Mountain_Monkey
Member
High everyone! I'm about to ask for opinions about the best way to go about stabilising a trait (or a few) in a strain. For awhile now I've had some VBS seeds sitting around and I would like to cross the VBS with a more potent strain,(as I hear it lacks in that department) then grow out the offspring and over several gens, isolate and stabilise the traits of potency, intense colour (aaaaahhhhhhhhh puuuuuuurrrrrppple!) and the blackberry aroma. Less important traits such as yield etc. will take a backseat place but if I can get them all somehow then I'm happy. Now the question about which route to take. Would backcrossing/cubing or a more dedicated process of P1/P2-F???? generation be more appropriate. (Note:I'm really after which will produce the most stable plants. Time is not really a problem, I have plenty of it and loads of patience to boot, the only problem I can see would be selection no's ie: I cant really grow out more than 50-100 seedlings at a time MAX and would like to keep it MUCH lower than that more like 20-50)
Well firstly, my cubing/BX'ing idea would run something like this: take the chosen VBS mother displaying the desired traits,(hopefully I'll find her) then cross with a male from a very potent, fast flowering, decent yielding line.(might try 2 seperate X's if I go this route, one Indica dom father and one sativa dom) Anyway, after the initial X I plan to grow out as many of the resulting beans as possible, cull the one's without the desired traits then X the most promising males with clones of the original mum then repeat this until I have what would be the equivalent of C99/Princess clone in a VBS form though. Make sense? hopefully I explained things in an understandable manner. Just as C99 is 97.5 or whatever % Princess and 2.5% Shiva (I think) so too will this be 97.5% VBS and 2.5% other.
With the above method however I cant see the resulting seedline/strain having much of a chance of retaining the potency injection of the initial X'ing seeing as its genetic's will be 97.5% identical to the mother. Can a fairly good rate of stability be achieved after the 2nd and 3rd BX'ings? or what about taking the very best males and females from the 3rd or 4th BX with the desired traits of potency, color, aroma etc. then using them as a P1 and P2 and inbreeding from there? could doing this create problems for the line later on due to bottlenecked genes?
Then there's the other way/ways I was planning on going about this. Firstly, find VBS mother then cross with desired father, I was thinking S.O.L's Blockhead as its potent, fairly fast in flower, colorfull and yields well as a bonus. After the inital f1 X, grow out seedlings, make selections for desirable traits then move on to f2,f3 etc. (yes I know... its not a real f1 X to begin with)
Alternatively, to allow for more variation in the initial selections and more genetic diversity in the line, a 3 way cross is also a possibility. I'll use a 3 way X of VBS,Apollo11 and Blockhead as an example. So, VBS(f)XApollo11(m) makes up one line (L1) whilst VBS(f)XBlockhead(m) makes up the other (L2). After performing the X's that result in the creation of the 2 lines, seedlings from both are grown out and those displaying the desired traits are kept and the best females from L1 are X'ed with best males form L2 or vice versa. Resulting seedlings are grown out and the process of trait stabilising and inbreeding is performed over several generations.
As you can see, I'm a little confused about which way I should go about this. As I stated earlier, the aim is to create a plant with the VBS/Blackberry colour, aroma and flavour but with a significant boost in the potency department, any other traits that are considered desirable which make their way into the line are bonuses I guess. If anyone who's actually done anything like this is reading, tips, hints and critique would be really, really appreciated. Also, if anyone knows of really good strains from which to choose males I'd also like to hear your recommendations. I thinks that may be all.... oh well, I cant think of anything now so...............
Well firstly, my cubing/BX'ing idea would run something like this: take the chosen VBS mother displaying the desired traits,(hopefully I'll find her) then cross with a male from a very potent, fast flowering, decent yielding line.(might try 2 seperate X's if I go this route, one Indica dom father and one sativa dom) Anyway, after the initial X I plan to grow out as many of the resulting beans as possible, cull the one's without the desired traits then X the most promising males with clones of the original mum then repeat this until I have what would be the equivalent of C99/Princess clone in a VBS form though. Make sense? hopefully I explained things in an understandable manner. Just as C99 is 97.5 or whatever % Princess and 2.5% Shiva (I think) so too will this be 97.5% VBS and 2.5% other.
With the above method however I cant see the resulting seedline/strain having much of a chance of retaining the potency injection of the initial X'ing seeing as its genetic's will be 97.5% identical to the mother. Can a fairly good rate of stability be achieved after the 2nd and 3rd BX'ings? or what about taking the very best males and females from the 3rd or 4th BX with the desired traits of potency, color, aroma etc. then using them as a P1 and P2 and inbreeding from there? could doing this create problems for the line later on due to bottlenecked genes?
Then there's the other way/ways I was planning on going about this. Firstly, find VBS mother then cross with desired father, I was thinking S.O.L's Blockhead as its potent, fairly fast in flower, colorfull and yields well as a bonus. After the inital f1 X, grow out seedlings, make selections for desirable traits then move on to f2,f3 etc. (yes I know... its not a real f1 X to begin with)
Alternatively, to allow for more variation in the initial selections and more genetic diversity in the line, a 3 way cross is also a possibility. I'll use a 3 way X of VBS,Apollo11 and Blockhead as an example. So, VBS(f)XApollo11(m) makes up one line (L1) whilst VBS(f)XBlockhead(m) makes up the other (L2). After performing the X's that result in the creation of the 2 lines, seedlings from both are grown out and those displaying the desired traits are kept and the best females from L1 are X'ed with best males form L2 or vice versa. Resulting seedlings are grown out and the process of trait stabilising and inbreeding is performed over several generations.
As you can see, I'm a little confused about which way I should go about this. As I stated earlier, the aim is to create a plant with the VBS/Blackberry colour, aroma and flavour but with a significant boost in the potency department, any other traits that are considered desirable which make their way into the line are bonuses I guess. If anyone who's actually done anything like this is reading, tips, hints and critique would be really, really appreciated. Also, if anyone knows of really good strains from which to choose males I'd also like to hear your recommendations. I thinks that may be all.... oh well, I cant think of anything now so...............
already read Clarke many times aswell as some fairly in depth stuff from various others in regards to genetic inheritance, Mendel's work and plant and animal breeding but I have no 'hands on' experience and would really like to hear from those who do. Thanks for the link GG, I'll check it out now actually...
