Starting a breeding project with cloned mom. A few doubts.

[revegeta666]

Hi all,

I have kept this indica mom that I really like, and have grown a clone of her every grow since.

I keep her purely for the effect, which is milder and very relaxing. I have not tested her but I suspect she is not very high in thc, and may have some CBD content. Just speculating but I keep coming back to the jar, have grown many indicas since but didn't find a plant I liked this much.

I have been thinking for a while about starting a little noob breeding project. I have made crosses before but this time I would like to try to make something nice with this mom.

I have been thinking about a couple of other indicas that I like (the strain in general)to cross her to.

My plan for my first step would be to grow 2 packs of the indica I end up choosing, grow the females for smoking, saving a clone of each male and pollinating different clones of my mom separately with each male. In the next few grows I would go through each male's seeds to test which one of them gives the best progeny. And start my selection for the next step from there. Time and patience are not an issue.

What do you think about this method? The fact that I like this mom so much, doesn't necessarily mean she will make good offspring does it? This is my main concern. The only way to know is y growing the progeny I assume? Would you do it a different way? I know I can self the mom or pollinate it with another reversed female but at the moment I would prefer working with regular seeds.

My goals are just having fun and learning.

 

[Discorilla]

If you are doing it to keep something for yourself around, there is no harm that I see. There are no guarantees that the results will be what you want, like you said though. The method will take a fair bit of time for both the breeding and testing portions. For a quick test, a reversed female from the genetics you plan on crossing with, can be used to make some feminized seeds to see what your mom would pass on. You'd still have to find the right male for regular crosses, though.

If I didn't know what my parents were passing on, I'd chose fem beans to get a baseline. I'd rather have fem beans that I can turn into hash after a harvest, than a bunch of regular seeds I would never use. Personal preference, though.

 

[troutman]

Do it. Breeding something you like is fun.

 

[revegeta666]

If you are doing it to keep something for yourself around, there is no harm that I see. There are no guarantees that the results will be what you want, like you said though. The method will take a fair bit of time for both the breeding and testing portions. For a quick test, a reversed female from the genetics you plan on crossing with, can be used to make some feminized seeds to see what your mom would pass on. You'd still have to find the right male for regular crosses, though.

If I didn't know what my parents were passing on, I'd chose fem beans to get a baseline. I'd rather have fem beans that I can turn into hash after a harvest, than a bunch of regular seeds I would never use. Personal preference, though.

That sounds interesting thanks. I happen to have some STS in the fridge that a friend made a few months back and he gifted some to me. So if I understand correctly, I could reverse my mom to check all the resulting phenotypes and make sure the effect I like is passed on to any of them. That would prevent wasting so much time. That's definitely something I could do.

Could it be then that if I reversed this mom, I didn't find any plant with similar nuances in the effect? The mom is not representative of her strain at all, and was the only pheno of its kind in 30 seeds. So at least not common. Her sisters were good but lacking the nuance in the effect I keep mentioning.

In case I found a few desirable phenos in the feminized seeds, I could then begin my cross with the knowledge that the mom will pass on this particular trait to some plants, right?

Sorry if this is very nooby, I seem to have trouble assimilating the most basic breeding concepts. Might be because I am always baked when doing my research

 

[Discorilla]

The fem beans won't be exact copies. If they got you close, you'd at least have an idea of whether your desirable traits were dominant or recessive. If recessive, there is considerably more work to lock in these traits.

 

[revegeta666]

Bumping this thread, I would love it if I could get some other opinions. I'm going to cite you @dank.frank (I hope this is not too rude lol, if it is feel free to ignore), because I saw you in a different thread talking about things relevant to this thread but it was quite a chaotic thread so a lot of it went over my head. It would be great to read your take on this if you have the time

 

[goingrey]

I think your plan from the first post sounds great.

 

[goingrey]

And since you already have the STS in your fridge might as well make those S1's too.

 

[revegeta666]

And since you already have the STS in your fridge might as well make those S1's too.

I will, I will do both indeed haha. Making S1 to check which traits are passed on is something I didn't know about.

I have been growing for 10 years and usually grow as much variety as possible. So this plant in particular is the only plant I have ever grown more than twice, and the only plant I can say I know pretty well in terms of nutes, structure, indoor Vs outdoor, etc. So it's pretty exciting to be able to learn more about her through this method

 

[goingrey]

I will, I will do both indeed haha. Making S1 to check which traits are passed on is something I didn't know about.

I have been growing for 10 years and usually grow as much variety as possible. So this plant in particular is the only plant I have ever grown more than twice, and the only plant I can say I know pretty well in terms of nutes, structure, indoor Vs outdoor, etc. So it's pretty exciting to be able to learn more about here through this method

Plants/strains you know well are really the best kind to be breeding with.

If the chemotype turns out to be rare in the S1 generation, but you do find one, that S1 plant should be a good candidate to breed with as you're on step further into stabilization of the chemotype.

 

[SuperBadGrower]

Just have fun and chuck! That's right, the devil's advocate has arrived in this thread. I chucked and got lucky, everything turned out dank! (Just described the start of every pro's career). Now, I have a bunch of seed lines that produce females in a range between "pretty dank" and "ultra dank". It's way faster to chuck on one and test the offspring than to plan things out.

Of course, do your best to select the best male you can, with your limitations and time frame in mind. I personally would not use a male if I haven't smoked a few of its sisters. I guess my point is: I initially wanted to spend a lot of time and thought on my own projects, but I'm glad I didn't. I'm happy I have a load of seeds and diversity to play with. I would not have met the expectations I would've set for myself. Planning creates expectations and that means you can succeed or fail. Hahah just my 2 cts

 

[GoatCheese]

Your original plan sounds good, but finding a good strain that will give you more than one good male out of 20-30 seeds, i’d say, is the most difficult part of such a project.

MNS auction-site might be a good place to get fairly cheap breeding stock. You can get a MNS seed packs for under 20 euros over there if you play your cards right.

:::

You can actually smoke test males too, so you don’t need to wait till you have grown out their offspring to get an idea what the males will bring into the cross regarding effects. = you can smoke male flowers that have dropped their pollen. The dried male flowers aren’t harsh to smoke cause they don’t have much chlorophyll in them.

When i smoke test the males i have flowered, i smoke the dried flowers and the small leaves and thin bits of stems of the tops/colas. I smoke 2-4 large bong hits/pipe fulls and then sit back to analyze the effect. If you always smoke about the same amount you can compare their potency.

Ofcourse the effect isn’t strong, so make sure it’s the first thing you’re gonna smoke that day, but the effect is noticeable enough to get an idea what kind of effect it will bring into the cross.

If the male is really frosty and aromatic you can actually get a taste of the aroma profile too but not always.

 

[revegeta666]

@goingrey
Thanks, that is very interesting as well. I decided on breeding only with regular seeds but I know people breed with fems as well nowadays and there shouldn't be anything wrong with them. So I will think about that one.

@SuperBadGrower
That's fair also, thanks. In my case I think it will be part of the fun to autistically take notes for months and plan things out. I might be looking forward to the planning and note taking as much as the smoking lol.

@GoatCheese
I did read the male smoking a while back. A dj short article maybe? I might try that as well.
I was thinking of using seeds from a reproduction a friend made of the pck (cannabiogen). It has been very overused especially in Spain but I have smoked it and its crosses enough to think it would be a good match for my female in terms of effect (it's the maple leaf I talked to you about the other day). The pck has also a milder effect than other indicas and is known for adding mold resistance, which would be very useful because I live at seaside. Also has great taste and smell.

 

[GoatCheese]

Yea, i figured you were talking about your MLI.

PCK should be stable lines so finding usable males should be easier. it’s a good choice since you like the line already. Haven’t grown PCK myself yet, got a freebie pack from the Ace guys in the fridge looks like a nice line from the photos and peeps seem to like it. Great colors on some of them.

.. Use as may seeds as you can for the project- it will always improve your odds of finding something that stand out.



When you grow the PCK seeds keep following how the aroma profiles develop (gently rub-n-smell stems) starting from around 3 weeks after germination. The aroma profile, as it develops, can/will take small weekly changes during the next 4-6 weeks, esp. if the profile is very complex. You will notice the layered aroma profile better when you keep following it from early on as it develops.

::::

You can also get a 10x-30x jeweler’s loupe to check the resin size/content on the male candidates’ stems and on their growth tips/leaves. You can see globular resin glands even on the first true leaves when the seedlings are just a week old so you can start making notes for selection purposes very early on.

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Get 1,5ml plastic vials (and small zip baggies) if you’re gonna freeze pollen from your best males. You can get these cheaply via Ebay. Don’t pack the pollen tightly; don’t press it, what ever you’re using as packing material if you’re freezing it for later use.

I use silica gel (larger grain size) as desiccant in the plastic vials, i re-use the silica bags i get when buying clothes, shoes or what ever, but i have bought silica bags via ebay also.. awhile in the micro-oven will make them sweat out the earlier moisture and after that it can be re-used. – the silica will usually change color to indicate moisture content.

I make stoppers with small balls of clean film to keep the pollen in place (don’t press the pollen) and then fill the vial with the silica gel grains – I then wrap the vial in clean film and tape it well-then into the small baggies, 3-4 vial per baggie and then into the freezer in a small air tight container with few silica gel bags in it..

Well stored pollen can still be used after a decade + in the freezer. I think Sam Skunkman said he made seeds with 17 year old frozen pollen.

Good luck with the project.