Ah! I just found this forum. Nice to be around people who are doing some breeding.
I've been reading about breeding and YouTube has some nice videos. ( Plug "Mr.Growit" )
The latest advice is to start with stable strains. They should be ones you like because the work goes on for years I understand. I too am just learning.
So anytime we take one one strain and cross it with a different strain the offspring are called F1s'
I understand that in the F1s' the variation is less than with F2s generation so F2 is where I understand the selection process really starts basically and the phenotype and traits will more diverse in F2.
So, I believe we make the F1cross then see if we like what we get. I am assuming this is regular male + female and not feminized or "male-anized" seeds. ( I have heard we can take males and spray them with colloidal silver too and make Male seeds ). <-- Is that true?
Out of those, we grow them out and select for what we like best.
Then growing out F2 it is time to do some hunting. From those F2s' we select what we believe is best for what our idea or goal is.
So wash, rinse and repeat; F2, F3 and they say about F4 we can have a stabilized strain. I assume that from starting with stable genetics it's good around F4. We are the evolutionary pressure on the plant hence we select what we deem worthy generation after generation.
For me, climate change forced me to quit growing in my 20 foot trailer over ten years ago because it no longer got cold enough where I lived to cool down a 1k HPS. It simply was too dangerous to trust that it was not going to cause a fire and besides do you know how hard it was to grow in a trailer park and keep it from the dozen or so people around my trailer? I couldn't have vents sucking outside air. No way!
For my medical strain I started with GreehHouse seeds "The Doctor' and an unnamed super-up ( maybe a Haze ) that was gifted to me directly by the breeder. This is my cross. Today ten years later I finally have a real house to live in and I am legal to grow here in Illinois so now is the time to get on to the F2 level. Amazingly those F1 seeds that were kept in a jar under no special storage conditions for a decade germinated. Well some did anyway.
Anyway, the best recommendation I know of so far, is to start with stable genetics right from the start. Then make your selection for male and female. I understand it is harder to know what a male is contributing but a stem rub can be some help. Also I nibble on the unripe pollen sacs to get an idea. Yep I nibble balls ( beat someone to that ). Not Human ones however.
Then once there are F1s, the diversity it seems to be suggested, is not all that much so I believe I can get a good idea of what I will want to keep and what I wouldn't want to keep. In this case it is more a seed rescue than a selection process. By the grace of the Cannabis gods I got two boys and two girls. How lucky. One was my lovely S1.
This whole grow season is all about growing out a thousand seeds. I hope to have viable seeds ten years from now as well.
For any meaningful stash I await next winter's grow of these F2s' Until ten I am going to be a good customer at the dispensary.
Now I did learn to make feminized seeds and I did make S1s that have the trait of at lights out those girls emit Cherry Scent. The bud doesn't have a cherry scent but the plants emit cherry when under1k HPS and cold ambient air, at lights out. I think the Stomata closes fast when the HPS goes off, the air is cold and that is when a wafting of wonderful Cherry scent can be enjoyed. It only lasts a minute.
I don't know about fem X fem only breeding but I made an experimental cross with my S1s and Blue Dream that was very nice. I plan to redo that since I believe I have an S1-Cherry in my clone tent. Once I have that S1 grown out I will then hit them with two different F1 males of the Cherry Phenotype. Question: if I make the S1 from cherry-fem X Blue Dream fem and hit it with the male of one of the parents is that F1 or F2?
I don't think I can handle any more breeding lines than two. Two may be asking a bit much. It can take years to get to a stabilized strain I understand.
That is all I know so far. I don't know about a fem X fem only program. I would fear that the genetics might not be stable after gen-4. Then again, I don't know enough to say one way or the other.
