Your not going to like me now.
Vigor is the one thing never to look for.
vigor is not an issue. hybrid vigor can mask many traits good and bad. good even growth is what I look for.
[FONT="]Creating Better Cannabis
Many people collect things as a hobby, we are no different except we collect Elite strains of Cannabis usually in clone-only format. In the last 25 years I have collected and grown-out hundreds of strains. I have traveled to Holland and attended the Cannabis Cup, 7 times. Ive also lived in Amsterdam. One thing I believe is that the best Cannabis in the world is still in North America, in some unknown garden and belongs to someone without internet access. We have been lucky enough to collect some amazing examples. Some of my all time favorites are Genius and Apollo-13 by Brothers Grimm, also Killer Queen and Space Queen by Vic High. Our most potent strain is Jacks Cleaner, a Pluton X LambsBread X Purple Haze freak, which can literally make a non-grower puke if theyre not used to her brutal raw potency. We call it the theyre coming to take me away stone. Now, MzJill and I continue this tradition working as a team. She has some of her own favorites as well. The Black Russian strain that gives all of our Sputnik crosses their insane purple coloring came from MzJill via Nebu. Over the past 5 years we have worked with these crosses to create new and interesting varieties. MzJill comes up with her own crosses using her favorites and even helps me pollinate when the males are ready. We grow in 100% organic soil mix I prepare myself using potting soil, bat guano, worm castings, and other natural soil builders. We feel the biosynthesis that takes place in soil adds something that cannot be measured. We use 10 gallon containers so the roots have lots of room. We would like to share with you a little of what goes into breeding a new strain.
Breeding has many complexities that I wont begin to try and explain here today. But I think our main goal was very simple, to combine an extremely potent Sativa hybrid with a heavy yielding, ultra purple strain. The results would be a purple strain with the potency added from that parent. What gets tricky is many strains like G-13 are extremely dominant and can take over a cross. When you cross BlueBerry and G-13, usually you just make a nasty tasting, watered down version of both. This doesnt mean that there are not good Blueberry G-13 crosses; its just breeding is not as easy as 2+2=4. There is also a big difference between breeders and seed makers. Anyone can take a male and pollinate a female. This is not breeding; it is making copies with large variations. Again if theyre sold cheap, a winner can still be found if enough seeds are grown out. The difference is the selection process of the parent strains.
The Mommas and The Poppas
Selection of the mother plant (or P1) was easy, Apollo-13 is in the top 3 of my favorite strains and I think it may be the most unique strain we have. Blending potency and a bizarre putrid-rotting-fruit smell, that make it a one of a kind. Selection of a male Black Russian was not as easy. The first mistake people make in selecting a male is by choosing the most vigorous. Remember those complexities I mentioned earlier? Well, the recessive drug traits we seek are stashed away in non-vigorous males. Think about the plant in the wild, the natural progression of Cannabis is back to Hemp. The drugs strains we have today are a direct result of human intervention. Robert Clark says it better In the wild, the early males always win the breeding contest. Without proper selection, these early males cause "acclimatization" of the variety, and a decrease in drug quality. This is the "dominant" state of Cannabis. If it were otherwise, why would we need breeders? All you would have to do is let the plants do their own thing and they would become more potent over time, but they don't. The only way drug varieties ever get better is through human intervention in the natural order.
So, in order to find these recessive traits we choose males based loosely on the following. At time of germination are there any capitate trichomes on the cotyledon leaves? The number and frequency of non-glandular trichomes; this can be a great indicator of future glandular production. The earliest males to show sex get tossed, no ifs ands or buts. Dominant males are useless for drug (misuse of this rule has caused more hermaphrodite strains than the world deserves) Cannabis. If these basics are followed during each male selection process, then this gives us a much better chance of finding the genes we want. This is not meant to be a guide for anyone, just a basic explanation of what a Cannabis Breeder looks for when selecting strains to work with and/or improve upon.
Sometimes taste is the desired goal or maybe potency. I have taken cherry flavored Ortega and crossed it with Killer Queen to create a cherry phenotype called Danny Boy. Danny Boy is done in 48 days and the taste is like cherry candy. The famed Jacks Cleaner was crossed with a BlueBerry to create Batgirl and then JCB males from that cross have created entire seed companies. Our JCB male has blue pollen sacs and drips with resin.
Also in the works is an Orange Velvet X Space Queen that will be our first Pineapple-Orange offering. This is MzJills creation so we have named it JillyBean. Orange Velvet is a PNW strain obtained from some Hippies as the story goes. Our goal is to create bad ass strains that we want to grow out and smoke ourselves. Once breeding pairs are selected then they are sent to BadBoy to replicate successful crosses or create insane new things BadBoys Astro Boy (Apollo-13 X Ortega C99).
Sputnik 1.0
Once we had the Black Russian X Apollo-13 cross complete we gave it a name. Sputnik seemed like a logical selection and I think you can see we were beyond successful. We grew-out several seeds and we found that basically, we get two different phenotypes. The first is an eye-candy lady that you see so much of, starting with pink calyx and just oozing resin; we knew instantly we had achieved our desired results. Smelling like Blackberry jam and swelling to a wonderful large cola-covered-THC-factory. I will never tire of photographing this girl. At 4 weeks the pink stared changing to a magenta color and even the trichomes took on a pink to purple coloring. This particular phenotype, we gave the name Pinky. The other phenotype (Whitey) was a surprise to me and also a valuable learning experience! Whitey exhibited no purple coloring in fact the plant was ultra-white and during flowering, she almost smelled like a blue cream soda. As the plant matured it took on a weird pungent smell and before it cured out a bit, MzJill and I both thought it smelled pretty foul. After about two weeks of curing I decided to give it another chance and it knocked my socks off. A grower friend, who sampled it, said it almost gave her visuals. So we knew the cross had potential. Now how to improve on her again?
Back Crossing
The concept of back crossing, again is simple in theory, you only pollinate to your P1 mother plant using sibling male offspring. Selecting a male from the Sputnik 1.0 cross we then pollinated the Apollo-13 sugar mom, using a male selected by the criteria explained above. The first cross can be explained as a 50/50 and the second a 25/75 with 75% of her make up coming from the Apollo-13 mother. That 75% cross, or Sputnik 2.0, is now complete and ready for the final stage. The seeds arrived at Dr Chronics on 4/20, and are now available to the public. The great thing about using this breeding method is you dont have to stop at 3 crosses; you can always do it again and see what happens. We have a different plan though. Once Sputnik 3.0 is complete, we will then grow out 100 seeds and select 10 males and 10 females. The best will be used to create Cubed Apollo-13; these seeds will be stable and extremely valuable representing thousands of hours of work. These seeds can be used to create true breeding IBLs, or used to find more P1s for future breeders to incorporate into there genetic pool. TGA and Subcool will continue to strive for the best in new crosses and the search for recessive genetics. [/FONT]
Breeding Better Cannabis - part 2
I have been growing for some twenty-five years now, and I have started hundreds of different strains in my life. Recently I decided to start some Space Queen that I had stashed for many years. Vic High originally created this cross using his Romulan and Cinderella-99. I was never a huge fan of Romulan, although I liked the exotic flavor of Romberry.
This is what Vic had to say about the Space Queen cross.
Space Queen was the only reason I invested in C99 in the first place. Ever since I heard the description of Soul's princess I knew her and Romulan would be the perfect match. Then prototype crosses between P75 and Romberry started pumping out the winners that have found keeper status in many select gardens. Each of these keepers, exhibit a blend of the C-99 and the Romulan characteristics. Space Queen is a Romulan/C-99 hybrid. Flavor and potency are sure things; both parents are known for their high potency and great highs. Lemon, pine, and pineapple all swirl in a pungent bouquet to tantalize your taste buds!! Vigor will be outstanding and you'll be able to cut back on the light intensity somewhat Flowering time will be comparable to Romberry, averaging eight weeks but depending on grower and grow environment. Yield will be above average, but she won't be a top production plant. I hope she puts a smile on a few faces
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We started a ten pack of seeds just too finally; give this strain a run organically. We selected the best four males and best four females. Im sure I will catch some heat from the larger scale breeders for starting with such low numbers, but it is the only pack I had to work with. Each plant was labeled and photographed each week to record progress. Resin was forming extremely early on the stalks and the undersides of the leaf surfaces. By week three of the flowering process (twelve hours of light-twelve hours of dark) each female had taken on a wonderful Pineapple-Lemon-Mango smell.
We selected the male which was the slowest to show sex, this theory is based upon breeding selection processes spelled out in my last article. We are looking for the recessive drug traits in the male rather than hemp dominant traits. The male we choose was the very last to show sex and he best met all of our other selection criteria. (The other males were passed along to other TGA members for testing.) Large tight stamen clusters on a selected male is also a good indication of quality, as you can see; our dude has nice tight clusters. You can also see resin blobs on his empty stamens. I have never before been able to see the resinous glue on an empty stamen, mainly because I have just recently upgraded my camera and I am now able to photograph down to one centimeter. This male was tested by out-crossing with a known true breeding IBL Orange Skunk, known as Orange Velvet. The off-spring was grown-out to determine if the proper characteristics would be passed on. The out-cross of Orange Velvet and Space Queen was created by MzJill, the strain is known as Jilly Bean. This hot new strain is winning over gardens everywhere; with a dank orange-mango smell and more resin than the original Orange Velvet mom. My favorite phenotype smells like a candy store! We now have a male that we know will pass along the proper taste, potency and in the case of Orange Velvet, added yield as well.
The female Space Queens were labeled as follows; they also took on nick names or trait descriptions to help us keep better documentation of each.
A.[FONT="] [/FONT]Smallest over-all with a funky semi-rotting smell.
B.[FONT="] [/FONT]The most resinous nicknamed Frosty-Queen.
C.[FONT="] [/FONT]Best internodal spacing, potency and largest buds.
D.[FONT="] [/FONT]Jolly Rancher
The females grew rapidly during vegetation period.
*MzJill picked the phenotype labeled C, as the best based on internodal spacing and over all look. As they started flowering, phenotype C still stood out as the best looking, based on size and overall growth.
*The smallest phenotype appeared to have the most resin, B renamed Frosty Queen is over the top with raised trichomes, forming all the way to leaf edge and tip. This is probably the most photogenic plant. You can see the raised trichomes and amazing coverage of resin.
*There is a red phenotype, labeled as D but renamed as Jolly Rancher. It is the strangest and the most unlike the other three. It has a hint of cherry and extremely red pistils that really stand out as the colas dry. My favorite of the four is A. It is less fruity than B and C and has the smell of Genius and Apollo-13. I say it smells like baby poo but thats not right really. It smells of slightly rotten fruit, a slight pungency mixed with fruit and citrus. It was not a heavy yielder. The plant only yielded forty-eight grams on a five-foot bush with four heads, so she was culled. She has been passed along to SunyCheba for safe keeping.
MzJill was completely right about phenotype C. She just became a tremendous plant with large dripping colas that started plumping after day fifty of flowering. She smells a lot like C-99, she has a sweet smell that reminds me of Granny Smith Apples cooked in vanilla. She yielded more than any other plant with four mass heads that just look like showcase nugs. As Phenotype C started curing the nugs took on a candy-like smell with a hint of apples, lime-green in color with bright orange and red hues accented by brilliant resin production. In sunlight it looks like jewelry sparkling like diamonds.
At three weeks of curing the unique cherry smell of D or Jolly Rancher, seems to have faded and although the buzz is extreme, it doesnt measure up to the other three and will be culled from the heard. Phenotype B known as Frosty Queen may be too small to keep for long term but for now she makes a great head stash with amazing cream colored kief. I still like the flavor of Phenotype A but she grows like a vine and is a bit hard to manage, so time will tell. Phenotype C will be in our garden for a long time and is used as our P1 mom for our Space Queen F2, aka, Space Jill. MzJill still keeps a jar of Space Queen, phenotype C, as head-stash. So now we have a proven male based on out-crossing with a known IBL (Orange Velvet) and we have a female of the Space Queen strain that would be a prize in any garden.
We grew out a good sized Space Queen C and placed her into flowering time, seven days prior to starting the male to assure a good amount of pistils to be pollinated. The male will start to show flowers at fourteen days and by twenty-one days the first stamen will open. We place the female in a room completely separate from our main growing area and place a fan in the room. Jill and I both like to use barely open male stamens to sprinkle grains onto each bud and try and capture the grains of pollen falling in the air. The plants spend a few days together under a 400 watt light with the fan gently blowing the pollen all over the female as each stamen opens. After three full days the female is then removed and rinsed repeatedly with water to de-activate the pollen and make any loose grains non-viable.
It takes a full forty-five to fifty days from this point (after pollination) for the seeds in this particular hybrid, to mature, every cross is different and some may take much longer to fully mature. We generally wait until we can actually see mature seeds protruding from the calyx. We pulled a test bud at sixty-five days flower and ran a germ test on one-hundred seeds and got a ninety-five percent germ rate after the seeds dried for two full weeks. The resulting cross was grown-out in test gardens. The cross took on the nickname Space Jill because MzJill was the one who knew which female was the best long before it had buds. The hybrid has quickly become a favorite because the first one-thousand seeds were given away as freebies. Usually free seeds are not primo, but in this case I had a few people tell me they liked the Space Jill more than the more expensive crosses.
We liked the attributes and stability of the Space Queen male, now known as Space Dude. He has been used in out-crosses with Apollo-13, creating the Vortex; Jacks Cleaner, creating Jack The Ripper and Sweet Tooth #3, creating Space Tooth. We continue to work with this line to improve upon other crosses or to bring a clone-only strain to seed form so that others may enjoy the dankness. We are now working on a UK Cheese X Space Dude (Space Queen male) cross, so that I may enjoy that famous strain without obtaining a clone myself. Space Dude is one of our work horse males, now we can use him to add flavor and resin along with potency to almost any hybrid cross.
Glossary
Calyx
The whorl of sepals of a flower collectively forms the outer floral envelope or layer of the perianth enclosing and supporting the developing bud; usually green.
Clone
An organism descended asexually from a single ancestor, such as a plant produced by layering or a polyp produced by budding.
Dominant
Of, relating to, or being an allele that produces the same phenotypic effect whether inherited with a homozygous or heterozygous allele.
F1
When you cross two different IBL strains for the FIRST time, it is called the F1 generation.
F2
When you cross two of the same F1 hybrid (inbreed), it is called the F2 generation.
Hemp
A coarse bushy annual with palmate leaves and clusters of small green flowers; yields tough fibers.
Hybrid
A strain made up of two genetically unlike parents, IBL or hybrid.
IBL
(Inbred line) is a genetically homogeneous strain that grows uniformly from seed. An IBL is homozygous, or true breeding for particular traits.
Off-spring
The progeny or descendants of a plant considered as a group.
Out-cross
A female crossed with a male with the soul intention of inbreeding the sibling line to the mother plant.
P1
original parental generation used to develop F1 hybrids or stabilized, true breeding strains.
Phenotype
The observable, qualifiable and quantifiable representation of a trait.
Pistil
The female, ovule-bearing organ of a flower, including the stigma, style, and ovary.
Pollen
The fine powder like material consisting of pollen grains that is produced by the anthers of seed plants.
Potency
The quality or state of being potent. strength/efficacy/
effectiveness
Recessive
Tending to go backward or recede. Of or relating to a trait that is expressed only when the determining allele is present in the homozygous condition.
Resin
Trichomes come in three different types, Bulbous, Capitate-Sessile and Capitate-Stalked.
Stamens
The pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower, usually consisting of a filament and an anther.
TGA... Team Green Avengers, The Green Avengers and The Green Avenger.
THC
Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol & delta-8-tetrahydrocannabinol - THC mimics the action of anandamide, a neurotransmitter produced naturally in the body, which binds with the cannabinoid receptors in the brain to produce the high associated with marijuana. THC possesses high UV-B
(280-315 nm) absorption properties.
Trait
A genetically determined characteristic or condition:
a recessive trait.
Trichomes
Cannabis resin glands.
Vegetation
The process of growth in plants, prior to producing flowers/blooms/fruits
