Establishing Credibility Guidelines for Breeders

[Proph]

Whatever, it's just not the whole truth. It is one way of breeding but there are other ways too. It's very possible to make a cross in a tent if you have the genetics. It's in the F2 the selection is crucial. I can do that by breeding little by little in a tent or a bunch of F2 outdoor or have access to a collective. It's very possible to sell the F2 to a customer that want to do that selection. What I am trying to say is that it is impossible to make the selection if you don't have the right climate, right test subject for medical or breed for the wrong goal. It's just to see where the famous medical strains come from, it's not from the usual subjects and this will continue to happen in a larger scale the more skilled growers can work legally. So the future will tell and it will show that the selector and the lab rat are the stars and not the breeder with the best setup. Big pharma and big agriculture would win the skill/setup contest 99 out of 100 times so we may all be growing monsanto soon, I don't think so.

In no way am I saying that anything I posted was the entire truth, lol. Its just an opinion, like everyone elses, lol. No one is saying it can't be done in a tent. What Im saying has nothing to do with setup/equipment, but more about time and available space. Growing out 4 plants at a time in a tent and making selections to improve the line, will take forever. You won't be ready to sell seeds for years.. Unless it's done half ass. But it is still doable if you have the years to spare. That was my little point on these new breeders that have only been around for 2 yrs or less. Breeding takes years.. Making seeds takes 4-6 weeks. There is a major difference between the two. These new companies are popping up with multiple strains for sale, claiming the autos are at like f4, but the company has only been breeding since 2018 or something, lol. There is a reason that mandelbrots royal kush lines go for 80-150 a seed. Because he spent countless years of his life breeding and stabilizing it to f11. Real breeding and real selection matters, and matters to some people. But again, it also doesn't matter to a lot of people.. To each their own.

All of us will probably never agree on the ins and outs of breeding and it's definition, lol. I think the purpose of this convo is more about setting up guidelines for the influx of auto "breeders" that are trying to come on site and sell their wares. Some are legit, and some aren't. Some are ready, some aren't. The real question is, how do YOU as a member want them vetted? Do you want them vetted at all? We've seen both sides at AFN.. Anyone remember Stitch and those "super autos"? Or when Heavyweight came on the scene with all those auto strains? I think they were on site for a while and just about everyone who had their seeds, had issues. It's situations like that that we want to prevent a head of time. We can all agree to disagree about terminology and personal preferences of breeding. But when you see a new auto breeder pop up in the breeder section, Im sure most are assuming that these companies are up to par or that AFN at least did some research on them... But the AFN breeder expectation checklist might not match your breeder expectation checklist. I think Hobbs is trying to make those two lists match up more than they do now.

 

[Disburped]

One problem is if the oddball pollen chucked plant accidentally grows into fire, there is no stability in any of it so could never be reproduced and would be worthless to a breeder. Developing stable F4 or better strains requires stability all the way down the line, otherwise the seed strain will never be the same twice. Developing a great strain that you can reproduce again and again after the initial stock is depleted requires a whole different skill level to attain. These people are breeders, without the breeders, the pollen chuckers could not exist.:smiley1:

There is a short way to success for stability if you mean homogenous plants with little pheno variation or isolation of a specific trait and it's called inbreeding.
Big pharma most likely inbreed a lot to isolate a specific trait. The theory goes that inbreeding may result in weak plants but plants can be heavily inbred and if one can isolate a specific trait and adjust the environment for the defects of that strain it could be possible to breed in the worst conditions. Some reputable strains have a narrow PH window or very specific nutrient demands, could be such an inbred defect. Don't really want to discuss breeding cause I am not a pro, I just doubt all of them would be happy to disclose their special skills. How we see on breeding may change with legalisation.

 

[Boognelson87]

If it does go legal in the states can we not support monsanto beans? lol

 

[Death The Cultivator]

I like the way Ace Seeds operates from it's online presence to customer service. Their website is nice for the collector or med patient.

 

[Disburped]

In no way am I saying that anything I posted was the entire truth, lol. Its just an opinion, like everyone elses, lol. No one is saying it can't be done in a tent. What Im saying has nothing to do with setup/equipment, but more about time and available space. Growing out 4 plants at a time in a tent and making selections to improve the line, will take forever. You won't be ready to sell seeds for years.. Unless it's done half ass. But it is still doable if you have the years to spare. That was my little point on these new breeders that have only been around for 2 yrs or less. Breeding takes years.. Making seeds takes 4-6 weeks. There is a major difference between the two. These new companies are popping up with multiple strains for sale, claiming the autos are at like f4, but the company has only been breeding since 2018 or something, lol. There is a reason that mandelbrots royal kush lines go for 80-150 a seed. Because he spent countless years of his life breeding and stabilizing it to f11. Real breeding and real selection matters, and matters to some people. But again, it also doesn't matter to a lot of people.. To each their own.

All of us will probably never agree on the ins and outs of breeding and it's definition, lol. I think the purpose of this convo is more about setting up guidelines for the influx of auto "breeders" that are trying to come on site and sell their wares. Some are legit, and some aren't. Some are ready, some aren't. The real question is, how do YOU as a member want them vetted? Do you want them vetted at all? We've seen both sides at AFN.. Anyone remember Stitch and those "super autos"? Or when Heavyweight came on the scene with all those auto strains? I think they were on site for a while and just about everyone who had their seeds, had issues. It's situations like that that we want to prevent a head of time. We can all agree to disagree about terminology and personal preferences of breeding. But when you see a new auto breeder pop up in the breeder section, Im sure most are assuming that these companies are up to par or that AFN at least did some research on them... But the AFN breeder expectation checklist might not match your breeder expectation checklist. I think Hobbs is trying to make those two lists match up more than they do now.

We can agree on the terminology and we can agree that pollen chucker is not a good terminology for people who don't freak out over some pollen in the grow.
A breeder is someone that grow seeds, chuck pollen, whatever you want to call it.
I grow other plants too and they make seeds too, it's natural for plants to make seeds, you don't need special skills for it or call yourself anything. If my plants make seeds it's my seeds, it must make me some kind of breeder. It's not a big deal and sinsemilla is the most common way but not the only way. People are too afraid of the males, they drop some heavy pollen straight down and that's it. The females will not stop flowering if they recieve some pollen early on, they will continue to flower.

 

[BII]

...Breeders breed for certain traits in the plant, to stabilize certain expressions. They grow hundreds of seeds at once, pick the best one or two that fit their vision, and they breed with it, until it's stable, meaning that almost all plants from seed will be pretty much the same. This takes years to do on a large scale.. Imagine how long it would take in a garage...

Personally, I'm ready for there also to be more laboratory-bred cannabis, or at least science-directed upgrading of strains. Why not metabolic and analytical-based high volume screening of phenotypes using cell/tissue culture and cloning? Why not trichome or other THC-producing cell lines we can culture ourselves (like making beer)? I presume there must be people (if not companies) working on things like these. I'm also ready for synthetic biology-based THC and terpene kits - make, mix and match your desired molecular variants.

 

[Disburped]

Personally, I'm ready for there also to be more laboratory-bred cannabis, or at least science-directed upgrading of strains. Why not metabolic and analytical-based high volume screening of phenotypes using cell/tissue culture and cloning? Why not trichome or other THC-producing cell lines we can culture ourselves (like making beer)? I presume there must be people (if not companies) working on things like these. I'm also ready for synthetic biology-based THC and terpene kits - make, mix and match your desired molecular variants.

Yes this is how it will be but we also grow for fun.
Included in that fun is to make seeds cause it is super fun to cross this with that and make your own seeds, it's fun with weed and other plants too, just a very nice and natural part of the horticultural art.
So most likely the agony against DIY-crosses will fade away with time. From there it's not far away to share seeds by trading seeds for seeds, seeds for cash or to give away seeds for free. I don't know how AFN should react to such a plausible development and don't care but it sure will happen with legalisation. Plants must be pollinated to make fruit so pollinating is something growers of other plants are used to, often insects do it but tomato growers pollinate manually.

 

[Death The Cultivator]

Personally, I'm ready for there also to be more laboratory-bred cannabis, or at least science-directed upgrading of strains. Why not metabolic and analytical-based high volume screening of phenotypes using cell/tissue culture and cloning? Why not trichome or other THC-producing cell lines we can culture ourselves (like making beer)? I presume there must be people (if not companies) working on things like these. I'm also ready for synthetic biology-based THC and terpene kits - make, mix and match your desired molecular variants.

Tissue culture has been so slow to take off with only one company offering a hemp culturing kit. There are a few companies and some individuals trying to get TC to the average consumer but there hasn't been much going on. I do think it's the future and it will help mitigate poor breeding practices to some extent that affect indigenous cannabis populations.

Plus it's still federally illegal with only one U.S. based company being able to do much of any research.

 

[BombSeeds]

Hello Everyone.
Sorry I have only just picked up on this thread, we have been super busy for the last two weeks Launching our new site (please go and have a look and let me know your thoughts - all feedback welcome www.bombseeds.nl )

Anyway, back to the point. This is a very important but equally complicated subject in many ways. I can only speak as a European breeder so different rules will apply for the US, but here goes:
1) Breeding and Growing seeds takes time. Doing it properly takes a lot of time and its expensive.
2) It is not fully legal to produce seeds that will contain THC in commercial quantities anywhere in Europe without Licences and they take time to get and cost money.
3) Having full time staff to run a company of more then 1 person, costs money (if you are trying to do it properly and legally)

So with those three things in mind, there are very few legitimate breeders that can come to the market, offering a good range of genetics that THEY have bred in less than 2 years and have enough of them to sell in a commercially sustainable way.

How are there so many new "breeders"? In the EU and some of the US at least 50% of the new breeders that have appeared in the last 5 years are not actually breeders in the accurate term.
Method 1 - Many of the larger and older companies that have well established breeding programs grow to order for other companies. This has been common practice for 20yrs and more. They have additional supply of some strains that are available to purchase in bulk and anyone with money can buy them, package them up and call them their own (white labeling).
Method 2 - Produce small scale using genuine genetics that they have either discovered through mutation and then stabilized, or create new crosses using existing lines and stabilize these and sell them.

The first way is bullshit and IMHO is only hurting the consumer in exchange for profit
The second way is how we and many of the now "Big Guys" got started - These are the companies that we should be looking to support and help move forward as they often create amazing strains that we can all enjoy.

How do you know who is who? We that is reasonably easy. If it looks too good to be true then it probably is. No one can come from nowhere with 20+ genetic lines overnight unless they have bought them white label, or even worse they are using 5-10 lines and duplicating them.
There are some exceptions, but they will have a sensible reason behind how they did it and they will be 100% transparent with how they have got there. For example there are more than a few breeders out there that we have worked with, exchanging genetic lines to improve our own catalogue. It is common and helps stabilize strains, or keep them in production when mother die. And believe me, they die and it is the most heartbreaking thing you can imagine. Just ask Dutch passion about Skywalker!

As for the USA - well from our point of view it is great to see so many small scale guys growing. It looks a lot like Holland did 25 years ago when i fist got a taste of this industry. We should definitely be supporting the guys who are doing it right, producing 2,3,4 lines a year that they have crossed/bred themselves, and have ready to sell. It means that they will not have unlimited supply and often when hey sell out you will have to wait a full production cycle for them to come back in, but it is worth the wait.

Lastly - back to the other question of how do we do it here. It is not as simple as saying show us some photos of your setup/breeding lab etc because much of the work some breeders do is not 100% white and hence documenting it can cause a lot of trouble with the boys in blue.....Likewise, an exam or test of some description is not foolproof as some solid reading and research can tell you everything you need to know and given a bit of time anyone can pass themselves off as an expert.
The simplest way is really the longest. As new breeders appear, have a look at their range and ask them about it, get as muck transparency out of them as possible and most importantly of all get as many testers as possible to run their gear and the truth will come out!!

Sorry for the long post.
Dan

 

[SOOTDAWG]

Going to just lay this down right here

Came across these in another group today....take it that this guy says he is breeding all of these strains....Has never shown a plant in any group whatsoever....No grows have ever been shown...

Go to Instagram- mnybags

This is that guy’s partner and you’ll see all the packages that they have and the same moneybags person has done the same thing as Graybeard by taking credit card information and home addresses and showing up at peoples houses In the Michigan area when they get put on blast. These are the type of people that we are trying to keep our friends and fellow growers and people in our group away from

we have not knock them publicly though others do. It just turns my stomach....And this fool was one of the faces for the auto flower cup.

And I’m calling it just like I’ve called it for the past few years taxes will drop and then they will have their big drop they’ll get paid from that buy a few more strains to carry them off for Black Friday sale wash rinse repeat every year