How to select a male?

[Infinitesimal]

are there linked traits?

what I have alway thought was silly was people making judgment on the quality of individual plants based on the leaf morphology... I mean who cares what the leaf looks like, I don't grow cannabis to admire the different leaf shapes. and that is just one more observable trait that is likely polygenic like most and just adds to the burden of selection.

but then I notice many people switching up the classification terminology from Indica and Sativa to Broad/Wide Leaf Drug trait (B/WLD) and Narrow Leaf Drug trait (NLD). why note and base the classification on the shape of the leaf if it has no bearing on the genetic traits associated with those varieties outside of the shape of their leaves?

if flowering time isn't linked to potency and the type of effect , like tom says... and I take his word for... but not with out questioning enough to have a proper understanding, then one would think that someone could have bred a variety that flowers fast and yields well like an Indica but produces the best and rarest quality sativa high normally relegated to plants that take 15+ weeks to flower like the haze for example, correct?

 

[Elmer Bud]

G`day Infentesimal

I queried the long flowering related to high.
Tom said its Mendelic .

I`ve had some time to think about that . Not the case in practice in my experience .
Or the collective experience of the Canna Community .

The hybrids seem to still have that long flowering = higher highs trait. Yet to find a 70 day plant that gets me as high as the 100 dayers ??

Thanks for sharin

EB .

 

[Infinitesimal]

it seems there is a trade off, maybe the 70 day is just as potent... but the type of effect is not as special or unique... or maybe it's just as potent, but the duration is much shorter.

 

[Anchorite]

I got 15 regular seeds of the same strain. I wasn't planning on doing any selection, just letting them all hang loose so I could get a lot of seeds for myself.

I have 6 that I think are male. Is there any reason I would want to take a male out? As in some undesirable trait that I absolutely would not want to make my seeds with?

 

[Infinitesimal]

hermaphrodite

 

[Anchorite]

Cool, thank you for the reply.

 

[SeedsOfFreedom]

I got 15 regular seeds of the same strain. I wasn't planning on doing any selection, just letting them all hang loose so I could get a lot of seeds for myself.

I have 6 that I think are male. Is there any reason I would want to take a male out? As in some undesirable trait that I absolutely would not want to make my seeds with?

This is actually a great question, I believe that the average breeder/grower should be using multiple males, and culling only the weak,mutant,intersex, and obviously unhealthy males.

We need our plant to be legal before going too far with nothing but 1:1 crosses. I actually prefer variety in strains, we usually grow from clone if we are looking for uniform plants anyway.

I think preservation of as many genes as possible is a good idea, and if selection is necessary, then we should be doing it mostly on the females, while using multiple males.

I know individual progeny tests are great, but life is only so long. I prefer group progeny tests(progeny from groups of pollen donors that is). I think the best way to look at it is: what we don't get done in our life times, others will get done in the future. Let's just try to preserve the genes for them to work with.

That said I know 1:1 crosses have a place in breeding, however I think multiple pollen donors mixed to multiple females is a good idea for most circumstances, it gives us variety and still preserves things for future use.

 

[Betterhaff]

You can do 1:1 with multiple males by pollinating clones of the same female with different males or different branches of a female with different males. If you are looking to find a male to keep this will give you the ability to differentiate after progeny tests as opposed to just letting the pollen fly. It requires keeping more plants, just depends on your goal.

 

[Anchorite]

I want as much genetic diversity in this seed crop as possible, I plan on playing with this strain for a while.

I don't want to mess with clones for now, seeds are way cooler in my opinion.

 

[TheRealHash]

I've been selecting males lately.

I'm going to keep testing individual males all winter.

Males in my father room:

Ace Seeds' Bangi Haze

Ace Seeds' Pakistani Chitral Kush

Gage Greens' Wifi x Grape Stomper O.G.

Sensi Seeds' Afghani #1

Sensi Seeds' Durban

White Labels' Master Kush

Flying Dutchmans' The Pure

and a couple of my own..

Afgooey x Silver Haze

Pre'93 Super Silver Haze x Silver Haze

 

[Infinitesimal]

the reason you need to test many males from the same line in order to find the right specimen....

polygenic inheritance, quantitative traits...
http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-a-polygenic-inheritance.htm

 

[TheRealHash]

the reason you need to test many males from the same line in order to find the right specimen....

polygenic inheritance, quantitative traits...
http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-a-polygenic-inheritance.htm

I only have two males selected from each variety but it will take me all winter just to breed these males out, then comes the testing.

I think next time I'm going to work one variety at a time and get as many males as I can to test.

 

[Infinitesimal]

I only have two males selected from each variety but it will take me all winter just to breed these males out, then comes the testing.

I think next time I'm going to work one variety at a time and get as many males as I can to test.

yep that is the work that comes with breeding...


yeah doing one variety at a time increases your odds of finding that special dude, instead of spreading your odds thin across multiple varieties.

 

[Johnnyseed]

I was wondering. .

I had just chucked Some Pollen From A Very Stinky, fast flowering male plant. Not to much resin cover, not too much of anything else but this extreme skunk smell.

Does smell transfer into ONLY smell or does this Intel that gives potent offspring???

 

[Only Ornamental]

As it seems, essential oil content correlates to some degree with cannabinoid content.
For one, we don't know what causes the skunk smell, could even be something else than monoterpenes (the main constituents of mature-cannabis essential oil), and for another, smell intensity of essential oils doesn't correlate to concentrations. That means, a lot of stink doesn't even indicate a lot of essential oil... the conclusion that a strong smell correlates with potency is farfetched.
Then again, the phenotype 'smell', though of barely understood genetic basis, is regulated by a lot of different genes and eventually even non-genetic mechanisms. As Mendel's rules won't apply, only a test breeding, eventually over more than only one generation, will tell. Though, experience also with other aromatic plants than cannabis suggest that a certain flavour can be inherited and may occur more frequently in the offspring in case one or both parents expressed it.

 

[SeedsOfFreedom]

In something I was reading a while ago, DJ Short had said something like, females may influence the type of tastes and smells more, and males may influence the amount of tastes and smells more. I quickly looked and couldn't find that paper, so sorry for not having the quote. What do you guys think? Do you see some truth to this statement?

 

[Only Ornamental]

I like the 'may influence' .
I don't see how a male could contribute more than a female but clearly why the opposite is the case.
The reason: Every plant contains the same set of autosomes and at least one X allosome. A female inherits chloroplasts and mitochondria, passes on the bulk of cytosolic factors, and influences epigenetic mechanisms within the seed. True, the males contribute the Y allosome but since the main function of sex chromosomes in cannabis is likely that of 'sex switches', my reasoning is that a male can't contribute more than a female but a female imperatively passes on more than a male.

 

[Dropped Cat]

So once again its the the male that contributes less.

My wife is right again, dammit.

 

[harry74]

I would say it´s exactly the opposite.

What is kept as a stallion in animal breeding, the male or female?

Horses, dogs, cats........

Yes, I know animals aren´t plants.

A good male can improve the offspring of an average female.

If you cross a outstanding female with an average male, it´s a lot less likely that will be improvement.

 

[Only Ornamental]

Harry, do you personally breed animals?
I did and intend to do it again... Anyway, I've bot a fair impression in for example dog breeding and there's no-zero-nada difference between males and females visible. The males are only made public and get hyped because they can inseminate females round the world and all the time. You can 'rent' a stallion but not a mare and that's why . Oh, and tradition and patriarchy... not that long ago, the MAN was what counted, not the WIFE. Look at your own family tree; too often it's only the fathers mentioned.