2024 State of the genepool discussion.

[JetLife175]

Huh? This isnt making any sense. Dominant cannabis genes are strong and carry over into the offspring and overpower weaker recessive genes. Yes recessive genes can skip a generation a show up. But with cannabis it may pop up in an f2 but by that time the core genetic is changed enough that the recessive pine or skunk will still get overpowered by the dominant diesel or whatever the cross was to. Either way my whole point is that unfortunately a lot of cannabis strains were lost forever into oblivion by cross breading.

I believe he is equating dominant traits into observable traits which isn't a lie. The dominant traits are more likely to pop up which makes the trait more observable.

GMO being a good modern example. Haven't seen anyone pull that pheno again. It has to be recessive. Right?

 

[JetLife175]

I pose a question..... what can be improved upon?
What are we searching for that can be viewed as an improvement to modern cannabis?
More Yield?
More Pronounced flavors
Stronger high?
Resistance to pests?
.... the list could easily be added to.

So the question I pose is what can be improved when looking at the modern gene pool as a whole??

I don't think there is an answer because it is all subjective.
As a 35+ year toker, my desires and demands from the cannabis I grow is simple.... I want strong flavored, potent THC laden cannabis with a lasting high but not so strong that I can't puff all day. I smoke joints, probably 4 to 7 grams per day. I want variety in flavor and variety in high. From the couchy make my back pain disappear to the cerebral that uplifts and energizes and has a staying power.

What else can be improved? Not much I say
The current availlability of cannabis from all around the world, landrace, hierloom and polyhybrid makes for a market that has everything a grower could desire. I don't think we have ruined the gene pool nor have we bottle necked it. It's like going to Baskin Robin's for 51 flavors of ice cream.... except the cannabis market has thousands of "flavors".
I don't see any issue with the emergence of fems or autos..... lots of growers are limitted by plant counts and space. They don't have space nor time to grow anything that takes longer than 18 weeks to veg and flower for one crop of 4 plants. That is the recreation limit here in Canuckistan. So people just want to grow thier own weed the most efficent way possible with only 4 plants. That leads to growers "needing" feminized seed or autos in order to remain self supplied. Even then with 4 plants most people I know are still buying govt weed when they run out between crops.
Those people are grateful for the availlability of fems and autos.

Reg seeds wil always be around and I think it is up to us as individuals to recognize excellent plants when we find them and to preserve lines with female/male breeding combos when we can.
My seed collection is fairly vast and everything will get passed on to the younger generation when I kick it. This ensures that there will be diversity 10 , 20 maybe even 30 years from now and beyond that if the hier of my seed stash puts it to good use hehehe

This really hit me.

I somewhat agree with what you are saying.
I guess I'm talking about effect. Everything feels the same these days in my market (Cali) pretty boring if you ask me. There used to be distinct cultivars with distinct highs. I don't find that much anymore.

 

[Dime]

How can it be broadened by selection? Surely that would be narrowing it?

I meant regular seeds increase selection possibilities

 

[Nannymouse]

I have a relative that has a 'broken eye'. One eye is blue, the other is part hazel. Saying that blue x blue is always blue...is usually true. There are factors...well, look it up. Eye color is not as 'cut and dried' as we were taught, decades ago. Back in the day, we only understood 'dominant' and 'recessive', but 'poly' genes and 'anomalies' are a 'newer' understanding.

I'm okay with the way that Cannabis is being dealt with. Some are inbreeding and 'concentrating' attributes. Others are only doing 'open pollination'. Some are fluid, between the extremes.

I encourage the making of seed, and the sharing.

 

[Nannymouse]

I meant regular seeds increase selection possibilities

Not if everyone tosses the males! A female x female is SO close in carrying genetic info compared to male x female, that there's hardly any difference. The female x female share the same number of chromosomes as male x female. It's just a teeny part of one of the sex chromosomes that make a male a male. Most of the info on that Y chromosome is the same as his aunties and sisters. Where it get 'tighter' is crossing a female with itself...which can be a good thing, if looking to reproduce a desirable outcome. If you don't believe me, look at videos of how the x and y cross over and share info, just like the other chromosome pairs.

In the end, it doesn't matter if you believe me. If you use male x female and get to where you want to be, more power to ya!!!! All natural breeding traditions are commendable, and in Cannabis, female x female is 'eons' traditional.

 

[Hammerhead]

People got caught up with the fast flowering nonsence. The quality declined once everyone started breeding for fast plants. With the influx of new growers, few even know what good weed was like. They are basing quality on these fast flowering plants. Its harder today to find those special plants than it was 40 years ago. Breeding today is not the same as it once was. Lots use the same chemotypes, same flav. The high is an individual experience. Not something that can be improved for all with so much variation. Thats why we grow different chemotypes. Add more Sativa genetics back in and breed for those killer chemotypes as a whole and not just for resin coverage.

 

[Nannymouse]

I believe he is equating dominant traits into observable traits which isn't a lie. The dominant traits are more likely to pop up which makes the trait more observable.

GMO being a good modern example. Haven't seen anyone pull that pheno again. It has to be recessive. Right?

Only if your observable traits are caused by(truly) recessive genes (not poly genes or dominant) do you cement your possibilities of getting what you 'see' in the parents. If your observable traits are caused by dominant genes, you are likely to get lots of 'something different' because of hidden recessives. We had gorgeous short hair x short hair dogs, that would pop out long hair pups. If we continued to breed only the short haired pups with each other, those recessive long hair traits would pass right along...'forever'. If we would have bred the long hairs to each other, we would only get long hair pups. Getting ALL long hair pups would not make it a dominant gene, in that line, only that you would see it more often. Taking that long hair to a short hair would prove that it's not a 'dominant' gene, because of the ratio of short hair pups. Seeing traits 'more often' does not make them always 'dominant' genes.

By poly genes, i'm talking about traits that are not simply 'dominant' or 'recessive'. It is where a certain (sometimes large) number and combination of genes can cause a problem. Sometimes the 'problem' is less severe if one or two of the 'combination' of genes is missing. Mendel was lucky, but not anywhere near 'complete' in his experiments with genetics.

GMO
If my parents had twenty kids, none of them would be me. I could have had twenty kids, and they wouldn't be me. Can you say that i am composed of just recessive genes? This applies to every person (except that identical twins are the same genetics, but their brothers and sisters would never be them). Unless you clone a plant, you will never get the same genetic combination, but that doesn't make it just 'recessive genes' or 'dominant genes'. So, on the GMO front, only GMO could be GMO, unless cloned. You could combine genes to get it close, but even with selfing, it would take a lot of tries, maybe in the millions(statistics isn't my specialty, ha) to get the precise GMO replicated.

There is an old breeder phrase that goes "if you don't want to see it again, don't breed with it!" "Keep the best, cull the rest". That was the only way to do things in the olden days. Now we can figure out genes, test to see if they are 'clear' of what we don't want...or to see that what we do want is there...even if it isn't 'observable' to the eye. This is still in its infancy, but we do have the tech to figure things out, now.

 

[xtsho]

People got caught up with the fast flowering nonsence. The quality declined once everyone started breeding for fast plants. With the influx of new growers, few even know what good weed was like. They are basing quality on these fast flowering plants. Its harder today to find those special plants than it was 40 years ago. Breeding today is not the same as it once was. Lots use the same chemotypes, same flav. The high is an individual experience. Not something that can be improved for all with so much variation. Thats why we grow different chemotypes. Add more Sativa genetics back in and breed for those killer chemotypes as a whole and not just for resin coverage.

Fast flowering and high THC is what people have been breeding for. Although I have leaned towards using the faster pheno's of strains for making seeds at times but that was just for specific paths I was taking for outdoor plants that I want to make sure finish in time. Indoors I've got other stuff I've been playing around with where I'm not concerned about flowering time like I am outdoors and can wait for a 20 week sativa to finish.

 

[Hammerhead]

Fast flowering and high THC is what people have been breeding for. Although I have leaned towards using the faster pheno's of strains for making seeds at times but that was just for specific paths I was taking for outdoor plants that I want to make sure finish in time. Indoors I've got other stuff I've been playing around with where I'm not concerned about flowering time like I am outdoors and can wait for a 20 week sativa to finish.

I've never found a 20 week plant I wanted to keep. Exteme flowering times can be just as bad as fast flowering times. I always end up tossing those out. Most of the best plants I've grown are in the 80-120 day window with a few exceptions. Under 60 day plants seem to have similar chemotypes with a few exceptions..Breeding plants specifically for fast flowering was a huge quality hit IMO. We did not have quick flowering plants growing up. +90% of the plants we grew were Sativa hybrids with an ave flowering time of 100 days. The best of those plants were far better than the best of what we have today IMO.


I don't think high THC was part of it. It was how frosty the plants looked. High resin coverage doesn't mean high THC.

 

[xtsho]

I've never found a 20 week plant I wanted to keep. Exteme flowering times can be just as bad as fast flowering times. I always end up tossing those out. Most of the best plants I've grown are in the 80-120 day window with a few exceptions. Under 60 day plants seem to have similar chemotypes with a few exceptions..Breeding plants specifically for fast flowering was a huge quality hit IMO. We did not have quick flowering plants growing up. +90% of the plants we grew were Sativa hybrids with an ave flowering time of 100 days. The best of those plants were far better than the best of what we have today IMO.

I've grown some Old Timers Haze that went that long and was well worth the wait. The trick is keeping them healthy growing indoors that long. I've also grown some Thai strains that went about 18. Same thing. Keeping them healthy can be a challenge. But if you make it to the finish line in good shape the reward can be exceptional.

 

[420PyRoS]

Collect until they are no longer viable is the same as trashing them.
More seeds are dying from time and improper storage from the "collectors" than leo is my bet.

Boohoo. Mine are stored just fine.

 

[dogzter]

Boohoo. Mine are stored just fine.

You go girl!

 

[420PyRoS]

You go girl!

F*ck off retard

 

[Chills]

I think people and society has changed. Nowadays the Kids want to show off in social media and im shure the joy they get from breeding "sugarglazedkimkardashianass"-weed is as real as your joy smoking your stuff back then. So i see no problem. The world keeps changing, the old complaining, the young keep on rolling.
I feel sad for my grandgrandgrand³ children that they will never smoke real roadkillskunk or acapulcogold in the year 2345, only their watered down bladerunner sh*t. Im just not shure who to blame, the dutch or jews? But what do i know with my brown eyes...

 

[MROrganicGreenz]

Maybe put an eye on the consumer side. Its supply and demand most of the time. Back in the days people smoked that stuff they got and were thankful about it. Most of the countries had grey areas and there wasn't a real market, more like oligopols. Nowadays with free market and consumer preferences the supply side had to change big times. People going to dispensaries and demanding a new strain every visit and at least 20% THC and gassy terps and bla bla bla and next week we don''t want gassy terps anymore and blaaaa. People are spoiled and the market moves towards demands. In my opinion the internet takes a big cut of the momentary situation. Nowadays everyone can "breed" (pollenchuckers) and go in the market with bullshit material. And in the end those shops and breeders disappear after a few month, when people see they bought shit, picking stuff just by some nice pictures on the internet and instagram. People are uneducated and get blinded by fascinating promises. Round about 15 years ago there was a troll seed page with offers on Strains that had > 40% THC and 500$ a package. I guess that even those got baught several times. People are just unthankful.

Towards the question someone had far up: What is missing in the gene-pool?
I would narrow it down to three factors: Overall diversity, stability and resistances. There was a paper in the scientific section of this forum, which postulated, that landraces need around 2000 individuals in open polianation so the gene pool does not erode. That goes for Landraces. In todays market its mostly cookies. Go and look at the family trees of those popular strains at seedfinder.eu. Those look like the family trees of the french royal families a few hundred years ago. There are so many narrow bottlenecks, that kill diversity. But I also have to agree, that we have way more access to landraces nowadays, than decades ago. We just have to use them. I just think it's symtpomatic for the genepool nowadays, that there wasn't a great bang in the last decade(s). There was no Chemdog Nr. 2, there was no Skunk Nr. 2, there was no NL Haze Nr. 2. IMO the last "revolution" was Zkittlz, regarding a "Novum", and that shit was recessiv and barely alive. What else we have that was revolutionary towards the gene pool?

I guess that breeding for gold is an exhausting process that needs time, loads of space and patience. Why is noone trying to bring back the old skunk? The genes could still be out there. BUT does the market want and/or need it? I fear not, since there is a big shift towards vape pens, white labeling and uneducated consumers. But there will always be a section in the market for connoisseurs. People try to sell you the cannabis market as "its like corn" or "its like strawberries". But IMO it's wine, whiskey and rum. Lets go for that market and let the kids and uneducated have cookies. And breed for the connoisseurs.

Peace out and sorry for the monologue

 

[PetePrice]

This is my take. We gotta go back to what we can all consider the birth of modern cannabis breeding.

The early guys were taking landraces and slightly worked unique lines and making true f1 hybrids and crosses.

The next generation took that work and it resulted in things like sour, OG, Chem etc.

So on and so forth we bottleneck further and further.

I genuinely believe we need to bring back a lot of the old things that people think are useless these days and start sifting through and crossing them to these modern lines. Some old genetics I feel can improve upon what we've built. Like a BX of sorts. lol.

And for that you'll need people who have maintained and preserved things or you need to go through non worked lines/landraces and select who is doing that these days?

I personally think it is far easier these days to get good bud from seeds than it was years ago, you could really state that Chem and OG created this bottleneck and continue to do so, they are locked in modern day drug cannabis as they were the best of their time just like skunks and northern lights before them, you would think this was largely due to the climate of the time.

I remember people like Chimera slagging off how everything was Chem and OG yet look at some of the cultivars he has done for commercial projects all Cookie, OG and Chem... why is that?

 

[El Timbo]

I meant regular seeds increase selection possibilities

Every time you select you also reject - and thus make the genepool less diverse.

 

[goingrey]

There are more options available than ever, to anyone with a credit card.

 

[kro-magnon]

I see a lot of people here complain when they never had it so easy to find or grow some good quality buds, in the USA you have fought to make it legal and mainstream, enjoy the fruits, even if it can be bitter.
The offerings of cannabis seeds has never been so large, yes for the average consumers it is more or less the same things with different names. Because they don't care, they want buds. The informed consumers like mosts here want something more exclusive, no problem to find it, TRSC, Khalifa, Supernatural production, Nierika seeds trust, ACE, you need more, just take a plane and go look for yourself in a foreign country. instead of whining on a forum because you can't find the weed you smoke on your 18th birthday(no one can find it, ever, it lives in your head only)
I still live in a prohibitionist country and there is a huge preservationists movement in France and and in many European countries; What are you waiting for in the USA to do the same on a bigger scale ?

 

[kro-magnon]

This is my take. We gotta go back to what we can all consider the birth of modern cannabis breeding.

The early guys were taking landraces and slightly worked unique lines and making true f1 hybrids and crosses.

The next generation took that work and it resulted in things like sour, OG, Chem etc.

So on and so forth we bottleneck further and further.

I genuinely believe we need to bring back a lot of the old things that people think are useless these days and start sifting through and crossing them to these modern lines. Some old genetics I feel can improve upon what we've built. Like a BX of sorts. lol.

This is certainly the best way if you want to revitalize a part of the modern genepool who has suffered of too much inbreeding, it is the best option IMO.
Me I'm still very happy growing some of the modern seed line like Diesel, the Karma's version offers some great buds to smoke and there is many other modern seeds producers I like to grow still;
I don't have the possibility to grow some plants who take over 80 days to flower and I don't have the space to grow some wild plants so I'm very happy to have access to seeds who can give me some plants able to flower in +/-10 weeks with a decent yield and a decent high. I have to deal with what I can grow and many growers are still in this situation, they grow what their conditions allow them to grow. If I could grow legally I' d have already set-up the 1 hectare field I own in the south of France with many different strains.