Landrace Genetics 101

[Big Sur]

This might get deleted by mods....but for what its worth this may give you some ideas on what can be done to germinate old seeds or just improve germination rates in general.

I like the hydrogen peroxide soak idea to sterilize the seed coats. I would have to refute the idea of using sugar solutions for germinating seeds though. For one, sugar stimulates fungal growth. I feed my teen and larger potted plants some sugar when I feed them NPK liquid fertilizers to feed the fungus in the soil (not the plants). I have also read a lot about sucrose actually delaying seed germination in some types of plants. I know that with corn (a monocot) adding sugar delays or stops germination, and the more sugar that was used, the more the delay.

Another perhaps better option for these seed soaks is to coat the seeds in a fungicide, like Captan. That should help with dampening off. As for them restoring 2,000 year old MJ seeds? As my friend from London would say, "methinks they are pulling your plonker." Unless they were frozen and found in a glacier, that is.

 

[Big Sur]

Hey Big Sur,I do almost the same now.I hang dry with fans.I am really fearful of mold. Then trimmed and into paper bags.I keep the bags open and shake/stir kinda thing almost daily.. Then into the jars. So.... am I worrying too much on the mold issues? I'm going to close the bags right now and finish them up that way..Now that mold smell you talk about...that can pass? I panic and start checking every bud and sometimes finding nothing..and after finding nothing I thought of looking for some mold test or the like...Again I'm probabley just worrying too much,But I would rather be safe than sorry..Anyway i can see that keeping the bags closed will help.I'll just keep an eye on it.Thanks for the info,Red....

No, I do not think you are worrying about mold or rot too much. I have lost a fair amount of bud to rot. Some years worse than others. In my experience the worst rot results from live buds that stay in contact with water, like up against greenhouse glass or plastic, or against other plants or their own leaves. When the nights get cool in early fall, condensation builds up inside a greenhouse, and builds up on plants outside. Any tops brushing up on the greenhouse walls may rot. Colas on plants crowded too close together can trap water and rot. My brother had some rot this year growing outside, out of a greenhouse. He said some of the tops were in contact with some vinyl siding and there was some rot on those buds when we harvested them. They can and will rot pretty fast in the early fall. Once harvested they are not likely to come into contact with water or condensation, but they can still rot if you bag or jar them too soon, and if they are not dried out and cured well.

Rot is pretty easy to find on fresh buds. I trim it out with the leaves, but unlike the trim leaves, I toss it out. Once the weed is curing, your stash may smell moldy, but at that state it is likely leaf fermentation and not active fungal rot. Let it air out and the smell will usually dissipate. Some years I have had to rotate weed in and out of jars and plastic bags into paper bags again. So I tend to cure it in folded bags longer now. You can toss in a fresher bud in there if it gets too dry, but I have never really had a problem with weed that is too dry. I have kept weed up to 2 years once properly cured, and it has never rotted on me after harvest.

That said, I read something in Craigslist in Seattle where there were some weed going around that they were warning people about. The weed had some bad type of mold on it that was making people sick. My guess is that it was a storage problem. I am more worried about the Paraquat weed that I smoked back in the 70s than smoking some moldy weed. The one bag of Paraquat weed that I bought was from Mexico and was super gold (almost blonde). I sent a sample into the lab that they had set up in NorCal at the time to test for Paraquat, and it came back positive. Yikes! I told the guy I bought it from and he was very upset. Anyway, I tossed the last half of that lid. We became wary of what to avoid (super gold pot, and Nixon coming).

 

[Big Sur]

I have been working on another way to avoid rot as well as early frost here. That way is to force my girls to bloom earlier. I grew my plants this year in 10 gallon pots outside. On August 15 I moved them with a hand truck into my light-proof garage at night, and gave them 11 hours of dark for 6 days in a row. By the 7th day I was starting to get flowers, especially on the indica dominant strain. I separated the boys and girls, I harvested pollen in early September and did in the males. I picked the female indica at the end of September, and the female sativa in mid October. It has yet to freeze here this year, likely due to El Nino but the average first frost here is October 15. I had some rot on the males as they faded, but that was it. I harvested a lot of male flowers as well. One batch I put into a pickle jar that I got from my SIL, and that batch has a light hint of dill and garlic. That actually is a good smell to me. I may rotate my other male flowers in that jar to give it the dill/garlic cure now.

 

[Stoned Redneck]

I use a open ended hoop tent and lots of fans.So once you get it cut down and dried , mold shouldn't be too much of a issue? , And you use the paper sacks for "fermentation" time so to speak ? Thanks for the info Big Sur ,I have grown off and on for years but never in any volume so i have lots to learn about curing and storage.Again thanks for the support and advice. Happy Trails,Red....

 

[Heirloom]

This year being my first true outdoor plants (not just potted but in ground) and living in a new, very humid environment I was super aware of mold and rot. I ended up with very little rot. One technique I tried was to gently pull the individual buds down away from the stalk to encourage air flow around them. Rather than letting colas grow tight, I separated them.....sort of LST for individual buds. For one I had very little rot. Second, those buds filled out better, into cones and spheres rather than smushed on one side trying to grow around the stalk. Made for larger buds in the end I do believe.

 

[ClosedCircuit]

I like the hydrogen peroxide soak idea to sterilize the seed coats. I would have to refute the idea of using sugar solutions for germinating seeds though. For one, sugar stimulates fungal growth. I feed my teen and larger potted plants some sugar when I feed them NPK liquid fertilizers to feed the fungus in the soil (not the plants). I have also read a lot about sucrose actually delaying seed germination in some types of plants. I know that with corn (a monocot) adding sugar delays or stops germination, and the more sugar that was used, the more the delay.

Another perhaps better option for these seed soaks is to coat the seeds in a fungicide, like Captan. That should help with dampening off. As for them restoring 2,000 year old MJ seeds? As my friend from London would say, "methinks they are pulling your plonker." Unless they were frozen and found in a glacier, that is.

Tissue culture (this is somewhat similar to this seed starting method) tends to use an NPK based solution that I dont think is sugar based. Unlike this kit. I'm sure there are other ways one could utilize this. I personally was wondering how effective germinating seeds in SST would be. There is sugar present in SST, but so much else that could be beneficial to a seedling....hmmm

Just thinking out loud now

 

[electro gypsy]

Tissue culture (this is somewhat similar to this seed starting method) tends to use an NPK based solution that I dont think is sugar. Unlike this kit. I'm sure there are other ways one could utilize this. I personally was wondering how effective germinating seeds in SST would be. There is sugar present in SST, but so much else that could be beneficial to a seedling....hmmm

Just thinking out loud now

i like the way you think lol. i'll be playing around with tissue culture again soon.

 

[safeman]

You will have some that will germinate; have scissors

 

[ClosedCircuit]

i like the way you think lol. i'll be playing around with tissue culture again soon.

My mind is a smoke filled smut shop. Welcome to my dark place

 

[Big Sur]

I use a open ended hoop tent and lots of fans.So once you get it cut down and dried , mold shouldn't be too much of a issue? , And you use the paper sacks for "fermentation" time so to speak ? Thanks for the info Big Sur ,I have grown off and on for years but never in any volume so i have lots to learn about curing and storage.Again thanks for the support and advice. Happy Trails,Red....

Mold should not be a problem after harvest, but it can be a problem is you seal the tops in bags or jars too soon. I do not do any fermentation in my curing process. My method is to dry the colas after cutting the sun leaves off on cardboard box 'trays' for a week to 10 days, which dries the flowers and small leaves. If you put them into plastic bags or jars at this point they can mold when moisture in the stems is released. Lots of people do this method though, including my brother. They pop open the jars and bags every day or even twice a day to release any moisture. I do not do that though. I put them into paper bags and cure them further before putting them into plastic bags or glass canning jars.

My way is certainly not the only way to cure weed. I have posted several methods on this thread. Fermenting, sweating or composting weed like they do in Colombia or Thailand takes a lot of weed to get the compost pile going. A yard (3'x'3'x3') is about the minimum that you need to set off the compost/fermentation process. Also all the tops are put on the pile, so there would be no way to tell them apart later. For a one clone crop like they do though, that is not a problem. For someone like me that grows many strains a year, that is not an option.

 

[Big Sur]

Tissue culture (this is somewhat similar to this seed starting method) tends to use an NPK based solution that I dont think is sugar based. Unlike this kit. I'm sure there are other ways one could utilize this. I personally was wondering how effective germinating seeds in SST would be. There is sugar present in SST, but so much else that could be beneficial to a seedling....hmmm

Just thinking out loud now

Please do!

Personally I do not see any advantage in the sugar/sucralose thing. Certainly the plants use various sugars in the germinating process, but they have their own carbohydrate stores to convert to sugars stored in the seeds. If seeds are so weak that they cannot render themselves upright, I do not see how they would survive dampening off once they did. Adding sugars in solution would just promote fungal growth and dampening off (leading to death). My read anyway.

 

[Stoned Redneck]

So BS ,Do you use fans or anything on your cardboard trays? So I'm guessing that seeds in a vacuum will survive..Right? when no one answered I figured they will be ok.Hey I didn't know....When I really thought about it it didn't seem right. I just thought they may need some air in the jar to last... Anyway thanks again and Happy Hemping,Red

 

[electro gypsy]

Please do!

Personally I do not see any advantage in the sugar/sucralose thing. Certainly the plants use various sugars in the germinating process, but they have their own carbohydrate stores to convert to sugars stored in the seeds. If seeds are so weak that they cannot render themselves upright, I do not see how they would survive dampening off once they did. Adding sugars in solution would just promote fungal growth and dampening off (leading to death). My read anyway.

the peroxide wash would eliminate most of the fungal issues. my concern would be more in the bacteria department.. maybe virus, as they can get further into the tissue than spores and endo-spores can. i have to admit i have yet to finish the video lol.. but i am fairly proficient at culturing as it one of the main constituents of my mycology hobby.. so i already feel comfortable with the concept. i'm not extremely familiar with seed mechanics.. so i have to wonder.. if the sugars are needed, then why can't the live cells tap into the reserves.. or do the reserves deplete over time? hmmm. i see research in my future lol. at any rate i'm already concocting a few variations of how culturing can apply to this hobby on a practical and affordable level. it's not quite the big science foray most seem to think it is.. and imo, it has a few nice niches.

 

[ClosedCircuit]

the peroxide wash would eliminate most of the fungal issues. my concern would be more in the bacteria department.. maybe virus, as they can get further into the tissue than spores and endo-spores can. i have to admit i have yet to finish the video lol.. but i am fairly proficient at culturing as it one of the main constituents of my mycology hobby.. so i already feel comfortable with the concept. i'm not extremely familiar with seed mechanics.. so i have to wonder.. if the sugars are needed, then why can't the live cells tap into the reserves.. or do the reserves deplete over time? hmmm. i see research in my future lol. at any rate i'm already concocting a few variations of how culturing can apply to this hobby on a practical and affordable level. it's not quite the big science foray most seem to think it is.. and imo, it has a few nice niches.

I would very much like to hear back if you experiment. To be fair, I think most of the cannabis seeds we grow have a much higher germination rate than most other crops so perhaps we are bit spoiled...that said, Id love to have a full proof method that could also revive decade old seeds.

If I ever learn more about it, Id also love to get into tissue culture as a primary means for cloning as well.

 

[Big Sur]

So BS ,Do you use fans or anything on your cardboard trays? So I'm guessing that seeds in a vacuum will survive..Right? when no one answered I figured they will be ok.Hey I didn't know....When I really thought about it it didn't seem right. I just thought they may need some air in the jar to last... Anyway thanks again and Happy Hemping,Red

I was thinking about seeds in outer space when I read that post. But in vacuum seal bags? They should be fine and last longer than in the air. But... the best way to keep seeds, basically forever, is to freeze them.

I do not use fans when drying or curing weed, no. I am going to add some fans to my grow room to stir up the air out there this winter. The 400 MH and HPS bulbs put out a lot of heat, and the garage is insulated.

 

[Stoned Redneck]

I had them sealed in qt jars..I found trying to vacuum seal plastic bags ify at best.It only takes a sharp anything to poke a hole and it will loose the seal. Vacuum sealed jars work great for me. Now you need to vent all the heat into the house. Keep everyone toasty, haha.They really do throw off the heat.A shame to waste it.. Thank you again for the info it really helps to get advice from folks that have the experience.., Happy Trails,Red

 

[Big Sur]

the peroxide wash would eliminate most of the fungal issues. my concern would be more in the bacteria department.. maybe virus, as they can get further into the tissue than spores and endo-spores can. i have to admit i have yet to finish the video lol.. but i am fairly proficient at culturing as it one of the main constituents of my mycology hobby.. so i already feel comfortable with the concept. i'm not extremely familiar with seed mechanics.. so i have to wonder.. if the sugars are needed, then why can't the live cells tap into the reserves.. or do the reserves deplete over time? hmmm. i see research in my future lol. at any rate i'm already concocting a few variations of how culturing can apply to this hobby on a practical and affordable level. it's not quite the big science foray most seem to think it is.. and imo, it has a few nice niches.

I have never had problems with bacteria or with virus growing weed myself. I never had problems with dampening off (fungus) until this year. I had a big problem with germinating some indica strains from Mendocino Co. and half of them croaked after popping up their cotyledons. My landrace sativas never did that.

As for TC, I was into that when I had a cymbidium orchid collection in California. I had an orchid nursery in NorCal and SoCal. I had collected some old award winning cultivars that had become otherwise extinct, and a guy that I knew near Santa Cruz, CA had a commercial orchid grow operation with a TC lab. So we TC cloned some of my old cultivars. They then take up to 7 years to reach commercial size though, so you have to do a lot of them. In the world of orchids TC is big business, and orchids can be big money in good economies.

TC is also big in the bamboo nursery business to bring the new introductions into available nursery stock faster. That is because there is a ban on importing any type of live bamboos, tissue, or seeds into the US from any foreign place. It can take years to tap into the few ABS import licenses to import new species, and then quarantine them for several years under USDA inspection. Division propagation of these imported plants would take too long, so TC cloning is done on a large scale, especially up in WA state. I have a bamboo nursery here, and the TC Fargesias clones that I have grown are not as vigorous as the comparable divided plant clones. That is common knowledge among bamboophiles; that Fargesia TC clones do not do as well as divisions. We are not sure why that is.

On another track, I have read blogs and posts on this forum that state that clone cutting MJ plants are not as viable as seeded plants. If that were true, every clone plant would be worse off than the mother plant, and that simply is not the case. I have no experience with MJ TC clones. I can easily make 100 clones from a mother plant by cuttings though, and rather fast, so I am not sure that TC would be a more economical way to clone MJ. I do not know about the viability of MJ TC clones either. There is the guy in WA that has a huge TC clone bank, but he did that to get around MJ plant limits in the WA state laws. He is a collector, and likely has the largest MJ collection in the world. Or close to it. He is on this forum.

 

[Big Sur]

I had them sealed in qt jars..I found trying to vacuum seal plastic bags ify at best.It only takes a sharp anything to poke a hole and it will loose the seal. Vacuum sealed jars work great for me. Now you need to vent all the heat into the house. Keep everyone toasty, haha.They really do throw off the heat.A shame to waste it.. Thank you again for the info it really helps to get advice from folks that have the experience.., Happy Trails,Red

I heat with wood here, and I have enough wood for 4 years of heating already. I am also losing some of my large lodgepole pines to beetles now, and I am cutting a dead one down now. More firewood. On top of that, it is not nearly as cold here this year as normal with this El Nino.

At any rate, I tried the hot lights in the house last year, but the plants stank up the house pretty bad. I had several indica strains that reeked. So I moved them all out to my garage, which is detached. It is insulated, and an 85 W bulb will keep it warm. I wish my well house were large enough to grow in; I have to keep a 40 W bulb out there to keep the pump and water tank from freezing.

You are welcome about the experience. My way is just one way, not the best way or the only way. I have been growing for a while though, and now, after all these years, its legal!

 

[safeman]

Sure all mentioned do work - but nothing beats in just putting the seed in soil and storing seed's in dark containers - No t trying to be smart "Keep It Simple" PEACE

 

[Conradino23]

I have never had problems with bacteria or with virus growing weed myself. I never had problems with dampening off (fungus) until this year. I had a big problem with germinating some indica strains from Mendocino Co. and half of them croaked after popping up their cotyledons. My landrace sativas never did that.

As for TC, I was into that when I had a cymbidium orchid collection in California. I had an orchid nursery in NorCal and SoCal. I had collected some old award winning cultivars that had become otherwise extinct, and a guy that I knew near Santa Cruz, CA had a commercial orchid grow operation with a TC lab. So we TC cloned some of my old cultivars. They then take up to 7 years to reach commercial size though, so you have to do a lot of them. In the world of orchids TC is big business, and orchids can be big money in good economies.

TC is also big in the bamboo nursery business to bring the new introductions into available nursery stock faster. That is because there is a ban on importing any type of live bamboos, tissue, or seeds into the US from any foreign place. It can take years to tap into the few ABS import licenses to import new species, and then quarantine them for several years under USDA inspection. Division propagation of these imported plants would take too long, so TC cloning is done on a large scale, especially up in WA state. I have a bamboo nursery here, and the TC Fargesias clones that I have grown are not as vigorous as the comparable divided plant clones. That is common knowledge among bamboophiles; that Fargesia TC clones do not do as well as divisions. We are not sure why that is.

On another track, I have read blogs and posts on this forum that state that clone cutting MJ plants are not as viable as seeded plants. If that were true, every clone plant would be worse off than the mother plant, and that simply is not the case. I have no experience with MJ TC clones. I can easily make 100 clones from a mother plant by cuttings though, and rather fast, so I am not sure that TC would be a more economical way to clone MJ. I do not know about the viability of MJ TC clones either. There is the guy in WA that has a huge TC clone bank, but he did that to get around MJ plant limits in the WA state laws. He is a collector, and likely has the largest MJ collection in the world. Or close to it. He is on this forum.

Man, I wouldn't mind getting more info on TC. I tried to research the subject so I understand it in theory, but never went so far to try it in practice. It seems like an excellent way to store unlimited amount of genetics. If you'd like to elaborate here or even open a new thread I'd totally appreciate it, and I'm sure others would too.