How to tell if a male is worth breeding....

[C21H30O2]

yesterday my friend comes over for a quick smoke before he hits the club. cat piss its some good stuff... anyway i was sitting in bed around 12 reading cervantes growers bible in the section on breeding. he says some breeders use ethylene to cause males flowers to turn female and female to turn male. this got me thinking couldnt a person who is considering a a cross take a male plant and treat it with ethylene to get it to produce flowers and then smoke them to test potency ect. the first thing that pops to mind is safety but ethylene is alread used by commercial fruit growers to help fruit ripen. thoughts? comments?

 

[Berry_Coughin']

never tried it..... worth the effort for sure.... but the only way to guarantee stellar male breeders is to test the progeny.....imho

 

[GhostToker]

Odor, vigor of growth, quantity of flowers (yes, male flowers), speed of maturation, etc. After all that, the VERY best way is to make seeds and then test the offspring, thats how you can tell if the male is good for breeding.

 

[stealthballer]

just smoke the male, I don't understand why people think males won't get you high.

 

[PhishHead]

Odor, vigor of growth

thats what ive looked for, thus far.

 

[glock23]

Some male plants actually have higher THC levels than females of the same strain. Seriously.

 

[C21H30O2]

all current methods of selcting males before a progeny test are only weak indicators to the plants potential as a breeding parent. the progeny test is the very best way but by smoking female flowers growin on a male plant you can determine dominate and recessive traits and narrow down potental fathers.

 

[fjällhöga]

hehe ...

I don't understand why people think males won't get you high.

the male may get you high ... , but the buzz wont reveal the other phenotypic expressions which are passed on by male ...

Fj

 

[Raco]

just smoke the male, I don't understand why people think males won't get you high.

It sucks, but you´re right:
smoking male leaves checks potency

 

[OG bub]

hehe ...



the male may get you high ... , but the buzz wont reveal the other phenotypic expressions which are passed on by male ...

Fj

so true!

 

[Grat3fulh3ad]

by smoking female flowers growin on a male plant you can determine dominate and recessive traits

Please explain how smoking flower differentiates dominant and recessive traits. In other words... How could you determine traits the male might carry and pass on but not express? This is what recessive traits are... traits passed along that are only expressed when paired with the right allele, but are usually not seen due to the dominant trait at the same locus.

The only way to explore the breeding potential of a given male, in the absence of a genetics testing laboratory facility, is to breed him to a variety of females and grow out the progeny.

 

[stealthballer]

but if you smoked a male and he wrecked you wouldn't that be a good male to start with? I understand you have no way of determining which traits will pass on but generally speaking if you have a male with a good growth pattern and basic traits you want, plus he wrecked you when you tried him out, wouldn't that be the male you work with?

Rather than a male you didn't get a buzz off but it grew like all hell...

 

[Ganico]

Hell I personally plan to just use all the males. Not the best plan I know, but far from the worst. At least I won't be losing any good genetics from the males, that's for sure, haha.

 

[Grat3fulh3ad]

but if you smoked a male and he wrecked you wouldn't that be a good male to start with? I understand you have no way of determining which traits will pass on but generally speaking if you have a male with a good growth pattern and basic traits you want, plus he wrecked you when you tried him out, wouldn't that be the male you work with?

Rather than a male you didn't get a buzz off but it grew like all hell...

Sure... couldn't hurt... But Still... THE ONLY WAY to know if the male you picked out passed those traits or passes traits that you can't see (recessive) is to breed said male and grow out the progeny.

 

[C21H30O2]

Please explain how smoking flower differentiates dominant and recessive traits. In other words... How could you determine traits the male might carry and pass on but not express? This is what recessive traits are... traits passed along that are only expressed when paired with the right allele, but are usually not seen due to the dominant trait at the same locus.

The only way to explore the breeding potential of a given male, in the absence of a genetics testing laboratory facility, is to breed him to a variety of females and grow out the progeny.

you would have to do test crosses ofcourse just like you would with a female to determine dominant and recessive traits. and recessive traits do show themsevles but only in indviduals that are homozygous for that recessive trait. so if you get a male plant turn it into a female smoke the flowers (how little amout there may be) and the high expresses some unique qualities then you can do test corsses with other individuals examine the progeny and determine if the trait is recessive or dominante in that breeding male. the idea was not to get ride of the progeny test but to narrow down your selection of males before you put them in the progeny test.

another idea: butane resin extraction (butane acts as a solvent and seperates plant matter from resin). so you can get a ruff estimate of a males plants resin producing abilities by doing an extraction on a set amount of plant matter and compare that to extractions from your other males. the males that produce the most oil can then be assumed to possess genes which lean towards greater resin production.

these are just idea or thoughts, never put into practice but i think they could be beneficial tools. thoughts, comments?

 

[Grat3fulh3ad]

There would be absolutely no need to turn it into a female to determine the qualities of it's high. If a male produces enough resins to be of interest they will be visible. However you may be trashing males which would pass along the same traits. whether or not the trait is dispalyed in a given male is not necessicarily indication of the dominance/recessiveness of the trait, only observance of progeny of said male and several different females could really tell you that.

The best way to narrow down males is to cull negative traits.

 

[OG bub]

There would be absolutely no need to turn it into a female to determine the qualities of it's high. If a male produces enough resins to be of interest they will be visible. However you may be trashing males which would pass along the same traits. whether or not the trait is dispalyed in a given male is not necessicarily indication of the dominance/recessiveness of the trait, only observance of progeny of said male and several different females could really tell you that.

The best way to narrow down males is to cull negative traits.

Im not shure how many time h3ad will have to repeat himself before its clear to some folks...lol..

but he is exactly right!

peace, bub.

 

[zamalito]

I'm guilty of smoking growing tips to determine qualities of a male and smoking male growing tips is crucial for the landrace indica and higher latitude sativa populations I'm working with that still haven't been fully selected for the Bt allele. Unless you have a gas chromatagraph there's simply no easier way to identify whether cbd or thc is the primary cannabinoid. However since a smaller portion of cannabinoids in vegetative growth come from oils secreted by glandular trichomes I take it as a less accurate way of judging the characteristics of the high. I'm not sure how one would go about producing female flowers on a male but if done successfully it may be a way to further judge glandular trichome phentoype of a male plant. Of course testing the results of a pollination is crucial and perhaps I'm being lazy but, under prohibition any way of weeding out males which display undesirable female traits and determining the female floral characteristics, all of which are recessive to male floral characteristics can save valuable time and space for testing. Even if it is just concering phenotype I don't feel you can ever have too much information to go on. Now whether its worth the time and effort is a different story. I've never produced female flowers on a male so I can't say but logic dictates that breeding for female floral characteristics is much easier when one knows the phenotype represented.

Another interesting thing that producing female flowers on males would help us to learn is what traits are typically located on the X chromosome. Since males only have one X chromosome they can only pass on certain traits to female osspring as if they were homozygous making these female floral traits much easier to select on male side since the phenotype and genotype of these female floral traits artificially induced on a male would be essentially identical, at least in theory. I really have no clue as to how many female floral traits are actually located on the X chromosome but it seems likely that at least a few would be and it would be very interesting to find out precisely how many.

 

[C21H30O2]

great post^^^^ very good points. we could learn which traits are passed on by the males and which are passed on by the females. that could help breeding projects enormously. great post

 

[707v6buickman]

so can you really use the stuff to shock males in to females