Seed confusion

Unga Bunga said:

At what point in the filial generation is it beneficial to go back to the original male used in the F1 cross using a female that has all the traits you're looking for . Would you keep going down the line of F3 f4 f5 before doing a bx to the original male ?

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Farmer's Hat said:

You can backross to the original parent whenever you want. Back crossing is mostly for locking down certain traits/phenotypes.
For example, the male has a thin sharp leaf structure, and the female has a fat leaf structure. Lets say that all of F1 plants inherited the fat leaf pheno, and your goal is to make that strain have a thin leaf pheno. In this setting, you could backcross an F1 female to the father, in an attempt to produce bx1 progeny that have a thin leaf pheno.
There are a lot of breeding tactics. Backcrossing isn't the best way to achieve your goal, its simply one of many tactics. Just keep in mind that inbreeding depression is real. When you start your serious breeding project, consider having multiple lines. You can cross them into each other and introduce some vigor, when you start noticing that the progeny is starting to lack vigor, and or the number of mutant plants starts increasing.

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Trap Star said:

@shorelineOG
Has a series of bx genetics
He uses
Shoreline x deadhead og = f1
Then he takes a shoreline leaning f1 male an crosses it back to shoreline female...

Then he gets a Shoreline Bx
I think thats how it works

So we get the Bx an grow 12 seeds
An we can pull a 2/3rds shoreline leaner
Giving us basically a shoreline replica

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Farmer's Hat said:

If this is your first attempt at making seeds, dont overthink it. Select a good looking male and cross it with every female that you like. Dont bother trying to stabilize any phenos, or making an IBL.
Once you grow out a few dozens seeds of your F1 crosses, you will get a better idea of whats possible.

The next step after testing dozens of seeds, is to set a goal for a more serious breeding project. My only advice is that you make hundreds of seeds for every cross. That way you can be aggressive with the selection process. As an example, I will plant dozens of seeds and kill all the runts within week 2-3. One of my recent breeding projects, I scrapped 50% of the seedlings because they were lacking vigor, and they had unwanted leaf phenos.

Creating a specific strain takes time and dedication. Its a very slow process. You have to test dozens of seeds, and sometimes the male selected passes on unwanted traits. It can be pretty frustrating when a strain starts drifting in the wrong direction. Having a reserve stock is pretty important. Save at least 100 seeds from every generation F1, F2, F3, etc.

I also recommend that you get ahold of some of the classics and a few landraces, if you want to create something unique. Its difficult to create something different with all the modern strains, because they all possess very similar genetics. Genetic variation is important if you want to create a strain that is truly unique.

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Mumbeltypeg said:

As far as stress testing goes, is this only done when you have finally developed something you are happy with? Or should this be something done regularly along the way?

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Farmer's Hat said:

Stress test the male and female that you select, for every generation. You want to avoid plants that herm when stressed. This will help you create a more stable strain in the long run.

Males can be stress tested with light. A strong stable male will not herm, no matter what. Finding a female that doesn't herm under light stress is a bit more difficult, so I advise that you try different stress tests on the females that you select.

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Mumbeltypeg said:

As in other than light tests? Or in addition to?
As in.. temp fluctuations, root binding, nutrient overloads? I’m just thinking of stuff to mess with them.

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