Males vs. Females for breeding

gorilla ganja · Jul 13, 2015

Hello to all breeders and pollen chuckers.

I am looking for information on the difference if any with using males or females for passing on certain traits.

Does it make a difference using:

Female strain A x Male strain B
vs.
Male strain A x Female strain B

Do certain traits like flowering early, mold resistance, structure, ect. ect. get passed on to offspring more readily from males or females??

Obviously the traits we look for are easier to see in the female, but as far as passing those traits on.

I've searched on here and could not find anything. If anyone can provide information or links it would be much appreciated.

Peace GG

Lester Beans · Jul 13, 2015

Yes you will find different results from both crosses. Male x female and vice versa. Generally but not always the female brings more to the cross. However some strains are dominant, and there for will influence the hybrid regardless.

Best

VerdantGreen · Jul 13, 2015

does a plant have a different set of genes for male and female expression? - no, it has only one genome, with just a few genes that are involved with sex determination.

so the same traits should get passed whether the plant is male or female.

going deeper i think it is possible that traits can be linked to others, im no great expert but i doubt that any observable ones could be linked to sexual expresion.

VG

MJPassion · Jul 13, 2015

Being that each individual plant of any given variety has its own genetic code, differing from every other cannabis plant on earth, how would one ever come up with an answer to the question?
Sure there are families of related plants but each individual plant still has its own code to pass.

This is a loaded question, imo.

rhinoman 1 · Jul 14, 2015

The male brings selection to the offspring this is why the male comes first.

gorilla ganja · Jul 15, 2015

VerdantGreen said:
does a plant have a different set of genes for male and female expression? - no, it has only one genome, with just a few genes that are involved with sex determination.

so the same traits should get passed whether the plant is male or female.

going deeper i think it is possible that traits can be linked to others, im no great expert but i doubt that any observable ones could be linked to sexual expresion.

VG

Thanks for the answers everyone.

On paper that's what I would think as well. But some people talk about certain traits being passed more readily from one sex or the other. For example some say early finish is best passed from a male Mighty Mite.

gorilla ganja · Jul 15, 2015

MJPassion said:
Being that each individual plant of any given variety has its own genetic code, differing from every other cannabis plant on earth, how would one ever come up with an answer to the question?
Sure there are families of related plants but each individual plant still has its own code to pass.

This is a loaded question, imo.

Ya I get what your saying. But hypothetically speaking if we had two sets of identical twins.

identical twins strain A - identical twins strain B
Male strain A x female strain B
Female strain A x Male strain B

Now would it matter for passing on traits which cross is used?
For example they say male pattern baldness is passed on from the female chromosome in humans.

Peace GG

Anyone else have a thought on the subject???

Chimera · Jul 15, 2015

It's called a reciprocal cross, and is used to investigate maternally-linked characters resulting from differences in inhertited ctDNA and mtDNA.

The problem is, like MJPassion pointed out, that every plant has a unique genome, it is a unique genotype. How does one tease apart the differences of a reciprocal cross (var A x var B) vs (var B x var A)?

I've been performing reciprocal crosses using female plants, and sex reversal. At least in this fashion the genetics of the crosses are the same- there are only 2 plants involved in both crosses. If you used males and females from each vars A and B, you'd have 4 plants, and the added confound of 4 genomes interacting, not simply 2, thus the intra-variety differences could be the cause of the results being seen.

There may be some slight effects but for the most part what you hear mentioned as "males pass on potency, or resistance, or early flowering, or stature, etc.", is completely without basis.

Most people would never even see this effect, because they aren't growing out enough of a population from any given cross to evaluate these characters that are really measured as a population mean. As such, they attribute differences to a cross, whereas really it's intra-varietal variation of the parents being seen in the progeny compounded with sampling error from a small population.

Hope that answers your question.

Respectfully,
-Chimera

gorilla ganja · Jul 16, 2015

Great answer Chimera, Thanks for your input on this subject.

Elev8 · Jul 16, 2015

great info chimera, your knowledge is outstanding.

gorilla ganja · Jul 18, 2015

Anyone else want to throw their 4.20 cent's in on this topic??

MJPassion · Jul 19, 2015

Twins are possible from seed.
I'm not sure how identical they would be, however. Testing would be required to determine their twin-ness.

Shadimar · Jul 19, 2015

To clarify, I assume you mean when a single seed contains two embryos and not when two seeds produce extremely similar plants

Sam_Skunkman · Jul 19, 2015

The real problem which Chimera alluded to is that most varieties are not all exactly the same if you grow out 200 seeds, you get slightly different variations of the same Female parent X Male parent. Now with the 100 females it is "easy" to pick out the best one to clone. For the 100 males the only real way is to clone them all, make crosses with the best females X the maybe best boys and see what happens when you grow out the progeny. You can also transform the males to a female to get a good idea what will happen, but progeny trials are the only sure way. Some people claim they can tell a best male by smoking the male or other ways like auras, maybe, but I know I can't say which male has which Cannabinoids or even terpenes without a GC test of them transformed to female, then I have a better idea.
In the past before clones, I traditionally used the male of the variety that seemed the most consistent, in the hopes I did not pick a dud male. I also used to grow males from my best seed populations from the previous years seeds that I had grown out and could judge the best combos.

I have had double and triple yokers just a few triples. I also do not know if they were identical twins or fraternal twins, I would DNA test them today.

There maybe are a few sex linked traits but males can pass on superior drug traits as easy as a female can. And visa versa, that is why you need to know your males.

If people prefer a female over a male for a hybrid I bet it is because the male is not as good, a great male version of the same variety could be better then the female, for passing on great traits, most people never know how good their males are unless they have been around for a while and have been used for a while. People like to keep female clones not males.
-SamS

stoned-trout · Jul 19, 2015

this has been discussed previously ..unfortunatelty I don't remember what was the conclusion...just do it is my theory.. you need to make the crosses and see what carries over..IMHO..YEEHAW

corners · Jan 19, 2018

Rub the stems of the Males, you can get a good idea of what they could smell like and pass on.

thejact55 · Jan 19, 2018

So i have heard of you have a NLD and a WLD to select from for a cross, it is better to use the narrow leaf female and a wider leaf male, versus the converse. Is this true?

troutman · Jan 19, 2018

thejact55 said:
So i have heard of you have a NLD and a WLD to select from for a cross, it is better to use the narrow leaf female and a wider leaf male, versus the converse. Is this true?

DJ Mentioned using a female Sativa and male Indica.

It has been my observation that in a successful cross, the (usually female) sativa contributes
the type of aroma and flavour, while the (usually male) indica contributes the amount of aroma
and flavour to the prodigy. So far this observation has proven fruitful.

From here:

https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/1999/09/01/1511

Also, I think if you cross a large seeded female with a male coming from a small seeded strain.
The resulting calyxes will tend to be big and produce big seeds. I haven't tested this out yet.

Good science is about observations. :biggrin:

So test out a few seedie ideas and observe. :watchplant:

thejact55 · Jan 20, 2018

Thats where i heard it from lol. From you showing me that article. Couldnt remember lol

chefsean · Feb 28, 2018

Just a question?

Just a question?

Not sure if Im in the right area but?
Im in the middle of popping some local beans I have and im wondering about stress testing the females to find ones that arent herms . I believe the term I want to use is finding a xx female?
Im going to do some weeding out of my females and when I find some that seem desirable im going to flower them halfway and then give them 24 hours of light twice in a week them continue flowering them. I figure if they dont herf out I would have a good female to pollinate.
Does anyone else have any ideas about stress testing a female to find one that wont hermie?

Ive used this technique before and out of thirty or forty females a couple didnt hermie out with light stress. But the yield was to small and I discarded them and moved on.

I would appreciate any feedback...ty

Males vs. Females for breeding

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