Ways to preserve genetics (with a small amount of seeds)?

hot_box_enthusiast

Well-Known Member
all hypothetical for learning purposes;

time/scope: many years
goal primary: breed a landrace strain, through multiple generations, to stabilize while selecting for best traits; eventually have a mother and father that breed consistent and desirable seeds
goal secondary: to preserve the parental genetics to remain available in their "raw" unselected form
constraints: only have 1 pack of seeds (lets 'say' 10 seeds) to start with!

I've looked through DJ Short's book, Greg Green's breeders bible, and I have also reviewed this forum, and other online sources. I haven't found a straight "here's how to do it" answer, but I have some thoughts. I am still new to growing, and while I inhale information I lack the expertise to parse this difficult question.

Here's what I am thinking - please help and correct my errors...

IDEALLY if one was working towards my primary goal, they would start by popping at least 100 seeds, and if they could pop 1,000 they would. They would make male and female breeding selections from this large stock, and the project could get a massive headstart by finding true outliers in the initial stock. And of course if one had the 100 or 1,000 seeds to go this, then the question of my secondary goal is less important (or at least easier).

In the "real world" sometimes a person is only lucky enough to have a single pack of seeds and a dream (LOL).

If I had 1 pack, and only my primary goal, then I think it would be straight forward - grow out the entire pack, keep all males to evaluate and select one, flower all females to select the best, and then start the project using the "best male" and "best female". (I could be wrong here so please tell me). The problem here is that it doesn't seem to address the secondary goal. The parental "history" and the genetic *potential* in the strain are limited to the selections that were made. I understand there are extra considerations of back crossing the first generations back to the parent mom or dad.

This got me thinking that perhaps step one, and which would serve the secondary goal, would be to simply grow out the whole pack, do an open pollination with ALL males and ALL females. Then consider the resulting batch of mixed seeds to be the starting point for the primary goal. I understand this could also have a more complicated answer for the primary goal where some of these open pollinated seeds could be selected for and back crossed against chosen mom and or dad from the first pack of seeds.

I am sure there are at least a few of you for whom I am making some sense, and I look forward to your thoughts that are likely smarter than mine. :blsmoke:
 

Geneiac

Well-Known Member
Hmmm I guess I'm wondering what the goal of keeping parents in their raw unselected form is...if its to backcross with then you would need to keep clones to truly accomplish that goal. If by that secondary goal you mean you want to have a population that has a lot of genetic/phenotypic diversity to return to in order to sift through and find more plants to create IBL from in the future, then I definitely think you should go the open pollination route.

I'm actually beginning a breeding project with the goal of creating a inbred line or two and I'm essentially doing what you laid out first. I'm starting with a small pack of seeds, then sifting through the F1s to initially find my favorite male/female and continue to do that through the generations.

I like your idea of preserving the genetics of the strain and I think that is accomplished by producing and saving as many seeds as possible in the F1 generation. I know for a fact I'm not able to plant out all my F1 seed hahaha and I bet you wouldn't either. If you ever want to go back to look for new traits to introgress into your fully developed IBL you can just go back to that first jar of F1 seeds.

I like the sound of your project and it sounds like you know what you're doing, best of luck and keep us posted on your progress :mrgreen:
 
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