howdy hhf,i want to ask you were you see the cannabis seed market heading,i have been shocked by what i see and what is acceptable breeding habits,being a closet pollen chucker i can see how someone can confuse this with breeding,
Hi Friend,
You make a very good point and I agree, it really is shocking at this point in its history. It is easy to confuse making a simple cross with real plant breeding. For me, for instance when working with tropical Landrace/Farmed lines from country of origin we have to use massive resources to grow sufficient plants from a line to maturity in order to select/test/combine plants and retest simply to ensure no Intersex traits under stress are passed on. Now, that is not easy when these plants take upwards of 20 weeks in flower and full year to reach full maturity. As responsible plant breeders we must not pass forward traits that would see a grower at late flower having 'hermie' issues in a 20 plus week Landrace Sativa. We also know, that should that happen, seeds could be sold, double whammy. Hence it has to be done right, or not at all. Happy to say that our tropical Sativas are free of those traits entirely. The introduction of our GoldBud line (Colombian Mota/Gold) took for instance 5 years from moment of collection of that line in Colombia by a member searching for years.
To do this work takes the time and resources that could be devoted to producing 10's of ''flavour of the month'' crosses, or S1's. S1's are even easier to create than a cross, can be done in any closet from just a single elite clone. This again, is not plant breeding, it is making seed for a market. We can understand the business model, but as you say none of these things will progress Cannabis into the future.
Cutting a long story short, what we see now in the market is very little actual plant development, stabilisations, IBL's, documented landrace introductions, etc. There are not many people at all in the world really breeding Cannabis for the recreational market. If there where there would be IBL's and other breeding tools being released, or at least documented and shown. These are tools of trade to real breeders
To give another example of how much real breeding is being done in the world today, the last time we introduced a IBL within 10 months the line was available through 8 different ''Breeders'', in S1 format, F2's, etc, etc. Some of those are large household names, some smaller co's built entirely off the backs of others work.
Their marketing is indeed incredible and they manage to swamp smaller companies and creators with no way of entry to their markets, due to mass costs of marketing.
This is compounded due to this belief that has been passed into the heart of the seed buying public that Cannabis seed is expensive due to it being a elite Artform, what a lot of bollox. You cannot talk plant breeding seriously with many people in the Seedmaking spere, they have not even a clue what they do. Man, we have 'breeders' writing books on breeding now, who have never released anything more than a hybrid of two polyhybrids. lol, its crazy.
are their any young type breeders growing out and stableiseing great genetcs,are they still putting new landraces genetics into the gene pool to give it new life and vigor,like i said i would hate to see canabis go the way of the american muscle cars.
Yes, there are a small number of plant breeders working with these rare Landraces, stabilising traits and Alleles for the future, although there are not many. There are also some smaller seedco's introducing real landraces from source countries like the realseedco with their lines. Although we don't see eye to eye with them recently, it's good to see other counterfoils to the modern rockstar breeder ego.
I'm not sure what the futures hold for talented Cannabis breeders who understand the art and science, or whether they will be engaged breeding Cannabis for the Recreational market at all. I suspect, with proven science and methods these individuals will be gainfully employed within the Pharmacological landscape to come. Making plant derived medicine, stabilising traits and cannabinoids for use within pharmaceutical products of the future. Trust me, this species is natures medicine chest.
This is a emergant sector and is legal, so there is demand for genetics that can deliver these future product lines of Pharmacutical companies of the future. I do not mean MMJ outlets, I mean serious Pharmaceutical producers.
We recently signed agreements with a Spanish based group investing in such Pharmaceutical explorations for the transfer of genetic materials. It is very interesting work, for a plant breeder it is amazing to work with real science facilities and I suspect that truly talented plant breeders of the future may go these directions as will botanists interested in working with this fascinating species. Leaving recreational Cannabis breeding to follow the latest flavour trends as their are very few breeders around with the facilities, let alone skills to improve even basic traits, like potency for instance.
This will compound the problems the Recreational user faces, especially in a breeding context. A lack of breeding materials, no stabilised traits, S1's, etc, etc, all will lead us knowhere, as the truth is now, just as its always been - it is all in the numbers.
Without breeders collecting, growing out mass seed stocks and applying real selective pressures and testing, Cannabis cannot advance, no matter how much we would like to think so.
Pre seedbanks, there was no marketing of seeds to the wider audience beyond colleges and peer's. These plant breeders of the pre mid 70's where powered by not much more than pure love of the species and will to improve it: Their work, not the modern 'masters' has formed the basis of the current Drug Cannabis gene pool. It is VERY small, a mere snapshot of what possibly exists even in raw forms. Yet there are very few groups interested or motivated enough by non monitory things to look deep into these other genepools and out side of the boxes.
Our forefathers that built what we have now as Drug Cannabis gene pool worked with large populations of plants, spent time on their selections over full life-cycles of plants had no market for seed to address and where working with genetic materials collected from populations in situ. Until some Cannabis breeding companies employ such strategy to build their business, I'm afraid to say, all we have is a bunch of closet hack's turning out whateverthefuck is the flavour of the month.
If anything brother, the future of the species lies in the hands of the recreational breeders of today. Whether they will wake up and see that the following of the latest buzz strain leads nowhere and decide to work themselves, in groups or alone to progress real breeding wanting to leave the species improved and safe into the future is a noble cause and pass time, one which rewards those who love her enough to do such work.
Peace, HHF
