personally i would grow each strain outdoor 1 year and see which ones perform best then cross those and do it the next year once again. You could breed them indoors to get the traits you want but if your trying to get stuff for a certain climate you either gotta simulate it or just grow it there and see how each performs.
Like I'm sure down in Cali a real Afghan type strain would flourish like it would in the hot, arid middle east. Where compared to some short ruderalis bush that would do better some place like the netherlands or canada or sometin and not as good in the hot desert.
Personally I want to come up with a strain that hardly needs any water because all over I have seen this Mugwort plant that looks similar to small cannabis bushes with buds and everything, so I wanted to have a strain that I would barely have to water and it could grow alongside the local Mugwort foliage populationz hahaha, wild weed

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Best of luck with your breeding OP, maybe start a journal of your endeavors? I would like to see a journal on someone and their breeding experiences heheh.