Who here has bred auto's
- Thread starter Villa
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Jogro
Well-Known Member
Creating the seeds is the same, though like any seed-making, you do have to make sure you do your pollenization at least 4 weeks before harvest to ensure the seeds are mature.
But to be clear, there is a difference between "making seeds" (ie just putting pollen on a female plant) and "breeding" (combining plants genetics to isolate desired traits and stabilize them into offspring).
In terms of BREEDING with autos (vs regular plants), three differences come to mind:
-Since autoflowering plants cannot be maintained indefinitely in vegetative growth, you can't maintain mother plants or keep clones. This can make conventional backcrossing a little harder (you can do it with male pollen, if you keep some from desirable males), and in general, it makes mistakes more costly since you can't really "start over" with the same mother.
-If you're trying to cross autos with non-autos, realize that the most common (Lowryder-based) autoflowering trait is recessive. That means that you shouldn't expect to see any autoflowering plants in an F1 cross between an auto-and non-auto. Then, crossing those F1 plants to create an F2 generation, only 1/4 of the F2 plants would be expected to be autos. Of the 1/4 F2s that are autoflowering, roughly half will be male and half female. So on average you'd expect to have to grow EIGHT F2 offspring to expect to find ONE autoflower female, and in fact in the "real world" you may need more plants to pick from.
Now of course, in the real world, you're not likely to see *exactly* the ratios expected by pure Mendelian genetics, but the point is, you may have to run through quite a few F2s to find a few to carry on your breeding. If you want to actually do SELECTION from among a NUMBER of F2 females, you may have to grow out literally dozens of plants just to find a few to select from.
Not necessarily a big deal (you can grow them in large cups until sex shows, saving space, then preserve just the autoflowering females), but realize that large numbers may be at play here.
In general, smaller (ie ruderalis/dwarf) plants yield fewer seeds. On the other hand, they also take up less space, which makes breeding projects with autos more feasible for the average small grower.
But to be clear, there is a difference between "making seeds" (ie just putting pollen on a female plant) and "breeding" (combining plants genetics to isolate desired traits and stabilize them into offspring).
In terms of BREEDING with autos (vs regular plants), three differences come to mind:
-Since autoflowering plants cannot be maintained indefinitely in vegetative growth, you can't maintain mother plants or keep clones. This can make conventional backcrossing a little harder (you can do it with male pollen, if you keep some from desirable males), and in general, it makes mistakes more costly since you can't really "start over" with the same mother.
-If you're trying to cross autos with non-autos, realize that the most common (Lowryder-based) autoflowering trait is recessive. That means that you shouldn't expect to see any autoflowering plants in an F1 cross between an auto-and non-auto. Then, crossing those F1 plants to create an F2 generation, only 1/4 of the F2 plants would be expected to be autos. Of the 1/4 F2s that are autoflowering, roughly half will be male and half female. So on average you'd expect to have to grow EIGHT F2 offspring to expect to find ONE autoflower female, and in fact in the "real world" you may need more plants to pick from.
Now of course, in the real world, you're not likely to see *exactly* the ratios expected by pure Mendelian genetics, but the point is, you may have to run through quite a few F2s to find a few to carry on your breeding. If you want to actually do SELECTION from among a NUMBER of F2 females, you may have to grow out literally dozens of plants just to find a few to select from.
Not necessarily a big deal (you can grow them in large cups until sex shows, saving space, then preserve just the autoflowering females), but realize that large numbers may be at play here.
In general, smaller (ie ruderalis/dwarf) plants yield fewer seeds. On the other hand, they also take up less space, which makes breeding projects with autos more feasible for the average small grower.
Villa
Active Member
Ahh yes my termanology was wrong. Breeding is done with my regular genetics with the autos I just want to make seeds...but good ones. There aren't all that many strains that aren't feminized so I want to get a pack of good genetic regular auto seeds, pop for the males,(the girls will be a welcome addition to the snack shack), i want to store the pollen from the different males and ... oh damn I guess maybe it would be more then just seed making because I plan on choosing what male to mate to what female strain. Hmmmm maybe I should just start a snack shack thread or journal cause I'm going to be growing out a lot of different autos.Sorry I'm just rambeling I'm just stoned. But then I do my best thinking stoned...
EDIT... the pic in my avitar is a strain I bred called "mama's kind bud". That pic is a couple weeks old I should update it tonight when lights come on.
EDIT... the pic in my avitar is a strain I bred called "mama's kind bud". That pic is a couple weeks old I should update it tonight when lights come on.
midnighttok3r
Member
Jogro,
thanks for explainig this in simple terms. Sounds like way too much trouble to isolate that recessive ruderalis genetics.
thanks for explainig this in simple terms. Sounds like way too much trouble to isolate that recessive ruderalis genetics.
Jogro
Well-Known Member
You're welcome.
All true breeding is "trouble" (ie hard work) and that's part of the reason why there are so few real breeders out there. Lots of the so-called breeders are just crossing strains to get F1s, or crossing then backcrossing to try and "seedify" clone only strains.
If you're interested in true breeding (ie isolating traits from different parents into one new progeny strain), in general, I think breeding with autoflowering genetics is a lot MORE accessible to the average small home grower, just because the small plant size makes it much easier to maintain larger numbers of plants, and the would-be breeder doesn't need separate veg/flower areas.
I don't think its actually hard to isolate the autoflowering trait (ie the trait basically just presents itself), it just *may* require large numbers of plants to do that particular selection. If you're crossing an auto x another auto, ALL the offspring should be autos too.
In short, if you just want to create your own auto seeds quickly, you should NOT try to cross an auto with a non-auto. If you cross two autos, all the offspring should also be autos.
