The Cannabis Breeder's Bible (12 page)

Professional breeding outfits use automatic screening machines to produce seeds. These machines actually sieve the seeds from the bud. Seeds should be stored as directed in chapter 2.

VIABLE AND NONVIABLE SEEDS

Most viable seeds are dark in color, feel firm and have a rough feeling. Most nonviable seeds appear pale white or a light green although some strains do create viable seeds that look this way. The only surefire way to know if your produce is viable is to test your seeds. You should always test a few seeds from EACH female to ensure that your produce is viable.

Nonviable seeds should be discarded, never be sold or distributed. Maintain high standards and only distribute tested viable seeds.

Some various breeder’s packaging from the seed bank –
www.hempdepot.ca
.

BREEDER’S PACKAGING

Packaging your seeds in a breeder’s pack is always a good idea. It helps to avoid unscrupulous breeders ripping off your strains. Most seed packs are roughly 3.5” by 2” in size and should contain a placeholder card with the strain’s name, description and your logo. Shop around from official breeders to see what they use. Do not use bags that have a zip lock because these are easy to open. Instead you will have to heat seal your bags. Heat sealers are relatively inexpensive and a must for any semiprofessional or professional breeder looking to distribute his seeds. If you can follow these packaging standards then it is harder for a fraudulent breeder to mimic your packaging. It is still not impossible for them to do it but it makes the job a lot harder for them than if your packaging was just a small zip lock bag with the name of the strain in black ballpoint on the front. Seed pack counts are a matter of discretion, but the most common amounts contained in seed packs are 10, 15 and 16 seeds. Preferably you should sell your seeds in batches of 16 to ensure a good female plant selection, although most breeders are now using 10 seeds as the norm.

CD/DVD boxes make great secure seed packages. All you need is tape. Unclip the disc holder from the box and turn it over. Tape the seed pack to the back of the holder. You can get up to 4 seed packs on the back of these. Clip the disc holder back into the box, write something on the disc and you are done.

STEALTH

Batches of seeds as large as 1000 or more should not be sent through the post if you think that there is a possibility that the seeds will not make it to their destination. Most seed banks have collectors who are more than willing to travel to pick up large amounts of seeds. The best way to send bulk seeds in the post is by boxing the seed packs together inside a videocassette box. You may have to send several boxes in order to send large amounts. The cassettes will be hard enough to ensure that the seeds get through undamaged. There are many other items you can use to send seed bulk seed orders and I am sure that by using a little ingenuity you can find a way like the tried and trusted method below.

If you are sending only a few seed packets to a client then you should use a CD or DVD case. Make sure that the case is not clear and has some cards on the front and back with a CD/DVD holder that is dark and not see-through. Unclip this holder from the case and place a white card on the back of the hole so that it is no longer see-through. Tape the seed packs onto the back of this holder and clip it back into the case again. Write some name down on the CD/DVD case so that it looks official. You may also want to heat seal the CD/DVD pack. You can also buy packaging boxes for CDs and DVDs to send the case in. These packages not only increase stealth but also prevent damage. Never use your correct return address when sending the package.

4

COMPATIBLE BREEDING MODELS

PARENT COMPATIBILITY

Compatibility
has a lot to do with the plant’s species type and heritage. The first line of compatibility is cannabis itself. All cannabis plants on today’s market are descended from cannabis stock. There are no trees or animals directly involved in the cannabis breeding process! Cannabis plants are compatible with each other and can be bred together no matter what the species or strain type.

Since all cannabis plants are compatible with one another we have achieved the first step of compatibility. However, our term
compatibility
has nothing really to do with the cannabis plant’s ability to breed with other cannabis plants. It has to do with how the plants will retain an overall style with similar characteristics which breed true between different cannabis strains.

We know that there are three main species of cannabis plants: Indica, Sativa and Ruderalis. If a pure species is crossed with another plant of the same pure species type then it will retain a large degree of that pure specie’s traits. So this is the first rule of compatibility.

If the strains being crossed to create the F1 hybrid seeds are from the same pure species type, then the parent plants are very compatible with each other and the types of variations will be limited in the offspring.

If both these parents share
homozygous
genotypes for certain traits then the results in the offspring will carry this homozygous genotype without any heterozygous properties for that trait. This means that the parents are very compatible and will breed true for these traits automatically without selective breeding.

This shows that there is a high degree of compatibility between plants of the same pure species types. This should clue you in to how difficult it is to actually breed strains from different species types. Let us treat the complete opposite of our statement above.

If a pure species is crossed with a different pure species then the offspring will have a lot of variations. This means that the parents are not very compatible.

If the strains being crossed to create the F1 hybrid seeds are from different pure species types then the parent plants will not be very compatible with each other and there will be many variations in the offspring.

Since these parents are from different species then they will not share many traits. We can see straightaway that a breeder’s job is harder if he mixes cannabis species. Let’s ask a new question from what we learned in the previous chapter: Is the Kushberry an easier strain to stabilize than the Masterkush or the Blueberry? To understand this we must look at Masterkush and Blueberry and their heritage.

Masterkush is a cross between two Kush strains. The two Kush strains it came from were both Pure Indica strains. This means that there was a high degree of compatibility throughout the breeding project. This would have made the breeder’s job a little easier than say, creating a Mostly Indica plant.

Blueberry is a Mostly Indica strain but does have some Sativa in it. This means that the breeder had to work with traits that were not very compatible with one another. This would have made the breeder’s job a bit harder than creating a pure species Indica plant.

Let’s say that the breeder made both plants very homozygous for most of their traits, even enough to call each one an IBL. Kushberry would be a cross of a Pure Indica strain (Masterkush) and a Mostly Indica strain (Blueberry). This means that there is a good deal of compatibility BUT it will still not be as easy to work on as the Masterkush strain.

There is also another level of compatibility to consider. Two different strains may have a similar parent. If the parent has managed to produce similar homozygous traits in both strains then this trait will also breed true. This is much like the pure species compatibility level, but we are looking more at the breeder’s traits and how they have been retained in different strains.

If you are new to breeding then working with two known stable plants from the same pure species type will help you to stabilize a strain quickly.

The same rule can be applied to the sub-species types. Most sub-species types—Indica/Sativa, Mostly Indica and Mostly Sativa—are hard to combine with one another. It is easier to combine a Mostly Indica with a Mostly Indica but combining a Mostly Indica with a Mostly Sativa or an Indica/Sativa is just as hard as combining two different pure species types.

What it really boils down too is Homozygous Dominant vs Homozygous Recessive vs Heterozygous. The more homozygous dominant traits a plant shares with another, the easier it is to true breed the traits that they do not have in common. Let’s look at this in action.

We like the red pistil tips of the Masterkush and we do not like the white pistil tips of the Hindu Kush. They are both stable Kush strains. We may find that they share 90% of the same traits except for this red pistil tip phenotype.This means that we will have an easy time locking down the red pistil tip trait into the Hindu Kush because there is a large degree of compatibility with the two strains and our first F1 hybrid cross will probably retain a high percentage of the homozygous traits.

On the other hand if we used a Thai or a Haze strain they might have as little as 25% of their characteristics in common. The offspring will have very many variations.

In some breeding projects a breeder may find that he or she wants to inject another phenotype into a given plant. If he is going to do this then he will always want to try and find a compatible donor plant for the project to make his life easier. Sometimes you might find that the only donor plant around is not very compatible with your plant. Sometimes it is nice to take on a challenge like this, but you are better off having some experience with basic breeding procedures before you do.

SPECIES TYPE COMPATIBILITY TABLE

5

PLANT CELLS, GROWTH AND HORMONES

THE CANNABIS PLANT’S GENETIC CODE is passed from the male parent’s pollen to the ovule of the female parent. Pollen and ovules are referred to as
gametes
in plant botany. As we explained in chapter 2 both males and females contribute their sets of genes, which sort of look like the two sides of a zipper. When they combine they create the offspring’s identity. We also know that each allele can either be of a recessive or dominant type.

When they combine they form what is known as the genotype. The genotype can either be Homozygous Dominant, Heterozygous or Homozygous Recessive. These results can be observed, smelt, tasted and experienced in the plant’s phenotype.

We have discussed the breeding element of the combination of genes. However we should take a step back for the moment and look at how they contribute their genetic code to their own individual gametes.