Selecting Proper Breeding Plants

[coldcanna]

Hello,

My name is Coldcanna, I have been cultivating for going on 6 years now and post frequently on another website. I've done a little bit of everything as far as cultivation goes: indoor/outdoor, hydro, soil, coco, breeding, etc....

As my name implies, I grow in a cold, northern climate and have always fought issues with photos either not being ready in the fall or succumbing to mold because buds are thickening up right when temps drop and fall rains come. I don't have a blackout greenhouse so have always been at the mercy of mother nature.

This recurring issue has lead me to autoflowers as the next horizon in cultivation. In this aspect I have no experience and I'm hoping the good folks here could point me in the right direction.

My biggest question is how one goes about choosing which females to pollinate? Usually I would clone everything and keep whatever female flowered the best and pollinate the clones. I'm wondering what metrics you folks use to pollinate unknown females since early in flower there is no way of knowing the finished results. My first thought was to make feminized seeds of every female and choose whatever lady was most resinous and vigorous? And at the same time keep the extra pollen. Do you just have to do this for a couple generations until the line is stabilized? My other question is that I noticed many of the autoflower seeds you can buy online are feminized. It seems like multiple generations of pollen generated from collodial silver would eventually lead to frequent hermies and mutations. Do you just have to bite the bullet and use males of a different strain?

Any input is greatly appreciated.

 

[fryge]

multiple generations of female pollen should be no problem, the silver just blocks ethylene, so it's just screwing around with hormones, but the DNA stays the same. so not really different from using an actual male, except the progeny are all female.
but self-pollinating for multiple generations could lead to inbreeding depression.
but you can also reverse a plant with silver, and instead of selfpollinating, using the pollen to pollinate a sister. then it's exactly the same as using a brother(you can still get inbreeding depression that way, but it'll take a bit longer, same as with a regular male)

btw, with outdoor autoflowers I would watch out for mold. I have never grown autoflowers(although I will this year), but I've often heard that a lot of autoflower-strains are rather prone to budrot.

what lattitude are you at? if you haven't tried it yet, you could also look into early danish and canadian strains. there are some pretty early strains adapted for outdoor, that are not autoflower.

but if you're too far north those are not going to work either, but I've also heard from some autoflowers grown by people in for example finland, where it's too far north to grow any photo. for example the strain pehkurider I've heard of being grown that far north, and is adapted to harsh conditions like that.

 

[coldcanna]

Wouldn't it be the case that all stabilized strains would suffer from inbreeding depression then? Which I guess makes sense, we see it in humans. So I guess the strategy would be to keep a significant lot of the f1 seeds and then "restart" the whole line years down the road.

 

[fryge]

yes. it's a kind of paradox where you have to find a balance, enough inbreeding to get the benefits, but not losing too much vigour.

it's why I think the future of weed is f1 hybrid cultivars like you see a lot in for example maize: you heavily inbreed 2 lines, which each on their own will have inbreeding depression and not such good vigour and fertility, but you only sell the f1 seed of those lines, which will be both uniform and have hybrid vigour(and usually, those lines are specifically chosen and bred for maximum hybrid vigour, they testcross the lines constantly to figure out which lines combine best, and you can guarantee traits by breeding them into and stabilizing in the 2 inbred parenntlines)

 

[coldcanna]

very interesting post Fryge. I had never heard of crossing inbreed lines like that.

 

[Proph]

The trick with autos is to grow out as many seeds as you can at one time. I look for 3 females with the best vigour, fast sexing, good branching and structure, strong stem rub smell, node spacing ect. All of the same things you would for a photo period plant in veg. It just like picking a keeper in veg and hoping its female.

 

[NastyN8t]

Take multiple Clones from each plant. Isolate breeding clones from moms.Pollenate and or reverse the clones.Then pick the best of the cloned seeds based on moms outcome.

 

[Kya Knight]

I have a male I am breeding to several females. I'm testing the first batch of seeds from this guy now.

 

[bf80255]

Hello,

My name is Coldcanna, I have been cultivating for going on 6 years now and post frequently on another website. I've done a little bit of everything as far as cultivation goes: indoor/outdoor, hydro, soil, coco, breeding, etc....

As my name implies, I grow in a cold, northern climate and have always fought issues with photos either not being ready in the fall or succumbing to mold because buds are thickening up right when temps drop and fall rains come. I don't have a blackout greenhouse so have always been at the mercy of mother nature.

This recurring issue has lead me to autoflowers as the next horizon in cultivation. In this aspect I have no experience and I'm hoping the good folks here could point me in the right direction.

My biggest question is how one goes about choosing which females to pollinate? Usually I would clone everything and keep whatever female flowered the best and pollinate the clones. I'm wondering what metrics you folks use to pollinate unknown females since early in flower there is no way of knowing the finished results. My first thought was to make feminized seeds of every female and choose whatever lady was most resinous and vigorous? And at the same time keep the extra pollen. Do you just have to do this for a couple generations until the line is stabilized? My other question is that I noticed many of the autoflower seeds you can buy online are feminized. It seems like multiple generations of pollen generated from collodial silver would eventually lead to frequent hermies and mutations. Do you just have to bite the bullet and use males of a different strain?

Any input is greatly appreciated.

hey bro, been breeding and growing autos for the past 6 years so I have a bit of experience in this field.

basically just grow out as many females as you can in a season, (pollinate 1 or 2 lower branches early on to allow for seeds to mature) youll have to pollinate them all since you cant go back and try again on a clone (autos dont clone)and then after uve harvested/smoked/recorded all the gals choose seed from your best girl or girl(s) and repeatt the process for a few years till you have a stable line. thats how farmers have done it for thousands of years, there are more advanced tips and procedures i could merntion... but I think this is the answer your after.

femenized is good.

no, successive generations of breeding via feminization (colloidal silver NOT rodelization or other methods) will NOT lead to more frequent hermies or mutations unless your making poor selections in your parent stock. ive seen multiple projects where plants were selfed (femmed and bred to themselves) for multiple generations with no negative effects

hope that helps

 

[NastyN8t]

U can totally clone autos! Its just not common practice. They end up finishing several weeks to a month behind mom which gives a heads up on how things will end up in the end providing an advantage in selection. You can also reverse clones w sts or cs for fem pollen. Taking a cut from each plant reverse and catalog pollen collected.then when u select ur desired breeder mom u can use her stored pollen. I have a thread on breeding w clones and have thousands of beans of over a dozen crosses that started w
gg4 auto clones.i consider this method like Traditional auto breeding w an extra option for the mad scientist types .although it may be impractical compared to tradition it is effective