Questions On Elites, Pure Lines, and Breeding

I picked the Medical Marijuana Grower's Bible the other day. It's a great read and should be a helpful resource. I finished reading the chapter on breeding last night, but still have some questions.

1) What exactly is an elite? There was a reference to it in a chart in the book, but didn't actually mention it. I have heard the term before just not sure what it is exactly. The chart also referenced land races.

2) I assume there is no recognized body for cannabis breeding. Is a pure line (a.k.a. variety or strain) a pure line when the breeder says it is? The book hinted that a true variety or strain is when the plant can be open pollinated from other other plants in the same variety and all of the key characteristics are present in all of the decedents.

3) The book also made mention that many breeders nowadays are really seed makers and not true breeders. Plants derived from makers could have a lot more variation in their products and that overall were doing more harm than good as far as genetics were concerned. Is this a 'get what you pay for' market and maybe I should be looking at the higher dollar breeders before making my next seed purchase?

i would suggest searching around for reviews and grow logs and base seed purchases on that not price or marketing imo.

Variation is a good thing.

westmich said:

I picked the Medical Marijuana Grower's Bible the other day. It's a great read and should be a helpful resource. I finished reading the chapter on breeding last night, but still have some questions.

1) What exactly is an elite? There was a reference to it in a chart in the book, but didn't actually mention it. I have heard the term before just not sure what it is exactly. The chart also referenced land races.

2) I assume there is no recognized body for cannabis breeding. Is a pure line (a.k.a. variety or strain) a pure line when the breeder says it is? The book hinted that a true variety or strain is when the plant can be open pollinated from other other plants in the same variety and all of the key characteristics are present in all of the decedents.

3) The book also made mention that many breeders nowadays are really seed makers and not true breeders. Plants derived from makers could have a lot more variation in their products and that overall were doing more harm than good as far as genetics were concerned. Is this a 'get what you pay for' market and maybe I should be looking at the higher dollar breeders before making my next seed purchase?

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1. An elite is pretty simple. Strands that show several exceptional traits, ie. vigor, smell, color, potency etc. A few examples Skunk #1, NL #5, Romulan, etc, old pure strains.

2. Nothing is nothing just because someone says it is. A seed company or "breeder" could advertise whatever they want. A pure line is something that hasnt been inbred with other strains. In todays world it is becoming more and more difficult to obtain true landraces. There are a few breeders who travel the world and bring back seeds from rural corners of the world, but for the most part almost everything on the market is an IBL, inbred line. Because of continuous inbreeding and lack of stabilization thereafter, when you buy a pack of seeds more likely than not each seed will have significant differences and characteristics. You are correct in saying a pure plant should be able to be open pollinated and show the same characteristics.

3. You pose a few good points here. It's sort of like dog breeders. You have the ones who are just letting any two old dogs fuck to sell the puppies and make a dollar. Then you have the TRUE breeders who select parents over a long period of time, choosing out of MANY mothers and fathers (whether dogs or plants). You will find alot of variation due to the fact that people are making hybrids and crossing different genetics, and then on top of it, selling the seeds to the general public w/o any effort at stabilizing the strain, and locking in the desired traits. What i hate, and find very misleading is when a guy like you looks in High Times and and sees a pic of this incredible bud and now says, "OK, i want to grow that new strain called Purple Mumbo Jumbo by Asshole Seedbank that i saw in high times". So what do you do you order Purple Mumbo Jumbo, a pack of 20 seeds. You get them, germ them, and grow them all the way out just to find not one plant that looks even slightly similiar to the one in the picture. This is because of poor breeding practices and techniques. This is because of people using unstabilized hybrid strains and breeding them unstabilzed hybrid strains.

We haven't even gotten into the fun part like hermie prone genes and good stuff like that. Very few breeders know wtf they are doing, and even fewer care. Most are in it for a buck. I would strongly reccomend buying seeds from TGA/Subcool, GreenHouse, Soma, TH Seeds. These are people who care about what they are doing. GL Hope this answered a few of your questions. Order at www.hempdepot.ca

Thanks for the response purrrrple. Very helpful. I would like to do breeding myself some day, truly breeding, and establish a pure line strain. I take that can only be done from land races. If I found traits I liked in a random plant from an online order and did my best to stabilize it, it would still be considered an IBL at the end of the day, correct? At any rate that is a long way off.

Any thoughts on Barney's Farm?

Leave breeding to the professionals.

Muffy said:

Leave breeding to the professionals.

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and these professionals were just born as professionals? Every professional starts out not knowing a thing unless they somehow were born with the knowledge....

yes the professionals are often people who manged to get established who then bad mouth and stop others from getting exposure lol. i have spoken with a number of pro breeders who were not very pro at all but had a known name. the thing is people are stupid and by into hype real easy. it sucks for new breeders who are serious and want to do things properly as its very hard to get established.

It's only a book. If you're hear, you must value multiple rescources. Sounds liek this book is only one good rescource.

The seeds I have bought, and seen bought, were usually in the judges packet of the Canubus Cup. These sealed packets could be visually compared to the images online, so I feel pretty good about them, but here is the deal.

Your gunna have one plant whihc does best under your sepcific grow conditions, once you find your beauty, you're good to go.

widow0maker said:

and these professionals were just born as professionals? Every professional starts out not knowing a thing unless they somehow were born with the knowledge....

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I should have said "experts" instead of "professionals".

the point is anyone with space time proper genetics and education can do the same as any other established breeder.

bicycle racer said:

the point is anyone with space time proper genetics and education can do the same as any other established breeder.

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not true. if you've already got proper genetics you're really just trying to reinvent the wheel.

if that were true then new strains would never appear just like with say dog breeding or anything else there is no limit to variables with outbreeding/inbreeding. many of the favorite strains here in socal are not much more than a few years old. the bubbas chems and ogs started appearing ten to 12 years or so ago.

westmich said:

Thanks for the response purrrrple. Very helpful. I would like to do breeding myself some day, truly breeding, and establish a pure line strain. I take that can only be done from land races. If I found traits I liked in a random plant from an online order and did my best to stabilize it, it would still be considered an IBL at the end of the day, correct? At any rate that is a long way off.

Any thoughts on Barney's Farm?

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Well to be honest under the technical definition, yes, it would still be an IBL, regardless of how many times you backcrossed it to try and stablize. Theoretically, you could over many generations isolate only the traits you wanted and re-create a strain. Sort of i guess. Anyway, this is why i am such a big fan of Subcool/TGA. The guy is a young guy with a great understanding of plants and breeding, and he reworks many clone only plants, coming very close to the originals, and allowing the masses a chance to obtain seeds of a nearly extinct plant. Barneys is a very reputable bank. I have seen some of the most amazing shit ever come from Barneys genetics so, yes, i think you should be alright ordering from them.

bicycle racer said:

if that were true then new strains would never appear just like with say dog breeding or anything else there is no limit to variables with outbreeding/inbreeding. many of the favorite strains here in socal are not much more than a few years old. the bubbas chems and ogs started appearing ten to 12 years or so ago.

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Name changes do not a new strain make.

there not name changes there are strains available today that were not around in the early 90s plain and simple. some strains get renamed to sell but if you know your cannabis this tactic does not work.

I guess the ability to create a new strain from an existing one would be in direct proportion of variation in the existing strain. In other words, if the Blue Cheese is stable than I should be able to pop seeds all day and cross breed any combination and still end up with the same strain I started with. If I wanted a new strain from the Blue Cheese, I would have to introduce some new genetic material, correct? I could back cross and get really close to the original Blue Cheese but it would not be the original strain. In fact, the new genetic material would give me enough variation that if I spent many, many generations stabilizing some aspect I liked and really had it stabilized, I would have a new strain.

On the other hand, if I bought seeds from a breeder and the strain and several known phenome types (like I have heard AK-47 come in both an Indica and Sativa phenome) then that strain wouldn't be very stable. In fact, you could call it a land race because of the variation. I could work with that and narrow it and make it stable.

I guess another way to look at it is a narrowing conversion from wild to land race to pure line to elite. In human terms, it might be something like Humans to Europeans to Austrians to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

there will always be evolution and changes in cannabis strains as long as humans are involved mixing and matching different strains/hybrids and using selective breeding this is the same for vegetables and fruits new enhanced versions are always being made.

bicycle racer said:

there will always be evolution and changes in cannabis strains as long as humans are involved mixing and matching different strains/hybrids and using selective breeding this is the same for vegetables and fruits new enhanced versions are always being made.

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...from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

Like Cheese is a clone-only strain, or perhaps it's just a Skunk #1 pheno. Every plant I've ever grown has looked as good as any elite. You can move traits around, but it's nothing new.