I hope anyone contacted by them is smart enough to request a share in the company as well as access to the other unique strains. Otherwise I would tell them to go seek genetics somewhere else.
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Phylos Galaxy - Landrace discussion
- Thread starter Thule
- Start date
They say nothing about breeding with the seeds sent to them. Keep in mind most seeds sent to them were very old and perhaps impossible to do nothing with them but DNA tests. Perhaps some were suitable for tissue culture. But what people want to grow today is Kush and fancy modern hybrids. The business is in the 35% THC hybrids
not in 8% THC old landraces.
White Beard
Active member
But they *don’t* only have dna, and they don’t only have the dna submitted: they have tissues, tissue-culturing tech, gene-editing tech, as well as DNA sequencing tech, and they have the DNA of anything they can buy on the market.
The good news is none of this means that they will produce anything genuinely superior to old-school breeding: they may have scientists on the payroll, but we all know that employees do what they’re told to do if they want to keep their jobs.
I don’t trust them, and I don’t *have* to trust them.
I think this is just a bunch of paranoid conspiracy theory...
sure, you can do a lot with tissue culturing and dna manipulation, biotech, etc, but it's not magic.
tissue culture is just a more advanced form of cloning. just like cloning, there's still a minimal amount of healthy tissue you need to get a plantlet going from.
if they only get a few seeds, they could grow a plant from that, then tissue culture from a leaf. but if the seeds are not viable, it would be pretty difficult getting a plantlet going from that little bit of tissue within the seed. I don't know enough about it to say it's impossible, but if it is possibvle that's a step above regular tissue culture, similar to the gap between regular cloning and tissue culture.
for just dna sequencing/analysis you just need a little bit of dna though. and as part of dna-analysis you run a reaction on it, where you multiply a specific part of the dna. so if the signal is too weak(too little dna present), you can just try to run more cycles, and you could still get a good signal out of it if you're lucky.
I do think they could use their gathered data to help assist breeding, but it would be way more indirect as directly using genetics of material send to them. it would be more in the realm of having a large database so if they discovered the identity of certain genes, they might look through their database to find other strains posessing the same variant of that gene, then ask the owner for a living plant.
or they might identify a certain gene, like a resistance gene, and look in their database if other variants exist.
so yes ofcourse, they're not a non-profit. ofcourse they will look for ways to make a profit, like any company. but they don't need to do any sneaky stealing of genetics to profit from that data, and it would most likely be impossible to steal anyway if they just got a few dead seeds send to them. even if they have the dna of those dead seeds in their database. and suggesting they're involved in some sort of elaborate conspiracy brings us no where.
btw, I think it's a good thing we're finally getting some up to date science into the weed-world. I think weed pretty much skipped the green revolution(=big advances in breeding of legal crops, around 1960-70 I think?), while now in legal crops there's a lot of talk that biotech(woth asociated technology, like marker assisted selection) is bringing us into a 2nd green revolution.
so it's time for weed to catch up, and I'm looking forward to what we're going to see after a few years of legalisation.
sure, you can do a lot with tissue culturing and dna manipulation, biotech, etc, but it's not magic.
tissue culture is just a more advanced form of cloning. just like cloning, there's still a minimal amount of healthy tissue you need to get a plantlet going from.
if they only get a few seeds, they could grow a plant from that, then tissue culture from a leaf. but if the seeds are not viable, it would be pretty difficult getting a plantlet going from that little bit of tissue within the seed. I don't know enough about it to say it's impossible, but if it is possibvle that's a step above regular tissue culture, similar to the gap between regular cloning and tissue culture.
for just dna sequencing/analysis you just need a little bit of dna though. and as part of dna-analysis you run a reaction on it, where you multiply a specific part of the dna. so if the signal is too weak(too little dna present), you can just try to run more cycles, and you could still get a good signal out of it if you're lucky.
I do think they could use their gathered data to help assist breeding, but it would be way more indirect as directly using genetics of material send to them. it would be more in the realm of having a large database so if they discovered the identity of certain genes, they might look through their database to find other strains posessing the same variant of that gene, then ask the owner for a living plant.
or they might identify a certain gene, like a resistance gene, and look in their database if other variants exist.
so yes ofcourse, they're not a non-profit. ofcourse they will look for ways to make a profit, like any company. but they don't need to do any sneaky stealing of genetics to profit from that data, and it would most likely be impossible to steal anyway if they just got a few dead seeds send to them. even if they have the dna of those dead seeds in their database. and suggesting they're involved in some sort of elaborate conspiracy brings us no where.
btw, I think it's a good thing we're finally getting some up to date science into the weed-world. I think weed pretty much skipped the green revolution(=big advances in breeding of legal crops, around 1960-70 I think?), while now in legal crops there's a lot of talk that biotech(woth asociated technology, like marker assisted selection) is bringing us into a 2nd green revolution.
so it's time for weed to catch up, and I'm looking forward to what we're going to see after a few years of legalisation.
White Beard
Active member
Honestly, I’m NOT looking forward to seeing what Big Money can do to the cannabis landscape: we seem to be headed into a condition where legalization is a government-enforced private club with a stiff entry fee and no way to claw back what they take from the long-term little guys. Nothing has happened so far that leads me to think that “legal” will have any meaning beyond industrial monopoly and government stores - the *only* bright spot so far is Colorado enshrining the right to grow in the state’s constitution, and that legalization is hobbled, hog-tied, and blindfolded....
If Phylos and its principals are our friends, they have yet to prove it, and IMO they’re moving in the wrong direction. As you rightly point out, they are a for-profit company; for-profit companies have a very long track-record of screwing competitors, customers, and the public at large. I’m as free enterprise as anyone, but Adam Effing Smith points out that the wealthy never congregate but for the purpose of disadvantaging the public for their own increase, and he’s been proven right every time: free enterprise, this ain’t.
If Phylos and its principals are our friends, they have yet to prove it, and IMO they’re moving in the wrong direction. As you rightly point out, they are a for-profit company; for-profit companies have a very long track-record of screwing competitors, customers, and the public at large. I’m as free enterprise as anyone, but Adam Effing Smith points out that the wealthy never congregate but for the purpose of disadvantaging the public for their own increase, and he’s been proven right every time: free enterprise, this ain’t.
well yeah, companies screwing over the world for profits is nothing new. that's why I don't like capitalism and all the commercialism in our culture, but that's another matter.
it's unavoidable with legalisation. if 'we' see companies as phylos as enemy we won't work together with, it won't stop them from taking over the market. no hobbyist will be able to fully compete in the legal market, unless we can create a kind of craft beer/winery kind of culture around weed, but the average joe will still buy industrially grown marlboro/heineken weed at the supermarket.
but if legalisation allows me to continue my own personal growing and breeding without fear of law enforcement or thieves(which in a legal world I could just report to the police) I don't care if phylos takes over the market, I won't be buying anyway. screw the commercial market, I'm a gardener, not a commercial grower, and I want to garden in peace.
if some black market growers(which I think a lot of are just in it for the money too) go out of business due to big weed, that's a small price to pay for the fact I'm finally not a criminal anymore for growing a specific species of plant in my garden.
btw, just to add, I do find it great how weed has a big culture of underground breeding. with plants like tomatoes and chili there's just apreciation for heirlooms, but not many people doing hobby breeding to make new heirlooms. it's just conserving history, instead of creating new.
and it would be a shame to see that movement disappear. but it doesn't have to. if there are passionate people who keep breedin as a hobby, it can continue in the legal age too. it will just be a seperate world from the commercial world, and the people just in it for the necessity will quit(like how in earlier times lots of people gardened, but now everyone just buys the same generic vegetable varieties in th supermarket. but that's just people going for convenience, and having no interest in gardening).
edit:
another thing, who are they competing with? I'd think the most likely for a big company to take over the market is to focus on lower quality, average commercial weed. the kind the average person buys. the kind of commercial weed that's already common under illegality.
there'll still be a market for specialty weed. more expensive higher quality for people who know their weed. pure sativas and pure indicas. also nowadays in legal markets, the big players usually focus on the big markets, letting the niche-markets to smaller producers. it's just not that profitable to produce big scale for the 5-10% who are willing to pay more for a unique flavor or high.
it's unavoidable with legalisation. if 'we' see companies as phylos as enemy we won't work together with, it won't stop them from taking over the market. no hobbyist will be able to fully compete in the legal market, unless we can create a kind of craft beer/winery kind of culture around weed, but the average joe will still buy industrially grown marlboro/heineken weed at the supermarket.
but if legalisation allows me to continue my own personal growing and breeding without fear of law enforcement or thieves(which in a legal world I could just report to the police) I don't care if phylos takes over the market, I won't be buying anyway. screw the commercial market, I'm a gardener, not a commercial grower, and I want to garden in peace.
if some black market growers(which I think a lot of are just in it for the money too) go out of business due to big weed, that's a small price to pay for the fact I'm finally not a criminal anymore for growing a specific species of plant in my garden.
btw, just to add, I do find it great how weed has a big culture of underground breeding. with plants like tomatoes and chili there's just apreciation for heirlooms, but not many people doing hobby breeding to make new heirlooms. it's just conserving history, instead of creating new.
and it would be a shame to see that movement disappear. but it doesn't have to. if there are passionate people who keep breedin as a hobby, it can continue in the legal age too. it will just be a seperate world from the commercial world, and the people just in it for the necessity will quit(like how in earlier times lots of people gardened, but now everyone just buys the same generic vegetable varieties in th supermarket. but that's just people going for convenience, and having no interest in gardening).
edit:
another thing, who are they competing with? I'd think the most likely for a big company to take over the market is to focus on lower quality, average commercial weed. the kind the average person buys. the kind of commercial weed that's already common under illegality.
there'll still be a market for specialty weed. more expensive higher quality for people who know their weed. pure sativas and pure indicas. also nowadays in legal markets, the big players usually focus on the big markets, letting the niche-markets to smaller producers. it's just not that profitable to produce big scale for the 5-10% who are willing to pay more for a unique flavor or high.
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They say nothing about breeding with the seeds sent to them. Keep in mind most seeds sent to them were very old and perhaps impossible to do nothing with them but DNA tests. Perhaps some were suitable for tissue culture. But what people want to grow today is Kush and fancy modern hybrids. The business is in the 35% THC hybrids
There is quite a market for landrace genetics for ‘pure’ breeding purposes to remove the bottleneck created from crossing every elite to cookies then labeling themselves as ‘breeders’
Nice wall of text... quit reading after ‘conspiracy theory’. Hope Phylos is paying you well
it will be fascinating to see how washington d.c.'s cannabis culture will evolve: right now it is legal to possess and grow a certain amount of cannabis, but the washington dc government cannot set up a regulation system (so say the feds), effectively making any commercial operations and even individual sales illegal.
so far, the culture has been very communal; donations, gifts, trades, etc. and a few organizations stepped up to assist individuals, provide seeds, info, etc...
my point being, there's no corporate atmosphere whatsoever, and the environment is very diy and small coop friendly.
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nah, I have my cheque sent to the flat eart society.
anyway, you're right on the wall of text, I'm done with my stoned ramblings.
choose what you want to believe, but please have a look at how tissue culture and dna analysis are actually performed. maybe you'll see with your own eyes the earth isn't flat. just need to take a look down the water well.
Now would be a good time to review the lies that started this whole mess.
Quote from this thread: https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=296540
Quote from this thread: https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=296540
Tinfoil and conspiracy theory are the 2 latest and greatest words used to pompously dismiss something one does not agree with or more importantly ADMIT the possibility even exists. Would venture to say the hold outs have skin in the game. They used the testing service and rather not admit they got duped. Instead of taking the L and moving forward, they throw in the ‘conspiracy theory’, add a side of phlatt urfff to it (after all no fucking reasonable person believes that bullshit) and feel vindicated.
Phylos as any seedbank is a business. And as any business they work for money. It is really easy to understand.
I have sent seeds to Sam. And I have been warned about if Phylos was collecting seeds to use them later. But I really don't care. Most of the seeds were impossible to germinate. And the ones which germinate I really don't care if they grow them and do whatever they want later. I am not a breeder nor I have not an ultra secret breeding program. I grow for fun nor for profit and I like to share seeds.
I can be extremely conspiranoic but not about Phylos. I see everyday how sativa landraces are being replaced by modern BLD hybrids al over the world. I see Mexican youngsters getting crazy with the new modern thick Kiush buds, dabs, resins, rozin,... I have seen people highly involved in legalization who really don't care about the strains because for them even the hemp I reject is good to smoke because the CBD stupidness. I have tried to get contact with people in Mexico, Colombia, Jamaica and everywhere and they are happy to grow the modern Lilliputian couchlocking boring hybrids instead the psychedelic mindblowing colossal landraces they have in the past. In Colombia they need to extend the day light with lamps in order to avoid teeny-weeny plants. But they don't care, they seem happy. I see conspiration there. Since the first growing guide where it says if you have a sativa you must cross it with an indica in order to breed them properly. Even something so common in the past (in the USA not in Europe) as Mexican swag sativa/NLD landrace seeds now are completely imposiible to get.
I have sent seeds to Sam. And I have been warned about if Phylos was collecting seeds to use them later. But I really don't care. Most of the seeds were impossible to germinate. And the ones which germinate I really don't care if they grow them and do whatever they want later. I am not a breeder nor I have not an ultra secret breeding program. I grow for fun nor for profit and I like to share seeds.
I can be extremely conspiranoic but not about Phylos. I see everyday how sativa landraces are being replaced by modern BLD hybrids al over the world. I see Mexican youngsters getting crazy with the new modern thick Kiush buds, dabs, resins, rozin,... I have seen people highly involved in legalization who really don't care about the strains because for them even the hemp I reject is good to smoke because the CBD stupidness. I have tried to get contact with people in Mexico, Colombia, Jamaica and everywhere and they are happy to grow the modern Lilliputian couchlocking boring hybrids instead the psychedelic mindblowing colossal landraces they have in the past. In Colombia they need to extend the day light with lamps in order to avoid teeny-weeny plants. But they don't care, they seem happy. I see conspiration there. Since the first growing guide where it says if you have a sativa you must cross it with an indica in order to breed them properly. Even something so common in the past (in the USA not in Europe) as Mexican swag sativa/NLD landrace seeds now are completely imposiible to get.
Now that Phylos has announced they're going to start breeding it somehow means they stole all those genetics they were sent? People have been literally sending Phylos twigs and dried leaves. What could they do with that anyway?
They are most likely to start breeding from proven clones anyway, rather than going through some random seeds sent by some random dude. They said they will begin breeding using modern genetic recources, identifying specific alleles for example, just like any modern agricultural business these days. Because of legal restraints very little has been done for the species cannabis in terms of actual breeding. It's a been a 99% amateur driven scene..
I don't see a conspiracy here. Where's the smoking gun? They've been analyzing the sent samples, there are hundreds already. I don't like taking a "big company's" side on this argument, in fact I couldn't care less for the whole conversation, but can't we try to be a little greatful for the work they've done? There are literally hundreds of samples out there already! That's what we wanted from them! Cannabis dna samples! And this thread is about the results concerning landraces! Can we discuss that instead of this pointless fear mongering?
They are most likely to start breeding from proven clones anyway, rather than going through some random seeds sent by some random dude. They said they will begin breeding using modern genetic recources, identifying specific alleles for example, just like any modern agricultural business these days. Because of legal restraints very little has been done for the species cannabis in terms of actual breeding. It's a been a 99% amateur driven scene..
I don't see a conspiracy here. Where's the smoking gun? They've been analyzing the sent samples, there are hundreds already. I don't like taking a "big company's" side on this argument, in fact I couldn't care less for the whole conversation, but can't we try to be a little greatful for the work they've done? There are literally hundreds of samples out there already! That's what we wanted from them! Cannabis dna samples! And this thread is about the results concerning landraces! Can we discuss that instead of this pointless fear mongering?
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White Beard
Active member
Phylos calls themselves a research project, not a seedbank nor any other kind of business: we know *nothing* of their business model, we know nothing of their funding. They say they will not grow or sell cannabis in any form, but now they announce a breeding project.
They say they will make their ‘results’ freely available to ‘researchers’, and information about specific submissions “freely available” to the submitters.
They say they want to generate a map of cannabis evolution, starting with modern commercial strains, and many have noticed that the ‘galaxy’ seems inverted, showing for example Skunk #1 as the origin, not as a consequence of that evolution.
They say existing strains can’t be patented, that they won’t attempt to patent submitted strains, they say their goal is the creation of a ‘modern marketplace’.
All well and good, maybe...but here’s a few things they don’t say:
- They make no mention of genetic modifications - with CRISPR editing tech, students are learning genetic manipulation *today*;
- They made no mention of a breeding program, nor of why they now have one;
- They make no claims regarding the use of their results to engineer cannabis so as to produce new and therefore patentable strains;
- They make no explicit statement about their intentions regarding the evolution of cannabis, and yet they begin with the assumption that the “new taxonomy” is valid despite its violations of the rules of taxonomy, and with the assumption that existing samples can in fact provide a valid evolutionary chain.
They say they are transparent, but none of this qualifies as transparency.
I spent a lot of years as a computer programmer and data analyst, and I learned a lot about how initial assumptions and instructions can warp - even invalidate - results, about how faulty assumptions can cripple output, about how data can be (and typically is) ‘massaged’ to produce whatever results the bosses want produced.
This doesn’t mean I distrust Sam, or Clarke, or Short: I *do* think Clarke is flat wrong with his taxonomic mutilations, but that’s another thread. I *do* think it’s entirely possible that they themselves are being misled as to the goals and purposes of the Phylos effort.
Control over the cannabis genome would be a powerful thing and a massive money-maker. If I distrust anyone, I distrust the money funding the effort, and I distrust the recipients of the eventual data: it wouldn’t be the first time shiny enthusiasm has been used to conceal dark deeds.
Thanks to ChunkyPig for quoting the OP, thanks to all for the discussion.
This ain’t over....
They say they will make their ‘results’ freely available to ‘researchers’, and information about specific submissions “freely available” to the submitters.
They say they want to generate a map of cannabis evolution, starting with modern commercial strains, and many have noticed that the ‘galaxy’ seems inverted, showing for example Skunk #1 as the origin, not as a consequence of that evolution.
They say existing strains can’t be patented, that they won’t attempt to patent submitted strains, they say their goal is the creation of a ‘modern marketplace’.
All well and good, maybe...but here’s a few things they don’t say:
- They make no mention of genetic modifications - with CRISPR editing tech, students are learning genetic manipulation *today*;
- They made no mention of a breeding program, nor of why they now have one;
- They make no claims regarding the use of their results to engineer cannabis so as to produce new and therefore patentable strains;
- They make no explicit statement about their intentions regarding the evolution of cannabis, and yet they begin with the assumption that the “new taxonomy” is valid despite its violations of the rules of taxonomy, and with the assumption that existing samples can in fact provide a valid evolutionary chain.
They say they are transparent, but none of this qualifies as transparency.
I spent a lot of years as a computer programmer and data analyst, and I learned a lot about how initial assumptions and instructions can warp - even invalidate - results, about how faulty assumptions can cripple output, about how data can be (and typically is) ‘massaged’ to produce whatever results the bosses want produced.
This doesn’t mean I distrust Sam, or Clarke, or Short: I *do* think Clarke is flat wrong with his taxonomic mutilations, but that’s another thread. I *do* think it’s entirely possible that they themselves are being misled as to the goals and purposes of the Phylos effort.
Control over the cannabis genome would be a powerful thing and a massive money-maker. If I distrust anyone, I distrust the money funding the effort, and I distrust the recipients of the eventual data: it wouldn’t be the first time shiny enthusiasm has been used to conceal dark deeds.
Thanks to ChunkyPig for quoting the OP, thanks to all for the discussion.
This ain’t over....
I dunno,,, but that amateur Colombian, Thai, Mex, etc, from back in the day, was pretty damn good enough for me
White Beard
Active member
You’d think science had advanced because *money*...may be true now, because of the cost-of-living trap, but back in the day, it was people who didn’t *have* to work who could devote the time necessary to, say, come up with a system of taxonomy we still use (...or did you think it was Linnaeus’ *job*?).
Once upon a time, it was the *amateurs* who cared enough to get things right, and professionals were just hired labor (oddly, it looks like that hasn’t changed that much, now we just look down on those who do it for love (...which is what ‘amateur’ means))
Once upon a time, it was the *amateurs* who cared enough to get things right, and professionals were just hired labor (oddly, it looks like that hasn’t changed that much, now we just look down on those who do it for love (...which is what ‘amateur’ means))
