Breeding with Limited Space

[africaseeds]

My question is what should I aim to do in terms of breeding while I'm limited on space?

I have limited space for growing and even more limited for breeding.
I have come up with the following plan or process for making the best of my limited resources(and would like to know if this is realistic or if I should aim to do more

I have space indoors to cultivate about 3 to 4 plants. Outside I can have up to 30 pretty much. Can go to 100 if I do solocups or smallish pots, just bit of a legal worry though. Growing outdoors at home is in the process to be decriminalized here.
I have some seeds from various places, I have two IBL's and then 3 landraces.


First let's talk quick about what my goals are:
1. Take single seed packs that I bought and reproduce them so I have some seeds to play with.
3. Get keeper clones from the original seed packs that I'm gonna grow out.
4. Make selections from those packs and create seeds from those selections.
5. Create seeds from all the males and females in the original pack prior to selection.



So I will try try find strains with low variation and attempt to make some F1's.



Basically all of this will help achieve the ultimate goal which would be to stabilize the strains that I bought so I can use them to create "True F1's".

Till I move to a bigger place my plan is to just work on doing what I mentioned here.
Should I aim to do less while I still have limited space or should I try do more? Am I being realistic?

 

[mexcurandero420]

Positronics had a growing table of 1m2 in the past where it was possible to grow 40 plants with a 400W hps light above.

Bedrocan Dutch supplier of medical Cannabis grows in 3.5 ltr containers.

You can start 100 in red cups and by selection end with the 5 best.

 

[CannaZen]

You should realize environment plays a role in what you see in the plant. outdoor plants go through many stressors to become the plants that they are. F1 is only a reference to your filial generation you should know. your talking about making a cross to create a hybrid from two distinct parents right so its heterogeneous but you wish to select your own parents from keepers first.

Would recommend autos, becoming root bound and root constriction also may alter plant expression particularly down the road. (why indoor plants are really efficient indoors)
I dont combust but my flowers are seeding this season and they smell and they look like Original Glue, quite comparative resin to outdoor plants.

 

[mr underhill]

do all your plants outside until they show sex.
isolate and keep your best male selections. ** only keep males that truly represent what you are wanting to achieve. Lesser males should be killed.
Flower your males indoors with appropriate filters on your exhaust.
Collect the pollen in jars from each plant and label them accordingly. Observe each male as it flowers and take notes.

once your females are flowering you can selectively pollinate branches from the jars of pollen you collected.

 

[pinkus]

There was a dude, Joshua hazen or something similar, that wrote a bunch of threads about breeding in a small setup. They were pretty well thought out, though he (like all humans) was a little dogmatic in his take on growing.

I would look through those if you can find them. He was definitely at Mister Nice Seeds. Can't remember if he was here.

EDIT:just remembered that he called it the "bonsai sultan method", which made me highly sceptical. LMFAO

 

[Gauss]

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[Mr. Greengenes]

Sounds like a great project, I'm interested in the outcome!

I start seeds in 9oz solo cups and transplant to 20oz to flower. I'm able to flower around 50 plants in 24 square feet this way.

I generally try to use about the same percentage of males as there are females that match my desired traits in any given seed batch. So, if I grow out 50 seeds and only 10 females have what I'm looking for, I'll choose 10 males and use pollin from each on each female. The exact number of males is a decision I don't make until I see the percentage of 'good' females, but I often include an odd or unusual male extra, so one more male than females. The reason for this is that nature seems to roll the dice more with the males. Or, to put it another way, that 'unicorn' is more likely to be a boy than a girl. I mix the pollin from the boys most of the time, but with some batches I might mark and individually pollinate branches with different males if I think I need a more organized progeny test. Sorry if this is obvious, but mixing the males' pollin is basically same as a progeny test, just that you don't know which male was the dad of each seed.

 

[CannaZen]

Thanks mr. Greengenes, helpful tip. Are there any other ideas or methods for which to keep male female populations a balanced ratio of members?


for instance my pollen bracts are air wispy, although they may be delicate i wonder if thicker bracts may be desired for longer range pollination.


Actually, I were just watching my plants in the evening after a fairly windy day. Plants are connected in more ways than one, wind for instance does ripple leaflet wind waves and the electromagnetic spectrum helping to carry pollen to its destination. umm.. so as i were rubbing the leaves from one plant i witnessed a pollen burst fly directly from the one single plant and to the other, it were intentional pollination! like as if the aerodynamics were just right and the plant had. I mean there's been a fair amount of wind but I've never seen an intentional dusting of pollen from winds yet now.


So cool.. had to share that with you in this age it is so rare to witness such an occasion.

 

[Mr. Greengenes]

Are there any other ideas or methods for which to keep male female populations a balanced ratio of members?

Re reading my post, one thing I forgot to mention is that observing male plant traits and comparing them to sisters is one of the best reasons to have a large sample size. For years, 'professional breeders' would try to brow beat the 'hobbyists' like myself for selecting from less than 100 plants (or 1000 or whatever number) per seed batch. But, if you breed cannabis constantly for years on end, like I do and have done, you'll notice that seed batches have drastically different amounts of variation depending on the parents. Sometimes you find batches that you would like to select from hundreds, other batches will contain all the variation possible in just 10 seeds. Only way to find out is to progeny test.

TL;DR The real best reason for large sample sizes is observation of male plant traits by comparing them to sisters.

my pollen bracts are air wispy, although they may be delicate i wonder if thicker bracts may be desired for longer range pollination.

You know, I never thought about the structure of male flowers affecting the way the wind picks it up, it's a very interesting point! Probably because I always hand pollinate with a paintbrush. But, I would try to relate the structure of the male flower to the sisters, again. The structure of his flower will definitely influence his progeny, so it's an important trait to observe.

i witnessed a pollen burst fly directly from the one single plant and to the other, it were intentional pollination!

Amazing, very cool!

 

[GMT]

Be prepared to put decades into it with only the reward of the experience. So don't take it too seriously is my best advice.
Do it properly, slowly and enjoying it. Keep your indoor space for mothers, you don't need to keep your fathers, you'll have their pollen labelled in jars in the freezer mixed with rice ( or if you're like me, a few kellogs rice crispies, they seem drier).
You want all your seeds growing outdoors, or you're comparing environments, not plants.
Get a cheap plastic small green house to move your best male into each year for pollen collection.
Only use one male each year or the mathematics get silly and you can't do it in your space.

 

[Jammal]

Unrealistic

Just do a pollen Chuck every few 3-5 years with fresh ordered seeds so you have seeds to play with...do a little research and try to keep it concrete for best results.

 

[zif]

Another thing to keep in mind - the bottleneck in good breeding is not the seed making, but deciding which crosses are worthwhile. Evaluating the results is what really puts heavy demands on numbers and space.

 

[Mr. Greengenes]

Be prepared to put decades into it

Actually, I've been able to push some strains through more than 5 generations in one year. It's one of the reasons breeders will remain indoors after all the growers move outside!

You want all your seeds growing outdoors,

It's nice, but if you don't have the space (no breeder ever has enough) you can do what I do and keep your veg times at or under 16/8 and of course use home made 'living' soil mix. That way if you breed the strain indoors it will grow trees outdoors (like Cherry Bomb does).

 

[CannaZen]

It shows. Coloration and of stress, Aroma is of dark coffee and chemicals in veg sometimes, i'm really hoping it wont transcend to flower, a few plants did adopt purple color leafs in july. Indoor lighting doesn't usually contain much of the full spectrum for beneficial fungi and bacteria interaction. Its true indoor lighting may have UV. Either way it shows in the plants and i much prefer the deep mountain garden kush to indoor hybrid look.

 

[CannaZen]

Unrealistic

Just do a pollen Chuck every few 3-5 years with fresh ordered seeds so you have seeds to play with...do a little research and try to keep it concrete for best results.

Par say, save seeds from each plant to go back to each generation and blend. select seeds to grow from individual plants in patches and go. Strictly sensimillia seedplants go by the numbers for best heterogenous vigor from successive recombinators natural or otherwise cultivated selectors. is why polyhybrids are so monstrous indoors. its mycelular networking strain legend history imo. Its just indoors is so square i'm thinking of circulatory patches in rows of kind more reflective of its local climate than ever. its hard to imagine, it is so terrifyingly Beautiful how plant population is so exponential biometically segregate [ally) tri-fractally, 4D 2:1 [3];. Record descendant history to recognize the proper ascendant line(s) crossing for your future this is an digital IT] era.