The Beginners Guide to Breeding

Cinderella Story...

I've been seeing a lot of posts from people asking for the "Cinderella Story", so here it is:
In 1997, I (MrSoul) discovered a few seeds in a bud of Jack Herer I bought @ "Sensi Smile" coffeeshop in Amsterdam while there to buy seeds. I didn't expect much when I grew them, but one of those seeds from the JH bud produced a very special female that I call "Princess".

Therefore Princess' mother was a Jack Herer (IF we can believe what Sensi Smile printed on the package) and her father is a totally unidentified mystery plant.

I also got 2 more females (Genius & Cafe'Girl) & several males from those seeds. I used pollen from one of the males on a heavy-yielding, dense, resinous ShivaSkunk (from Sensi Seedbank) female, then grew the resulting seeds to get males to produce pollen to cross Princess with, beginning the cubing process.

The first generation of seeds from Princess were called P.50 because they were 50% Princess. I used males from the P.50 generation to back-cross to Princess to get P.75 and again back-crossed with the P.75 pollen to get P.88 and again with the P.88 pollen to get P.94 which is "Cinderella 99", a cubed version of Princess.

The name "Cinderella" was chosen because of the parallels between this story and the well-known fairy tale in which Cinderella becomes a Princess despite her humble beginning.

MrSoul

"Princess is a female which resulted from a seed found in a Jack Herer bud I bought in Amsterdam near the Sensi Seed Bank at "Coffeeshop Sensi Smile". The bud came in a 2 gr. cello-pack with the Sensi logo; I expected sinsemilla, but it had about 10 seeds so I assume she's an F2 JH. Her characteristics were so fine I wanted to create seeds that would "replicate" this plant. She has the KILLER Haze-influenced high with the most DELICIOUS pineapple/evil scent, 50 day maturation in 12/12, and incredible resin production, doesn't stretch - yet clearly Sativa-dominant! Last but not least: Never a hint of hermaphrodism after 2 years of cloning & many different styles of grow.

I wanted to "cube" Princess but add a little beef to her branches because the buds were always too heavy at harvest and branches needed staking to keep from flopping over. I crossed my ShivaSkunk female with one of the males from the same group of seeds that Princess came from. THIS cross produced a male which was then crossed to Princess, creating "P.50" (using a shorthand notation I developed to indicate the fraction of Princess genes in the cross).
Each generation is the result of crossing a male from the previous generation to Princess herself (incestuous, I know).
Blow-by-blow description of the generations:
P.50 = Heavy, single-cola type plants with mellow high (too much influence from the ShivaSkunk) Sweet fruity scent/flavor. Unstable in most traits - for example, 10 days difference in fastest/slowest maturation period in a group of 20 seedlings.
P.75 = Plants leaning MUCH more in the direction of Princess in floral cluster and bud structure, scent/flavor turned more "tropical" like pineapple. The stability was becoming better - two major phenotypes; short & dense (potent too) or tall/HUGE (Not so potent).
P.88 = Renamed Cinderella 88 when first released on the market. It grows fast and produces excellent yields of FROSTY buds in 7 weeks! Generally uniform seedlings with minor differences in floral formation and some height variance, but the smoke is quite consistent from all plants - Dense, heavy nuggets of fruity scented & flavored (like wild berries) and covered in resin glands, the dried buds have distinctly ORANGE pistils.
And now P.94 = Cinderella 99. This project has been a huge success. The strain has been embraced by the "net"work of growers with rave reviews.

"I personally think the plants these Cinderella 99 seeds produce are every bit as good as a cutting from Princess herself (or better).
I say better because the flavor of no two plants is "identical"; there's a personality to all living things. Like Princess herself, Cinderella is sweet & fruity to the palette and nose, and when you take a hit you're BLASTED...with the same "racy" high as Princess!
The improvement comes in the yield department; 25% greater yield and a stronger branch structure, which I accomplished by starting with some ShivaSkunk genes in the original father in the cubing process.
I knew I'd blend out the majority of the traits from ShivaSkunk in the cubing process, but I was hoping to incorporate the ShivaSkunk's stronger branches because Princess had a tendency to need supports in the final two weeks of flowering. As it turns out, I got lucky and it worked.
The name suits the strain IMO - it's a true Cinderella Story." - MrSoul





"Jack Herer is an unstable strain bred from an unequal combination of Sk#1, NL#5, and Haze. Crossing a male and female Jack Herer creates an F2 generation which has a HUGE number of possible recombinations of the genes. I grew out some Jack Herer F2s and discovered a SPECIAL one, "Princess", which has many improvements on the original JH such as a shorter flowering time, denser bud structure and pineapple scent/flavour. I have been continually back crossing Princess with her male offspring (generation after generation) which eventually creates a stabilized strain having her special characteristics found reliably in most females grown from those seeds. Each generation is composed of a 50% genetic contribution from Princess (since she's the seed parent) and a 50% contribution from the pollen parent (which also has an increasing percentage of Princess' genetics with each generation). The progression goes: P.50, P.75, P.88, P.94, and P.97...at that point it's considered stabilized (a male and female P.97 can be crossed and the offspring are essentially the same as the parents). I have been VERY pleased with the way this project is going; even the P.75 generation was rather stable in the sense that the individuals were all rather uniform and HIGH quality. ...So, you see, since I have combined genes from Sk#1, NL#5, and Haze, creating a plant which has characteristics distinctly different than Jack Herer, and I'm creating a stable strain from this plant... it's legitimately MY work." - MrSoul


"Each generation exhibited a MAJOR jump in potency (P.50 was rather mellow)...P.75 has a well-balanced body/mind high with a citrus flavour, Cinderella 88 is cerebral & paralyzing with a tropical fruit flavour, and Cinderella 99 is "TRIP WEED"...with more of the fruity flavour and speedy effect from Princess." - MrSoul


"...Princess smells very much like pineapple both during flowering and when dried, but there's this "evil" scent in it too, like rotting meat, which has been linked with the most devastating weed (notably the Durban/Thai hybrid from SSSC, years ago). The taste is connoisseur quality when it's cured; VERY fruity. The high is almost too intense for a lot of people; Dr. Atomic actually refused to smoke any on our second meeting, after getting rather "hazed and confused" on the first sampling we did together a couple of weeks before, so he decided to try Shiva Skunk and found that more mellow and to his liking. Two hits of Princess will induce your body to tremble involuntarily and your heart to race and paranoid thoughts... very much like Haze, but not quite as intense. It also has a "creeper" quality that makes it easy to over-indulge...you get progressively higher during the first 10 minutes after smoking. Look at the May '98 issue of High Times' centerfold and find "Yellow Cab"...that's EXACTLY what the finished Princess buds look like. The "frosting" of stalked, capitate trichomes on the flowers and smaller leaves gives them a "furry" appearance much like Haze."
MrSoul


"I'd personally advise you to "top" the C-99's at their 4th branch set (about 3-4 weeks old) then when the branches grow to be about a foot long (about 6-8 weeks old) you should flower them. You'll know which plants are female BEFORE you ever switch the light cycle to 12/12. Cinderella plants always show preflowers at the 5-7 branch sets during the VEGETATIVE stage... when they're a little over a month old. Mr Soul "

(MrSoul is probably most famous for originating "Cinderella 99" aka "Cindy 99")


[as related in an internet post by "MrSoul", June 2000]


"...Bros Grimm have been employing a method called "Cubing a Clone" to create strains from unique female plants for years now.

Read the following and you'll understand:

Cubing a clone is a way to create a unique seedline (a “strain”) modelled after a currently existing female individual.

The goal is to create seeds from which the females replicate the phenotype of the original female.

Obviously the chosen female should be an outstanding specimen.

Procedure:
CONTINUOUSLY KEEP A MOTHER IN THE VEGETATIVE STATE TO PROVIDE CLONES

1. Pollinate a flowering clone of the original female with the pollen of a related male, preferably her father or a brother. The resulting seeds contain 1/2 the original female's genes and 1/2 those of the male. An unrelated male won’t have the Y-chromosome of the chosen female’s family & therefore any Y-linked traits of the family will always be missing in the seedline.

2. Grow the above seeds & flower them. Collect an equal quantity of pollen from each selected male and mix it together.

3. Pollinate a flowering clone of the original female with the above pollen. These seeds contain 1/2 the original female’s genes plus 1/4 more because the male used was 1/2 her genetics too. I call this generation “.75” to capture the idea that it’s 3/4 of the original female’s genetics.

4. Grow the above seeds & flower them. Collect an equal quantity of pollen from each selected male and mix it together.

5. Pollinate a flowering clone of the original female with the above pollen. These seeds contain 7/8 the original genes (1/2+3/8), the ".88" generation.

6. Grow the above seeds & flower them.
Collect an equal quantity of pollen from each selected male and mix it together.

7. Pollinate a flowering clone of the original female with the above pollen. These seeds contain 15/16 the original genes (1/2+7/16), the ".94" generation.

Theoretically, this will be a stable, true-breeding seedline from which all females are replicas of the original. "

December,1999, internet post by MrSoul]

"...
Apollo 13 = Genius/ P75 and is very popular despite my only having created about 500 seeds.

Apollo 11 = Genius/ C99....[*]

Note both have the SAME mother -
"Genius" which is a sister of Princess, although you'd hardly see a family resemblance.

Genius is lemon-scented, rather like Lemon Pledge furniture polish actually.
Her high is not speedy like Princess', it's a "happy high".
As a plant, Genius is a pleasure to flower, producing heavier yields than Princess with similarly resinous floral clusters shaped less like Princess' "braids" and more like a dense cone of sparkling, tightly-packed calyxes & pistils bursting out from between little leaves bristling with stalked glands.
Very sticky and pungent smelling. She matures rapidly, finishing in 7 weeks and when the buds are manicured (very easy) and dried, Genius' final product is true "eye candy" to behold.

The father plant used in Apollo 13 was the same as was used to create Cinderella 88.

The father plant used to create Apollo 11 was the same as was used to make the current generation of C99, i.e., P94. [wayback in December of 1999 when written by Soul]

(*)This (Genius) male was responsible for adding considerable yield to the current Cinderella 99, i.e., P97 generation..."
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IMB Note,
"Vic High" once offered the suggestion to Soul to pollinate individual branches with individuals pollen to test males, a method which soul eventually evolved to (?) instead of his original "shake and bake" method of male selection...
A little luck never hurt a damn thing, a lot of luck can be a beautiful thing, especially in Las Vegas when rolling dice and also apparently when breeding seeds...

well regardless of his breeding methodologies, the bottom line is he certainly got some big time positive results, it worked for him.
The "Brothers Grimm" cannabis strains will not soon be forgotten, thats for sure.
As Granny used to say "The proof of the pudding is in eating it".
That means that the true value or quality of something can only be judged when it's put to use and tried and tested.

Click to expand...

CUBING

Cubing is a type of selective breeding that has gained some popularity among breeders but has disadvantages in that it does not selectively stabilize traits or make a strain more uniform in growth.* Cubing involves a certain amount of random mating and is used mainly to create desirable females or mother plants in populations that are too small to be adequate for proper selections. Smaller breeding outfits will probably use cubing to find sought-after mother plants.

In the F1 offspring all the pollen from the males are extracted and put into one container. All of the male pollen is then used in a backcross with the mother plant to produce the first backcross progeny. In the offspring you should find a good clone mother or in a future offspring by repeating this methodology – cubing. The problem is that the male that contributes to this clone mother female is unknown and so the process can not be repeated. The procedure is as follows:

In the F1 select that is desirable and backcross this female with her father to create the offspring. Collect all the pollen from the males in this offspring and use all this pollen to pollinate the mother plant that contributed to this offspring. Grow out the offspring and keep repeating the process until a very desirable female is found.

Obviously cubing is not really breeding and anything you hear about cubing being able to stabilize traits is false (it can happen that a trait is stabilized, or a number of traits are stabilized, through cubing, but this occurs by accident and is not selective breeding). Cubing is just a way to generate mother plants in small populations.

A myth has been going around that cubing can create male parents for popular clones that do not have a male version. This is false and is just a sales gimmick. Cubing does not create males from a popular clone nor can cubing be used to create a standard seed format that is somewhat like 75% to 90% of the popular clone. It simply doesn’t do that.

*except by accident

Click to expand...

Robert Clarke , from marijuana botany

Occasionally hybrid offspring will prove inferior to both parents, but the first generation may still contain recessive genes for a favorable characteristic seen in a parent if the parent was homozygous for that trait. First generation (F1) hybrids are therefore inbred to allow recessive genes to recombine and express the desired parental trait. Many breeders stop with the first cross and never realize the genetic potential of their strain. They fail to produce an F2 generation by crossing or self-pollinating F1 offspring. Since most domestic Cannabis strains are F1 hybrids for many characteristics, great diversity and recessive recombination can result from inbreeding domestic hybrid strains. In this way the breeding of the F1 hybrids has already been accomplished, and a year is saved by going directly to F2 hybrids. These F2 hybrids are more likely to express recessive parental traits. From the F2 hybrid generation selections can be made for parents which are used to start new true-breeding strains. Indeed, F2 hybrids might appear with more extreme characteristics than either of the P~ parents. (For example, P1 high-THC X P1 low-THC yields F1 hybrids
of intermediate THC content. Selfing the F1 yields F2 hybrids, of both P1 [high and low THC] phenotypes, intermediate F1 phenotypes, and extra-high THC as well as extra-low THC phenotypes.)

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