Breeding For Seeds: Hybrid Vigour Vs Stabilizing The Strain

[MedFarmer]

I want to breed some strains for seed production and have done a lot of reading and listening about it. So far I have come to understand that offspring from the parents are F1s and two F1s crossed would be F2s and so on. I also get the idea that stabilizing traits in our lovely Girls, you sometimes need to back-cross the Fs with a parent. Self crossing the same Mother by forcing a branch to produce Male pollen for fertilizing the said Mother would create S1s.

That's what I have learnt so far but I also read that Hybrid Vigour which shows itself in F1s generally brings out the best of both parents.

So now the small question is, am I right in my understanding of breeding so far?

The BIG question is, if Hybrid Vigour exists, is it worth the effort to try and stabilize a strain?

If Hybrid Vigour is the winner here, then all I want to do is keep clones of both parents and produce enough seeds whenever I need them. I recently watched a YouTube video about a discussion with breeders and they all were adamant you should use Males for breeding but is that better for commercial purposes only or will my seed quest be better served using Males?

I know there are some members who know a bit about breeding so please join the discussion or if you know another member who could chime-in then please nudge them this way.

I currently have Female clones of White Kush, Blue Venom & Night Queen as well as seeds for Northern Lights x Big Bud, White Widow x Big Bud, White Widow, Purple Bud, Black Sugar Rose as well as a few others. These are the strains I wish to mess around with so any recommendations would be great.

My pal TheNuttyProfessor has gathered pollen from an Auto THC Bomb so as a side note to this thread, what could we expect from the seeds where a Feminized Photoperiod plant was fertilised?

 

[Hybrid Garden]

I want to breed some strains for seed production and have done a lot of reading and listening about it. So far I have come to understand that offspring from the parents are F1s and two F1s crossed would be F2s and so on. I also get the idea that stabilizing traits in our lovely Girls, you sometimes need to back-cross the Fs with a parent. Self crossing the same Mother by forcing a branch to produce Male pollen for fertilizing the said Mother would create S1s.

Yes, this is correct. Parents in the cross are labelled P1

That's what I have learnt so far but I also read that Hybrid Vigour which shows itself in F1s generally brings out the best of both parents.

Heterosis, also called hybrid vigour, increases such characteristics as size, growth rate, fertility, and yield of a hybrid organism over those of its parents. Plant and animal breeders exploit heterosis by mating two different pure-bred lines that have certain desirable traits. The key phrase is "pure-bred lines". Crossing two stable homozygous plants will create offspring which exhibit hybrid vigour . For example Sativa x Indica.

The quality of the cross is dependent on how stable the parents are. Using stabilised breeding stock the cross should produce plants which are relatively uniform in growth, an even blend of both parents. Crossing a tall plant with a short plant should produce medium height plants.

If the P1 are unstable, the cross can produce a wide range of phenotypes.

The BIG question is, if Hybrid Vigour exists, is it worth the effort to try and stabilize a strain?

The first question to ask yourself is what are you trying to achieve with the cross. It may be increased potency, yield, aroma or even bud colour. The main object would be to improve the strain you are working with.

If Hybrid Vigour is the winner here, then all I want to do is keep clones of both parents and produce enough seeds whenever I need them. I recently watched a YouTube video about a discussion with breeders and they all were adamant you should use Males for breeding but is that better for commercial purposes only or will my seed quest be better served using Males?

Keeping clones to breed is a viable option but if you lose one parent your ability to recreate the cross is gone forever. Another option is to do test crosses, and when you find a really good combination you like, do a big fertilisation to produce a couple of thousand seeds. This would keep you going for years. The seeds can be frozen for storage. I have seeds that have been frozen for ten years and still have a 70% germination rate.

Males are not absolutely necessary but if you are going to be doing feminised pollen it is a very good idea to really test the plant you intend breeding by stressing the hell out of it, the reason being we want a "true" female that won't hermie. This is a really important step when selfing.

I currently have Female clones of White Kush, Blue Venom & Night Queen as well as seeds for Northern Lights x Big Bud, White Widow x Big Bud, White Widow, Purple Bud, Black Sugar Rose as well as a few others. These are the strains I wish to mess around with so any recommendations would be great.

Well the NL x BB and WW x BB are F1 crosses so some of the work is already done. Grow either of these seeds out, pick the female which exhibits characteristics you like and self her. Technically this would be an F2 cross, but your S1 cross. You will probably get a varied phenotype expression, but at least the plant will be homozygous for its traits.

You could then cross your (nl x bb/S1) x (ww x bb/S1) and expect hybrid vigour.

My pal TheNuttyProfessor has gathered pollen from an Auto THC Bomb so as a side note to this thread, what could we expect from the seeds where a Feminized Photoperiod plant was fertilised?

Auto x standard will result in standard F1. Then F1 x F1 would produce (statistically) 25% of the F2 to be auto.

Crossing the F2 auto x F2 auto would result in 100% auto F3.

 

[HizzyB]

wow this has most definitely been a lot to absorb, I think when I can actually understand this I will be at the point where I might want to try some breeding myself, until then its best to leave it to the pros lol

 

[Hybrid Garden]

I might want to try some breeding myself, until then its best to leave it to the pros lol

That's the best part Hizzy, you don't need to be a pro. Here's an example so it doesn't sound so daunting.

Result of crossing short and tall, green and purple plants. Unfortunately the watermark covers the bottom 2.

left one should read ss/Bb and the one next to it ss/bb

 

[MassMedMan]

im in,, not sure what, but this is an area of interest.

 

[NuttyProfessor]

Now this is what i call an amazing thread .

 

[MedFarmer]

Reps to you Hybrid Garden. I got all the answers I needed and easily understandable. This thread wasn't only for me but the hope was it would be an easy to understand thread for hobbyist breeders.

 

[NuttyProfessor]

i am understanding slightly will take me a while to let this sink in , my head drifts off too much , its great that you posted this ,

 

[Marzbadrock]

Sub me in! Ive been dabbling with breeding for a couple years now, just pollinated a couple plants the other night actually.

 

[MedFarmer]

Sub me in! Ive been dabbling with breeding for a couple years now, just pollinated a couple plants the other night actually.

What strains are you crossing marzbadrock and are you using males or going for a female with balls?

 

[Marzbadrock]

It all started with a Black*GDP hybrid male. I pollinated my Montana kush and ended up with a couple awesome phenos. Of those offspring i found 1 special plant i call back in black. I also ended up with a male back in black that i crossed back to his mother as well as pollinating his sister. I will be recording everything in my journal, ill start posting pics regularly once seeds start forming.

 

[MedFarmer]

Just subscribed to your journal mbr and looking forward to your breeding.

 

[HizzyB]

Thanks so much HG

 

[Hybrid Garden]

So we purchased some seeds from our local seedbank and grown them out. The plants look exceptional and you have good feelings. You decide that you might make some seeds "just in case".

In this theoretical example we bought a pack of 5 seeds. There are 3 females and 2 males. Take the pollen from the males and pollinate a lower branch on each female. Make sure you label the branch so you know which male pollinated it.

After harvest you consider the strain to be exceptional. You have carefully harvested your seeds and now have 6 little jars in front of you, 2 matings for each of the 3 females.

Take the seeds from the female that you liked best and make a choice as to which male you think is better. At this point it makes no difference so either will do. After making your selection put the other jars of seed into long term storage.

The following diagram depicts a simple method to develop your own In Bred Line ( IBL). An IBL is where close sibling breeding is used to stabilize a strain and try to make it breed "true".

** Just a side note to add that it could be possible to replace the males in the above diagram with sex reversed females. I believe the Y gene from the male plays an important part in any serious breeding program but that is only my personal opinion.

The F1 Generation

The seeds in the jar represent our F1 generation. We now grow these plants out. Then just follow the same procedure using at least 3 females and 2 males. You want to produce at least 100 seeds per mating but more is good.

Select the seeds from the best female and put the others into long term storage.

If at this point you felt the F1 plants weren't as good as the parents (P1), an option would be to grow the seeds from the other P1 male to see if that cross produces better results.

Why am I putting all these seeds into storage?

Because sometimes things don't go like they should. The object of breeding should be improvement and the moment your line starts to decline you are moving in the wrong direction. Saving seeds will enable you to go back one or two generations to take a different approach should you need to.

The other thing is any of these can be used to make more IBL's, there are no rules and the possibilities are endless.

It's also important to keep your seeds in order and keep detailed records.

The F2 Generation

This generation is exciting in that you will get recessive genes that have combined and some plants will show traits which were not visible in the previous two generations. There can be some wonderful surprises found hiding amongst these plants.

Now we are going to split our breed into two separate lines. Pick two females which closest resemble the original P1 female and pollinate them with the same male. These seeds will become your F3/A and F3/B seed lines.

F3 to F6 Generations

Just keep doing what we have been doing and select the plants which mostly resemble the P1 plants. If you are doing well your A line plants will be very similar in looks to your B line plants.

P1 New Generation

As you have bred through your generations you will possibly find that there is a decrease in vigor. By crossing our two F6 lines we create hybrid vigor by out crossing, but it's to a strain which is nearly identical in genetic make up.

If everything has gone according to plan we have P1 New Generation plants which are very uniform in growth and appearance which look like the original P1 parents.

Congratulations, you now have a stable line which will breed "true".

 

[Hybrid Garden]

IBL's for the sex reversal enthusiasts



This one is easy as it only requires you to keep one P1 plant.

Find killer female and self it. Create S1

Find killer S1 and self it. Create S2

Find killer S2 and back cross with P1. Create S3BX1

Find killer S3BX1 and self. Create S3BX1S1

Find killer S3BX1S1 and self. Create S3BX1S2

Find killer S3BX1S2 and back cross to P1. Create S4BX2

Find killer S4BX2 and self. Create S4BX2S1

Find killer S4BX2S1 and self. Create S4BX2S2

Find killer S4BX2S2 and back cross to P1. Create S5BX3

By this generation your plants should look identical to the P1 parent.

 

[MedFarmer]

Awesomeness Thanks for keeping it simple HG

This is the first piece of information on breeding that I have read that has made sense right from the start.

 

[NuttyProfessor]

Awesomeness Thanks for keeping it simple HG

This is the first piece of information on breeding that I have read that has made sense right from the start.

have to agree , the diagram is very very good , brilliant info

 

[MassMedMan]

IBL's for the sex reversal enthusiasts



This one is easy as it only requires you to keep one P1 plant.

Find killer female and self it. Create S1

Find killer S1 and self it. Create S2

Find killer S2 and back cross with P1. Create S3BX1

Find killer S3BX1 and self. Create S3BX1S1

Find killer S3BX1S1 and self. Create S3BX1S2

Find killer S3BX1S2 and back cross to P1. Create S4BX2

Find killer S4BX2 and self. Create S4BX2S1

Find killer S4BX2S1 and self. Create S4BX2S2

Find killer S4BX2S2 and back cross to P1. Create S5BX3

By this generation your plants should look identical to the P1 parent.

Awesome sharing, reps. Thank you!!! This will be one of my favorite threads.....

 

[MedFarmer]

A long but good video about breeding

 

[MedFarmer]

This is going to take some time but I have decided to breed Afghani and White Kush. The reason is I have these seeds already. The Afghani is a freebie from Herbies which are claimed to be almost identical to Sensi Seeds - Afghani #1 which information is

Sensi Seeds - Afghani #1
The plants from the fast, heavy, compact side of the cannabis family tree are named after India, and it’s true that these strains are commonly grown for charas in the mountainous north of the country. However, the most perfect examples of the dark, ultra-resinous Cannabis Indica genotype are actually found hundreds of kilometres to the northwest, in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Dedicated students of Indica bloodlines often refer to these varieties as ‘Afghanica’ when speaking of their favourites and as ‘hash plants’ when talking generally of the strains found across India, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many Indica-heads prefer their ganja without a trace of Sativa or Skunk, while some purists will only consume weed or hash that they know to be 100% Cannabis Indica

In years past, the most determined Indica-lovers have journeyed all the way to Pakistan, then across the Afghan border into ‘hashish country’ — the high reaches of the Hindu Kush between Chitral, Mazar-i-Sharif, down to Kandahar in the south — in search of pure, unaltered local seeds which might be brought home to grow into the Afghanica of their dreams.

A more reliable and cost-effective option is simply to obtain a packet of Sensi‘s Afghani #1. The very best parents from our unparalleled range of Afghani cultivars have been distilled into a single seed variety that gives growers textbook examples of the Afghanica genotype every time.

Anyone looking for a fast, easy-growing indoor strain capable of copious yields and almost-frightening resin production need look no further. Whether growers want uniform crops from seed or outstanding pure Indica mother plants to fill their flowering space with dynamic dark green clones, Afghani #1 has it covered.

Even first-timers find it hard not to succeed with this strain, and growers who bring out the full potential of Afghani #1 rank her among the finest original Indicas to be found anywhere.

Short flowering period (45 - 45 days)
95% Indica

Strain Lineage / Genealogy
Afghani #1 »»» Afghanistan x Afghanistan

The White Kush details are

Advanced Seeds - White Kush
Almost pure Indica strain, with a strong and pungent aroma and delicious taste, it develops dense buds with limited number of leaves. Intense and lasting effects.

Because of it’s an almost pure Indica, it fits to indoor and outdoor culture. Using 600 w bulbs is easy to get over 400 gr/m2 yields in just 3 months. It's very powerful physically and mentally. Easy to grow, it's ideal for Indica lovers

Genetic: White Widow x Kush
Yield: 300 - 400 g/m2
THC: 17%
Indoor height: 50 - 90 cm
Outdoor height: 1,5 - 2 m
Indoor flowering period: From 60 to 70 days.
Harvest: Late September.

Strain Lineage / Genealogy
White Kush »»» White Widow x Unknown Kush

I will start with soaking some seeds today.