the clones of both the male and momma.

Some simple hybrid examples:

If you are looking at something simple like a Shiva Skunk, NL#5XSk#1, why would Sensi not use a maintained clone stock of each of these and never change the recipe?

Or Kali Mist, the BBOB vol 1 says that the father has changed like 3 times in what, 15 years or so? (man has it been that long?) If the product was a winner when you offered it for sale after, why would you change the parental stock at all without a backup or secondary line to cross back to to verify that the end product carries on all the traits that made it a competition winner?

I think that the list of examples that were the building blocks of modern strains that are not the same plant they once were would be enourmous if we started compiling it here.

If it was Less Variabilty in the offspring and they are all trying to create a super true breeding strain every time then I can see the choices, but it seems that with the right clone stock that the seeds will always be what they are from the first cross. But I don't see the small percentage of variation in most hybrids from totally separated lines (meaning very sativa X very indica) being that bad of a thing for most of the original companies. So why are they changed at all?
j

 

[curiousmycoguy]

Accidents happen, plants die, shit happens, etc.


They just get lost over time and they do the next best thing

 

[superbolan]

many were lost to busts

 

[DocLeaf]

Most breeders working from clones, are working on other projects at the point of conception.
Then the seeds mature on the plant (2 months), then seed stratification (1month), and test growing (2-3months). So 6 months after conception the breeder knows if a seed line (10,000 seeds) is good enough to sell/retail. At which point the breeders are normallky working on new projects... and probably no longer keep the clones.

Logistically clone breeders can only keep a select number of plants (legally or illegally) without everything catching fire, spider-mites invading or being busted by the narcs. The older a mother plant, and the more clones it has given (the more war wounds it has), then higher the chances of the plant picking up an infection or a viral disease.

The other problem is keeping male plants in vegitative states for long periods of time (years) since most genetics are not suited to such un-natural treatment (remembering cannabis is an annual) and preflower as they mature.

This is were breeders working seed lines from their own IBL seed stocks (like Growdoc) have the upper hand and hold the ability to produce the same seed varieties consistently... without the need for keeping mothers and clones.

Hope this helps

 

[jj7leaf]

OK...

OK...

So it is a given that there are many reasons that a breeder chooses to do IBL's with the status of the buisiness always being hunted, but if you look at the reputation of most seed vendors that we used as staples in the 90's, everyone is on the "Bash Wagon". Sensi, Serious, Greenhouse all have mulitple complaints on websites like this. Every breeder is taking the hybrid vigor that they saw and advertised from the initial cross and slowly watering it down with inbreeding.
With that said, now to achieve the vigor that we used to pay for you need to pay double and make your own from others work.
Back before my days at this game the best was created by outcrosses, Skunk #1 and Haze stories are that they were produced from crossing the best of each different imports. Even NL #5 X SK #1 that I mentioned in my first post, if it is breed from each successive generation it is not NL#5 X SK#1 anymore, It contains it but it is not the same vigorous plant that won awards in the 80's.
I can hear B.B. King singing it now.... "The Vigor is gooonne......."

Further, are their any breeders out there now that are still using the clones that they started with and did the vigor of that cross maintain through the years?

Am I making sense or am I ripped and just rambling?

j

 

[Darwin]

JJ, I think there are a few things going on here. First of all, a lot of the bashing on the old, established companies is just that, bashing. What have we seen in the 21st Century in Cannabis breeding, an explosion of new, often times short-lived, seed "companies". As a new company trying to enter a market and compete with other long established companies, what are you going to do? Some took the high road and sought to set themselves apart by excellent breeding (like DocLeaf) and creating new and exciting varieties. Others took the easy way out by trolling the old companies that are woefully under-represented on the web (are there Sensi Seeds or Serious Seeds help forums here?). A lot of what you read on the internet forums are just rehashes of what the particular individual read someone else say on the forum. Unless I actually see the plants that a member claims are seriously degraded from the older version, I take their comments with a grain of salt. All it takes is one influential member to state that a strain has "changed" to start a rumor that a certain company has changed it's "recipe". Other members will then parrot that sentiment which is then parroted again and again until it becomes "accepted knowledge". Take Sensi for example. I started out growing many Sensi strains, well over a decade ago. California Indica, Maple Leaf Indica, Jack Herer etc. I have since grown all of them again recently, guess what? They were exactly the same. Exactly. Furthermore, having an older version and claiming the older version is different from the new version creates an artificial importance. Everyone around here wants to set themselves apart from the crowd and make themselves seem important. By saying the parents have changed and the pre-whatever time is so much better, they automatically make what they have special because obviously no one can get those seeds from often times over a decade ago.

Second of all, like DocLeaf mentioned, the best way to breed a strain is to start with two homozygous, true-breeding, inbred line P1's and cross them to create a true F1 hybrid. If you do this, an individual clone mother or father will no longer be relevant as others within the IBL P1 should be almost exactly the same. The problem with losing clones comes from "breeders" who are actually creating polyhybrids by crossing special, early fillial generation plants together. If the parents weren't true breeding, the offspring of that cross are going to be all over the place. In this case, the parent used is extremely important because the particular parent does not represent the line as a whole; it may be a 1 in 100 or even 1 in 10,000 plant. Losing that parent and trying to recreate the cross with a different parent would obviously result in different offspring.

 

[DocLeaf]

JJ, I think there are a few things going on here. First of all, a lot of the bashing on the old, established companies is just that, bashing. What have we seen in the 21st Century in Cannabis breeding, an explosion of new, often times short-lived, seed "companies". As a new company trying to enter a market and compete with other long established companies, what are you going to do? Some took the high road and sought to set themselves apart by excellent breeding (like DocLeaf) and creating new and exciting varieties. Others took the easy way out by trolling the old companies that are woefully under-represented on the web (are there Sensi Seeds or Serious Seeds help forums here?). A lot of what you read on the internet forums are just rehashes of what the particular individual read someone else say on the forum. Unless I actually see the plants that a member claims are seriously degraded from the older version, I take their comments with a grain of salt. All it takes is one influential member to state that a strain has "changed" to start a rumor that a certain company has changed it's "recipe". Other members will then parrot that sentiment which is then parroted again and again until it becomes "accepted knowledge". Take Sensi for example. I started out growing many Sensi strains, well over a decade ago. California Indica, Maple Leaf Indica, Jack Herer etc. I have since grown all of them again recently, guess what? They were exactly the same. Exactly. Furthermore, having an older version and claiming the older version is different from the new version creates an artificial importance. Everyone around here wants to set themselves apart from the crowd and make themselves seem important. By saying the parents have changed and the pre-whatever time is so much better, they automatically make what they have special because obviously no one can get those seeds from often times over a decade ago.

Second of all, like DocLeaf mentioned, the best way to breed a strain is to start with two homozygous, true-breeding, inbred line P1's and cross them to create a true F1 hybrid. If you do this, an individual clone mother or father will no longer be relevant as others within the IBL P1 should be almost exactly the same. The problem with losing clones comes from "breeders" who are actually creating polyhybrids by crossing special, early fillial generation plants together. If the parents weren't true breeding, the offspring of that cross are going to be all over the place. In this case, the parent used is extremely important because the particular parent does not represent the line as a whole; it may be a 1 in 100 or even 1 in 10,000 plant. Losing that parent and trying to recreate the cross with a different parent would obviously result in different offspring.

Nice post.

 

[jj7leaf]

thank you

thank you

JJ, I think there are a few things going on here. First of all, a lot of the bashing on the old, established companies is just that, bashing. What have we seen in the 21st Century in Cannabis breeding, an explosion of new, often times short-lived, seed "companies". As a new company trying to enter a market and compete with other long established companies, what are you going to do? Some took the high road and sought to set themselves apart by excellent breeding (like DocLeaf) and creating new and exciting varieties. Others took the easy way out by trolling the old companies that are woefully under-represented on the web (are there Sensi Seeds or Serious Seeds help forums here?). A lot of what you read on the internet forums are just rehashes of what the particular individual read someone else say on the forum. Unless I actually see the plants that a member claims are seriously degraded from the older version, I take their comments with a grain of salt. All it takes is one influential member to state that a strain has "changed" to start a rumor that a certain company has changed it's "recipe". Other members will then parrot that sentiment which is then parroted again and again until it becomes "accepted knowledge". Take Sensi for example. I started out growing many Sensi strains, well over a decade ago. California Indica, Maple Leaf Indica, Jack Herer etc. I have since grown all of them again recently, guess what? They were exactly the same. Exactly. Furthermore, having an older version and claiming the older version is different from the new version creates an artificial importance. Everyone around here wants to set themselves apart from the crowd and make themselves seem important. By saying the parents have changed and the pre-whatever time is so much better, they automatically make what they have special because obviously no one can get those seeds from often times over a decade ago.

Second of all, like DocLeaf mentioned, the best way to breed a strain is to start with two homozygous, true-breeding, inbred line P1's and cross them to create a true F1 hybrid. If you do this, an individual clone mother or father will no longer be relevant as others within the IBL P1 should be almost exactly the same. The problem with losing clones comes from "breeders" who are actually creating polyhybrids by crossing special, early fillial generation plants together. If the parents weren't true breeding, the offspring of that cross are going to be all over the place. In this case, the parent used is extremely important because the particular parent does not represent the line as a whole; it may be a 1 in 100 or even 1 in 10,000 plant. Losing that parent and trying to recreate the cross with a different parent would obviously result in different offspring.

Thank you very much.

j

 

[CalcioErba2004]

Sweet posts Docleaf and Darwin.

 

[dubwise]

@doc & darwin...excellent! very insightful and helpful. I too had wondered about this topic and you guys really cleared up some things. Thanks!!