All this new stuff...and still not ONE breeder actually working something to the point of true stability.
Everyone always advertising the newest, greatest, most breathtaking breakthrough in cannabis genetics - only to drop it for the next newest greatest in the next release. Hacks releasing 20-60 new seed lines every year. It's a joke. You sell that many combinations and eventually someone is going to find a decent plant. It's called probability.
If these breeders REALLY believed in the work they were creating, they'd be carrying those lines through to stability and offering genetics that when open-pollinated actually produce the same phenotype.
At the end of the day, it's all about money for these guys. Everyone has been given access to the modern day elites. Closet breeders have the same cuts as large warehouses.
The only way for these seed companies to continue to extort money from you is to go a different direction. Find plants that very few people have access to. This means going back to old genetics that are now rare and hard to come by. With that rarity comes the ability to market something different and increase the value of said offering under the guise of offering something no one else has.
THE POSITIVE way of looking at this would be to assume these plants actually have massive value. Due to the changing of laws, opportunities now exist to work with some of the old parent lines in a more proper manner. Rather than sorting 2 or 3 plants in a closet and passing forward a very limited segment of the genome, now hundreds of plants can be examined without fear in greenhouses and warehouses. This allows for breeding directions to be taken with consideration to a more complete genetic representation being present from which to make selections. It has always been a huge fear of many that small breeding projects have eliminated important traits from the larger gene pool. I assume the interest in older plants is the result of a desire to restore this theoretical lost potential. Having a more complete library of traits to select from and thus when recreating some of the modern lines, creating something superior to the originals.
The problem I see with this - In any industry where notoriety drives profit - there is a huge potential for deception and abuse. We see it all the time with people passing incorrectly named clones. Without proper genetic assay it is next to impossible to know if a plant you are being given as a 1970's Afghan is not really just a very nice isolated cut from a modern indica line. You simply have to trust the source, which ultimately lacks any sort of scientific credibility.
More often than not though, I see it as a marketing ploy to drive sales. F1 from a circa 1970 x 2014 line isn't really that interesting to me. A refined, true breeding F12 from the same gene pool that I can open pollinate and get the same results next season, however is of massive interest to me. Problem is, no one will do that because it would minimize their future profits. Cannabis is one of the only agricultural industries where genetic instability is accepted, praised, and marketed as a good thing.
These issues of instability don't affect the gardener that is only allowed to sprout 6 seeds, so these hacks are able to get away with it. IF these genetics were being purchased in lots of 10,000 and planted on acreage, you'd have a bunch of pissed of farmers complaining how 90% of their crop was ruined by genetic fluctuation that destroyed their ability to make a profit because only 1 out of 100 plants was as advertised. Then the breeder would be sued because the farmer was unable to fulfill his contractual obligations due to the misleading nature of what was offered.
Interesting times ahead.
dank.Frank
Everyone always advertising the newest, greatest, most breathtaking breakthrough in cannabis genetics - only to drop it for the next newest greatest in the next release. Hacks releasing 20-60 new seed lines every year. It's a joke. You sell that many combinations and eventually someone is going to find a decent plant. It's called probability.
If these breeders REALLY believed in the work they were creating, they'd be carrying those lines through to stability and offering genetics that when open-pollinated actually produce the same phenotype.
At the end of the day, it's all about money for these guys. Everyone has been given access to the modern day elites. Closet breeders have the same cuts as large warehouses.
The only way for these seed companies to continue to extort money from you is to go a different direction. Find plants that very few people have access to. This means going back to old genetics that are now rare and hard to come by. With that rarity comes the ability to market something different and increase the value of said offering under the guise of offering something no one else has.
THE POSITIVE way of looking at this would be to assume these plants actually have massive value. Due to the changing of laws, opportunities now exist to work with some of the old parent lines in a more proper manner. Rather than sorting 2 or 3 plants in a closet and passing forward a very limited segment of the genome, now hundreds of plants can be examined without fear in greenhouses and warehouses. This allows for breeding directions to be taken with consideration to a more complete genetic representation being present from which to make selections. It has always been a huge fear of many that small breeding projects have eliminated important traits from the larger gene pool. I assume the interest in older plants is the result of a desire to restore this theoretical lost potential. Having a more complete library of traits to select from and thus when recreating some of the modern lines, creating something superior to the originals.
The problem I see with this - In any industry where notoriety drives profit - there is a huge potential for deception and abuse. We see it all the time with people passing incorrectly named clones. Without proper genetic assay it is next to impossible to know if a plant you are being given as a 1970's Afghan is not really just a very nice isolated cut from a modern indica line. You simply have to trust the source, which ultimately lacks any sort of scientific credibility.
More often than not though, I see it as a marketing ploy to drive sales. F1 from a circa 1970 x 2014 line isn't really that interesting to me. A refined, true breeding F12 from the same gene pool that I can open pollinate and get the same results next season, however is of massive interest to me. Problem is, no one will do that because it would minimize their future profits. Cannabis is one of the only agricultural industries where genetic instability is accepted, praised, and marketed as a good thing.
These issues of instability don't affect the gardener that is only allowed to sprout 6 seeds, so these hacks are able to get away with it. IF these genetics were being purchased in lots of 10,000 and planted on acreage, you'd have a bunch of pissed of farmers complaining how 90% of their crop was ruined by genetic fluctuation that destroyed their ability to make a profit because only 1 out of 100 plants was as advertised. Then the breeder would be sued because the farmer was unable to fulfill his contractual obligations due to the misleading nature of what was offered.
Interesting times ahead.
dank.Frank
and accurate ..... 
