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CBG breeding and current varieties

GrowingHigher

Active member
Cannabigerol (CBG) dominant plants are becoming the rage for next season among smokeable/raw hemp flower growers (almost entirely due to the USDA interim rule making most CBD varieties susceptible to testing hot).

So I want to discuss and compile some information about breeding for CBG varieties that will pass for compliance.

Firstly some background:

Identification of a New Chemotype in Cannabis sativa : Cannabigerol - Dominant Plants, Biogenetic and Agronomic Prospects
-CBG dominant plant first ID'd by Fournier at al, 1987.

The draft genome and transcriptome of Cannabis sativa


Gene duplication and divergence affecting drug content in Cannabis sativa
-showed there were multiple THCAS/CBDAS sequence homologs in individual plants

Sequence heterogeneity of cannabidiolic- and tetrahydrocannabinolic acid-synthase in Cannabis sativa L. and its relationship with chemical phenotype.
-different synthases have different efficiencies (CBDAS is leaky towards THC production to various extents; null alleles are variable in their production of some THC/CBD)
-some synthase alleles result in the expression of multiple synthase enzyme variants.
-expression levels of synthases doesn't seem to determine cannabinoid levels

A physical and genetic map of Cannabis sativa identifies extensive rearrangements at the THC/CBD acid synthase loci.
This paper shows (at least for one variety of fiber hemp (Finola) and one marijauna (Purple Kush)) that the fiber-derived linked cannabinoid synthases (CBDAS, THCAS) are very different in their arrangement. This suggests:
- A lot of derivation once the two gene pools separated.
-The putative THCAS identified by Kojoma et al, 2006 in hemp are actually CBCAS. Both Purple Kush and Finola had CBCAS.

The Inheritance of Chemical Phenotype in Cannabis sativa L
This paper talks about chemotype inheritance and crosses a fiber-dervied CBG variety to a high THC drug variety. in the F2 the CBG segregates, and again produces no detectable THC:

The inheritance of chemical phenotype in Cannabis sativa L. (IV): cannabinoid-free plants.
This 2009 deMiejer Paper talks about the inheritance of cannabinoid free plants and an alternative CBG producing genotype derived from the USO-31 hemp variety. This variety apparently has two gene knockouts; one that prevents cannabinoid production when homozygous and severly suppresses it in heterozygotes, and another that blocks CBD production causing CBG to accumulate. The USO-31 derived region responsible for CBG accumulation produces extremely pure CBG (99.75% of cannabinoids) with residual CBD (0.25%).

DeMiejer also has a 2014 book chapter in the "Handbook of Cannabis" that discusses a similar cross using fiber-derived versus a marijuana-derived (high-THC variety that had a CBG variant) CBG gene region. The fiber-derived linked synthase region produce residual amounts of CBD and almost no THC. Whereas the marijuana derived CBD region variant produces residual THC.


Breeding forward:
Recently Oregon CBD made their CBG variety announcements on instagram. In their post, they explained how they crossed a marijuana derived CBG variety (that produces THC at about 1:100-200 ratio CBG:THC) with a (probably) hemp derived CBG variety that has a ratio of ~1:27. (you can see their tests here). EDIT: I had originally assumed the opposite where the fibre-derived region in The White was more efficient and less leaky.

By doing this they have rather cleverly prevented people from producing F2s that will all be compliant (though on a field level the average still would be). I suspect that, because one of their CBG variants is compliant 1:100-200 ratio plants will emerge easily among the F2 progeny, which would be truebreeding for CBG if these are inbred to F3+. Of course the MTA they have you sign means you aren't even permitted to save seed for on farm use, let alone breed with any of their germplasm, anyway.

Active THCAS and CBDAS are tightly linked, (with residual THC currently thought to result from CBDAS synthase leaking THC product (2022)).

Ultimately, I suspect for those looking to breed for CBG, if you use a Bx allele that results in high-ratio CBG:THC, you will be able to easily produce a true-breeding, CBG-dominant, THC-compliant hemp variety -with crosses mostly behaving as a simply inherited single locus with some residual THC from CBDAS.

It seems that both fiber-derived and marijuana-derived THCAS/CBDAS regions can result in CBG:THC ratios that range from~1:25 to 1:200, depending on the specific variant. It would be helpful to describe the differential efficiencies of the various Bo variants present in high-CBG varieties. If you start with a lower ratio null allele, you will be bound by the 0.3% limit to a lower total potency (~7.5% for the 1:25, to unachievable high for the very high ratio alleles).

CBG seed sources:

CanapaRoma- 8%CBG under 0.1%THC. No MTA. putatively truebreeding for complaint (at about a 1:65 THC:CBG ratio), fiber derived CBG variant.

Sovereign Fields-$2/seed, unknown specs. MTA required

HGH seed- 15+% CBG, Matterhorn CBG, $1+/seed. not sure about MTA

Oregon CBD- 15+% CBG, $1/seed, MTA required

Dutch Passion- CBG photo and auto

CannaBiogen- CBG auto?

European fiber varieties (I am not certain, but these are probably protected by plant variety protection (PVP), meaning you can save seed for on-farm use and breed with them):

Santhica-27: monecious 1-3% CBG, CBD residual

Carma - monecious ~3% CBG

USO-31- monecious. low cannabinoid, some cannabinoid free plants, some CBG dominant plants with very little residual CBD production.

Please share any relevant information on CBG breeding and seed sources. Thanks!
 
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hellfire

Active member
*bites apple*

Can we get some test results in here? Preferably at least 3 different labs for 1 strain, repeated trials ensure accuracy.

Eventually we should have stabilized F7s and new P1 hemp populations. I would think some CBD breeders are nearing this but due to the market demand for feminized seeds there seems to be a lack of sexual breeding and mostly reversing.

How low is 'low cannabinoid' on USO 31? How many generations does it take to get to 15%+ CBG? It seems to have happened rather quick, at least by these claims. Maybe I'm old hat, skeptical, and think this would take longer than it has.

I got a hemp spam email the other day about claimed 17% CBG seeds, minimum order 300k :laughing:
Some people are going to lose money buying "CBG seeds" this year. There's seed conmen around looking for starry dollar sign eyed hemp farmers that don't know anything about cannabis.
 

GrowingHigher

Active member
*bites apple*

Can we get some test results in here? Preferably at least 3 different labs for 1 strain, repeated trials ensure accuracy...

I got a hemp spam email the other day about claimed 17% CBG seeds, minimum order 300k :laughing:
Some people are going to lose money buying "CBG seeds" this year. There's seed conmen around looking for starry dollar sign eyed hemp farmers that don't know anything about cannabis.

https://oregoncbdseeds.com/compliance/
https://highgradehempseed.com/product-category/cbg-seeds/
Soverign Fields has COAs posted on their private instagram account
CanapAromas:

There are definitely bad actors in the hemp seed industry that will sell you canadian bird seed claimed to be high-cannabinoid varieties, whether CBD, CBG, (or THC for marijuana seeds). But that is why I would also like to compile a list of seed vendors. And while I endorse none specifically, I would at least like to list people with authentic seed.

Eventually we should have stabilized F7s and new P1 hemp populations. I would think some CBD breeders are nearing this but due to the market demand for feminized seeds there seems to be a lack of sexual breeding and mostly reversing.

This is one of the points in my first post; To stabilize for a high-CBG ratio only, you would only need to get to F3 lines. Also, not really on subject, but breeding with feminized plants/reversed females is sexual breeding; meiosis occurs, crossing over occurs, there just isn't a Y chromosome involved. All monecious hemp strains are essentially feminized lines with a high enough tendency to hermaphrodite that they will do it without being forced chemically. So, whether using all females with reversals or regular males in a breeding project is irrelevant, other than no hemp farmer in their right mind is planting males in their fields anymore unless they are growing a seed crop.


How low is 'low cannabinoid' on USO 31?

US0-31 is a population that has an allele that prevents cannabinoid production when homozygous; as in undetectable, none, 0 cannabinoids. Read the paper "The inheritance of chemical phenotype in Cannabis sativa L. (IV): cannabinoid-free plants" that I posted a link to.


How many generations does it take to get to 15%+ CBG? It seems to have happened rather quick, at least by these claims. Maybe I'm old hat, skeptical, and think this would take longer than it has.

Total potency is unlinked from cannabinoid ratios. Total potency is a quantitative trait. (Read "A physical and genetic map of Cannabis sativa identifies extensive rearrangements at the THC/CBD acid synthase loci."). When you cross a high- and low- potency variety you will have intermediate progeny. How many generations to get up to 15%+ depends on the starting germplasm. People have been working on this for years. There is some question as to whether all the players worked independently to breed these varieties, or if people are reproducing other people's genetics without permission.
 
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GrowingHigher

Active member
To follow up: I've grown out some of the Canaparoma CBG. It had 50% germ, and of the 5 plants I grew, one was CBD dominant. The others were all CBG dom. All had a similar habit; that of fiber hemp. Very airy low quality flower.

Kwik Seed Company also now has a CBG variety they claim is only locked for CBG, not morphology. I have not grown this one yet.
 

rootfingers

Active member
We plunked down for the minimum required purchase from oregoncbd this year and got a few thousand of their the white cbg strain. So far its incredibly vigorous and resistant to mold and insect pressures. Hasn't started flowering yet but I can check back in with you in a couple months to let you know how it goes. From what I understand the cbg line from them won't run hot and produces just cbg, is that anybody else's understanding as well or am I off?
 
That is correct rootfingers. Nothing to worry about on the compliance side, even on trimmed flowers. F2s or other attempts at breeding with any of our CBG varieties leads to 25% of the plants not passing compliance testing (a forewarning to anyone buying one of the many F2 knock-offs of our limited 2019 release of White CBG).

For anyone interested, the gene responsible for CBG accumulation in our varieties is a defective THCAS allele with a SNP at 1064bp.
 

Reaper

Active member
We plunked down for the minimum required purchase from oregoncbd this year and got a few thousand of their the white cbg strain. So far its incredibly vigorous and resistant to mold and insect pressures. Hasn't started flowering yet but I can check back in with you in a couple months to let you know how it goes. From what I understand the cbg line from them won't run hot and produces just cbg, is that anybody else's understanding as well or am I off?

I imagine you've havested those by now. How did they turn out
 

GrowingHigher

Active member
Dutch Passion now have two varieties (as well as a THC-V variety I wasn't aware of)
CBG-force and auto CBG-force for 15-35 euro/seed claiming ~15%CBG and 1:100 THC:CBG ratios

Hemp Direct is selling something called Desert Snow claiming up to 20% and less than 0.3 (I suspect this is from Oregon CBDs work).

Hoku hemp has a variety of CBG strains, apparently built off European varieties (Italian and swiss).

I have grown the Kwick seed CBG. It was much more resinous than the CannapAroma, but fairly airy, with tall fiber structure. Much more promising, though still only advertised as an 8% CBG plant.



Lastly, this is something that has sort of thrown me through a loop on the CBG breeding theory and I would love if someone could explain it to me: the Whistler Farm's Shiatzu Kush clone that is about 1:1 or 2:1, THC:CBG. I would have thought this ratio shouldn't really exist. So clearly other things that I don't understand yet are happening here.
 
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ULMW

Active member
Triploids and blockers are in place for sure in many monoecious vars.
nice article and post. Thanks for sharing indeed it seems like a fast track development to my sense of understanding. Still let's watch and wait to see what unfolds and stands up to the tests of time and to the repeated tests of science.
Happy growing!
ULMW
 
Lastly, this is something that has sort of thrown me through a loop on the CBG breeding theory and I would love if someone could explain it to me: the Whistler Farm's Shiatzu Kush clone that is about 1:1 or 2:1, THC:CBG. I would have thought this ratio shouldn't really exist. So clearly other things that I don't understand yet are happening here.

We have a couple unique chemotypes like this. They pop up in the F2 populations of functional THCAS crosses with our nonfunctional THCAS (i.e. the Oregon CBD CBG allele). Those in our collection are heterozygotes (functional / nonfunctional), but something else is going on--with the possibilities being a very long list. They do not happen with high enough frequency to make finding the true cause easy to identify. It's a great chemotype and has a unique effect.
 
Here's a little background on "Matterhorn" from a genetic marker perspective. In short, the seeds being sold are an F2. If you saw them growing in a field, it would immediately make sense from a visual perspective--they are all over the place phenotypically and in flower initiation. We determined this by sequencing synthase genes in seedlings and comparing them to what is known. The Matterhorn population contains two separate genes that make CBG production possible; one is a non-functional CBDAS synthase derived from an Italian fiber variety, and the other is the inactive THCAS that my company discovered in 2016 (the basis for all our CBG varieties). This is an email I sent last year to one of the vendors (HGH, iHempx) of this seed. We have since abandoned the utility patent application and published our first overview of its use so that the knowledge can be open source.

Screen Shot 2021-04-10 at 8.17.40 AM.png


Blue Forest Farm only seems to sell CBD and Manitou seems to not sell seed at all.

Here is some more info on Matterhorn CBG, which I just recently learned of. I had wondered where this strain came from:
https://swisscannabinoid.ch/products/matterhorn-cbg

Thanks for sharing, Seth. Everytime I think I have something figured out, the plant does something unexpected.
 

You basically had it right in the post you edited. The "swiss cannabinoid story" guy had a CBG dominant variety made possible via mostly inactive CBDAS. This particular version is well known and described in the literature. What appears to be the case is that germplasm was crossed with a plant containing the same inactive THCAS gene we discovered sometime in 2018 or 2019. The resulting F1 contains both genes, but will segregate if selfed. Seed production of "Matterhorn" was outsourced by HGH to a number of different smaller farms to make seed in time for 2020; the question is, what was being used to make the seed? Science suggests that HGH was supplying F1 cuttings (or seed, given the enormous phenotypical variation present in the F2s) to those farms, who then made F2 seeds. We know for sure the population segregates like an F2.

The more interesting backstory--the real story, if you will--is how the heck our inactive THCAS made it into a Swiss breeding effort in 2018. Luckily, it's short. We grew a bunch of CBG material for trimmed flowers in 2017 (3 phenotypes) and sold them all to a Swiss based company that is no longer in business; the principal guy for that company was close with the person behind the Swiss cannabinoid breeding effort. The many many pounds we successfully exported to Switzerland contained a few seeds per pound, due to herms popping up in one of our greenhouses on 2/3 phenotypes. Simplest answer is usually right, so in this case we suspect bag seed once again unites the cannabis world even continents apart.
 

GrowingHigher

Active member
I have caught HGH redhanded telling bald-faced lies about the origins of a variety before, claiming they had bred it in house when that simply wasn't the case. So I certainly do not trust them as a source of legitimate information.

However... I had never heard of Matthias Ghidossi and Swiss Cannabinoid before this, so I want to be sure what this variety is before throwing it under the bus. Though the release of F2 seed to farmers raises serious doubts about their legitimacy as seed producers in its own right. It also lends credence to a rushed timeline that would be required if they used an Oregon CBD bagseed from 2017.

They claim Carmagnola and Panakeia strains made it. Carmagnola is a well known CBG fiber strain of ~5% potency. I assume this is where the fiber-derived null allele comes from. Panakeia, on the other hand, I really don't know where this one came from. So what I am left questioning is how common is the null THCAS variant Oregon CBD identified in drug-Cannabis gene pools? Any one who wants to make a high-cannabinoid CBG plant is going to incorporate 'marijuana' varieties into their breeding programs, even if they use fiber-derived null alleles. Maybe Panakeia is derived from type-1 Cannabis with the same null allele. Perhaps it actually isn't that rare for a breeding program aimed at developing a CBG-rich, low-THC variety -operating alongside the rise of selfing among marijuana breeders in the last 20 years- to end up utilizing the same null allele from the general marijuana gene pool?

I am curious how the Whistler clones synthase sequence compares.
 
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Thule

Dr. Narrowleaf
Veteran
Apparantly CannaBiogen has an Auto CBG, but I am unsure if this is CBG dominant or a THC dominant variety with 'high' CBG

Auto CBG stands for Auto Cannabiogen.

It's great strain though. Hands down the best effect for an auto for me.
 
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