Please breeders we still want regular seeds too...

[numberguy]

Patiently waiting? Can gynoecious bred plants survive the lack of electricity or man himself? If it can not survive in the wild on its own it is at threat of extinction. With reversed plants you will not be able to backbreed to find older pheno's or strains, certain genes may become blocked and not able to express, this may be what happened to skunk.
Without a male around a she will not be able to fully express herself. Male and female expressions are hormones and interact. If you restrict a hormone reaction the female will be different than if she had a normal reaction to a males presence.
We will not be able to tell the difference in reversed strains and non reversed strains, you will not know if there is a reversal in the previous generations.
Reversals then should soon start to replace traditionally bred elite clones as reversals have been around for a while an can be utilized more efficiently. So better than the original should show the worth of reversals, time will tell.

 

[HouseOfPollen]

Actually the funky mutations in humans are Anti Nazi propaganda from the 1940's because of thier breeding program that involved siblings sometimes. If you read about the genetic bottleneck that caused our large brains to form you would know world wide human populations dropped to near 1000 people at one time. That means we are all inbread even beyond the fact that technically we have to be "imbred" because we can't mate with anything other than a animal with 99%+ the same dna- any other human

Do imbread people have a higher risk of disease and mutation? YES but its not as high as they wish to make it sound but don't use what I say as an excuse to marry your cousin lol.

This serious?

A 1998 review found 1-4% increased morbidity for offsprings of first cousins compared to offsprings of unrelated parents. A 1994 review found 4.4% increased mortality for offspring of first cousins. After controlling for several sociodemographic factors, infant mortality for offspring of first cousins had odds ratios of 1.36, 1.28, and 1.32 for the neonatal, postneonatal, and infant period. There has been little research on how inbreeding affects common adult disorder although some preliminary evidence support effects on many such disorders including cardiovascular diseases and common cancers. Many previously not identified genetic disorders have first been recognized in highly endogamous communities and the mutation causing the disease may be unique to such communities.

http://www.consang.net/images/d/dd/01AHBWeb3.pdf

Just Nazi propaganda? It has been common sense for thousands of years for a reason in most societies.

P.S.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/imbred

 

[megayields]

I have alot more respect for a man like Shanti and his business practices, than someone like Arjan..

From what little I know about breeding...amen!

 

[KiefSweat]

but if you know nothing about breeding or business how can you make a comment as such?

 

[mofeta]

Just ran across this thread.

My position on all this is in complete harmony with Tom's.

I think that one source of misunderstanding in this issue is the confusion in some people's minds between selfing and reversing. Think about these two terms and try to understand the distinction, it is important. Selfing is possible through reversal, but is only one aspect of the potential of reversal. Tom sagely points out that the term "feminisation" is misleading, the feminisation is really a side effect.

The use of reversal aside from selfing is of obvious utility. Pollen is pollen, but when obtained from a reversed female, a world of effort in progeny testing males goes away. Phenotyping by observation is a lot easier than through deduction.

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to selfing too. People fret about inbreeding depression etc. This fear is misplaced. Selfing is a tool, that used in the proper context, is indispensable.

Homozygosity is a double edged sword. Traits can be fixed, but deleterious recessives (inbreeding depression) can arise.

What I would like to point out is that besides fixing traits, selfing can reveal desirable recessives too. And as to the unmasking of the deleterious recessives, how else do you weed them out unless they are expressed. Numbers, numbers, find the bad and kill, find the good and fix. The superior homozygous individuals resulting maybe lacking in overall vigor (which I find to be minimal), but are pure gold in crosses: hybrid vigor and transgessive phenos.

 

[mofeta]

..will a heavily inbred, selfed line produce a good percentage of mutations from innerbreeding? kind of like when humans that are of direct relation innerbreed you get some funky mutations.

Problems from inbreeding arise from the expression of bad recessive alleles, not mutations.

 

[mofeta]

...double haploid tech.... will render such techs as clones and artificial seed near obsolete.

Are you guys culturing gametes, or have you developed an inducer? Are you also working on apomictic seed?

 

[Illuminate]

as long as the Ibl's are maintained properly, this whole thing wouldnt be a problem...what people are saying is comparing todays market trends/with that of the past, to predict the future...and, in that it doesnt look good..(at the moment)

 

[tweeds]

So, keif, i am trying to understand this (i'm an electrician not a breeder) but it seems that while reversing or inbreeding you lock down specific traits as well as open up the risk for mutations? It just seems to me that there is male/female in this species for a reason and while i do not discredit what i know nothing about and maybe i picked a bad spot to jump in and learn but will continue anyways, thank you for the patience and threads with pertinent information it is appreciated!

 

[KiefSweat]

Tom I am sure could give you a better answer
If you consider recessive combinations to be mutations then selfing compared to other types of inbreeding is just more extreme. Since you are using only one set of genes really its a lot quicker to develop inbred or (drifted/mutated) lines

Cannabis is general is an outcrossing species. So most of the time when you continue to outcross or make polyhybrids you don't see the more recessive traits.

and lets just say you have your basic phenotypes AA (dominant) aa (recessive) and Aa mixed.

the dominant and recessive phenos will stay the same while the Aa mixed pheno should segregate into a 1:2:1 Mendelian ratio. If you continued to select the Aa mixed pheno plants you could continue the cycle forever it seems. But if you worked the AA or aa phenotypes from that generation the selfed generation should be similar to the parent. (all on paper)

 

[Tom Hill]

Tweeds, Mofeta spoke to that quite eloquently. Yes, intensive inbreeding fixes traits, the good the bad and the ugly. Deleterious recessives need to be unmasked (homozygous) before they can be fully dealt with/culled. Skunk 1 is actually a good example of a line where they've been mostly purged. If they are not purged and instead masked, they will only resurfaced again later down the line.

What you are picturing and what I am picturing may be two different things. If I was to self a plant, then self a single of her offspring, and etc, I may indeed get into trouble with some of what you are worried about.

However, let's say I have 10 outstanding females that I self to create 10 families to plug into a pedigree method type breeding program, and you have 5 coupled with 5 males that you plug into a full-sib family selection type program. Let's give ourselves 2-3 cycles of selection. 2 of my ten lines survive culling ranking highest and are then bulked. You do the same %wise, and one of your 5 lines survive your program. Not only will the selfing program produce a higher rate of homogeneity but while you were masking deleterious recessives to resurface at a later date, I was purging them from the population.

Numberguy throw a handful of drug type cannabis seed out your bedroom window into the backyard then check it out in 3 years. Is there a stand of cannabis back there? No, ei, fat chance many lines of cannabis can naturalize in many places around the world - cannabis, and many other cultivated species already require man. Yes we can backcross with reversed plants. Genes may become blocked? Without a male around a female may not be able to fully express itself? etc? huh? Can you elaborate as to the potential mode of action leading to any of that?

Correct we will not be able to tell if there was reversals in previous generations, nor will the plant be able to tell either. The vast majority of elites in my neck of the woods are products of reversals. Just go down to any dispensary grab their best smoke then try to find the male parental input, it's not very likely.

Mofeta, haha only in my mind brother but it seems to me that it is not too very far fetched. -T

 

[tweeds]

OK. I see where you are going with it. LOL. so i guess what i am understanding (correct me if i'm wrong) but since clone only elites are just one plant then you stand to get into trouble with IBL since the genetics are what they are even in produced offspring. is there a combination of genetics that are different from the mother produced in the offspring of an "elite"? I guess what i see is breeders selfing these elite clone onlys more than worked lines that have a large pool of plants to work with and what i am trying to say is there is no point in going further that the first generation of selfing to an elite as opposed to what you are saying as far as inbreeding a line that has alot to choose from....comparing apples and oranges put simply....thank you for your time.

 

[Tom Hill]

Recombination still ocurrs with the technique (unless all loci are fixed) so that is not true. The ten individuals in the above example I began with could have been the offspring obtained from selfing a single individual (elite clone).

What I see a lot of is breeders poddy-mouthing these techniques with all kind of crap about it creating intersex individuals so what do they do. They instead go off on some backcrossing program often 3 consecutive backcrosses using the elite clone as the recurrent parent and where does that bring them? <To the exact same place a single cycle of selfing would have brought them - intersex plants and all, lol. At least with the selfing, we could have actually made some improvements while we were pissing around. -Tom

 

[187020]

Gave up on fem seeds...

Gave up on fem seeds...

Actively pursuing nanners however! Time to go rub one out

 

[Tom Hill]

No doubt finding them too in lines like Sour D, Chem, OG etc, regardless of them being products of male/female matings, as they've not been purged of their undesirable recessives through proven selection methods . -Tom

 

[Hammerhead]

charlie did a outstanding job with his s1 line...50+ plants not one had nanners or went Hermie....Im working with it now. I just started some of the crosses I made with it....

 

[40AmpstoFreedom]

I will attempt to play devils advocate and see what comes of it. I also included some very clearly written basic breeding info for people that I found to be useful and others may too (it's just well written basic breeding info a primer for this thread). This post is intended to be a summary of the arguments already had and compilation of legitimate negatives/positives with basic breed info inserted to help grasp the topic in discussion. A verbal visual/flow chart of sorts.

Actively pursuing nanners however! Time to go rub one out

View Image

Nothing abnormal in the back of that truck move a long now purely parental and no evolutionary evidence exists of bananas being carried in trucks more often than normal! LOL

So, say nanners can be completely bred out through superior breeding and selection and are not more prevalent in fem'd lines...

No doubt finding them too in lines like Sour D, Chem, OG etc, regardless of them being products of male/female matings, as they've not been purged of their undesirable recessives through proven selection methods . -Tom

Yeah increased intersex expression misconception #5 boy you are running right down the line aren't you. Just as narrowing populations and limiting variation is a product of numbers, not technique, the tendency towards intersex individuals within any progeny is a product of the parent/s used to create that progeny, not technique.

You can feel anyway you want or think this or that is bound to happen, all I'm saying is that there is zero science supporting it. -T

There are several misconceptions regarding breeding by way of reversals.
Here are a few:

That it somehow increases the rate of intersex individuals within a population. This is nothing more than fear mongering with zero science behind it.

Mating Systems and Effective Population Size

As the effective population size (Ne) of a population becomes smaller (for example as a result of a bottleneck or a founder event), it becomes more likely that individuals in a population will mate with relatives. As a result, small populations experience an increased degree of inbreeding (F increases) with subsequent higher levels of homozygosity, and lower levels of genotypic diversity. Plant and animal breeders use this principle to fix desirable alleles in populations of domesticated animals and plants. The expected increase of the inbreeding coefficient F in populations with different effective size over time is shown in Figure 16. Populations may exhibit inbreeding depression if Ne becomes too small. Inbreeding depression results from having deleterious recessive alleles that become homozygous (hence are expressed) in inbreeding populations. Inbreeding depression is of great concern for wild animals on the brink of extinction. Inbreeding depression has been hinted at in Phytophthora infestans (Shattock et al. 1986), but has not been conclusively demonstrated for plant pathogens, perhaps because nobody has studied it thus far.

http://www.apsnet.org/edcenter/advanced/topics/PopGenetics/Pages/ReproductiveMatingSystems.aspx

Inbreeding Depression

Vipera berus

In a small population, matings between relatives are common. This inbreeding may lower the population’s ability to survive and reproduce, a phenomenon called inbreeding depression. For example, a population of 40 adders (Vipera berus, shown at right) experienced inbreeding depression when farming activities in Sweden isolated them from other adder populations.1 Higher proportions of stillborn and deformed offspring were born in the isolated population than in the larger populations. When researchers introduced adders from other populations—an example of outbreeding—the isolated population recovered and produced a higher proportion of viable offspring.

The explanation for inbreeding depression lies in the evolutionary history of the population. Over time, natural selection weeds deleterious alleles out of a population—when the dominant deleterious alleles are expressed, they lower the carrier’s fitness, and fewer copies wind up in the next generation. But recessive deleterious alleles are “hidden” from natural selection by their dominant non-deleterious counterparts. An individual carrying a single recessive deleterious allele will be healthy and can easily pass the deleterious allele into the next generation.

When the population is large, this is generally not a problem—the population may carry many recessive deleterious alleles, but they are rarely expressed. However, when the population becomes small, close relatives end up mating with one another, and those relatives likely carry the same recessive deleterious alleles. When the relatives mate, the offspring may inherit two copies of the same recessive deleterious allele and suffer the consequences of expressing the deleterious allele, as shown in the example below. In the case of the Swedish adders, that meant stillborn offspring and deformities.

Inbreeding among adders

For Swedish adders, the solution to the inbreeding depression problem was simple—introduce adders from other populations. But if the northern hairy-nosed wombat suffers from inbreeding depression, there are no other populations that can rescue it. Understanding the evolutionary history of a population and the likelihood that it carries recessive deleterious alleles, suggests that we should not allow population sizes to dip too low in our conservation efforts, or inbreeding depression may jeopardize the survival of the species.


1 Madsen, Thomas; Stille, Bo; Shine, Richard. Inbreeding depression in an isolated population of adders Vipera berus. In: Biological Conservation 1996. 75 (2): 113-118.

• Adder photo © Dr. Wolfgang Wüster

 

[40AmpstoFreedom]

Mock Argument:

I am curious as to how the marketing will be for these beans to consumers to convince them to buy them with so many detractors. I just see people trying to convince people to buy this

albeit a lot shorter and prettier like this

but just as ugly on the inside, because they are more "uniform".

Answer:

Rest your worried head mates, for anything that can be bred in by conventional means can be bred back out by those same means.

On recombination, plant numbers, and potential inbreeding depression:

OG.Gotti the deficit of heterozygous individuals (inbreeding depression etc) is a product of numbers, not technique.

Tweeds, Mofeta spoke to that quite eloquently. Yes, intensive inbreeding fixes traits, the good the bad and the ugly. Deleterious recessives need to be unmasked (homozygous) before they can be fully dealt with/culled. Skunk 1 is actually a good example of a line where they've been mostly purged. If they are not purged and instead masked, they will only resurfaced again later down the line.

What you are picturing and what I am picturing may be two different things. If I was to self a plant, then self a single of her offspring, and etc, I may indeed get into trouble with some of what you are worried about.

However, let's say I have 10 outstanding females that I self to create 10 families to plug into a pedigree method type breeding program, and you have 5 coupled with 5 males that you plug into a full-sib family selection type program. Let's give ourselves 2-3 cycles of selection. 2 of my ten lines survive culling ranking highest and are then bulked. You do the same %wise, and one of your 5 lines survive your program. Not only will the selfing program produce a higher rate of homogeneity but while you were masking deleterious recessives to resurface at a later date, I was purging them from the population.

Recombination still ocurrs with the technique (unless all loci are fixed) so that is not true. The ten individuals in the above example I began with could have been the offspring obtained from selfing a single individual (elite clone).

What I see a lot of is breeders poddy-mouthing these techniques with all kind of crap about it creating intersex individuals so what do they do. They instead go off on some backcrossing program often 3 consecutive backcrosses using the elite clone as the recurrent parent and where does that bring them? <To the exact same place a single cycle of selfing would have brought them - intersex plants and all, lol. At least with the selfing, we could have actually made some improvements while we were pissing around. -Tom

No sso feminized seeds are not basically clones of one plant that is misconception #2. Recombination still occurrs with this technique. Selfing is more intensive than 1:1 by approximately X3 but reversal techniques are not limited to selfing. As mentioned, you can open pollinate 20 female individuals if you wanted, and 1:1 male/female selection would be a double digit fold more intensive than that. So absolutely not, the technique is in noway shape or form bound to intensive inbreeding, that's about numbers, plain and simple.

My true motivation here is to teach 3rd grade math in 106 different languages I guess, lol

Low Genetic Variation

Genetic variation is the raw material of evolution. Without genetic variation, a population cannot evolve in response to changing environmental variables and, as a result, may face an increased risk of extinction. For example, if a population is exposed to a new disease, selection will act on genes for resistance to the disease if they exist in the population. But if they do not exist—if the right genetic variation is not present—the population will not evolve and could be wiped out by the disease.

As an endangered species dwindles, it loses genetic variation—and even if the species rebounds, its level of genetic variation will not. Genetic variation will only slowly be restored through the accumulation of mutations over many generations. For this reason, an endangered species with low genetic variation may risk extinction long after its population size has recovered.

Genetic variation doesn't rebound from a decrease as quickly as population size

Genetic variation doesn't rebound from a decrease as quickly as population size.
Evolutionary theory suggests that, for the long-term survival of a species, we need to conserve not just individual members of a species, but also a species’ ability to evolve in the face of changing environmental variables—which means conserving individuals and genetic variation.

The risk of extinction or population decline because of low genetic variation is predicted by evolutionary theory. Scientists have not yet found any absolutely clear-cut examples of this in endangered species today, but they continue to investigate the possibility. A case study of the cheetah, which has famously low genetic variation, suggests the sorts of dangers that are possible. When the captive felines at an Oregon breeding colony for large cats were exposed to a potentially deadly virus, it swept through the cheetah population, killing about 50% as a direct or indirect result of the virus—but none of the lions even developed symptoms.1

Cheetah populations have low amounts of genetic variation, while lion populations typically have higher amounts.

Although this example is by no means conclusive, it is possible that the cheetahs’ low genetic variation—unlike the lions’ more extensive variation—meant that none of them had the right immune system gene variants to fend off the disease. Similar epidemics could sweep through other vulnerable species with low genetic variation, increasing their chance of extinction.

What if argument:

little to no variation

may sound good to some people, but eventually when they realize how boring and one dimensional the product they bought was they wouldn't even need to take into account all the other detractors to spend their money elsewhere. I think it will have a niche like any other seed, but the market will react to it in the same way they have to ridiculously over priced beans @ low quantities and lackluster quality most of the time by opening up their own businesses and purchasing other companies traditionally bred genetics rather than something completely closed off. I think in the effort to 'protect' ones market share and genetic pool will result in adverse effects and companies that follow suit will cordon off the majority of their would be customers (like all fem companies are doing now), because the public will be yawning at the boring one dimensional product offered. They will never be an "end all" because the free market will answer by the use of their money and the explosion of new traditional breeding seed companies. Variety is the spice of life. I just don't see how any of this can be viewed as anything but anti-conservation. I will need to be convinced otherwise.

Low genetic variation in general:

There are several misconceptions regarding breeding by way of reversals.
Here are a few:

That it narrows the genepool. Nonsense, as stated earlier that is a product of numbers, not technique.

It does not limit phenotypic variation either that was misconception #4. That is a product of numbers, not technique. IE, there is no mathematical difference between 1:1 male/female matings and 1:1 female/female matings, they both narrow variation within a given population at the exact same rate. -T

It does not limit phenotypic variation either that was misconception #4. That is a product of numbers, not technique. IE, there is no mathematical difference between 1:1 male/female matings and 1:1 female/female matings, they both narrow variation within a given population at the exact same rate. -T

No sso feminized seeds are not basically clones of one plant that is misconception #2. Recombination still occurrs with this technique. Selfing is more intensive than 1:1 by approximately X3 but reversal techniques are not limited to selfing. As mentioned, you can open pollinate 20 female individuals if you wanted, and 1:1 male/female selection would be a double digit fold more intensive than that. So absolutely not, the technique is in noway shape or form bound to intensive inbreeding, that's about numbers, plain and simple.

My true motivation here is to teach 3rd grade math in 106 different languages I guess, lol

Loss of male genetic being a potential hazard:

That's correct it is never too late if your hypothesis of male importance ever proves out. No, it doesn't make sense to me. Yes you understand correctly, I have zero reservations about gynoecious selections, and I have not once heard a lucid argument against them, let alone a science-based one - I don't believe you have either but I'm all ears. -Tom

We explain males because dioecy stands a better chance than hermaphroditism in a natural selection evolutionary setting. It is generally accepted that a species containing males is better able to survive than one that doesn't because it promotes outcrossing thereby avoiding inbreeding depression. However, if we are thinking about using this as a lucid argument against gynoecious selection, then we may as well do away with artificial selection in its entirety too while we are at it, imo. Artificial selection -breeding- begins with throwing out what happens in nature. -T

Loss of ability to make f2's or breed:

If I was to speculate would-be breeders might have to pick up a book or two before proceeding, and there may be a bit less random outcrossing occurring. The genepool would welcome both of those actions imo.-T

[/LIST]

That is really what we're talking about isn't it, that female seeds limit folk with a feeble understanding in regards to how to proceed. Too bad, you'll get no sympathy from me. If anybody needs help I as well as others are always available, but we'll not sit here and entertain feeling sorry for you and your heebie jeebies about the topic when all that is required is a modicum of education and direction.

Are these beans good for the MJ community/industry at large?

If we were to entertain some of those thoughts for arguments sake -the fact remains- gynoecious selection is not a one way street without the option of flipping a U-turn, and so the poddy-mouthing of it seems a bit ridiculous to me.-Tom

Chemical used:

If you are not comfortable with the idea of using chems for reversal then there are other methods available. Few if any are the plants I've seen anybody is working with can not be reversed via other techniques (light poisoning etc). I wonder how the Louis Bolk Institute et al would feel about some of these other techniques though and may even argue that indoor cultivation itself falls outside of their proposed organic protocol, ie a diversity limiting ecological detour regardless of whether or not you're using males, then what?

Tell you what here is a stick, there is the sand, draw the line where you like but just as in that posted document it will not likely be plain to see exactly where that line should be drawn. -T

P.S.
I don't see this dominating the market, ever, simply because there is competition out there. I see it as filling a niche just like every other seed. It will have a dedicated group of consumers with like needs, but no more than auto-flowers, female seeds, or traditional m/f lines.


Answer:

What will dominate the market will be real breeding eventually. Homogeneity reached through either hererozygosity or homozygosity, more often the former for the gardener/grower. Tissue culture for those who know exactly what they want be they growers or breeders, and techs like haploid doubling/reverse breeding for those who'd like to preserve exact genotypes for longer periods and more simply than tissue culture currently can.

Quite frankly, I can't imagine anything holding a knowledgeable breeder back from gynoecious selections, excepting an ignorant customer base. -Tom

See many of you will be stone cold slapped, because you've been dicking around with your feelings, lol.

 

[40AmpstoFreedom]

Positives

• Yes let's discuss it further. First let's just drop the term feminization as it places too much importance on this one small side effect of what reversals bring to the table. In fact screw feminized seeds haha. What reversals bring to the table is that we can now utilize much more efficient techniques than previously with male female matings. Instead of half-sib family selection now we can utilize the pedigree method, or S1 progeny selection. It truly is a massive step forward on all counts. If you are a numbers guy, then surely you can grasp that our odds of success increase with selections among 100 outstanding females in comparison to 50 outstanding females coupled with 50 males that in comparison we know jack shit about as far as our pipe/scale/etc is concerned. This basic principle is true whether we are improving a line or creating a hybrid. As both a grower and a breeder I am a space/numbers monger, and I want to fill that space with things I can evaluate with my pipe, or scale, or etc. -T

• It will limit this bullshit nonsensical phenotypic male selection the vast majority of folks are using now.

• Folk will instead make selection that actually make sense.

• It places no limits while at the same time providing some serious advantages and options that were previously off the table.

Negatives

• There are negatives too bro. Like for example if you were to take away from this thread that selfing is without it's problems eg flirting with inbreeding depression. There are certainly issues to be taken into account, but as long as they are understood, as long as we expect eg 8 of 10 selfed families to fail, and provision for that, then we are making some progress.

• The biggest negative of selfing is that you'll get a bunch of know-nothing morons hammering you for things that they do not understand. Seriously though, inbreeding depression will be the biggest obstacle, but one that is quite easily bypassed through numbers. IE take several shots at it, expecting only a couple to hit paydirt. This is all in the manual and should not be news to any breeder imo.

 

[Tom Hill]

Koufax goes into his stretch, eyeballs the runner at first, wondering if he'll post more hotties