Breeding questions

Im not really new to growing but ive never intentionally produced my own seeds or strains...How is a strain considered stable if reversal is part of the process? Is stable meaning only phenotype? Wouldnt reversal increase the chance of it being a hermie on down the genetic line? If so could that trait remain hidden until its crossed with something else with the same hidden trait? Is that similar to finding the hidden traits to bring out pink colors. I just dont want to take the time and effort of making a strain to have it mutant later on down the line on me. Any info is appreciated...

By reversal you mean back crossing? Or are you referring to making fem seed by reversing sex?

The way I understand it in my very limited breeding experience is that if you grow out a male and a female plant and then allow the male to seed out the female that is a cross aka an F1 hybrid. If you take those seeds from said female after harvest and then cross them again that is a backcross or F2 which is typically more unstable than the F1. Stability in breeding means less variablilty of phenotype traits through selection. It can take several generations of selecting traits of brothers and sisters to backcross to create stable strains. This link explains it way better than I can:
https://sensiseeds.com/en/blog/cannabis-genetics-101-stabilising-a-strain/

Yes i meant sex reversal. Ive read that people get clones and then reverse to get the seed. Then start crossing from there or add that to a strain they ve been working on. Thats why i was asking about increasing the chances of a hermie trait showing and breeding with a strain with similar traits.

Basically it depends on how you reverse the sex, there are several ways. I found the excerpt below on a website I can't link to but if you search a line of the text in Google you should be able to find it.

Making Feminised Seed

To make feminized seed you must induce male flowers in a female plant. There is all sorts of information on the Internet about doing this with light stress (light interruptions during flowering) and other forms of stress. The best of the stress techniques is to simply keep the plant in the flowering stage well past ripeness and it will produce a flower.

Stress techniques will work but whatever genetic weakness caused the plants to produce a male flower under stress will be carried on to the seeds. This means the resulting seeds have a known tendency to produce hermaphrodites. Fortunately, environmental stress is not the only way to produce male flowers in a female plant.

The ideal way to produce feminized seed through hormonal alteration of the plant. By adding or inhibiting plant hormones you can cause the plant to produce male flowers. Because you did not select a plant that produces male flowers under stress there is no genetic predisposition to hermaphroditism in the seed vs plants bred between a male and female parent. There are actually a few ways to do this, the easiest I will list here.....

All seed that is femmed by inducing sex reversal have the hermaphrodite trait so yes you would be breeding in that trait. This doesn't necessarily mean all subsequent generations will herm out with no external stress but they will be more prone to herm than seeds bred by regular seed. Hermies are usually caused by external stress especially light exposure during the dark period and femmed seed is more prone to this. Reg seed can herm out too if given the right stress conditions just less prone to do so.
I have crossed several strains in which the mothers were originally from femmed seed but since these are just for my own personal seed stock it doesn't matter that much. I don't breed for commercial sale so my reputation as a breeder is not on the line. If you just want to make some seeds go ahead. You will not be wasting your time. Mutants are caused when you in breed several generations of unstable strains. Just doing a few crosses for personal seed stock or using colloidal silver to force a couple plants to herm won't do it. I do think that it's a better option to breed the old fashioned way of pollenization than it is to force reversal. Then you can freeze the male pollen for selected seed making in the future without making a big mess.

This might help w how traits are carried over.(not reversing sex, but good breeding info)

Richard Drysift said:

All seed that is femmed by inducing sex reversal have the hermaphrodite trait so yes you would be breeding in that trait. This doesn't necessarily mean all subsequent generations will herm out with no external stress but they will be more prone to herm than seeds bred by regular seed. Hermies are usually caused by external stress especially light exposure during the dark period and femmed seed is more prone to this. Reg seed can herm out too if given the right stress conditions just less prone to do so.
I have crossed several strains in which the mothers were originally from femmed seed but since these are just for my own personal seed stock it doesn't matter that much. I don't breed for commercial sale so my reputation as a breeder is not on the line. If you just want to make some seeds go ahead. You will not be wasting your time. Mutants are caused when you in breed several generations of unstable strains. Just doing a few crosses for personal seed stock or using colloidal silver to force a couple plants to herm won't do it. I do think that it's a better option to breed the old fashioned way of pollenization than it is to force reversal. Then you can freeze the male pollen for selected seed making in the future without making a big mess.

Click to expand...

No more then the strain already is prone to. All strains do carry a genetic ability to. The expression of that genetic trait can be a variable.

STS is more stable then CS selfing.
Stress selfing is not done by any quality breeder any more. Here is where your herming rates can get real bad.....

Selfing is no guarantee of 100% female seeds! That's right, you can get males from selfed seeds. The rate is aprox. 3000:1 and twins are like 1200:1.
For me, males happened 3 times and twins once.......If you get a male from selfed seeds. This can be highly desireable. I've heard it called a super male. I never did use the one's I've found...

Most good, quality breeding is done on the hobbyist level by directly pollinating females by males in a tent (isolating the pollen). Clean up is as simple as spraying the tent and plant down with plain water. This is after the fertilization has been done and you can then run that female with un-pollinated females if you like.

Collected pollen that is frozen has to be handled carefully. Moisture kills pollen (why you simply cleaned the tent w/water). Safe storage involves isolation from moisture. Use a silica gel pack in the sealed container. Freezer to fridge (to thaw) and then to counter top. You're avoiding condensation and condensation kills pollen.

Frozen pollen has an acceptable life of just over 6 months in the freezer. After that the viability of that pollen is getting to low.....It can work out to a year but your going to have to use a shit ton of that pollen for successful results...

Mutations can happen at any point. Mostly simple things like a single bean grow bud from a leaf petiole, whorled phyllotaxy, webbed leaves (like Ducks foot), the list goes on.

Just adding my 2 cents

Appreciate all the info.

Twisteduptreefrog said:

Im not really new to growing but ive never intentionally produced my own seeds or strains...How is a strain considered stable if reversal is part of the process? Is stable meaning only phenotype? Wouldnt reversal increase the chance of it being a hermie on down the genetic line? If so could that trait remain hidden until its crossed with something else with the same hidden trait? Is that similar to finding the hidden traits to bring out pink colors. I just dont want to take the time and effort of making a strain to have it mutant later on down the line on me. Any info is appreciated...

Click to expand...

As far as I know weed breeders are the only ones that use back crossing so heavily. If you look at vegetable and fruit seeds stable heirloom varieties are always labeled as "open pollinated". The breeders grow out large selection pools and each generation is watched closely to be sure to save seeds from plants that have the qualities you want. Those qualities will become more consistent with each generation until it's a stable trait.

The term stable is misused by pretty much everyone. It means that you can expect pretty much every plant from seed to share the same characteristics and produce a similar if not nearly identical product. A lot of times people use "stable" to talk about whether or not it's prone to turning herm. The truth is that if a plant consistently produces hermaphrodite plants from seed then that is a stable characteristic. In the legal plant market a seedline can't be referred to as a strain unless it's "true breeding" which is another common term that means stable.