How much does genetics really matter for seeds? How much of it is a scam?

[Funkentelechy]

The consumer is to blame for the proliferation of mediocre strains today. There are dishonest breeders, but I feel that as is the case with food music, etc, most breeders are simply giving the customer what they want, and the customer wants something that claims to have high THC and has some sugary candy-themed name that sounds like a Willy Wonka fever dream. That's what sells.
It's easier now than ever to find reviews on anything and everything, that is a good thing, but with that comes the responsibility to learn how to interpret reviews. I find RIU to be an invaluable tool for this process. Learning how to interpret this sea of information that is available to us today is the key to finding what you're after.
Opinions are like a$$holes, everyone has one, it's on you to learn how to interpret all the opinions and distill them into something useful. I have never bought a pack of seeds because I read it was "fire" on RIU, I researched what I like, who else likes the same things, and(this part is important) who grows in similar ways and or in similar environments. When you do that then you'll find gold. It is out there. Have fun!

 

[MissinThe90’sStrains]

Breeding for redundancy, predictability of offspring, and ease of growing has taken away some of the special things from certain cannabis strains. There have been many trade-offs in the constant pursuit of faster flowering and tastier strains, that “test higher” to be better able to be mass-marketed. I strongly believe that not everything that can be measured matters, and at the same time, everything that matters cannot always be measured. There’s still some really good weed out there, but you’re not gonna find it in the mass produced stuff. A lot of it is either : hard to grow, doesn’t yield well, doesn’t have great bag appeal, grows slowly, flowers too long, has poor branching, has branches that are too spindly, might be prone to mold, has to be pheno hunted, or has any number or combination of other undesirable or recessive traits that make people not want to grow it. If you want really good weed, you often have to “earn“ it. Most people want - fast growing, terpy, indoor friendly, rock hard buds, great bag appeal, disease resistance, and super potent. You can’t have it all.

 

[Tolerance Break]

That's why my first run of any cannabis I'm considering breeding is a preservation run. I do an open table pollination of all males/females so I can preserve the maximum genetics available. Then you run some larger tables to find out how many specific types it has (if they can even all be identified) and how prevalent what you're looking for is and which type(s) has/have it. Then selection begins

But the smoking never ends best hobby ever!

I have probably asked this before, but is there a ratio of male to female plants you prefer for open pollination?

 

[curious2garden]

I have probably asked this before, but is there a ratio of male to female plants you prefer for open pollination?

I prefer more then one, even when I'm doing a selfing I'll reverse three. With regs I take what I get but I like a 50/50.

 

[conor c]

The consumer is to blame for the proliferation of mediocre strains today. There are dishonest breeders, but I feel that as is the case with food music, etc, most breeders are simply giving the customer what they want, and the customer wants something that claims to have high THC and has some sugary candy-themed name that sounds like a Willy Wonka fever dream. That's what sells.
It's easier now than ever to find reviews on anything and everything, that is a good thing, but with that comes the responsibility to learn how to interpret reviews. I find RIU to be an invaluable tool for this process. Learning how to interpret this sea of information that is available to us today is the key to finding what you're after.
Opinions are like a$$holes, everyone has one, it's on you to learn how to interpret all the opinions and distill them into something useful. I have never bought a pack of seeds because I read it was "fire" on RIU, I researched what I like, who else likes the same things, and(this part is important) who grows in similar ways and or in similar environments. When you do that then you'll find gold. It is out there. Have fun!

Yeah The wrong people making noise and social media dont help that leads to breeding for looks first vs what matters

That's why my first run of any cannabis I'm considering breeding is a preservation run. I do an open table pollination of all males/females so I can preserve the maximum genetics available. Then you run some larger tables to find out how many specific types it has (if they can even all be identified) and how prevalent what you're looking for is and which type(s) has/have it. Then selection begins

But the smoking never ends best hobby ever!

Yeah that is the right way first a straight open pollenation then you do your selective open pollination assuming its not a line that all the magic was in the f1 cos i do feel some lines just work that way too

 

[Gemtree]

I don't doubt the bagseed story of the weed being better. It's just a damn marketing game. Why bother calling seed strains fancy names if it's just schwag. We need to call out all distributors and sellers of seeds / weed who sell subpar shit. The Internet has allowed products to be fire not from the smoke but from the name and branding. The products will not live up to the hype.

People are too generous and forgiving about product and quality nowadays. They will be motivated to buy anything from labeling, suspect reviews, and are rather compliant even if the product is average at best. The bar for fire has gotten way too low. People who are under 30 cannot possibly have experienced real fire.

Call out the purveyors of bad product, which nowadays is 100% of the market. This is the only way to weed out the profiteers who are responsible for pumping out the bad stuff. Let the Internet be the mouthpiece for the market to speak its mind. Put your foot down and call out the people who have diluted the weed market beyond recognition.

We call them out all the time here. Even had breeders come and try to defend themselves. What are some of these schwag strains and breeders you've grown?

 

[pegboy]

As for finding fire....
If I couldn't find decent flower...
I would try mega edibles

I just started rosin pressing some of my flower. Holy shit. Very nice. Dabs get you where you want to be.

 

[Tolerance Break]

I just started rosin pressing some of my flower. Holy shit. Very nice. Dabs get you where you want to be.

Fuck yeah they do. Careful though, they can kill your flower tolerance with a quickness.

 

[Jonp1689]

The seed game today is whack indeed
You gotta know what your looking for and get to the source...
I've been growing for 20 years but I took a break from buying seeds a long time ago
I got back to find out a jungle, money talks...
Took me like 12 months of reading and research before I ordered again.
Only now I'm running those new genetics (instead of running bagseeds of good outdoor bud)
Still on the fence about the results, so far my bagseed beats People Under The Stairs, Clearwater, Big Buddha, Badger Batch.. Nothing found in the packs I pop.
Running next Sin City, TruCanna and some CSI freebies...

I just came from Vegas. I got some sincity seeds I can’t wait to pop. Mango sticky & modified mints. Hoping to see some post from your run

 

[DanKiller]

I hope, the site has been so slow for some reason...
I have 2 Luxor
1 BTY Mint
1 Modified Mints (still not sex verified)
These I verified as fem.
Now on to the Star Mints, I started to light dep them yestarday, everything else will join soon.
As they start bulking up I'll upload some pics for ya, good luck on those modified mints, the one I got is a bushy monster, I hope it's a fem.. it's the only one I got outta 15 as it was a old pack not very viable.

 

[sunni]

I hope, the site has been so slow for some reason...
I have 2 Luxor
1 BTY Mint
1 Modified Mints (still not sex verified)
These I verified as fem.
Now on to the Star Mints, I started to light dep them yestarday, everything else will join soon.
As they start bulking up I'll upload some pics for ya, good luck on those modified mints, the one I got is a bushy monster, I hope it's a fem.. it's the only one I got outta 15 as it was a old pack not very viable.

site is slow because you racked up warnings not following tos , come back in 30 days hope you are a better member when you come back !

 

[amneziaHaze]

Good, if you cant change you color/height or anything else that can't be changed, just improve as you said, you can't take a plant that don't make you high and change that, not how reality works.
You can improve structure with better growing, leaf size, rate of growth or anything else that said plant does have, even in minor qtys, but you can't change or improve something thats NOT THERE.
And if you refute that I challenge you to take a shit smoke pheno that has no effect and grow that pheno like a champ, report to us if that pheno is now worth smoking or not..
We're waiting

both parents can be short but the child can take genetics from greatparents and be a giant.same thing happens with weed. even shit bag seed has somewhere landrace genetics that was awsome.... chances to get it are smaller but still not 0%

 

[Rico2016]

wow i feel like genetics are always huge deal and make a difference im not sure why you would think they cant help the plant preform to your level of want and come out more closeer to how you want them to be

 

[Rico2016]

Lineage is everything to me.

If a breeder doesn't list parents or filial generation, I get sus as fuck.

Modern weed has been polyhybridized to death. Very few are working lines out to f3 onward, much less F5 which is (debatably) where a strain starts to become stable, or further into a true IBL. The modern method seems to be hunting a good female (or buying a clone) from a hype strain, crossing it with a male from another hype strain (sometimes a good male, sometimes not) and calling it Cake Kush Candy Gas Purp OG Expresso.

This is not true for every breeder, but it is a disturbing amount of what is popular. It's not to say the weed is "bad." It's all pretty good, I just hate the ethics behind it.

If you want to have some fun, go through a weed info website, of which now there are hundreds, type in a modern hype strain, and look at the top canibanoids. It's almost always Myrcene, limonene, and Caryophyllene

im salivating on a f5

 

[DOCTORDOOB]

The seed game today is whack indeed
You gotta know what your looking for and get to the source...
I've been growing for 20 years but I took a break from buying seeds a long time ago
I got back to find out a jungle, money talks...
Took me like 12 months of reading and research before I ordered again.
Only now I'm running those new genetics (instead of running bagseeds of good outdoor bud)
Still on the fence about the results, so far my bagseed beats People Under The Stairs, Clearwater, Big Buddha, Badger Batch.. Nothing found in the packs I pop.
Running next Sin City, TruCanna and some CSI freebies...

If I were you I would skip the line and just pop the CSI gear.... I've never even heard of half the people you named, and the other half are all mids at best! If you want good smoke, grow a pack of CSI, Exotic Genetix, Thug Pug....
Your wasting time on all the other stuff, that's why you never found anything. I say that respectfully because "Big Buddha" sounds like some Barney's Farms auto flower, Clearwater sounds like a toilet company or a plumber, trucanna sounds like FALSEcanna, sin city I actually bought two packs and they were all duds, badger batch sounds like some old greasy hippy dude in a fifth wheel in Mendo, people under the stairs sound like some ghosts that use other people's work and just throw their names on it.. haha

 

[tstick]

In small grows, like I do, whenever someone gets a male plant, that male plant then becomes the pollen donor -regardless of any particulars about it. It's just "the male." If you want to do it the correct way, then you'd have to pop a BUNCH of seeds, get a bunch of males and then select the best one -the one that smells strong, etc., and not just take whatever turns up as a male. This last run, I ran all regular seeds, again, in hopes of finding that lottery winner of a phenotype. Of three seeds, that I popped, two turned out female and the other was a male. I could have made some seeds, but the problem is that the male plant was just....meh. And, in addition, the females aren't looking like they are going to be lottery winners, either....more of the same, mediocre shit, I imagine.

That's why ya gotta just learn to enjoy the process of growing! That's the real reward....But I still want something that will make me say "WOW!" every now and then.