Mr. Ghost | Breeding Project

[mrghost]

In this thread I want to document my journey to breeding cannabis.

Currently I'm planning several steps, starting with some pollen chucking and moving onto true breeding the selections over the next couple of years.

Step 1: Pollen Chucking???

In the next month I will focus on finding a few male candidates. Since I have to start somewhere and my sources are very limited, I'll have to go by luck on this one.

The following strains could potentially give me a male plant to start with.

Afghani #1 (Sensi Seeds): 1 seed planted and sprouted
Kali Mist (Serious Seeds): 2 seeds planted and sprouted
Cinderella 99 (Brothers Grimm): 12 seeds
Original Bruce Banner (Dark Horse Genetics): 10 seeds

I'm mostly hoping to get a male Afghani and/or find a good male in the Cinderella 99 seeds.

Since I want to take this project serious and really get into genetics, I'll try to start with the more or less stable (marketed as stable) strains in my collection.

I have several females in my cultivar, that also fall into that category. (some of the strains listed above could potentially belong here too)

Skunk #1 (Sensi Seeds): insane phenotype from feminized seeds.
White Widow (unknown source): licorice phenotype (I got this as a cut and can only go by what I was told).
White Widow (Green House Seeds): known to be the original White Widow. not cultivated yet.

Case 1: Afghani is male

Skunk #1 x Afghani #1
This cross could potentially give me a "Super Skunk" type hybrid. (I'll have to find out if Sensi Seeds is on board with me hybridizing two of their strains)

Case 2: Cinderella 99 is male

Skunk #1 x Cinderella 99
Hopefully stable enough to give me a decent F1 generation without too many variations.

Case 3: Bruce Banner or Kali Mist is male

Open pollination of my favorite plants followed by a phenotype hunt.

(this is unlikely since I'm confident in getting at least one decent C99 male from my 12 seeds)

Step 2: Testing

This step will probably take a few years. I want to run several tests.
Per recommendation I'll start with smaller runs until I figured out which traits I'm looking for. Once I've located the desired traits, it's time to do bigger runs and try to lock them into the offspring.



Goals

Take this project serious.
Learn a lot about genetics.
Focus on one or two strains.
Track every trait for every plant in my cultivar.
Contact the original breeders of these strains to get some reliable info.
Contact the original breeders of these strains to get consent to use their genetics (in case I ever want to use them commercially)



I've been researching a lot and done some reading so I'm pretty confident, that I've understood the complexity of breeding cannabis (which implies that I'm aware of how little I know ).
Aside from knowledge, my biggest issue is space. Due to limited space I will only be able to do small test rounds (~50 plants) at a time. This means without a lot of luck this project could easily take a decade.

Space

I currently have 5 different rooms which allows for isolation. I still have to decide on which of my rooms I want to use for breeding (relies on the outcome of my male selection) and then find a way to prevent pollen from leaking into my other rooms (which I'm mostly unsure/scared about).

Since I'm more interested in the science than creating a commercial product I'll hopefully have a lot of fun and undoubtably learn a lot along the way.

 

[TychoMonolyth]

find a way to prevent pollen from leaking into my other rooms (which I'm mostly unsure/scared about).

You should be scared because unless you work under a clean hood, you'll cross.

 

[CannaZen]

well afghani #1 is classic afghanica erm well thats great thought about trying their stock myself but looking for something differ while still squat/compact without bush, single cola hash grade, small dense nuggets and large floral formations. would be cool to select on nugget formation its a thing of weather in circles, the structure that forms each formation at each time. when that frequency can align hit apex from seed the natural form the resin.; tears. The genome evolves an organism as is. Really special imo reminisce turkish Mentha. The dense quite bonsaii trees are what I'm after not that hemp stretch in plants so much, wasted energy during flowering but that's prob the indoor plants going out. really interesting the thick base dwarf/thick compact ibl is as the same as recessive in that way, possibly. I am still trying to glean information about blend of the trait variation among genotype vs phenol; engine. a-pinene for instance or eucalyptus does something with energy absorption say plants grown under shade, naturally this affects growth output.

 

[mrghost]

well afghani #1 is classic afghanica erm well thats great thought about trying their stock myself but looking for something differ while still squat/compact without bush, single cola hash grade, small dense nuggets and large floral formations. would be cool to select on nugget formation its a thing of weather in circles, the structure that forms each formation at each time. when that frequency can align hit apex from seed the natural form the resin.; tears. The genome evolves an organism as is. Really special imo reminisce turkish Mentha. The dense quite bonsaii trees are what I'm after not that hemp stretch in plants so much, wasted energy during flowering but that's prob the indoor plants going out. really interesting the thick base dwarf/thick compact ibl is as the same as recessive in that way, possibly. I am still trying to glean information about blend of the trait variation among genotype vs phenol; engine. a-pinene for instance or eucalyptus does something with energy absorption say plants grown under shade, naturally this affects growth output.

I might get a few peruvian landrace seeds. I bet afghani and the peruvian make pretty babies.

 

[El Timbo]

Contact the original breeders of these strains to get consent to use their genetics (in case I ever want to use them commercially)

Consent is not needed

Due to limited space I will only be able to do small test rounds (~50 plants) at a time.

That's more than some commercial "breeders" run.

 

[mrghost]

Consent is not needed

You can either live by laws and rules or you can live by principle and karma. I choose the lather since I don't agree with our laws, neither do I like to live by rules. .

I have respect for those that put years of hard work into their products. It doesn't hurt to ask and there are so many other genetics to choose from. I'm pretty sure some breeders respect being asked and therefore might help with some useful information or own experiences.

So who cares what is "needed"?
Only doing what's needed is like going to a non-profit event, that's funded by donations, but never paying a penny. (No offense)

That's more than some commercial "breeders" run.

And IMHO thats the problem with most seed companies nowadays.

I don't want to be just "some breeder".

How many of the seed companies out there do you really consider "good"?

How many of them can you really use for further breeding?

Let's take Serious Seeds. I love their genetics and I love their attitude. I'd buy any strain from them for basic growing. As a breeder it might not be the best starting point though, since Bubble Gum is their only IBL. All other strains are F1 and therefore not the best parents unless you want to waste a lot of time and space.

If we look at i.e. Brothers Grimm we get several options of true breeding lines which are easier to work with (especially as noob-breeders). Aside from that Mr. Soul is really happy to teach people about genetics, breeding and basically everything that makes him successful. Being open about your work helps others and allows critique which can have a positive impact on your work. Feedback is very important and honesty usually results in honest feedback.

We could do this with several other breeders, not to mention all those pollen chuckers out there (which makes up most of the seed companies).

I grow for only myself and therefore put a lot of effort into the quality of my product. When breeding I want to be even picker than with my grows.

Running ~50 plants per round is a good start. But especially when selecting from F2 (or unstable F1) I want to run at least 200 plants (keep in mind: about half of them will be males).

I obviously won't test 100 males on 100 girls and have a selection of 10000 different crosses .

I'm thinking:

Grow 50
Select 5 - 10 girls
Select 2 - 3 boys

Repeat 4 times.
= ~30 females
= ~10 males

Clone and grow these selections and keep the best ones (these are the first cloned ones, which is an important test)

Hopefully I will end up with ~5 girls and ~3 boys, so if I use every boy on every girl I "only" have about 15 different crosses to test in my F3.

Since I (should) now know what I'm looking for I can remove a lot more plants early in those grows which will allow faster cycles and less clones to keep.

It will be crazy during the F2 selection but relax further down the line and make room for the next project.

Please keep in mind that this is only theoretical and I'm sure my attitude will evolve with more knowledge and hands on experience.

 

[El Timbo]

I have respect for those that put years of hard work into their products. It doesn't hurt to ask and there are so many other genetics to choose from. I'm pretty sure some breeders respect being asked and therefore might help with some useful information or own experiences.

I agree - i was just pointing out that it wasn't needed.

 

[mrghost]

Tiny update.

I have 2 Kali mist (unsexed) one of them seems to have male preflowers (I already have a spare cutting so I'll flower it soon) while the other could easily be a female (sadly the one with the better stem smell)

The Afghani is doing fine but isn't showing any sex yet. I don't care if it's male or female since it's a new genetic in my collection.

 

[mrghost]

BTW. I don't have the peruvian seeds yet but a fellow grower reported that they are huge with amazing results. He was really surprised. I hope to get a cut of the ones he grew out and that there are some seeds remaining. The person who brought them over from Peru stored them at said fellow grower and allowed him to run a few.
I'm really excited about those.

 

[Hammerhead]

Always keep a RO spray bottle handy. Water kills pollen on contact.. I pollinate in my male tent, I leave them there for 3-5 days, those plants get RO misted then placed in the main flower room.


The only time you should ask a breeder if its OK is when your making seeds for sale like S1 of f2 seeds. Many breeders will make S1/F2 of there keepers for resale. . Making seeds for personal use is fine.

 

[mrghost]

Always keep a RO spray bottle handy. Water kills pollen on contact.. I pollinate in my male tent, I leave them there for 3-5 days, those plants get RO misted then placed in the main flower room.


The only time you should ask a breeder if its OK is when your making seeds for sale like S1 of f2 seeds. Many breeders will make S1/F2 of there keepers for resale. . Making seeds for personal use is fine.

Thanks Hammerhead. That's some useful information (on the water and male room). I think I mentioned somewhere that I only ask in case I ever want to commercially use my crosses. Obviously I don't care/ask for private use.
In general it's nobodies business anyways, just as it's nobodies business what I do in my home . I'd just hate to have created something and not be able to put it to market with good conscience. Since I don't have a lot of space I just try to cross things I could always sell without any worries.

 

[mrghost]

I am now very confident that both of the Kali Mist are boys waiting to turn into real men