How do you choose you breeding males?

[englishrick]

I believe selection of male plants to be a vast topic,,,we need to ask the question how important males are to our seedlines,,what impact all different choices may have on a line, and even the possibility of negation of males altogether,,,

 

[PoweredByLove]

@PoweredByLove. What I was saying is if you use 2 parents the pool is now reduced to those 2 plants. There may be many things lost from the population. I believe we’re talking about 2 different things here. My point is more along the lines of preservation and yours is more along the lines of selective breeding.

I can’t do a true preservation project let alone a good selective breeding project because I can’t run the numbers. (Back to the numbers, lol).

Ever seen any Ag breeding projects in progress? Most involve 1000’s of plants and these are selective breeding projects. It’s a little hard with cannabis due to its legal status.

if you only have 2 plants to start with then what?

i'm working on the assumption that all you have are 2 seeds left of "magical unicorn" a long lost strain originally grown by jesus. somehow you got a male and one female.??

you cross those 2 and then cross the offspring some more no?

i mean how else are you gonna get these variations you're looking for? and also...would you still not end up with the same phenotypes in that pool?

lets say you don't know this is "magical unicorn" you just stumble across this field one day unknown to you it's actually the long lost plot of land jesus was working on before he died. he popped all the f2's he got from 2 long lost magical unicorn seeds from his dad. are these field of magical unicorn somehow different because they are out in a field? because we popped all the seeds at once? if i only run 2 seeds at a time only keeping the best of the pair. is that any different than popping all the seeds at once?

10 at a time, 20 at a time? what if i only pop 10 of the seeds and keep the 2 best plants. is it any different than popping 100 and keeping the 20 best?

everyone, unless there's something i don't know, is working from the same base of unknown strain and unknown potential correct?

so we don't know what the best plant is right? unless we go through ALLLL the plants right? like i mean all the plants in existence.

so back to this sam the skunkman example of the 2000+ seeds.

maybe sam had 2000 unknown seeds...he wanted to make a strain. he would HAVE had to pop all those seeds to find out which was the best. the absolute best one. if he just wanted one of the best he could have easily just popped 20 seeds and started selecting from there.

but in any case. if you don't know what you have already...which no one does since every seed is a mystery...you can't know till you exhaust every possibility. so 2000 seeds is nothing depending on what your end goal is...and 2000 seeds is a pointless waste of time...depending on your end goals.

 

[Fuel]

lmao Jesus seeds, you make my day

More seriously, i get your point PBL but yes something is missing in your consideration.

if i only run 2 seeds at a time only keeping the best of the pair. is that any different than popping all the seeds at once?

I'm the first to claim the "everyone's breeder" to push people to be more respectfull of what they have, instead of what they think they can have. Plants are not iphone applications, it take years/generations to known them and to use theyr full potential.

But in practice, the difference is real and drastic. This is not a placebo or only a trick to say "don't breed, buy my fem seeds"(not mine, but you get it).

And you will not like it but it's worse in fact, steps in the number of seeds that you launch exist. It's a personnal feeling with the methods wich are mine, the customs, the manner to evaluate a specimen etc ... but :

- launching 10 seeds don't give the same matter to work that 50 seeds
- launching 50 seeds don't give the same matter to work that 100 seeds
- launching 100 seeds don't give the same matter to work that 1K seeds
over 1K seeds i consider it as a specific will to push the things (the accuracy) to the maximum possible

We can argue and debate a millenary on chaos theory, computer's algos wich will calculate for you where is the best cannabis of the world etc ... that's not my point. I don't speak about quality or any form of quantity needed to become the best breeder of the galaxy.

Just the obligation for everyone to consider the matter that they work for theyr own projects (whatever it is). Just imagine a drone wich can set with different altitude.

At 10 meters, you can see and evaluate a group and sort them by the colors of theyr clothes.

At 100 meters, you start to see mass moves that you don't get in low altitude. But you stop to see colors and individuals.

At 1000 meters, you must use the previous datas in memory because you simply don't see any individuals. But, you start to understand more the mass moves because now you can link them all with the topography and important weather parameters (depression, anticyclone, gulf stream etc ...)

It's exactly the same thing with the selection we're talking about. That's not a quality of selection that increase with each specimen you add. It's not exponential. It's simply a different matter to work and so, a different work to do.

And that's not a matter of a "end goal", throw it far from your brain for good. At this level of breeding (reaching 1K or more), all "steps" are sequential. You both need to grow only one mother a long time and also need to known what type of variation you can expect. And not only from twos specimens, but from twos lines.

The increment in quality that you're doubt about is :
1 - conditionned to the practices and the methods of breeding used
2 - entirely subjective (i love strong high and hate narcos couchlock, for somes it's the reverse)
3 - if you're enough methodic and serious with large quantity of information, depend on a third on a luck factor (DNA wheel of fortune lol)

AND this increment is 100% artificial. That's not automatic, that's not exponential to the number you launch, that's just the part of you that you put in the final results.

Less funny, if you work your couple of specimens with methods that are made for 1K specimens ... you simply don't do anything but having fun. And the reverse is true, too.

A lot of actual people wanting to touch what the breeding is (i mean with a minimal control on results) have a weird vision of it (imho). They think that's a blend between art and software algorythm.

The art is maded by the plants themselves in the spectrum that your dictatorial rationnalism let as what i call the "30% factor chance". All of that drived entirely by your sensibility, wich can't be replaced by any algorythm.

I hope that i helped to dilute the passion in simples dirty hands things for you lol

 

[Betterhaff]

if you only have 2 plants to start with then what?

If you only have 2 plants to begin with then it is what it is. Those are the population.

If you make seeds from those 2 plants, grow out the offspring and cull all but the “best” male and female and mate them you have extremely bottlenecked the pool from the original 2 seeds. The pool will be more diverse if you mate 10, 20, etc and then apply pressure after you see what you have but you are still working with the pool of the original 2 seeds.

if i only run 2 seeds at a time only keeping the best of the pair. is that any different than popping all the seeds at once?

10 at a time, 20 at a time? what if i only pop 10 of the seeds and keep the 2 best plants. is it any different than popping 100 and keeping the 20 best?

Are you talking about breeding or pheno hunting? If you’re talking about breeding then I would be popping the 100 and keeping the best 20. It’s a probability game. Good plant breeding is based on population genetics.

 

[corky1968]

lmao Jesus seeds, you make my day.

I want the clones that Moses had.

Anything that makes you wander the desert for 40 years must be some very good stuff.

I sense lighting clouds coming over me soon.

 

[PoweredByLove]

If you only have 2 plants to begin with then it is what it is. Those are the population.

If you make seeds from those 2 plants, grow out the offspring and cull all but the “best” male and female and mate them you have extremely bottlenecked the pool from the original 2 seeds. The pool will be more diverse if you mate 10, 20, etc and then apply pressure after you see what you have but you are still working with the pool of the original 2 seeds.
Are you talking about breeding or pheno hunting? If you’re talking about breeding then I would be popping the 100 and keeping the best 20. It’s a probability game. Good plant breeding is based on population genetics.

i'm actually not even sure what we're talking about anymore lol. we started off on how you choose a male and someone said something about needing to sort 2000 males to find the best one...and now we're here.

 

[englishrick]

I believe we are talking about many things at once...


1.. what criteria we should use in order to choose high quality males and tricks to evaluate. .

2 .. what it takes to choose and then preserve seedlines, so that we are able to find high quality males perpetually.

3 .. if we need males or not

4. What are the drawbacks when choosing inappropriate males to breed with and what we can do to correct inadequacy. .

Etc

It's quite a vast topic.. I guess that's why this thread took off so well

 

[Fuel]

So true lol, but it's important to speak about the "conditions of use" in don't falling in the usual god rules like "the lastest, the best", "the more seeds germinated, the best" or anything like that. It's a bad tool to react well against the errors/trials. It's why i love so much this specific humor for this specific subject too.

I don't want to appear "bad mouth" but if i synthetize the thread, it's what i get : "just roll the dices". As the majority of males threads i'm used to read since years. Even with Da Vinci Code secrets shared at full moon from secrets society.

Somes sarcasms are very good but the most practical and rationnal post i've found is this one :

A novel concept I know, but how about find a female you like then find a male version.

Identify by leaf shape, growth pattern, smell etc.. Most strains will have the same pheno pop up more than once so you just be looking for the male version of your favorite female.

Maybe it's a sarcasm too, who known. At least it's how i read the introduction from my point of view.

I've started in guerrilla mode and this period have lasted a fews seasons. It helped me a lot on the males questions, during years until now.

1) Because i've understanded a lot later that the males that i got outdoor are allready naturally selected to be the navy seals of the crop.
2) Because on the decent number of crops dissimulated, i always get a bunch of majestic males. Fully mature, fully developed in term of floral structure and covered by pollen.

My point is that the majority of growers are used to deal with females only. With fem seeds it's worse now in a certain manner. We have the chance to can buy "seeds to smoke" now.

Near to no one ask "how i can choose a female", outside highly theoric debates that no one use or care one time they have the hands on the dirt, a blunt between the lips. And if you read a "get the holly male 101", it's the best prove that you have somes females in mind to deal with.

I like to share on this subject just because i grow males to theyr maturated state and i eventually smoke them flowered when it's necessary. Since a long time, because for me seeds are a genetic matter to reproduce before all.

I can't honestly say "cull all early flowered males" at the moment i don't grow only Jack Herer specimens. I've reduced some ladies/lines like that without considering it as an error with the results i got. God rules in breeding are, for me, just good to throw far away. The more absolute you are, the less rationnal you are. And you will end to fight with mother nature in thinking that you will win a day with your lifespan of an insect, like a stoned fool.

And i can expand this impossibility to all strains wich generate specific equilibrums in all parameters possible.
It's why when i see a thread wich present the males as a specific strain to select, i can't resist lol In fact i think that sarcasms are the best tool to enter in this game, they keep the beginners away from useless errors.

 

[Betterhaff]

i'm actually not even sure what we're talking about anymore lol. we started off on how you choose a male and someone said something about needing to sort 2000 males to find the best one...and now we're here.

lol, sorry bro. Yeah I know…got sidetracked a bit. I just commented about a statement you made about the quantity of allele combinations from 2 plants and that discussion morphed.