Male selection

Very informative, that helps very much.

Black Widow is on top of my list of strains to try from the original breeder and Afghan Haze has been tempting me for a while... Damn I'll never be able to stop before I sampled EVERY MNS strain, I guess :D
 
Thanks a lot for your thoughts, they are very useful to me !


Could you give more detail as to why go for those 3 strains specifically, please ? I'm very interested in knowing your thought process...

So in your mind, I'd have to chose an Afghan Haze male if I want to bring some haze qualities in my crosses ?

Why not a pure Neville's Haze male, then ?

Or is it because in an Afghan/Haze cross, the male would be easier to identify as haze or afghan leaning ?

One of the other reasons to not breed a pure sativa strain is that its very difficult. When breeding you should always pick strains that are more similar than they are different.

for example if you took a pure sativa and a pure indica you will get wild mix of traits in the offspring.. You get much better results when you breed together similar strains. e.g. mostly sativa with another mostly sativa or a mostly indica with a mostly indica... You will also get the most success if your starting out with an IBL line.. for example you see loads of strains over the past few years with tomhills DEEPCHUNK as its a true IBL line...

the more similar a strain is to another strain the better chances of having the dominat traits that your looking for passed on to the off spring . That means that if two plants have large wide leaf fingers such as indicas have then the off spring will have wide finger leafs. same goes for large colas or odour and taste.. your more likely to have the seeds inherit the positive traits of the parents... When you have a pure sativa crossed with a pure indica you will have tow plants that are very different and the ressessive traits are more likely to appear in the seeds offspring. ressessive traits are not usually what your looking for as they usually are not visible in the parent plants.

This all might sound a bit strange but just keep in mind that the more a plant is like its breeding partner , the better off your seeds will be as fare as stability. meaning your seeds will be more similar in form taste and other traits.

to learn more about breeding there is a book called
THE CANNABIS BREEDERS BIBLE, THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO MARIJUANA GENTICS.

its doesn't really tell you much about strains but it does teach you lots about XX AND XY chromosomes , repressive and dominant traits, breeding techniques and lots more...

its actually extremely difficult process when your see what is involved in making a world class strain...

I tip my hat to legends like SHANTIBABA, NEVILLE, AND EVERYONE AT MR.NICE.
What they are doing cant not be produced by any stroke of luck or chance. Its pure professionalism and knowledge.

Thank the gods for these cannabis creators....
 
Kick ass breeding 'primer'.
http://croptechnology.unl.edu/viewLesson.cgi?LessonID=1099683867

Whole list of genetic lessons (some in Espanol :D). From AA x aa to inserting specific genes into a strand of DNA.
http://plantandsoil.unl.edu/croptechnology2005/gen/index.jsp?what=informationModuleList

Interactive game where you can breed different corn based on different breeding goals.
http://croptechnology.unl.edu/animationOut.cgi?anim_name=flowerbreeding.swf

"Which male to use?"
"Whichever one proves that his offspring are best for your goals."

Anything less is a crapshoot.
 
This all might sound a bit strange
Not at all, it's very logic at the opposite, makes perfect sense. Thanks for this analysis, I was focused indeed on mating different individuals but as you say rightfully, this needs a lot of subsequent selection process on the offspring, with space and/or time that I don't have...

to learn more about breeding there is a book called
THE CANNABIS BREEDERS BIBLE, THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO MARIJUANA GENTICS.
Yup, second that, very informative read indeed. While I don't agree entirely on his judgment calls, the scientific explanations look valid to me (I don't have a PhD in biology, might I add :p). Good idea, btw, I'm gonna take another peak at it :)

its actually extremely difficult process when your see what is involved in making a world class strain...

I tip my hat to legends like SHANTIBABA, NEVILLE, AND EVERYONE AT MR.NICE.
What they are doing cant not be produced by any stroke of luck or chance. Its pure professionalism and knowledge.

Thank the gods for these cannabis creators....
Agreed 100% !
Too bad it's a real fight to learn the real truth amongst the false breeders and real thieves !
I wish there was more like them, coz when you look at it, eventually, how many really stable strains are still alive today ? I mean, Shantibaba and Nevil have a nice parental stock which was selected with much care and all, but only represents what ? 5 percents of all available landrace genetics ? Some Thai, Colombian, Mexican, Afghan (Mazar-i-Shariff), maybe one south african, one brazilian and one south indian (btw how can these two make for an indica dominant plant ???) and that's about it... Imagine what we could have if Shantibaba, Nevil and a few others would had have the time and space to try many more combinations of landraces from many different places and stabilize them to the point of the Skunk, Northern Lights and Hazes...
 
You know this discussion happened 10 years ago!!

Still, for what it is worth - if you can't select a breeding plant from a decent population (1000? 10,000? More?) then select the best 3. It is silly to pin your hopes on a single plant that is only a 1 in 10...
I select males based on resin - only because my experience tells me that the females with the most resin are usually the best smokes - it is a good trait! You can also tell aromas from males, of course - so go for smelly.

I have heard people say to discard the first to flower and the last - the outliers..

A grower friend of mine recently selected a male because it has 5 fingered leaves. I can't understand that. Who cares how many fingers are on the leaves? That has no bearing on the flowers (I think, anyway...) Maybe he knows something I don't.. Still, I don't think it needs to be all rocket science and secret techniques.

Apply what you know about the females to the males, where you can.... You may know that the short females are the better phenotype (for whatever reason) - so select from the population of shorter males...

I'm no Nevil Shoenmaker but I have grown out plenty of lovely plants that I have made and plenty of MNS seeds that have been poor (and all the other companies, too.) PLUS it is far more fun growing out your own seeds (when they work) and it is NOT as hard as you think. The reason people make it out that way is to encourage you to buy their seeds, of course! Although I am sensible with my crosses, though (Skunk x other Skunk, for example. Things that will obviously work...) I would love to cross a Orange Bud with my Purple Haze, for example but I know what will most likely happen if I try - so I won't bother. Maybe when I have the room to grow out a million plants in order to find one that yields more than fuck all!!! I bet they would ALL taste amazing, though...
But you are not making a strain but creating great plants - it is different. Making a strain is much harder. There is more to consider (although, like I said, plenty of shit plants to be found in commercial seeds!) You only need to find 1 good female to mother from a handful of your own seeds - whereas a breeder needs to make promises about what will happen when you plant a number of their seeds...

Good Luck and send me any good seeds to make (!)
 
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