How to create a new mold resistant strain for cold climate

[Superauto]

Finally I found the right forum for my questions so I repost it here . I live in a country with strict cannabis laws, there is no where to buy seeds and even the possession of cannabis seeds alone is illegal.
So I want to create my own seeds so I don't need to smuggle seeds any more into the country and I also want to create a couple of outdoor autoflower strains adapted to the local climate and conditions where I live here up north(+60N)

I know the basics like adding male pollen to a female bud, so far so good, but what about the strain selection, what to trait to prior and which so I leave behind?

Should I go for seeds from the plants who:
-First sprout
-Had a short vegetative stage or maybe the one who had a longer vegetative stage
-Early and short blooming or late and long blooming(Or maybe late and short blooming?)
-Have good mold resistance
And sure a hundred other factors to consider, but where to begin?

And then when ever I am getting closer to make a strain which seem to thrive in my backyard, how do I make the strain stable so the seeds will give a strain more or less equal to the mother and father strain?

It will take years you said, oh I hopefully still have many years to go

My seeds are so far the seven feminized autoflowers from Zenseeds
https://zenseeds.dk/shop/autoflower-feminized-95c1.html

I also have autoflower female and male seeds from Lowryder and Hofmann(Zenseeds)
https://zenseeds.dk/shop/lowryder-#1-213p.html
https://zenseeds.dk/shop/hofmann-automatic-903p.html

So this is my base, 9 different females and 2 different males(Hofmann and Lowryder)
Educate me please

 

[SICE]

They are auto flowers so you would need to have a male present along with the females... Risking a sinsemilla grow... That's the only thing you should consider or can be a problem.

And this would hinder selection to some extent.

 

[Superauto]

Yes, the males will come from the Lowryder and Hoffman strains

 

[gorilla ganja]

Really that is the fun in breeding, picking the traits you want to see in the offspring. As you said there are many different traits you can breed for. You have to pick the ones that are most important to you and your situation. Then try to breed those traits into your breeding stock.
Some of the ones I find most important are mold resistance and finishing times. Obviously being further North like me if it doesn't finish or gets destroyed by mold it really does not matter how good the smoke is or what it looks like if it will not finish properly.

Best of luck in your quest.

Peace GG

 

[potty1]

Well I think you have to focus on mold resistance first and foremost.
In the first year grow half of your seeds out for sensi.
See which ones will finish and not rot out and making sure the variety your choosing the male from doesn't turn to mush.
Then smoke test the ones that finish and work out which ones to concentrate on the following year.
Then the following year grow only the better ones and possibly reverse one for pollen (sts?) or choose a male and pollinate a couple of branches of each if you want to retain some sensi.(you can freeze the pollen to store it as long as it is dry with no contaminants.)
Grow the seeds the following year as sensi and see what you got.
There are many paths you can take but ultimately imo potency is no good if the plants don't make it so you gotta find the ones that finish most importantly.

 

[St. Phatty]

So I want to create my own seeds so I don't need to smuggle seeds any more into the country and I also want to create a couple of outdoor autoflower strains adapted to the local climate and conditions where I live here up north(+60N)

I know the basics like adding male pollen to a female bud, so far so good, but what about the strain selection, what to trait to prior and which so I leave behind?

Should I go for seeds from the plants who:
-First sprout
-Had a short vegetative stage or maybe the one who had a longer vegetative stage
-Early and short blooming or late and long blooming(Or maybe late and short blooming?)
-Have good mold resistance
And sure a hundred other factors to consider, but where to begin?

I think part of the trick is, the plants can get "head-faked" if you put them out too early. Sometimes the light cycle in April and May is closer to a flowering light cycle. It's not hard to deal with it, they just need a few extra hours of night light to give them a veg. light cycle.

As far as the Mold & Cold, part of that is in the Plant TLC department. e.g. shaking the plants every morning to shed moisture from condensation, or adding a big oscillating fan (for an outdoor plant) to make real sure she gets dry.

Also, if there is rain during the summer, one option is to build a temporary greenhouse, to keep the plants dry. I did that to deal with a 5 day rainy spell we had during the summer.


As far as the Begin part, you just begin.

Because you are a self-correcting organism, it almost doesn't matter where you begin.

I wouldn't use my best seeds first time around, because you may learn something new, at the expense of those seedlings.

 

[Superauto]

I think part of the trick is, the plants can get "head-faked" if you put them out too early. Sometimes the light cycle in April and May is closer to a flowering light cycle. It's not hard to deal with it, they just need a few extra hours of night light to give them a veg. light cycle.

As far as the Mold & Cold, part of that is in the Plant TLC department. e.g. shaking the plants every morning to shed moisture from condensation, or adding a big oscillating fan (for an outdoor plant) to make real sure she gets dry.

Also, if there is rain during the summer, one option is to build a temporary greenhouse, to keep the plants dry. I did that to deal with a 5 day rainy spell we had during the summer.


As far as the Begin part, you just begin.

Because you are a self-correcting organism, it almost doesn't matter where you begin.

I wouldn't use my best seeds first time around, because you may learn something new, at the expense of those seedlings.

Thanks, I am doing autos so my plants will not be very depended on the amount of daylight, and another factor is my location.
I live up north more than 60N, after the equinox around march 20th when day and night are equal then things start to happen fast here.
Already at april 1st the day have become 13 hours long
April 12th 14 hours
April 23th 15 hours
May 4th 16 hours

So as you can see the amount of daylight hours isn't really the problem, we are more concerned about the weather.
Mid of May use to be the thumb rule for when to move summer plants outside here, still you need to have an eye on the weather forecast to see if they need a blanket at night the rest of May, and even sometimes in June.
Frost use to set in October, sometimes late September other years late October and even not until November, you just don't know, but harvest should be done during September except potatoes and oats, they can handle some frost nights in October.
May is the least humid month(60%) here so when it come to mold I guess the ideal plan would be a indoor grow for sprouting and vegging starting in March/April and finish them of outside in May.
In September the humidity here is 80% so strains that easily get molded just don't work, we end up with mold, mold and mold!

But of course, some strains does handle this shitty climate and my goal is to grow a mold resistant strain.
One that can grow from seed outside from early May and that handle cold and rainy summers and get done blooming during September.

I guess the Lowryder genes is a good start for cross breeding here

 

[Guy Brush]

The best thing against mold is an open bud structure, like sativas/nld use to have it.

 

[potty1]

Lowryder is a mould magnet here at 55lat UK lake district.
Autos in general don't fare well outside in my experience.
You need sat doms.
Some kind of haze autos or maybe something from La Buena Hierba

 

[MJPassion]

Here's how I would go about it...

Not sure how many seeds you are starting with but I assume a very limited population... Less than 50 seeds.

For your first seed run, if you can, do it indoors so that you can bulk up your seed supply.

If you cannot do an indoor run you will be at the mercy of your climate. Hope you fare well.

Start all your seed & open pollinate each variety to be crossed. Again... A bulking of seed stock previous to actually crossing is recommended. Without bulking your initial stock, you will have little to nothing to fall back on if your initial attempt at producing an acclimated variety falls short of your goals.

After bulking, start as many seeds as you desire & observe the traits of the various individuals, noting what you like & dislike as those plants grow. You can make the cross during this time but then you must realize that a plant producing seed is focused on mainly that (producing seed)... OR you can simply observe to see what phenotypes come about, choosing parents later based on previous observations.

Once you make the cross...
Grow as many seed plants as you are comfortable with... In two locations, in the climate they're being bred for. One location for sensi & one location for seed bearing plants.

Now... The fun starts when you are harvesting your seed plants. Observe closely, which plants had the least mould/mildew & use the seed ONLY from those plants for the next seasons grow.

You probably want some potency with those plants as well so make yourself a list of charachteristics you'd like to see in your plants and work toward those traits one at a time according to your priority.

It's a lot of work over a lot of time but you will be rewarded with excellence if you persevere.

 

[Superauto]

Lowryder is a mould magnet here at 55lat UK lake district.
Autos in general don't fare well outside in my experience.
You need sat doms.
Some kind of haze autos or maybe something from La Buena Hierba

Damn! Then I maybe have to reconsider my Lowryder strategy, but I only have one more male to use so far, thats the Hofman from Zenseeds, a LSD x Ruderalis-strain, can it work out better than the Lowryder?
Thanks for the tip

 

[Critter]

The Chernobyl Golden Ticket cut was very resistant for me. A haze will usually also be very resistant as some mentioned. Other than that pop and search and test is all i got left to offer

 

[MJPassion]

Superauto, check post 10... I've edited it...

Also...
I'm not so sure about using Haze genes at 60lat... They're typically long flowering equatorial varieties, ime.

 

[Superauto]

Here's how I would go about it...

Not sure how many seeds you are starting with but I assume a very limited population... Less than 50 seeds.

For your first seed run, if you can, do it indoors so that you can bulk up your seed supply.

If you cannot do an indoor run you will be at the mercy of your climate. Hope you fare well.

Start all your seed & open pollinate each variety to be crossed. Again... A bulking of seed stock previous to actually crossing is recommended. Without bulking your initial stock, you will have little to nothing to fall back on if your initial attempt at producing an acclimated variety falls short of your goals.

You are right, I am short of seeds
7 unsexed Lowryder
7 unsexed Hofman
and 2 feminized seeds each of the other 7 strains from Zenseeds

Seed production is sure my first priority to make my own seed bank so I can manage to fail in the future, if only I manage to make some seeds of these 9 strains this first season

I'm planning to start the seeds in a balcony grow, let it be in a small greenhouse early spring with a back up heater in case of frosty nights
Whenever they start to bloom I will bring them out to a cold frame and leave them there until its safe to plant them outside some time in May.

I will get males from Lowryder and Hofman so I will try to pollinate the females with pollen from both of them
So different buds will have different crossing
If I'm lucky I will get 9 x 2 crossings so that will be 18 different seeds

 

[Superauto]

Or 18 F1's, but the Lowryder x Hofman will be more or less the same as Hofman x Lowryder, so I guess 17 F1's is more correct

 

[MJPassion]

It sounds as if you'll have something to work with from all those seeds.

If you end up with an exceptional male (or 2) you might consider collecting pollen & putting it on ice for later use as well.

 

[MJPassion]

Or 18 F1's, but the Lowryder x Hofman will be more or less the same as Hofman x Lowryder, so I guess 17 F1's is more correct

Don't mix those seeds...

They won't be the same...

Similar but not the same.

You can work those two lines independently & cross them back together at a later date... Then you might realize your name!

 

[potty1]

Superauto, check post 10... I've edited it...

Also...
I'm not so sure about using Haze genes at 60lat... They're typically long flowering equatorial varieties, ime.

Auto haze are what was recommended and should finish ok at 60lat?

 

[rolandomota]

Get some auto Malawi and erdpurt from ace pck is also good from them the erdpurt and pck are cold and mold resistant but you live way up north so auto malawi northern lights x lowrider 2 would make a good mold resistant auto thats true breeding for autoflower traits

 

[Superauto]

How is it to cross a very early(but weak to mold) strain with a late bloomer that has a very strong mold resistance? Is it that easy to make a combo that can bring an early bloomer With strong mold resistance? And if so, For how many generations should this F1 strain be crossed back before we see the good results? F3 or F4?