Issue #127 - Sunday, September 21, 2014

Dear Fellow Grower,

In today's issue...

• Learn how to breed your own cannabis strains!
• See how one grower made a greenhouse for under $50!
• Check out this week's trophy pics featuring a manifolded Vanilla Kush plant!

Happy Growing!

Nebula Haze & Sirius Fourside (founders of GrowWeedEasy.com)

"I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of 'Natural Selection'."

~Charles Darwin

Table of Contents

Introduction

• Evolution of the Cannabis Plant Through Selective Breeding
• Starting Stock: Landrace Strains
• Case Study: Development of the Ruderalis Strain

Overview: Breeding New Strains

• What to Breed For

Terms & Tools of the Trade

• Phenotypes
• Dominant & Recessive Traits
• Stabilizing Strains, Back-Crossing & Inbreeding
• How to Select Male & Female Plants for Your Breeding Program
• Hybrid Vigor

Breeding - Step-by-Step

Are you interested in breeding your own cannabis strains? With all the incredible genetics available today, there are more opportunities than ever for breeding new strains.

Evolution of the Cannabis Plant Through Selective Breeding

Let's take a look at an example of the power of selective breeding.

Now some of these changes are because of different growing practices, but a lot of the changes have to do with genetics and what people have been breeding for over the last several decades.

Over the last few decades, many growers have been selecting for high-THC and "psychedelic" effects, big plump buds with big yields, shorter flowering periods, pretty colors and overall looks. Recently there's also been many people breeding high-CBD strains for medical users.

But in addition to the percentage of THC or CBD, there's a lot more to the overall effects of cannabis. There are many cannabinoids and terpenoids that we haven't studied, and these all can change what effects the buds will produce. Some growers are starting to breed for other traits besides color or THC/CBD levels, paying more attention to the nuances of different strains and their effects.

For example, some cannabis enthusiasts enjoyed the cannabis they got back in the 60s or 70s, and miss certain effects from older strains. While these strains may not have been as high in THC or as "pretty" as famous strains today, they had other pleasant mental or body effects.

Luckily for breeders, many heirloom and landrace genetics have been preserved through seeds. Some seed breeders like ACE Seeds and Cannabiogen offer some interesting genetics from landrace and heirloom strains. 

These days, there's so much opportunity to grow buds that produce the exact effects you want. Growers everywhere have access to huge seed banks full of diverse genetics, both new and old.

Generations of growers before us have traveled the world finding landrace strains of cannabis, so that we all get to benefit from a huge pool of genetics for our breeding programs.

A landrace strain is a local cultivated strain; a strain which has been developed by local residents of that area.

So a grower might visit an area where the local growers have a unique strain of cannabis. Sometimes their local strain has new desirable traits you haven't seen before (a particular color, taste, smell, potency, etc).

Many growers will take seeds to grow themselves. A landrace strain collector might bring back dozens of seed so the genetics of these local strains are preserved. These seeds are then mixed with other breeding stock to capture those traits in new plants.

Many famous cannabis breeders travel around the world to find unique landrace strains to bring into their breeding programs.

A famous example a local plant that rocked growing world is the "Ruderalis" plant. People might not consider it a landrace since it doesn't seem to be actively cultivated by local growers, but it is a local plant that's been mixed into many breeding programs around the world.

In the wild, Ruderalis is a small, scraggly wild cannabis plant that grows in extremely cold climates with short summers. The buds aren't potent and the plants are scrawny, but these plants had one very important trait - the ability to "auto-flower" after just a few short weeks, regardless of light schedules.

Unlike most other strains, auto-flowering strains are not dependent on light schedules, and will start growing buds and be ready to harvest in just a few months.

At some point, an enlightened grower realized that this auto-flowering trait could be useful to other growers. But the Ruderalis plant would never be useful to growers the way it grows wildly. It had low levels of THC and the buds were tiny. So breeders began crossing auto-flowering strains with quality high-potency cannabis strains.

Original crosses created relatively small plants with low potency, but growers have continued to refine and stabilize auto-flowering strains. Over the last decade or so, many breeders from around the world have been working together to isolate the auto-flowering trait in plants that produce high-potency buds and big yields. By continuously breeding the Ruderalis plants back to potent cannabis strains, we now have strains that have kept that auto-flowering characteristic, but are just as potent as modern strains (we managed to "breed out" the phenotypes that didn't produce good buds or growth patterns).

Now there are numerous stabilized auto-flowering strains that are just as potent and beautiful as any other strains, and several breeders now also carry an auto-flowering version of their regular strains.

Here's an example of a modern auto-flowering plant (Dutch Passion AutoMazar ↗) about 2.5 months from seed. This pic is just after harvest and the plant ended up producing about 4 ounces of high-quality bud.

It doesn't look anything like it's wild cousin anymore, does it? And the potency and effects of high-quality modern auto-flowering strains are now about the same as photoperiod strains.

In just a few years, breeders were able to take a scraggly hemp plant and breed out everything except the auto-flowering trait. This gave breederd the power to create potent auto-flowering strains around the world. 

As a breeder, you have the power to identify specific traits and then incorporate them into your strains, leaving behind everything you don't want.

First off, why make new strains? Because each new strain has the potential to bring something new to the growing world which has never been seen before.

Just like many strains now have different effects than popular strains from years ago, you could create strains that are better for you than anything available today. You can even take older heirloom strains and create unique strains that no one has ever experienced.

Every plant is a little different, and when someone grows a seed, the resulting seedlings will have a mix of traits from each of their parent plants. As different plants are bred together, people can select to cross only their favorite plants. They can create new combinations that produce unique and wonderful effects.

Over a few generations of picking the most desirable plants for breeding, new seedlings will show more of the specific traits you've selected for, and less of the traits you've selected against.

This is basically how new strains are born, though there are several special techniques (explained below) to help you get to your goals as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Breeding New Strains: What to Breed For

Terms & Tools of the Trade

• Phenotypes
• Dominant & Recessive Traits
• Stabilizing Strains, Back-Crossing & Inbreeding
• How to Select Male & Female Plants for Your Breeding Program
• Hybrid Vigor

Breeding New Strains - Step-by-Step

We encourage you to forward this email to a friend in need!

Jump to...

Enhance the smell of your buds

Terpenes & Terpenoids: The real cause of smelly, stinky cannabis

7 Tips to Growing Top-Shelf Buds

Plant Training - Topping & More!

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