Basic genetics explained

[Sam_Skunkman]

ARRGH! This is one of my pet peeves. I have to tread carefully with my words here, and make sure that I am clear that what I say is understood to apply only to the idea, and not you or anybody else as a person and thinker.

That said, I think the notion that people could somehow "damage" the overall pool by making seeds, no matter how haphazardly, is absurd. For one thing, the ubiquitous "everybody" doesn't exist. There is no way that literally everybody will do the same thing. Just doing speculative back-of-the-envelope estimation from my personal experience with other herb people, I think there are lots of knowledgeable, conscientious, dedicated people around the world preserving the fruits of humanity's collective breeding of Cannabis and adding to our community "library" of traits. I think that the number of these folks is rapidly expanding too. Due in large part to the teaching efforts of people like you. Thanks!

For another thing, what other people do has absolutely no impact on what I do, aside from giving me more raw material to pick and choose from. Imagine if we all of a sudden we colonized and populated the Moon, and there were 100,000,000 people there, and they all were big pot heads that grew, and just went wild letting all their plants have an orgy of unregulated mating. Would this damage your breeding efforts?

I doubt that a few haphazard breeders will damage the Cannabis genepool that includes maybe millions of tons of Cannabis seeds produced yearly by farmers, industry, as well as plants that are just growing wild. The total production of seeds by the Cannabis marijuana seed business is a very very small amount of the total. If total seed production for western marijuana growers is 100,000,000 seeds a year that is 2,000 kilos or two tons, a very very small fraction of what is produced in just Morocco every year. Morocco produces 10,000 tons of hashish a year and also produces more seeds then resin weight. And the total annual world seed sales are not yet 100,000,000 for the Cannabis seeds biz.
All this aside it is not good to add intersex traits to the Cannabis genepool or maybe even to add CBD to the Cannabis genepool that will be then used by recreational breeders, same with Auto flowering varieties that do not really finish and frost out at the end of flowering, they are not what you want in the genepool. In one way you can say they are so small in total to the massive amounts of seeds produced both consciously and unconsciously in the world every year that they will not matter, but I still do not like them or the people that create them. They do not help the Cannabis genepool, they do make money for seed makers.
-SamS

 

[mofeta]

Hmmm, I don't think I really agree with you.

Right on, it's cool. I think that if you are really concerned about it, you could play a significant role in mitigating the damage you perceive. I have followed your progress over the past couple of years and you have demonstrated keen intelligence and analytical ability, good organizational skills and solid determination. If you truly feel it needs addressing, and turn your powers to doing so, you will get results.

Just simple stuff like making a multi-node cooperative clone library run by like-minded individuals. Redundancy and geographical separation would protect them from loss due to pathogens, accidents etc. Members would have to adhere to a strict set of guidelines to join, but membership would ensure the availability of authentic, healthy, pest free clones. New elites could also be traded. It would be like a RAID array for kind bud.

Breeding seminars, intentional breeding co-ops like I mentioned before, there are lots of fairly low-input things that could be done. The cool thing is that all these things are a good idea even if you take my position that the existence of hack seed makers is of no consequence.

Heck, just look at Sam and Rob. The IHA and GW(EDIT: GAAHH! Hortapharm, not GW, sorry I was tired when I made this post) alone have done more to preserve than just about anyone, and it's due to the work of just a handful of people. I bet Sam has a cavern hewed out of the bedrock under the polar ice sheets stuffed with cannabis seeds- that's a joke, ha ha but seriously I bet those guys have backups of backups of backups of backups.....

As to mellowing with age, I certainly have, but the main thing that happened was a shift in my perspective on the relative importance of the various matters in my life. It is real simple. If the fight/effort/work etc doesn't further my goals, I just disregard it. Life is too short, so if it isn't between me and my destiny, it is a waste of my time. I also believe deeply in the value of service to others, as a sacred duty. I find that this focuses the mind and spirit in a way that nothing else can. Think of the change a good person goes through when they have their first child. Things that don't matter stop mattering to you.

 

[mofeta]

In one way you can say they are so small in total to the massive amounts of seeds produced both consciously and unconsciously in the world every year that they will not matter, but I still do not like them or the people that create them. They do not help the Cannabis genepool, they do make money for seed makers.
-SamS

That's about the size of it, alright. I think people on the various boards kind of loose sight of the wider canvas and think that the internet pot community is the whole world. The figures you cite show how insignificant it really is.

I can understand your disdain for the hack seed makers, especially the dishonest ones. The cool thing is that as political and legal reform progress these guys will just be out competed. If I didn't have to worry about breaking the law I could put them all out of work myself. As could any number of the members of these boards. I don't think they would last long against an onslaught of $10 packs that reliably produce the quality of weed that I smoke. The rate at which the tide of liberty is turning seems to be increasing, so I think we will get our revenge on the hacks pretty soon. Sad thing is that they will then just take up some other shifty activity, "One Weird Trick To Turn Water Into Gasoline" or the like.

 

[Tom Hill]

sam,, if we grow 1,000,000 plants,,and the best 5 all have male modifier genes,, what's our next move amigo?

 

[Tom Hill]

and then follow it through.. the 4, 87, 125,00, 168,972, and 877,678 all of them,, coming out of the lessor evaluations smoke wise (and all phenotypic evals) sure enough prove to be like zero less associated with intersex in the big picture at the end of said project than the best 5 u tryna run everybody away from... surely sir u have experienced this? the dog dont hunt..

 

[Tom Hill]

i admire the places most of them where u have pitched your triton in the sand,, but on this,, u just plain wrong..

thall shalt not take thy eye off the prize..

I guess we will have to disagree what the prize is and are they only one or the other?
Unless you are working with Thais, as many many have intersex and I would bet your best out of thousands of imported Thai seeds is intersex. Then try and reduce the incidence and select one free of intersex.
My real problem is not finding potent Cannabis with great terpenes, it is finding great Cannabis with great terpenes that are not intersex.
I think your example of the 5 best out of 1,000,000 is just a what if, I have not yet seen this even with Thai. I have thais that are intersex free as far as growing them and progeny. I did not grow 1,000,000 to find them.
-SamS

 

[Tom Hill]

its just too elusive to be squandered away in the name of some past bad trip..

 

[TheRealHash]

Wait until I finish and post my critique of your first post before you praise me....
-SamS

haha

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

sam,, if we grow 1,000,000 plants,,and the best 5 all have male modifier genes,, what's our next move amigo?

I either toss the five and pick the next best 5 or 10 or I could try and clean up the 5 intersex females for a few years and see if I can clean them up like I did with my S african Durban Poison. The first imported Durban seeds I started with, every plant was intersex, I bred the least intersexed 5 generations with heavy heavy selection to weed out the intersex traits or genes, then I had a S African that had not zero intersex but almost.
The real difference between us is you think an intersex can be lived with as long as it has superior quality, I choose plants that do not express intersex, and have the best quality I can find. Let face it using intersex just created intersex progeny.
Me and Rob Clarke spent years trying to work with intersex Thais in an effort to make all female seed lines decades ago, we were successful if you ignored the intersex flowers they all had to some degree, for me that is unusable, no big grower needs intersex plants, it is redundant. So we switched to screening for intersex by stress testing, then using the screened females that did not express intersex, with STS and that worked a million time better.
-SamS

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

and then follow it through.. the 4, 87, 125,00, 168,972, and 877,678 all of them,, coming out of the lessor evaluations smoke wise (and all phenotypic evals) sure enough prove to be like zero less associated with intersex in the big picture at the end of said project than the best 5 u tryna run everybody away from... surely sir u have experienced this? the dog dont hunt..

I am not sure I understand.
-SamS

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

its just too elusive to be squandered away in the name of some past bad trip..

It is the future I am thinking of, when people use intersex it just gives more intersex progeny, that and I have no problem finding anything elusive, I can't even grow all I have. To me it is the intersex free superior plants that are really elusive, not just plants with elusive amazing qualities.

-SamS

 

[VerdantGreen]

...The first imported Durban seeds I started with, every plant was intersex, I bred the least intersexed 5 generations with heavy heavy selection to weed out the intersex traits or genes, then I had a S African that had not zero intersex but almost.
......

hi Sam, do you think anything was lost from the potency or terpene diversity by selecting primarily for lack of intersex traits for so long?

VG

 

[Tonygreen]

Can you store sts in old plastic nut bottles or does it have to be a glass container? Most references I have seen just say something like you can store it in the refrigerator for up to a month.

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

hi Sam, do you think anything was lost from the potency or terpene diversity by selecting primarily for lack of intersex traits for so long?

VG

No, but remember I kill more plants then most people grow. So I see a lot of quality with very few intersex problems.
I also select for terpene content, as well as spending time looking for new terpenes or rare terpenes that I like the smells of.
As long as you have lots of THC potency is more dependent on terpene contents.
So it is not one or the other it is both when I can, which is more often then not.

-SamS

 

[VerdantGreen]

thanks Sam!

so if you wanted to preserve a line but only had a dozen or two seeds, would you still select against the intersex traits when you made the first batch of seeds, or might you include the intersex plants to preserve genetic diversity, and then select against it in further rounds?

VG

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

thanks Sam!

so if you wanted to preserve a line but only had a dozen or two seeds, would you still select against the intersex traits when you made the first batch of seeds, or might you include the intersex plants to preserve genetic diversity, and then select against it in further rounds?

VG

It really depends why I wanted to save it, as I bet I have many other varieties with what ever "it" is. It is hard to answer as I seldom have to make the choice. In general I say toss the intersex, find something else, or waste a lot of time trying to eliminate intersex traits or genes, then selecting for quality. If you want to save diversity in Cannabis you need 2,000 plants to freely pollinate to save 99% of the genes in a population, are you really doing this?
See: http://www.internationalhempassociation.org/jiha/iha02106.html

-SamS

 

[Tonygreen]

Sam, I have been stress testing nearly everything I have been growing, and I have found in my limited sampling that it seems like "solid" plants can still show intersex traits if stressed enough and at the right time, week 1-3 of flowering seems to be the time when it is easiest.

Do these solid plants that dont show intersex in your experience still show it in overly extreme conditions? I admit some plants of mine would not flip until thy experienced things that are way outside the bounds of the general range of suitable environment most growers provide.

If a plant will only show intersex in the most extreme cases do you consider it stable?

I am starting to think in the back of my head you may be able to get any plant to intersex if you stress it enough in the right ways at the right time, admitted most of those conditions are not found in decent grow room. Of course my sample size is shit compared to what you have seen and worked through....

 

[Luther Burbank]

That's an insane number of plants. I've usually heard 100 for most other plants, and as little as 20 for stable inbred varieties.

 

[VerdantGreen]

thanks again Sam, i guess its hard for you to be able to relate to the limitations of the average grower

im aware of the large numbers you need to retain full or near-full diversity, but surely there is an element of scale all the way up - where using 20 plants is better than 10 etc?

if by asking 'are you really doing this' you mean do i have to actually make this decision... then i guess the answer is yes. In my own little reality of closet-growing i have been in the situation where i am, afaik, the only person likely to make and distribute seeds of a line that could easily be lost to growing.
i have kept seeds from a pheno that i judged to be important even though it had intersex traits, but i kept them separately from the main batch.
i was just wondering whether you would ever feel that this was justified.. given that we dont all have huge numbers of genetics to choose from like you yourself do.
Also, even if others do hold a rare or incredibly sought after line, it doesnt necessarily mean that they are ever going to share it with others - some choose not to.

cheers

VG

It really depends why I wanted to save it, as I bet I have many other varieties with what ever "it" is. It is hard to answer as I seldom have to make the choice. In general I say toss the intersex, find something else, or waste a lot of time trying to eliminate intersex traits or genes, then selecting for quality. If you want to save diversity in Cannabis you need 2,000 plants to freely pollinate to save 99% of the genes in a population, are you really doing this?
See: http://www.internationalhempassociation.org/jiha/iha02106.html

-SamS

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

thanks again Sam, i guess its hard for you to be able to relate to the limitations of the average grower

im aware of the large numbers you need to retain full or near-full diversity, but surely there is an element of scale all the way up - where using 20 plants is better than 10 etc?

if by asking 'are you really doing this' you mean do i have to actually make this decision... then i guess the answer is yes. In my own little reality of closet-growing i have been in the situation where i am, afaik, the only person likely to make and distribute seeds of a line that could easily be lost to growing.
i have kept seeds from a pheno that i judged to be important even though it had intersex traits, but i kept them separately from the main batch.
i was just wondering whether you would ever feel that this was justified.. given that we dont all have huge numbers of genetic to choose from like you yourself do.
Also, even if others do hold a rare or incredibly sought after line, it doesnt necessarily mean that they are ever going to share it with others - some choose not to.

cheers

VG

Almost everyone is using low plant numbers for breeding as well as using intersex females, do I think it is good? Hell no, but that is the nature of the universe around us. My goal is to clean up the genepool or at least some of it, using intersex for breeding is contrary to that goal, at least try and clean them up and reduce the intersex% as much as you can before using them for breeding..
-SamS