As I am endeavoring into a few new cultivar breeding efforts, I have a quick question for the @mastergrowers, @Geneticists, and @growopowners out there: how many times do you like to backcross your new cultivars to achieve genetic stability. In the past, I liked to grow out 25-50 of the new seeds and select my most robust and terp-rich parents (I like to think they are the sexiest plants in the room) and bred those plants. After doing this process a few times I tend to attain some fairly stable seeds. It is labor intensive, takes up precious space, and let’s face it, a LONG (but sexy) process. Am I doing things wrong? Can I improve my breeding techniques? Please help.
Thanks!
3 Likes
If you’re selecting your best son and daughter plants you are creating filial generation (F1, F2, F3, etc). If you are taking an offspring plant and breeding back to the original mom, you are back crossing. I’m not sure which you are doing by the description. Filial crosses generally refine something new, backcrossing refines the original mom (not new, but could add some new trait along the way).
Either way, the number of times needed to cross would depend on the starting genetics. With low genetic variability to start, it might not take the full 6 crossed to produce that 98.4% homogeneous population.
Personally, I am working on backcrossing my outdoor producers to get them inbred for future crossing. Starting with a selfing, then crossing back to the original mom in the field, grow out through winter and backcross again before spring 2020. By then I should have an S1B2 to put out in the field. I’ll stop when I can grow 100 seeds and they all look the same at harvest, then I can make feminized F1 crosses and hope that they too come out as homogeneous population.
Hopefully, that is all correct.
3 Likes
3 times. More if you like. But if you hunted right three times is enough. long project. My bubba kush bx took quite some time. but worth it.
3 Likes
One thing that many breeders do wrong is pick one male and one female, thats called bottlenecking. To avoid bottlenecking, pick your 3 best males and 3 best females and make seed from all of them. Disease resistant traits and some other traits that are not visible can be lost forever by only using a single male and a single female.
4 Likes
Yeah usually i do whole bunches. like 5 or six really good males. and then maybe 30 females. if i can find that many good ones. So i dont start any BX till like f3- f5. then i can afford to hunt a little less as they all tend to be great representatives of the line.
3 Likes
not even to mention RBX1 , bx2 , U for christ sake a U line.
1 Like
LOL…you lost me there Thomas…I thought the U Line was Jerry Brown’s bullet train to nowhere!!!
1 Like
Hahaha missed typed on that.
was trying to get in about going IBL and more. Lets be real IBL or nothing.
3 Likes
Very interesting information. I appreciate that 
3 Likes
You guys are killing me here! LMAO!
1 Like
