Too bad
@Sativied hasn't been around lately, would love to hear his take on whorlled phylotaxy and how it relates to breeding, he's like the king of it around here.
You rang?
I still check up on your thread occasionally, just takes too many clicks to like anything while account is on slomo.
Triploid refers to the sets of chromosomes. Cannabis is normally a diploid, as in 2 sets of 10 chromosomes (10 from each parent). A triploid has an additional set, as in three. A tetraploid has 4. More than two is called polyploidy.
The pollen as well as the female ovule contains a haploid. (If you cultivate that in TC and self it you get a truebred on every level.)
Now, most, if not all triploids and tetraploids express whorled phyllotaxy. The simplest way to define that is more than two leaves (and thus axilarry branches / buds) per node. It is like a spiral, but with three or more at the same level. Most plants with whorled phyllotaxy however are not actually polyploids.
Trifoliate refers to a single leaf only. The tri there refers to the number of leaflets/blades on a leaf, not the number of leaves on the axis. It has zero to do with whorled phyllotaxy. Phyllotaxy litterally means leaf arrangement
Trifoliate maple:
Cannabis has palmately compound leaves. The second set of true leaves on most cannabis plants are trifoliate.
Yeah hehehe, they said penis. And nice cotton plant...
Mutations are simply changes in the genetic code and changes can be good or bad. Our eyes, and penis, all caused by ancenstors mutating. The changed code (genes) usually inherits, but that doesn't mean the trait does. That depends on what else the parent and what the other parent contributes, on dominance, so a lot on what you cross it with. I have one inbred line that produces over 50% whorlers (as I call plants with whorled phyllotaxy), 3 outcrosses of which two produce over half whorlers (up to 80% given enough nodes), and the other just some (long stretchy almost hemp like). From F1-F3. I'm expecting results of dna analysis of three of my whorlers soon. Not all whorlers (phenotype) have the same underlying genetic mutation (not the same genotype), and there are phenotypical differences too. I've grown out at least a hundred over the past years.
Potency is not related unless its has whorled phyllotaxy because it's a polyploid (
extremely rare). Those would actually produce more cannabinoids but also come with several downsides. More often it is caused by a different cytokinin and auxin balance.
For completeness, a cannabis seedling starts out as a dicot nornally. As in two cotyledons. Sometimes they are
tricots, some times quads. The tricots and up usually express whorled phyllotaxy too. New leaves always appear at the furthest distance from the previous (see Hofmeister rule for more info). A set of leaves is rotated half the degrees between two leaves. So with a regular opposite phyllotaxy plant that means a set of two leaves is rotated 90 degrees, and it will look like a plus sign from the top.
Like this:
Light will litterally hit some of the ground. Triwhorled phyllotaxy is factually better phyllotaxy for intercepting light. Doesn't mean every tri is better than regular. Two different things.
It's an extreme example cause many varieties do not stay this perfect opposite throughout the bud site. When whorled phyllotaxy matures and alternates you get what many plants have normally, spiral phyllotaxy, but with shorter node distance. Whorled phyllotaxy applies mostly during veg. It does not determine bud structure nor its leafiness.
Spiral:
(Both are PCK from Ace, not my whorlers, just for illustration).
People tend to freak out when you claim you have genetics that produce more than regular plants but I've been logging them for years now and for my whorlers it's as obvious as the increased veg rate. That is true for tris only though, I don't like quads. The tris have 6 non-overlappig leaves per axis. Regular phyllotaxy and quad whorled have only 4. This combined with the exponential growth of plants results in fast vegging. Also nice to have 6 non-overlapping bud sites (obvious for those who follow UB topping technique).
Regular - spiral (like spiral stair) - whorled phyllotaxy
Largest cola is fasciated (which is like a mutant whorler lol, too much, way too leafy), second largest is quad, then a tri whorled, and two regular collettes... Just one of many examples I logged elsewhere.
Typical Sativied-whorler (yeah i just said that lol)
Mine don't start as tricot but as regular dicots. After X nodes one leaf deviates, usually at a perfect golden angle. My breeding efforts never went into getting it to inherit, but to stablize when they whorl and how long. Tricots and up often become whorlers but often grow out of it. Mine basically grow into it.
In short, whorled phyllotaxy can have several causes and by itself doesn't automatically mean much more than the obvious physical difference. The outcome, whether postive of negative, depends a lot on what variety it is in as well as on how they are grown. If they are broad leaflet varieties and/or leafy and/or very shortnoded already, it's best to veg till alternating nodes or simply top/prune/train as desired.