The Case For Regular Seeds

Kingrow1 said:

I enjoyed your write up and references as well, i feel they miss some futher consideration which is species specific -

Mj has genetic survival longterm tactics as do all plants, its goal is not to evolve but to stay the same - its genetics echo this and ia not even remotely susceptable to mutation unlike a bannana.

Some peeps troll some weak ass genetic theory which dosent represent the fact this plant has sat isolated for eons in mountain passes and valleys unable to evolve or find new genetics and thus forth strengthened and learnt to diversify within itself.

The plant can actually beat being bottlenecked if just a few survive, it has before many times in very bad decades only to proliferate.

I use to think as the op but god damn this plant has had millions of years of being unchanged to develop the answer.

Amazing how a strain kept isolated for so long crossed with another from such a distant genetic make up yet simply make the same old boring looking weed plants when crossed - zero evolution

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SODreamsB said:

I appreciate the input and here's a counter point, if Cannabis didn't 'evolve' how would you be able to selectively breed it for higher THC if it stayed that same? that's a genetic change right there.

There's always movement of DNA strands usually called transposons and just due to the nature of their copying and movement you get bits left off or bits picked up which causes changes, not including random mutations from UV radiation or other factors.

If you're interested there's a lot of really cool new research that's replacing the old theory of evolution with the new field of epigenetics, which makes a lot more sense, its less about 'evolving' and more about how DNA reacts to environmental stresses. So in reality you can actually have a change occur inside your own body while you are alive for example and then pass it on, rather than you staying the same and your descendants being the only ones who change.

Here's a couple online articles that talk a bit about it that I found:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/09/darwin-evolution-crispr-microbiome-bacteria-news/

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/mar/19/evolution-darwin-natural-selection-genes-wrong

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SODreamsB said:

if a plant becomes pollinated by itself, its seed offspring will be the genetic clones of itself which result in a lack of diversity as well as the high potential for mutated or undesirable recessive traits to become prevalent thereby weakening the plant in the future.

Cannabis has either lost its ability to prevent self pollinating, or didn't have it to begin with so that aside how does it work? Genetic testing has shown us that the male Y chromosome (which has two arms a long and a short) binds to the female X chromosome on the short arm. This is significant because the male associated genetic marker is located on the long arm of the Y chromosome, which explains why a female "Y" gene can successfully bind to a true female X gene, as the marker for Male does not make contact. Ref-A1

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Observe & Report said:

This is just wrong. This is not a good post. This post is spreading myths that hurt the Cannabis industry.

A selfed plant does NOT produce "genetic clones of itself" as you claim. The law of assortment still applies. Gregor Mendel worked this out about 150 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendelian_inheritance

Females don't have a Y chromosome so the paper you linked to doesn't explain "why a female "Y" gene can successfully bind to a true female X gene, as the marker for Male does not make contact." In a female plant meiosis produces four "X" gametes because females are "XX" while a male plant produces two "X" and two "Y" gametes because males are "XY". When two "X" gametes meet you get a female and when an "X" and a "Y" gamete meet you get a male. This is how female seeds work!! No "Y" chromosomes = no males!

Non-selfed feminized seeds are regular crosses and have just as much genetic diversity as regs. So called "feminized" seeds are indentical to the half of regular seeds that turn female. It is the exact same process. There is no difference that could be detected in the seeds. Your whole thesis that making feminized seeds limits the gene pool is just wrong.

Please stop spreading myths.

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Observe & Report said:

This is just wrong. This is not a good post. This post is spreading myths that hurt the Cannabis industry.

A selfed plant does NOT produce "genetic clones of itself" as you claim. The law of assortment still applies. Gregor Mendel worked this out about 150 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendelian_inheritance

Females don't have a Y chromosome so the paper you linked to doesn't explain "why a female "Y" gene can successfully bind to a true female X gene, as the marker for Male does not make contact." In a female plant meiosis produces four "X" gametes because females are "XX" while a male plant produces two "X" and two "Y" gametes because males are "XY". When two "X" gametes meet you get a female and when an "X" and a "Y" gamete meet you get a male. This is how female seeds work!! No "Y" chromosomes = no males!

Non-selfed feminized seeds are regular crosses and have just as much genetic diversity as regs. So called "feminized" seeds are indentical to the half of regular seeds that turn female. It is the exact same process. There is no difference that could be detected in the seeds. Your whole thesis that making feminized seeds limits the gene pool is just wrong.

Please stop spreading myths.

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Kingrow1 said:

If an isolated pocket of weed plants had a bad year and all but one female survived which subsequently hermied anf spread forth its seed...

If it were so isolated what is the result?

This situation never been encountered... Sone explorer found a remote valley of dolls, i mean just fems that kept herming for hundreds of years.

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SODreamsB said:

I think that's possible to have happened but the fact that as a plant its pollen is airborne and as widely dispersed as it is (on top of requiring a tiny amount to be pollinated) would certainly suggest that other nearby groups of plants that do have males with pollen could certainly spread enough to fertilize other remote groups of females only.

So I would say the idea in the wild would be for any established crop of plants to survive as long as possible until a male grows -somewhere- near enough for its pollen to reach them.

I would certainly be interested to see some form of quantifiable research to show how far pollen can spread and at exactly what levels of concentration in the air it can still achieve fertilization at, not sure if anyone has even studied that maybe I'll go looking around for it at some point.

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SODreamsB said:

A selfed plant has nothing to sort? each plant only has 2 sex based chromosomes what you are saying is akin to 1 + 1 = 3 but that's just for selfed plants, not out crossed feminizing.

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SODreamsB said:

Yes you can get feminized seeds by out crossing and maintain some diversity but you're still giving up some diversity by excluding male factors and do you have numbers on self vs out crossed seeds or who does what?

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SODreamsB said:

I would love for you to explain to me though how preserving both male and female genes "hurts the Cannabis Industry"?

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SODreamsB said:

As mentioned in the reference it simply provides some evidence to explain how "accumulation of a specific LINE-like retrotransposon at the terminal region of the long arm of the Y chromosome might be one cause of heteromorphism of sex chromosomes."

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SODreamsB said:

What you quoted from wikipedia was the original basics for our elementary understanding of genetics sure though the way you have used it in your argument isn't valid in regards to selfed plants, nor in regards to removal of male genetics resulting in a loss of diversity, which again is the main point of my post in addition to the uses for male plants.

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Observe & Report said:

As explained in the link on Mendelian inheritance, genes are made up of two alleles which are individually assorted. Every gamete has half the alleles of the parent but each has a different half. That's why children are all different, even though they have the same parents, identical twins notwithstanding.


Females don't have Y chromosomes. With regular seeds the Y chromosomes aren't involved with females at all, either. The process and genetic diversity is the same. The X chromosome, and all other chromosomes, pass from generation to generation the same way for fems as for regs.

Check some seed banks, most fem seeds are crosses. The most popular breeders have dropped hundreds of fem crosses each. They are doing the exact same thing as regular breeders: filling a room full of elite cuts and chucking pollen into it. Except the fem runs have better selected parents.

Most selfed seeds are S1's of hyped genos for growers in illegal areas who can't just pop down to the store and buy them (or only grow from seed.) Sometimes breeders make S1s to deliberately limit the diversity to make a true breeding line. e.g. Useful Seeds Bag of Oranges. It's not always bad, in fact purposely limiting diversity of genetics is called "stabilizing" the variety.


Unfortunately, many people who make and distribute seeds believe these myths and make only regs. This reduces the availability of female seeds. Not only do female seeds come up female, the breeder can directly observe the female flower traits of both parents which greatly increases the power of their selection. Since desirable female flower traits lurking in a male can't be directly observed and because hitting the same genotype with multiple males and flowering out the female progeny is extremely expensive in terms of time and space, virtually all regular seeds available are chucks made with a stem rubbed male. That's how virtually every male used to make regular seeds today was selected. By growing it out and comparing stem rubs, vigor, structure, and male flowers before picking one and ordaining it. Advanced breeders will reverse the male to try to get an idea of what the terp traits he's carrying, which is good. Ultimately though, all the reg chucking is really muddying up the gene pool IMHO. It is really bad in cases where people have a unique old female and they only distribute outcrosses because of their irrational fear of selfing.


I'm not seeing how this relates to female seeds and how they necessarily lack genetic diversity, maybe you could explain it? There are no Y chromosomes in females or female seeds. "Heteromorphism" means the male chromosomes have a different form (XY) from the female chromosomes (XX), you know.


I didn't quote anything from Wikipedia. If you bothered to read the link I included you then you would know that Mendel's experiments did in fact involve selfed plants. Seriously, go read it. You probably also should read the one on Meiosis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiosis

Genes are segregated during meiosis and each allele is independently assorted whether you're making female or regular pollen. That means when you self fertilize a plant, each heterozygous gene has a 25% chance of coming up homo-recessive in each seed, just as Mendel discovered. Which is why selfed seeds are not clones of the parent and they can vary quite a bit depending on how stable the genetics of the parent are. It still applies even if humanity later discovered that some traits involve multiple alleles and genetics was a lot more complicated than Mendel thought.

Meiosis happens normally in reversed plants. Female pollen is the same as regular pollen, at least the half carrying the X chromosome. Any genes that could be passed from male to female in regular seeds can also be passed from female to female in fem seeds.

There is no loss of genetics from making female crosses because it really is the same thing as making regular seeds, but I'm open to the possibility that I am wrong. So far I haven't seen any cogent argument as to why. The answer from fem seed opponents never seems to be more sophisticated than "there is no male." Maybe your explanation of the "accumulation of specific LINE-like retrotransposons" will help.

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SODreamsB said:

As for the transposons it's mainly just supporting evidence of how a female produced chromosome could bind to another, basically the plant itself doesn't actually check if the pollen it receives is male since that part of the structure is on the unused arm of the Y gene normally so it doesn't interact in any way, which seemed like interesting information.

One could ask why it doesn't check for male pollen, perhaps it use to and that in itself could be a historical mutation from a common ancestor, it certainly appears to have been a dominant trait at least, to not check the gender of the pollen since it seems like all Cannabis today behaves that way. I am also just of the opinion that a natural organism knows itself best and if it naturally would have males then without knowing anything about it at all, you should clearly understand there is a reason why.

The other factor at play here though is because of the different genetic structures you right off the bat have more variety which gives you more possible mutations, which would then speed up the process of adapting, if you will. Which could increase your chances of having one of those extra random mutations produce your fungus resistance gene you want or whatever you are looking for.

All of it is kind of a moot point if you get into GMOs and genotype mapping to keep a record of, create or resurrect extinct species or whatever else but then that's even further from natural processes and a whole other topic.

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SODreamsB said:

The male Cannabis plant gets a bad rap with many people, hence its caused the creation of the feminized seed industry. While there may be some practical and useful reasons for feminized seeds for many people there are some draw backs that don't commonly get discussed.

Firstly so everyone reading this is on the same page I want to list and define some botany terminology:


Dioecy or being Dioecious: The characteristic of a species having a distinctly different and separate male and female organisms (i.e. male and female flowers on separate plants).

Monoecy or being Monoecious: A single organism possessing both a distinct male and female flower at the same time

Self-incompatability: This is a common 'mechanism' of flowering plants that prevents them from being pollinated by themselves in favor of out-crossing to preserve some form of genetic diversity.


So Cannabis as a plant is primarily Dioecious, male and female (already rare) but it is also capable of becoming Monoecious, male and female flowers on the same plant (more rare) when stressed or when Males are not available.

Many plants that are Monoecious have the trait of self-incompatibility, or for example Avocados which have a single flower that for a period of time is male and puts out pollen, then turns female later on to receive another plants pollen.

Why are there all these anti self pollination mechanisms you might ask well, because if a plant becomes pollinated by itself, its seed offspring will be the genetic clones of itself which result in a lack of diversity as well as the high potential for mutated or undesirable recessive traits to become prevalent thereby weakening the plant in the future.

Cannabis has either lost its ability to prevent self pollinating, or didn't have it to begin with so that aside how does it work? Genetic testing has shown us that the male Y chromosome (which has two arms a long and a short) binds to the female X chromosome on the short arm. This is significant because the male associated genetic marker is located on the long arm of the Y chromosome, which explains why a female "Y" gene can successfully bind to a true female X gene, as the marker for Male does not make contact. Ref-A1

This could have simply happened purely randomly or was perhaps (and more likely) spurred by environmental stresses that prevented male pollen from spreading and fertilizing female flowers. Either way, this is clearly meant as an extreme/adverse condition survival mechanism to prevent the species from completely dying out.

So...what happens when you force such a mechanism to be expressed, repeatedly? well primarily you lose diversity pretty quickly, which to many who enjoy a specific strain of Cannabis and its traits might appear to be a bonus but you also weaken the plant and increase the chances of adverse mutations occurring through lack of genetic diversity. Ref-B1

In contrast with a selective breeding program you can still preserve your desired traits, it might take a few generations of plants but then you have a much stronger and healthier plant for the future, as well as the possibility for new random expressions that could be even better i.e. a new phenotype.

Let's look at an example: Bananas, specifically the common yellow 'Cavendish', they have been mass produced from clones which is essentially the same thing as a self pollinated "feminized" female cannabis plant.

The Cavendish is the 'classic' yellow banana you see everywhere however they are entirely vulnerable to a fungus (fusarium oxysporum) born wilting disease that kills them and spreads very easily. They have no resistance to this and attempts to stop the outbreak of this in Asia have been unsuccessful. All it would take is for this fungus to spread to the other locations where Cavendish bananas are growing and they could all disappear. Which as it turns out has happened before with the Gros Michel or "Big Mike" banana variety which nearly went extinct in 1950 except for a few small isolated areas, which was when Cavendish bananas replaced that variety. Currently the only remaining wild banana plants (which there are only a handful of left) are on the isolated island of Madagascar, which researchers are hoping to breed with the Cavendish to increase genetic variety for a chance of developing a new banana strain with resistance to this fungus based disease. Ref-A2


So its not a stretch to imagine that in the future if feminized plants are allowed to take over, we will continue to lose genetic diversity as they WILL at some point be crossed with each other in attempts to get new genetics. The more times these crosses happen, the more similar all the remaining plants will become, the possibility of losing the male genetics is there as well and once its lost you can't get it back.

Imagine a future where there is so little diversity in Cannabis plants that given the rise of a destructive and highly resistant fungus, it could be all but entirely wiped out. No more Cannabis for anyone then along with all its benefits, except maybe synthetic pharmaceuticals and we all know the problems with those.


Just in case genetic diversity and overall plant health aren't good enough for you, here are some other interesting facts about the male Cannabis plant.



1. Male plants also contain CBD, THC, Terpenes (everything the females contain, just in lower levels) So not only can you still use the males and or make extracts (CannaButter), there's no reason why it isn't possible to selectively breed males for higher THC or CBD content as well. It's simply that no one has really done it since it was primarily believed that only females contained active compounds. Thus "not being able to get high" from a male is a myth. Ref-A3

Also due to the differing ratios of cannabinoids, there is anecdotal evidence out there to suggest the effect is more ‘high’ than ‘stoned’, and can be enjoyably cerebral. Ref- A4

There's also the high likelihood for male plants to flower, and therefor be harvested faster than females. Ref-A5

2. Anecdotal/historical wisdom states that male plants although not as strong as female fibers, have finer more flexible fibers (and produce more of them by up to 30%) than females and are thus capable of producing 'higher quality' and softer or 'finer' textiles.

3. You can use your male plants for eating/juicing to get additional health benefits from consuming fresh greens. (Or shred the fresh leaves to use as top dressing then water to act as a natural nitrogen booster/fertilizer for your females, or just mix the mashed leaves with water, strain out plant material and use as a tea).

4. You can rather easily and efficiently produce your own seeds with males, and no longer be dependent on buying seeds from an outside source.

5. Again, you are helping to preserve the entire genetic makeup and ensuring the long term survival of your favorite plant by keeping male genes alive.





References:
Ref-B1: https://phys.org/news/2015-01-affirms-sexual-reproduction-mutations.html
Ref-A1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11202435
Ref-A2: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44712034
Ref-A3: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/bulletin/bulletin_1971-01-01_1_page006.html
Ref-A4: https://sensiseeds.com/en/blog/males-useless-think/
Ref-A5: https://dev.purduehemp.org/hemp-production/

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Observe & Report said:

Yeah, it doesn't sound like you know what you're talking about.

What if I had a magic machine that could sort pollen grains by whether they carried an X or Y chromosome? Suppose I flower out a regular male plant and feed the pollen into this machine, then take the pollen from the X bin and pollenate a regular mother. All the seeds will come up female. Is there any possible way you could tell the difference between those seeds and seeds made by reversing a sister of the male and pollinating the same mother?

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SODreamsB said:

I just want to re iterate that I was highlighting the potential for large losses due to lack of diversity and that it is a plausible scenario, it would both require a lot of time and a lot of elements coming together. It doesn't necessarily mean it would go extinct entirely but if its population is low enough its not much different, especially if most areas are contaminated with disease, so that if you tried to grow there it would become infected and ultimately die.

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Observe & Report said:

This is just wrong. This is not a good post. This post is spreading myths that hurt the Cannabis industry.

A selfed plant does NOT produce "genetic clones of itself" as you claim. The law of assortment still applies. Gregor Mendel worked this out about 150 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendelian_inheritance

Females don't have a Y chromosome so the paper you linked to doesn't explain "why a female "Y" gene can successfully bind to a true female X gene, as the marker for Male does not make contact." In a female plant meiosis produces four "X" gametes because females are "XX" while a male plant produces two "X" and two "Y" gametes because males are "XY". When two "X" gametes meet you get a female and when an "X" and a "Y" gamete meet you get a male. This is how female seeds work!! No "Y" chromosomes = no males!

Non-selfed feminized seeds are regular crosses and have just as much genetic diversity as regs. So called "feminized" seeds are indentical to the half of regular seeds that turn female. It is the exact same process. There is no difference that could be detected in the seeds. Your whole thesis that making feminized seeds limits the gene pool is just wrong.

Please stop spreading myths.

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rob333 said:

when you grow a femmed seed outdoors strain breed you only have about 3 harvests of seed collection using males before it reverts back to its origin strain you will not get this with a reg seed

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