which qualities to look for when choosing a male plant for seeds?

[Farmer John]

True that Suzy but still I prefer to keep males that do resin up for some odd reason, I think I am allowed to do it and the results, well, I really dont know if it would increase resinous female progeny, if they look good to me I use them and see what happens, thats pretty much how most of all plants are human has played with have been bred anyway, no science there, just observations.... the most important thing to me is that they are good clean males not freaks or runts or hermies, just my opinion, we all have some.

 

[suzycremecheese]

thats pretty much how most of all plants are human has played with have been bred anyway

Until the last 50 years anyway.

True that Suzy but still I prefer to keep males that do resin up for some odd reason, I think I am allowed to do it and the results, well, I really dont know if it would increase resinous female progeny

Oh of course your allowed to. You could breed with only male runts if you wanted to. It would be interesting to see someone breed a few thousand seed from a resinous male and non resinous male from the same parents... with one female and see the results.

 

[circadian clock]

so basically a crossing over would be a good ting if trying to add certain traits into the opposite sex? so in order to add traits into new crosses it would more efficent if both parents had the desired traits you were trying to pass on?

 

[Grat3fulh3ad]

When breeding male with female, traits which should be considered female traits, such as trichs, should not seen in the males that are to be used for breeding surely. These traits are sex determined, and therefore using males with female traits, must be a bad thing. As Suzy said, there are sections on the DNA chain, which do not share genetic info in the way that most other sections do. These are the areas that determine the sex of the plant. Characteristics that are to be found in females are supressed in male plants and vice versa. Reducing the suppression of female traits in male plants, can only, (I would have thought) also result in the reduction of the suppression of male characteristics in female plants.

How did we dicide that trichs are sex linked to the female chromosomes?
According to the strictest definitions trichomes are hairlike or bristlelike outgrowth, as from the epidermis of a plant.
Looking under a microscope almost all males have trichomes, hairlike structures on the plnt's epidermis.
The Distinction that needs to be made is glandular trichomes...

With that being said... and trying to present things in the simplest format...
Let's call xx female and xy male...
Let's then say that your premise is correct, and glandular trichomes are tied to the x chromosome... The male still has an x to which the trait could be tied... And if the trait is tied to the x that the male will pass along to the female seeds it produces...

Also how would increasing expression of female traits in males increase the male expression in females? The one does not logicly lead to the other, imho... If it does, then by what mechanism?

With that being said... I'll continue my selection methods status quo... Stick with what experience has taught me works well...

 

[GMT]

on the first point, I stand corrected, and accept the distinction. I had always just called them hairs. To me trichs contain gooey goodness and exist on females to protect seeds.
Ok, to accept the simplest format, accepting that plants don't really have X and Y chromosomes, you and I as guys, have an X and a Y chromosome, Mrs G has 2 X's. When you have kids, you will pass your X onto your daughters and your Y onto your sons. Your sons will inherit their X from Mrs G (for the sake of the arguement). That does not mean, that it would give you better looking girls if your X Gene is activated and you have tits. In fact it would mean that your genome is recombining in areas that should not recombine. There are genes in each of the chromosomes that produce different proteins. Some of those proteins will be the reason that this area of the structure does not recombine. If this area is recombining, then these proteins may not be present, and this may be due to the lack (through deletion) of these genes within that chromosome. Therefore breeding that cromosome into the offspring, may result in the offspring having similar problems with preventing the 2 separate chromosomes that code for male traits and female traits from being successfully prevented from sharing information or both from bbeing activated within the same plant. As female plants, unlike most female animals do have the chromosome for male plants within their genetic makeup as male animals have the chromosome for female ones, just that these chromosomes are silenced (hopefully).
At least that's my take on it all Head, Hopefully Suzy will cast her eye over it and let us know how close I am.

 

[Grat3fulh3ad]

on the first point, I stand corrected, and accept the distinction. I had always just called them hairs. To me trichs contain gooey goodness and exist on females to protect seeds.
Ok, to accept the simplest format, accepting that plants don't really have X and Y chromosomes, you and I as guys, have an X and a Y chromosome, Mrs G has 2 X's. When you have kids, you will pass your X onto your daughters and your Y onto your sons. Your sons will inherit their X from Mrs G (for the sake of the arguement). That does not mean, that it would give you better looking girls if your X Gene is activated and you have tits. In fact it would mean that your genome is recombining in areas that should not recombine. There are genes in each of the chromosomes that produce different proteins. Some of those proteins will be the reason that this area of the structure does not recombine. If this area is recombining, then these proteins may not be present, and this may be due to the lack (through deletion) of these genes within that chromosome. Therefore breeding that cromosome into the offspring, may result in the offspring having similar problems with preventing the 2 separate chromosomes that code for male traits and female traits from being successfully prevented from sharing information or both from bbeing activated within the same plant. As female plants, unlike most female animals do have the chromosome for male plants within their genetic makeup as male animals have the chromosome for female ones, just that these chromosomes are silenced (hopefully).
At least that's my take on it all Head, Hopefully Suzy will cast her eye over it and let us know how close I am.

I respectfully disargee that resin production and lactating breast are similar enough to draw an analogy... I also do not believe that thc production is a sexual expression... That gooey goodness exist on females to protect the seeds is one theory... Truth is noone knows exactly why the plant evolved resin production and I've never seen any proof that resin production is a female only expression...

As far as men having breast...
This is a trait usually associated with female expression, but the genes are there for every man to lactate and develop breast under the right stimuli...
All it takes is a few hormone injections... Doesn't mean the man was born with both testicles and ovaries... nor that the expression of breast could harm the genetic integrity of future generations

Now... If a man has beautiful flowing hair and smooth clear skin, and has a daughter by a woman with blotchy skin and scraggly hair... The daughter stands a good chance of having Beautifun hair and skin... Especially if those traits are dominant...

All you really have to base the position that resinous males are bad for the gene pool are speculations, I have always used this as a criteria for male selection and have always had good results when doing so... Perhaps these resinous males add nothing to their female offspring, but I know this... Parents which express certian traits are more likely to pass along said traits than parents which don't...

I would think it to be much more likely that all the breeding work done using females which will make pollen under stimuli would be hundreds of times more likely to have those effects on the gene pool.

It would be Ideal if cannabis was a legal plant, and we could do the ammount of breeding work and research that has been devoted to corn or to roses... With huge sterile facilities containing thousands of specimens and a team of researchers dedicated to the improvement of the species and expanding the knowledge base about the species... But alas, most cannabis breeders have to work 'mendel style' unable to map the genome, but able to observe how traits inherit... Lacking a proper laboratory, I'll have to continue to rely on observation and experience...

 

[Brownpants]

Ideally, you would want to use more than just one of the top males to make seeds with. The seeds should be labeled and separated correctly and clones of the males kept in Veg. Then grow out 30 or 50 of the offspring for each cross and count up the number of females exhibiting the desired traits. The male that produces the most desired progeny should be kept and the rest discarded.
This ensures the breeding program progresses in the right direction, rather than the wrong one.
Having enough space and time is the biggest problem with this method, that is why some breeders are forced to make shortcuts.

 

[Farmer John]

You could breed with only male runts if you wanted to. It would be interesting to see someone breed a few thousand seed from a resinous male and non resinous male from the same parents... with one female and see the results.

Not a bad idea so we could then tell what happens, peace.

 

[Farmer John]

"most cannabis breeders have to work 'mendel style' unable to map the genome, but able to observe how traits inherit..." This is what I tried to tell about how people have bred all plants this way for centuries, cmon, think about rye and such, did they have laboratories back then..hard to say but I think they didnt...kinda the same way people have bred animals for centuries maybe thousands of years, just my opinion...gettin kinda big negative vibes from this thread so I'll just stick to my way, that is using the healthiest ones both female and male plants and do my thing with them, peace all.

 

[GMT]

Head, I only continued the analogy that you proposed, that of the xx and xy chromosomes and used the traits that we know exist in them in humans. Of course I am only guessing as to the location of the genes that codes for the "gooey goodness" production, but due to it being noticably smaller in the males of the species, I am assuming that it is located in the area that is supressed in male plants (typically). As I don't have (nor that I know of do any of us) the lab facilities that you admit you don't, I can't check my theory out either, at least by no onther method than you can. I just find it interesting to speculate on these things, and the more that is discussed, especially by oposing points of view and approaches, the more we can develop our own theories until one day someone maps the genome and tell us the results. I really didn't think that any of this would cause ill feelings in anyone and hoped it would generate interest in many breeders so I could read their views, as I'm sure did the thread starter. Suzy seems to (and I've heard her name whispered in hallo winds, lol) know a bit about genetic theory, and was particularly interested in that side of things. Not just for the reason of sex, but all inheritance theory. Anyway, just making it clear, no ill feelings were meant to be casued.

 

[Farmer John]

Oh, and human has bred plants for a wee bit longer time than 50 years me thinks, like roses in Iran maybe?

 

[GMT]

Hi FJ, it is only in the last 50 years that we started to be able to make pigs glow in the dark, or rice contain vitamin A, or any of the many really wierd stuff they can do now that they are able to map genes, splice them, and put them into anything they want. In fact we can now create new DNA sequences that cause not just an animal to grow, but just a beef chop to grow in a vat, without the connected cow. Now it would be possible to just pick your favourite buds, and grow them without the attached plant, just feeding in the exact base proteins necessary. Although we need to chip in and get ourselves a lab first, and a genetic engineer.

 

[Grat3fulh3ad]

Head, I only continued the analogy that you proposed, that of the xx and xy chromosomes and used the traits that we know exist in them in humans. Of course I am only guessing as to the location of the genes that codes for the "gooey goodness" production, but due to it being noticably smaller in the males of the species, I am assuming that it is located in the area that is supressed in male plants (typically). As I don't have (nor that I know of do any of us) the lab facilities that you admit you don't, I can't check my theory out either, at least by no onther method than you can. I just find it interesting to speculate on these things, and the more that is discussed, especially by oposing points of view and approaches, the more we can develop our own theories until one day someone maps the genome and tell us the results. I really didn't think that any of this would cause ill feelings in anyone and hoped it would generate interest in many breeders so I could read their views, as I'm sure did the thread starter. Suzy seems to (and I've heard her name whispered in hallo winds, lol) know a bit about genetic theory, and was particularly interested in that side of things. Not just for the reason of sex, but all inheritance theory. Anyway, just making it clear, no ill feelings were meant to be casued.

I too am interested in the discussion for the discussion's sake... It's always interesting to hear someone else's take on things, and I only argue to present my views or a counter-point to someone else's... Especially in 'frontier' areas on knowledge, where our discussions and experiments help to form the knowledge base which will be built on as more experiments and discussions take place... I know a bit about the 'book learning end' of genetics and inheritance, but only a bit... I also have a bit of 'practical experience' knowledge on the subject, but again when one considers the scope of the total knowledge of the subject, it is only a bit as well...

Sorry if I came across as though I had any ill feelings, I was just enjoying the discussion, and the presentation of my perspective...

 

[Pops]

H3ad, I remember reading somewhere that the Manga Rosa father of White Widow was chosen because he was covered with trics, even on the stem. It would seem that someone else believes that tric-covered males have value.

 

[suzycremecheese]

so basically a crossing over would be a good ting if trying to add certain traits into the opposite sex?

While the phenomenon of "crossing over" can be sex related, it doesnt have to be. It can happen with all of the chromosomes.

so in order to add traits into new crosses it would more efficent if both parents had the desired traits you were trying to pass on?

Well sure if both parents are breeding true for a desired trait then your much more likely to get that into the progeny but thats not always convenient. Thats why inheritance is such an important topic to breeders. The way chromosomes are passedon to the progeny, and the way variation occurs, is a very important aspect of inheritance.

My point is that chiasma or, "crossing over," is one of the ways that variation occurs and that linkage like the one pointed out by DJ that everyone seems to rely on is not universal. It doesnt last forever and it doesnt mean that all hollow stemmed plants are potent or vice versa.

 

[Grat3fulh3ad]

Well sure if both parents are breeding true for a desired trait then your much more likely to get that into the progeny but thats not always convenient. Thats why inheritance is such an important topic to breeders. The way chromosomes are passedon to the progeny, and the way variation occurs, is a very important aspect of inheritance.

My point is that chiasma or, "crossing over," is one of the ways that variation occurs and that linkage like the one pointed out by DJ that everyone seems to rely on is not universal. It doesnt last forever and it doesnt mean that all hollow stemmed plants are potent or vice versa.

Very good point, and something I've thought for a long time...

 

[Farmer John]

Nothing is universal..:smile: ..except the universe.

 

[suzycremecheese]

H3ad, I remember reading somewhere that the Manga Rosa father of White Widow was chosen because he was covered with trics, even on the stem. It would seem that someone else believes that tric-covered males have value.

I would venture a guess that more people belive this than dont. I think if you consider it in reverse thoughit might make more sense. Potent females dont alwaysresult in potent male progeny so why should potent males result in potent female progeny.

Again, by making selections on arbitrary unproven trait correlations from male to female you only risk culling the best males. The same could be said for females. Its not what you see in a plant that makes its progeny special its the "combining ability" that makes it special. The things that come out when a plant is bred with another.

 

[Dignan]

suzy, I have no background in breeding and yet what you have to say in the beginning of this thread (and I've seen you have to repeat it over and over on forums) makes perfect sense. I'm curious how it can fail to make sense to others, but my guess is that others are used to breeding in a certain way and that their way is much, much less labor- and time-intensive than the proper way, set about by (as you say) professional breeders working with dioecious plants, so it's tempting for them to justify continuing to do it that way. I can't blame them.

When I make seed (I don't dare call it "breeding") on the tiny scale I am able to do it on, I'll continue to do it the easy way, too, by choosing a male whose phenotype I find impressive... but you won't find me arguing that it's the best/proper way because in my opinion, it clearly isn't.

Great thread, everyone.

 

[circadian clock]

when DJ Short stated from his experiance hollow stemmed plants produce potent plants then another experianced grower states hollow stemmed plants are weak could it be that the genes they are working with have this linkage? like one has hollow/strong and the other hollow/weak . so by growing alot of plants the grower would be able to tell what kind of traits are from what plant both male and female side? then they could go about trying to make the perfect combinations. that seems like alot of work