I've scraped through every search bar i can find and haven't found an how-to guides on breeding a new strain. The reason why i have been looking so much is because I want to be able to grow GDP in the future and am no where near a place that would sell the clones. I realize this would take time, but I want to see if it's even feasible. Anyways, I've read somewhere in the past about collecting the pollen as is falls off a male plant (that is secluded in another room). Then using some sort of brown bag method with placing the bag over a female branch and shaking it around... Does anyone have an insight or links to a walkthrough (preferably with pics)?
it takes alot of time, documenting growth. u want to start out with with good seeds and or a good female clone if u start with seed ur gonna have to buy alot to find out which plants represent the strain u bought. remember that seeds have hidden genetics or recessive genes, just like how theres a chance that kids are born gingger (red hair pale skin and frekles). after u cross the strains, the new strain u created will have whats called hybrid vigor, thats where the new seed grow, and finish faster, also new strains generaly have a higher THC content then the parents. to get a good representation of the strain u just created ur going to have to grow alot of those seeds (professional breeders start out with 100's if not 1000's of seeds, cross selected plants, then grow the produced seeds 100's if not 1000's of them) and select the best ones/one. u can do this on a small scale its a fun project, just dont exspect the stability of professional breed strains... i hope that helps good luck
polinating is pretty easy, its all in the timing, the male flowers open up a few days to a week before the female flowers are ready to be pollenated, and dump pollen through out the coarse of its life to insure that it pollenates a female. once they open and u can shake them so pollen falls out its ready to be collected, theres many ways to collect the way i've done it was to shake the male pollen sack (once pollen is present) into a bag plastic or paper, or in tupperware, and just dust the floweres with a small paint brush over then next 2-3 weeks to make sure the pollen takes.
I just came across something interesting on Wikipedia... Sex ratio - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Apparently more pollen means more females. News to me.
Mix the pollen with flour @ around 1/10, makes it much easier to work with. You can freeze it, too. For a few months, at least. -mu
Um you should start with a good stable gene if any are around, when you come across another gene with phenos you like slowley chip off the traits then work them in to the pool of life. Dont get discouraged and be aware it wwwiiiilllll take time.
A good book for reference: Marijuana Botany by Robert Connell Clarke. Don't know if it is still in print though. (I have my copy!) link: http://www.mellowgold.com/grow/mjbotany-removed/ Check out chapter 3
From the sounds of your original question, simply mating the best mlae and female would supply you with enough interesting progeny to last for years. My own two lines, while years away from being "perfected"; if that's even possible; produce a never-ending festival of bud. If you aren't planning to start a seed company, you simply work long, instead of wide. Rather than pop 1000 seeds at once, and select the best 12, you pop 10 or 20 at a time, over the course of many years. And on the side... If like me, you like to mix strains in a single J, you will probably find yourself thinking, "wouldn't it be nice if I had pot that was a mix like this", and then you just cross those, for fun. I've already produced some stunning one-off plants that would take years more than I have left on this planet (hopefully around another 60 or 70), to explore fully. Big fun! -mu ps. thanks for the pollen-male-female ratio, Miguel420, kinda obvious if you "think like a plant", as we growers must try to.
I'm in the process of doing just such a thing, have had a hell of a time with research, and will relate my quest. The only real How to I've read was from the guy that developed Blueberry from some Fruity Thai, a high elevation sativa and a lower elevation sativa. He did it outdoors in the American Northwest on a southeastern hill side and bred them all together to create F1. From F1 he just grew all the seeds indescriminately and bred them to create F2. Then the third time around he took this massive bank of seeds he had and tried to find some really sweet genetics. Another breeding gave him something called Blue... um... well... something... I wish I could find the site I got that off of but it was a site, of a site, of a site. Anyway, from that blue he back crossed with a very fruity F1 and then focused the genes down to create Blueberry. The concept was to take strains of bud that were local and genuine old genetics and use them to create a genuine cross breed of the "ancients." My concept is similar only I didn't have the choice for some really old school genes. I started 2 BC Big Bud plants and a single Mr. Nice G13xHashplant. I will take my seedbank and try to find strong unique characteristics like vigor, yeild, flavor, and quality in a mother plant. I'll then breed several clones with a few "random" males from my seed bank to create my own F2. Again I'll try to find a real special plant from these seeds and breed it with another F2 male. F3 will be bred back into the F1 Generation to stabilize the genetics and then I think I can really find a plant that will be very different from either Big Bud, G13, or Hashplant, but still having the awesome heritage of each. Once I get my F4 and F5 Mothers established I can then consider breeding them with the strains I personally enjoy, like blueberry, Skunk, Kush, and C99. So, I think if you really want your own strain you need to be at least 3 generations removed from F1, and the further the better. Back breeding is an important process that most commercial warehouses use to stabilze the gene pool so that the seeds produced in subesquent generations have a little less diversity. You may want to look into Gregor Mendel if you're really looking to know exactly what you're doing with dominant and recessive traits through the generations.