A question for breeding experts.

[HempKat]

good post.

i always use as many plants as i can to make an initial cross or 'preservation' seed run. im my case this is a maximum of 10 plants and thats pretty laughable in expert breeding terms but its still a lot better than just a single pair. if you decide to try and take it to f2 and towards a line you want as many genetics as possible to select from in the future.
i mix the male pollen and then label the females, keeping seeds from each plant separate. still a beginner though. got a couple of things at f2 stage, not being able to grow more plants is frustrating sometimes

VG

See this is pretty much my situation, I just grow for myself and as such I don't need big numbers of plants. The only time I have more then 2 dozen plants going is when I'm running a SoG.

I understand what people are saying when they talk about growing out 1000's of plants but to someone not wanting to get into the commercial aspects, telling someone to grow 1000's of plants is useless info because it's never going to happen.

For someone like me the seeds I can make are often as much a matter of circumstance as selection. For example, Gypsy gave me some testers a few years ago and one of the strains was GodBud by Dave Van Pot. Well of the 10 seeds in the pack 5 never even germinated. Of the 5 that germinated only 3 plants made it to being seedlings and then plants. Of those 3 all ended up being male. So in the end I had no clue what to expect of the strain other then what was visible about the 3 males. I had heard some good things about GodBud and so I decided to make some crosses in hopes that some of these qualities I heard about would be passed on but with 3 males from one batch of seeds there wasn't much to select from.

Even under the best of circumstances I'm only ever going to have 10 plants of a given strain to choose from at most. So just forget this talk of 1000's of plants. You'd have better luck trying to talk a vegetarian into eating a hamburger. I had hoped to avoid suggestions like that by starting out saying I have no plans of ever selling anything I'm growing.

What I'm looking for is what generally happens, I ask for the experts opinions because you are the guys growing out 1000's of plants and as such you have alot more experience to draw from then the average grower. I'm not concerned that what I make be stable or accurately comes out the way I had planned. That sort of thing would come later, after I found something worth stabilizing. In the meantime one needs to have a rough idea of what to expect. I find it hard to believe you breeders start out with absolutely no idea what to expect when you cross two strains. I also can't imagine you guys being able to do what you do within a lifetime, if you have no clue what the male is most likely to contribute and what the female is most likely to contribute to a particular cross.

That's what I'm looking for, what each sex is most likely to bring to the table.

 

[Baba Ku]

There has never been anything definitive stated about what a male would bring to the table that a female wouldn't, or visa-versa. No science that I know of would state as such.
(other than the obvious X and Y chromosomes)

The only thing we have is gut feelings about how things seem, and anecdotes of personal observations. IMO, it is more a stain dependent thing, and some plants carry traits more in dominance than others, even within the same line.

You are looking for a rough idea of what to expect...and I stand on that you simply won't know what to expect from a selection of the F1 seed plants, no matter what they appear to posses or could possibly pass on. You need to get from heterozygous to homozygous before you can do what you are wanting to do...and to do that you need as many Ne numbers as possible to create the F2. Then you can start to see what you want in the further crosses.
My point is that you need to make the math as large as possible, and the selection at that stage is more moot than most would think.
1000's of plant may not be possible for most any of us, it is the concept that counts..and the more numbers the better. I think that is the point trying to be made.

OK, so you can't do large numbers...who can? Use as many males as you find acceptable and as many females as make your cut, then do what VD suggests by mixing all the male pollen together and painting all the labeled females you picked.
Once you have seeds form those matings, you can THEN start to isolate the pheno expressions and select for traits. The numbers are still important, as they will always be, but the picks you make now are more apt to pass on what you are actually seeing.
That simply isn't the case with the F1 selection, unless you are in-crossing an already stable IBL.

BTW...since you would have your females labeled, you may see that a particular female is producing many plants that are what you are looking for. That particular female may not actually be showing all these traits, but you know it is her that is throwing them because of your labeling of all the females. You will now have a good female to use for a further back-cross, if you find something you like and want to breed towards.

 

[HempKat]

There has never been anything definitive stated about what a male would bring to the table that a female wouldn't, or visa-versa. No science that I know of would state as such.
(other than the obvious X and Y chromosomes)

The only thing we have is gut feelings about how things seem, and anecdotes of personal observations. IMO, it is more a stain dependent thing, and some plants carry traits more in dominance than others, even within the same line.

You are looking for a rough idea of what to expect...and I stand on that you simply won't know what to expect from a selection of the F1 seed plants, no matter what they appear to posses or could possibly pass on. You need to get from heterozygous to homozygous before you can do what you are wanting to do...and to do that you need as many Ne numbers as possible to create the F2. Then you can start to see what you want in the further crosses.
My point is that you need to make the math as large as possible, and the selection at that stage is more moot than most would think.
1000's of plant may not be possible for most any of us, it is the concept that counts..and the more numbers the better. I think that is the point trying to be made.

OK, so you can't do large numbers...who can? Use as many males as you find acceptable and as many females as make your cut, then do what VD suggests by mixing all the male pollen together and painting all the labeled females you picked.
Once you have seeds form those matings, you can THEN start to isolate the pheno expressions and select for traits. The numbers are still important, as they will always be, but the picks you make now are more apt to pass on what you are actually seeing.
That simply isn't the case with the F1 selection, unless you are in-crossing an already stable IBL.

BTW...since you would have your females labeled, you may see that a particular female is producing many plants that are what you are looking for. That particular female may not actually be showing all these traits, but you know it is her that is throwing them because of your labeling of all the females. You will now have a good female to use for a further back-cross, if you find something you like and want to breed towards.

Okay so the answer then to my question is that there is no way to know. All the rest of that is wasted as I'll likely never move past the F-1 stage. I'm already doing what VG suggested with the labeling just so I'll have some idea of what is what and I'm also doing like he suggested and crossing one male with every female I got.

The problem of course is I have no idea what to expect which is frustrating, especially in cases like my GodBud example where I didn't even have any females to have any idea of the traits other then what I saw in the growth characteristics of the 3 males I did get. I had hoped to hear something like "90% of the time in my experience, the characteristics of the bud (taste, smell, structure, potency, etc.) came from the females and so 90% of the time the overall structure of the plant and how it grew came from the father"

I know it would be anecdotal which is why I'm asking it only of breeding experts. Since anyone being honest with themselves won't respond to that unless they are. Being experts I figure they've put in enough time and experience to make their anecdotal evidence carry more weight then the average joe grower's anecdotal evidence.

 

[Baba Ku]

Assume that males and females do put forth specific traits...
Unless you follow what I was telling you about the selection at F1, it's a moot point.
If there is merit to traits being sex specific, it won't be realized until after the F2's are looked at.
You may well see males (or fems for that matter) that express very similar to your selected males...after the F2's are popped and looked at. Not gonna happen before that, is my point.

 

[VerdantGreen]

if you aren't looking to g beyond f1 then keeping a single male that you like the look of and then making crosses and growing out the f1s should give some clues as to what characteristics it passes on and if it's any good. good single pair f1's (eg. many of the commercial seedbank's offerings) can be great to grow , but from what the experts say it's not the ideal start for an IBL .

 

[Chronic Don]

See this is pretty much my situation, I just grow for myself and as such I don't need big numbers of plants. The only time I have more then 2 dozen plants going is when I'm running a SoG.

what I'm looking for, what each sex is most likely to bring to the table.

I am new to the breeding thing too. I have a million questions. but I would like to give you a suggestion....
since you can not tell how the thc content/flavor/aroma will be by the male you look to the male for plant structure/branching and stalk/branch strength. in your females since you can tell both plant structure AND thc/flavor/aroma look to them for the best of both.
just an idea.

 

[HempKat]

if you aren't looking to g beyond f1 then keeping a single male that you like the look of and then making crosses and growing out the f1s should give some clues as to what characteristics it passes on and if it's any good. good single pair f1's (eg. many of the commercial seedbank's offerings) can be great to grow , but from what the experts say it's not the ideal start for an IBL .

Okay well then I guess it'll be strictly hit or miss and I'll never have a clue as to what to expect. I'm not looking to make IBL's, I'm not looking to back cross or to find a strain and stabilize it. All I was hoping to hear is that females are more likely to influence certain traits in it's offspring and males are more likely to influence other traits. If it's not possible to say that then it's not possible to answer my question because that's all I was looking to know.

See armed with that sort of information it would be possible to decide if two strains were worth crossing or not. If I know going in what each is likely to contribute and that combination of traits didn't seem appealing then I wouldn't bother to explore it further.

Frankly I don't see how it's possible for you breeders to have so many different selections if all of you do what is being recommended since it would take so much time to even see if a certain cross was worth working with and then still have to go thru everything to stabilize and process it to where it's a suitable product for market.

I remember back at OG when lowryder first started showing up and then one of you breeders suddenly started coming out with multiple cross for sale in a time period so short that there is no way any of what was being said I should do, was done. I mean these came out so quick (like within less then a year) they couldn't have been anything more then F-1's of the cross. Yet from what I'm hearing the traits of the lowryder (what made the crosses potentially desirable) in the cross might not have shown up until beyond the F-2 stage.

 

[HempKat]

I am new to the breeding thing too. I have a million questions. but I would like to give you a suggestion....
since you can not tell how the thc content/flavor/aroma will be by the male you look to the male for plant structure/branching and stalk/branch strength. in your females since you can tell both plant structure AND thc/flavor/aroma look to them for the best of both.
just an idea.

Well that's pretty much what I'm doing but so far it's not working out that way at least for any of the F-1's I've grown out so far. Still thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Chronic Don]

Well that's pretty much what I'm doing but so far it's not working out that way at least for any of the F-1's I've grown out so far. Still thanks for the suggestion.

I've read/heard it said that with a crossbreed you will find 50% look like a cross, 50% won't. my outdoor experience is more like 70% look close to what the cross was expected to look like (I grow out hundreds each year).
so out of 10 5 should be like you want. but then maybe you selected 10 seeds that were going to be NOT like what you want, and the next 10 you try may all look like you want. hence people saying gotta try thousands of plants

Thank you for starting this thread/topic I am sitting back watching listening, maybe/hopefully learning

 

[HempKat]

I've read/heard it said that with a crossbreed you will find 50% look like a cross, 50% won't. my outdoor experience is more like 70% look close to what the cross was expected to look like (I grow out hundreds each year).
so out of 10 5 should be like you want. but then maybe you selected 10 seeds that were going to be NOT like what you want, and the next 10 you try may all look like you want. hence people saying gotta try thousands of plants

Thank you for starting this thread/topic I am sitting back watching listening, maybe/hopefully learning

Yeah I get all that but I was hoping to get something more definitive as to what to start with. I mean if I have a sativa I really like but want it to flower faster and grow shorter then I'm going to cross it with an indica but which do I make the male and which the female to get the height and flowering characteristic I want? I mean if 50% is what the cross should be and 50% is not then when I grow out 10 seeds if 5 are short and flower out faster it might appear that I got what I want but if it also ends up tasting like the indica and smelling like the indica then it may be those 5 are just experessing mostly the indica genes and the sativa qualities are recessive. So while they appear what I had hoped for they actually would be representative of those that weren't like the cross.

Likewise the other 5 that took longer and grew taller wouldn't necessarily be bad crosses but just might be more of the sativa with the indica being recessive. Which would mean going beyond the F-1 stage to find the cross I had hoped for, which is not really what I'm trying to do if I can help it. I'm not trying to become a breeder I'm just trying to make some reasonably decent crosses for myself to work with when I don't have store bought genetics to work with.

 

[Chronic Don]

I hear ya bro
I don't believe there is a definitive answer...
my outside stuff shows me that I still get 4 phenos not one and I've been trying to isolate for a few generations now. I'm now going to plant f2's next year but so far I havent went past f1 crossed back to original parent seed stock.
if you can swing it I'd say spend the 50-100 bucks and buy a f2-3-4 of something that is already the style you want.

 

[JWP]

It has been my observation that the females primarily contribute the type of flavor and aroma and the males contribute the amount of flavor and odor.

hahaha funny stuff

Huh?

Its funny because those are just some words. In reality how would anyone including DJ ever come to this conclusion?

One way would be to take two clones of a female and take two different males. One male with less flavor and odor and one with more and pollinate the females. Then grow maybe 500+ of each of the seeds and test the amount of flavor and odor from each. Then to be able to notice a statistically significant difference between the two batches.

I seriously doubt this was done..

Until it is though, those are just words.. Even if they did come from DJ.

 

[JWP]

Well since I'm not looking to ever sell I'm not majorly concerned about being completely accurate. I'm just wanting to be able to know which plants to pick to have a reasonable chance of having the qualities I'm hoping for.

I don't see myself ever growing warehouses full of plants or ever having more then 100 plants max growing. What I'm wanting is this, lets say I have a strain like Cheese where I really like the taste, smell and high but I'm not crazy about the plant structure and yield. Now let's say I have another strain that does have the structure and yield potential I want. I'm wanting to know do I make the plant who has the structure I want the male or do I make it the female and likewise do I want the plant that has the flavor and smell I want to be the male or the female?

Its hard to say if a male or female should be used. If you have a little space maybe you could do both then test the seeds and see which give the best results.

Its hard to give answers because this subject is so far from simple its not funny. I would like to be able to say just pick the best looking female in regards to flavor and smell and choose the best male structure..

But that is so far from wrong its not funny. It is what people have been doing for a long time and has gotten us to where we are today.. but..

It could in fact be the runt that is homozygous in the trait of flavor and smell you want so you overlook it for a heterozygous plant that looks strong and has what you want.

Big mistake.. if you use the heterozygous strong looking plant in favor of the homozygous runt you just failed in your objective of passing on the trait you wanted.

Many people will just recomend you do what people have always done and select, i on the other hand can only recomend open pollination.

At least with open pollination the homozygous runt would have been used and the homozygous genes would have been seen in the progeny. But if you select! Then only recessive genes from the plant that looked good were passed on and you killed off the very thing that you were trying to pass on..

Man i'm having a hard time putting my thoughts into words that make sense..

 

[HempKat]

Its hard to say if a male or female should be used. If you have a little space maybe you could do both then test the seeds and see which give the best results.

Its hard to give answers because this subject is so far from simple its not funny. I would like to be able to say just pick the best looking female in regards to flavor and smell and choose the best male structure..

But that is so far from wrong its not funny. It is what people have been doing for a long time and has gotten us to where we are today.. but..

It could in fact be the runt that is homozygous in the trait of flavor and smell you want so you overlook it for a heterozygous plant that looks strong and has what you want.

Big mistake.. if you use the heterozygous strong looking plant in favor of the homozygous runt you just failed in your objective of passing on the trait you wanted.

Many people will just recomend you do what people have always done and select, i on the other hand can only recomend open pollination.

At least with open pollination the homozygous runt would have been used and the homozygous genes would have been seen in the progeny. But if you select! Then only recessive genes from the plant that looked good were passed on and you killed off the very thing that you were trying to pass on..

Man i'm having a hard time putting my thoughts into words that make sense..

No I get what you're saying so you made sense. I agree that the test you suggest to prove the statement attributed to DJ was probably not done. Just as I doubt that test was done I seriously doubt most of the newer strains being sold today ever had 1000's grownout and then back crossed and everything else that is claimed to be done. Not that all breeders are like that, you can kind of tell who is and who isn't. Just look at breeders coming out with multiple strains per year. There is no way they came even close to growing out 1000's of plants for each strain. I look at people like Sam though and it's very believable because he's not coming out with multiple strains per year. In his case it's very believable he's being that careful in order to breed in stability and uniformity.

 

[Rjstoner]

Its funny because those are just some words. In reality how would anyone including DJ ever come to this conclusion?

I think he came to that conclution in his 30+ years of breeding just a guess though

 

[Ickis]

Why don't you do the male reversal experiment. As it stands now you are trying to find a godbud pheno and you don't know what it smokes like. So take your male and make a few clones of him. One of the clones spray with something to reverse the whole plant when it is short and easily sprayed top to bottom. The other clone let flower and make pollen and dust whatever female you are going to use.

Smoke the reversed male when finished and grow out the seeds you made and look for the ones that looked and smoked like the reversed godbud male.

You could reverse a branch on the female being used and use that pollen to pollenate a bud on the reversed male, now female godbud. That would give you a different set of seeds to search for a godbud type plant.

 

[HempKat]

Why don't you do the male reversal experiment. As it stands now you are trying to find a godbud pheno and you don't know what it smokes like. So take your male and make a few clones of him. One of the clones spray with something to reverse the whole plant when it is short and easily sprayed top to bottom. The other clone let flower and make pollen and dust whatever female you are going to use.

Smoke the reversed male when finished and grow out the seeds you made and look for the ones that looked and smoked like the reversed godbud male.

You could reverse a branch on the female being used and use that pollen to pollenate a bud on the reversed male, now female godbud. That would give you a different set of seeds to search for a godbud type plant.

No the Godbud was just an example. I made some crosses with it and that's all done now and I don't have the male anymore.

 

[MedUser420]

Thanks, that's more along the lines of what I was looking for info wise.

Im sorry but DJ short is wrong when he says females pass on this trait and males pass on that trait. Dominate homo AA and dominate hetero Aa traits are what the plants will pass on. Only way to find out which traits will get passed on is making seeds! The progeny will tell you which genetic traits(smell, taste etc etc) are dominate.

 

[3dDream]

HempKat - Is the 10 plant limit for adult plants? Can you pop lots of seed and select the best seedlings? I am in a small space and have popped 40+ at a time to select the most fit seedlings. I have also selected seedling by color (red stems vs green).

 

[HempKat]

HempKat - Is the 10 plant limit for adult plants? Can you pop lots of seed and select the best seedlings? I am in a small space and have popped 40+ at a time to select the most fit seedlings. I have also selected seedling by color (red stems vs green).

There's no official limit I have to follow. When I do SOG I've had as many as 80 plants going at once. The problem as I see it in what you suggest is what are you going to be using to judge your selections? I mean seedlings aren't going to show you too much. You could pick which are more vigorous or which is more sativa dom or more indica dom but I don't see how you could tall much more until you grow them out and it's in growing them out to adulthood where many plants can be a problem for me. It's not when I do SOG because I'm intentionally keeping plants short. If I were selecting plants though I wouldn't want to grow them short unless that was the way they naturally grew.