This is a very basic question but I'm a n00b so bear with me. Let's say I purchase 10 OG Kush seeds from a good breeder. These are high-quality seeds with "true" genetics, and the resulting plants will be consistent except for the usual phenotypic variations. I grow out the 10 plants and they're all nice and healthy. I end up with 7 females and 3 males. I select the best-looking pair to breed (just based on vigor/habit etc.). I harvest a nice quantity of viable seeds and decide to germinate them for my next grow. How do my seeds compare to the seeds I bought from the breeder? Will they produce plants consistent with the first generation? If not, how much variance is possible? Will I end up with plants of all different sizes, shapes, aroma, taste and potency? TIA for any insight.
Crosses can only be made between the immediate couples DNA. Think of the plants as people. Why don't you have incest? It creates weakness by not enough variations of immunity to certain diseases and defects. Overlapping DNA information doesn't know quite how to produce what's it needs and a bunch of bad shit happens. Don't inbreed too much. Keep the gene pool going in the right direction. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
I was hoping to produce a shitload of seeds, then start like 30 or 40 of them and select the best looking handful to continue through flower and harvest. So you're saying out of those 30 or 40 plants, some might be what -- stunted, hermies.....?
You can only end with what you started. If you started with a beautiful female and strong male then you'll get offspring displaying intermediates between the two selected. I've had some plants inbreed though and create some drastically different plants. You're doing the right thing, I'm doing the same thing basically. I'm working with mostly females and I lost the only vigorous male I had to mold kinda didn't care at the time. Because my aim this season is testing for potency and non-hermie traits, I can just wait for this next season to produce seed on a clone. I am growing out some pretty hopefuls though. And I can warn you, if you're worried about losing 30/40 plants you're not ready to start from the seeds you've chosen. I started from a set of 30, I lost all to males. Next 40 I got lucky and had 10 female keepers. I try not to base my decisions on anything except the final product. Of course, beautiful plants are hard to ignore as your favorite. Now I can regrow my females to stress test, already got a stress nanners off a couple to they're eliminated. It's honestly fun as hell. Now I got my next 20 going and I'm taking any further females and males. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
Just think of the punnett square your plants will make. (Google punnett squares if you don't know what I'm talking about.) Good genetics breed good genetics, now I'm not saying every seed will be super duper awesome and amazing but the majority; I think it's 3/4 will get the dominant traits that help it grow better. Check out my Grow Diary http://forum.grasscity.com/index.php?/topic/1353460-ThePuffinator's-Perpetual-Grow-LED/CFL