I think you’re the only person I’ve come across in this industry that probably knows what a breeding program should look like. Have you found any reputable breeders in cannabis? Any recommendations or general thoughts on genetics in this industry?
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In Holland, back in 1995, at the High Times magazine Cannabis Cup, a gentleman named Ingemar won with a variety he called White Widow, he not only won the cannabis cup, but he won a similar event for another publication in Netherlands called Highlife, and because of it, he and his variety, became a bit of a celebrity for a short time around Amsterdam.
We became friends and he introduced me to the publisher of highlife magazine and recommended me for the editor-in-chief position of their english edition. During the same time, I was working with Serious Seeds and had the pleasure of growing cannabis around Amsterdam, and during that time, Ingemar attempted to sell his variety to Serious Seeds. He provided some female plants that we grew and to our surprise, we identified about six different sisters that were all very similar, but clearly different. So we inquired to another friend of ours who owned a coffee shop and was major buyer oh White Widow from Ingemar, and we asked him how consistent the kilos were that he got, and he laughed and told us that the buds were very inconsistent and that he had asked Ingemar why, and Ingemar’s reply was that it was the “White Widow Family”, and we all had a laugh.
Because clearly what had happened, was he had sprouted some seeds and could not decide which of the six or so females that he liked best, so he grew them all.
I do not believe that Ingemar intentionally bred the plant, or that he had the parent plants to the cross, as clearly they were not F1 sisters that were very close in consistency.
In my opinion, he grew some seeds, got lucky with what he found and ran with it. Smoking cannabis in Amsterdam in 1994/1995 was pretty much Skunk and nothing but Skunk, and his White Widow was remarkably different and would lead the way into Haze varieties starting to dominate the competition in the years - 96, 97, 98 - that followed.
Once the name got famous, people started breeding the White Widow females that did get circulated around, as he was making deals with breeders to use his female plant - or more appropriately, plants, as breeding stock. Each mix taking the resulting seeds a step further away from what won the contests that made it famous.
And then when seed production moved from the Netherlands, down to Spain, about the only thing that was consistent was the name on the package, because people were using whatever they had to mix with something famous to make seeds that somebody could barely recognize if they knew the flowers that it supposedly represented.
More so, it is really impossible to tell the difference when looking at a seed, to tell if that seed was bred with intention by a knowledgeable breeder who did testing, holds the parents and actually made an f1 from genetically different parents, or somebody who mixed a brother and sister together from a seed pack, and then called it the same name that was on the package that they purchased.
In my opinion, there are very few seed companies that are actually breeding, and more and more seed companies that are just mixing together closely related plants, which in turn are f2, f3 etc., depending on how closely related their genetics were.
What most people in this industry do not seem to realize, is that you do not get an F1 by simply crossing together two plants, the plants have to be genetically different in order to create a uniform seed line that would be considered an F1. If the seeds you are crossing together are genetically similar, you are going to get what Robert Clarke calls; “a dog’s breakfast”.
Unless you are purchasing seeds from a company like Serious Seeds, that only sells F1’s, most likely you are getting some closely related genetic material that is going to be very inconsistent when you grow it.
Happy pheno hunting.
You can see Ingemar talk about growing White Widow and photos of his plants. This magazine was published in November 1996.
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