Effects of clone degeneration on new genetics

I've been running a Space Dawg pheno for about three years now over many generations of clones, and over the past year the ovules in my buds have been resembling seeds more and more. I'm not ready to call them seeds because they are tiny and do not appear to be pollinated, as there are no visible male flowers any where or any other source of pollen.

The ovules that are normally white and soft have become dark and hard by harvest, and nothing has changed in my operation and it's not happening with my Space Candy or Chernobyl which are new. I've come to the conclusion that this is happening because of degeneration in my Space Dawg girls, which is something new for me as I've never kept a pheno this long.

My question is will this degeneration affect the seeds I plan on taking from Space Dawg clones I pollinated with Space Candy and Chernobyl males? I'm wondering if perhaps I waited to long to cross the Space Dawg and now the genetics will be "tainted" some how. Any one with experience, a background in genetics, or an opinion on how the seeds will turn out is welcome to post... I've wasted a lot of time and energy with bad genetics in the past and I'm not about to start again.

Hmm. I looked at this and thought.....I've run clones of clones of clones on a cpl of strains for years.....other then some appearing to swing more to the dominate cross. I have never seen what you describe.

With that said. When I was taking the time and space to do any serious breeding.....I used only landrace from seed and solid stable F1 stock to do my mass starts and pick from those for my strongest lookers to grow out to breed.....etc.

I would avoid that in my opinion from my own questions of it's viability for a breeder.

Maybe you could post this in the breeders paradise thread for more opinions.....

JonnyBlunt88 said:

I've been running a Space Dawg pheno for about three years now over many generations of clones, and over the past year the ovules in my buds have been resembling seeds more and more. I'm not ready to call them seeds because they are tiny and do not appear to be pollinated, as there are no visible male flowers any where or any other source of pollen.

The ovules that are normally white and soft have become dark and hard by harvest, and nothing has changed in my operation and it's not happening with my Space Candy or Chernobyl which are new. I've come to the conclusion that this is happening because of degeneration in my Space Dawg girls, which is something new for me as I've never kept a pheno this long.

My question is will this degeneration affect the seeds I plan on taking from Space Dawg clones I pollinated with Space Candy and Chernobyl males? I'm wondering if perhaps I waited to long to cross the Space Dawg and now the genetics will be "tainted" some how. Any one with experience, a background in genetics, or an opinion on how the seeds will turn out is welcome to post... I've wasted a lot of time and energy with bad genetics in the past and I'm not about to start again.

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Once the genetic is degraded you can't fix it, chop the mother and start again, I know it sucks but once you lose vigor the plant never fully gets it back (from my experience). That's why it's important to take good care of your mother plants they can last 20 years if cared for properly. Bonsai the roots and it will help tremendously.

Dr. Who said:

Hmm. I looked at this and thought.....I've run clones of clones of clones on a cpl of strains for years.....other then some appearing to swing more to the dominate cross. I have never seen what you describe.
With that said. When I was taking the time and space to do any serious breeding.....I used only landrace from seed and solid stable F1 stock to do my mass starts and pick from those for my strongest lookers to grow out to breed.....etc.
I would avoid that in my opinion from my own questions of it's viability for a breeder.
Maybe you could post this in the breeders paradise thread for more opinions.....

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Thanks... I like to think I'm using solid stock, which many have attested to using TGA genetics... others not so much.

Yodaweed said:

Once the genetic is degraded you can't fix it, chop the mother and start again, I know it sucks but once you lose vigor the plant never fully gets it back (from my experience). That's why it's important to take good care of your mother plants they can last 20 years if cared for properly. Bonsai the roots and it will help tremendously.

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I've never kept a mother with this one, so it could be possible that constantly running clones from clones for years accelerated degeneration.... if that is the issue. I'll probably still run the seeds from these just to see if the issue persists, since the best
way to find out is to do it yourself.

Yodaweed said:

Once the genetic is degraded you can't fix it, chop the mother and start again, I know it sucks but once you lose vigor the plant never fully gets it back (from my experience). That's why it's important to take good care of your mother plants they can last 20 years if cared for properly. Bonsai the roots and it will help tremendously.

Click to expand...

Our experience differs. Early on we had problems with a few of our mothers. We failed to rescue one or two and others we nursed back to vigor. A great example is our Super Lemon Haze. Damn near lost that girl a few years ago. Stupid mistake by a new budtender almost drowned her. Was touch and go for a while and she struggled to survive for weeks. But she recovered. And we cloned from her for several cycles with no problems whatsoever. Same vigor, same potency (we lab test all runs).

Also one of our indica strains, Kryptonite, came to us originally in a full tray of clones. Must have had a bit of contamination from the source because most of the tray developed root rot. Nasty shit. Wiped out the whole tray except one small, darn near dead baby. Washed the cube off with Physan20, trimmed the decayed roots and planted it in coco with generous amounts of beneficial bacteria. Took six weeks but we nursed that poor thing back to health. Last run was phenomenal. Our patients that love couch-lock meds pick Kryptonite because they say "It's strong enough to knock Superman down!"

I'm not sure how the DNA gets "degraded" over a few generations. Some centuries of slow genetic mutations as the plants adapt to changing environment perhaps, but I can't see how cellular level structure (DNA inside the plant cells) is magically "altered" in only a few generations. You'd need a state-of-the-art biogenetic laboratory to accomplish genetic alteration over a single generation.

The wife of one of our associates holds a PhD and specializes in Molecular Genetics. We've consulted with her on several instances and always gotten sound, scientific based advice. Will ask about this next time I see her.

Just my humble ramblings. Take what you need and leave the rest.

Knott Collective said:

Our experience differs. Early on we had problems with a few of our mothers. We failed to rescue one or two and others we nursed back to vigor. A great example is our Super Lemon Haze. Damn near lost that girl a few years ago. Stupid mistake by a new budtender almost drowned her. Was touch and go for a while and she struggled to survive for weeks. But she recovered. And we cloned from her for several cycles with no problems whatsoever. Same vigor, same potency (we lab test all runs).

Also one of our indica strains, Kryptonite, came to us originally in a full tray of clones. Must have had a bit of contamination from the source because most of the tray developed root rot. Nasty shit. Wiped out the whole tray except one small, darn near dead baby. Washed the cube off with Physan20, trimmed the decayed roots and planted it in coco with generous amounts of beneficial bacteria. Took six weeks but we nursed that poor thing back to health. Last run was phenomenal. Our patients that love couch-lock meds pick Kryptonite because they say "It's strong enough to knock Superman down!"

I'm not sure how the DNA gets "degraded" over a few generations. Some centuries of slow genetic mutations as the plants adapt to changing environment perhaps, but I can't see how cellular level structure (DNA inside the plant cells) is magically "altered" in only a few generations. You'd need a state-of-the-art biogenetic laboratory to accomplish genetic alteration over a single generation.

The wife of one of our associates holds a PhD and specializes in Molecular Genetics. We've consulted with her on several instances and always gotten sound, scientific based advice. Will ask about this next time I see her.

Just my humble ramblings. Take what you need and leave the rest.

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Your post is an excellent response, experienced-based and descriptive but not-overstated. Thanks!

Knott Collective said:

Our experience differs. Early on we had problems with a few of our mothers. We failed to rescue one or two and others we nursed back to vigor. A great example is our Super Lemon Haze. Damn near lost that girl a few years ago. Stupid mistake by a new budtender almost drowned her. Was touch and go for a while and she struggled to survive for weeks. But she recovered. And we cloned from her for several cycles with no problems whatsoever. Same vigor, same potency (we lab test all runs).

Also one of our indica strains, Kryptonite, came to us originally in a full tray of clones. Must have had a bit of contamination from the source because most of the tray developed root rot. Nasty shit. Wiped out the whole tray except one small, darn near dead baby. Washed the cube off with Physan20, trimmed the decayed roots and planted it in coco with generous amounts of beneficial bacteria. Took six weeks but we nursed that poor thing back to health. Last run was phenomenal. Our patients that love couch-lock meds pick Kryptonite because they say "It's strong enough to knock Superman down!"

I'm not sure how the DNA gets "degraded" over a few generations. Some centuries of slow genetic mutations as the plants adapt to changing environment perhaps, but I can't see how cellular level structure (DNA inside the plant cells) is magically "altered" in only a few generations. You'd need a state-of-the-art biogenetic laboratory to accomplish genetic alteration over a single generation.

The wife of one of our associates holds a PhD and specializes in Molecular Genetics. We've consulted with her on several instances and always gotten sound, scientific based advice. Will ask about this next time I see her.

Just my humble ramblings. Take what you need and leave the rest.

Click to expand...

I know places in Colorado that have had mother plants 20+ years and they have lost vigor. Just because you ran a few cycles doesn't mean anything that is probably less than a year of running clones. Vigor loss takes years not a few cycles. Treating a plant poorly is not how a plant loses vigor it loses vigor from living much longer than it should cannabis is not a plant that naturally comes back each year.

With clones you can pass on both nurture and nature. If you take a clone of a healthy clone you can do so endlessly without degrading clone. That's in theory... in practice that healthy party is not as easy as it may seem and possibly by the time you notice it you'd have to go back 2-3 generations which by that time is no longer possible (if you take clone from clone without keeping older mothers).

As Knott pointed out already, the DNA doesn't degrade. Well, in extreme rare fluke scenarios I guess it possibly could. A cell used to initiate a primordia would have to mutate on division and the rest of the branch would have to be created based on copies (of copies..) of the mutated cell and you'd have to take exactly that branch as a clone. Nature does weird shit sometimes. Just look at some RIU members

JonnyBlunt88 said:

the ovules in my buds have been resembling seeds more and more. I'm not ready to call them seeds because they are tiny and do not appear to be pollinated, as there are no visible male flowers any where or any other source of pollen.

Click to expand...

I got the same shit issue in ICE (8 year old seeds), and some of its offspring. They look like immature seeds, peas almost, being pushed out of the calyx sometimes even with a pistil growing straight through it. It's the reason I stopped working on my ICE cross even though it expresses the main trait I'm breeding for (whorled phyllotaxy) more than others. It's just not an acceptable trait. I actually rather have mature seeds as those are easy to remove. And while it may be a result of nurture, like a stress-hermie, i.e. phenotypical, it's still, always, based on DNA.

It's not like it mutated or altered the DNA, the genotypes, but more likely their expression, the phenotype. If you were to use that clone for breeding, you likely, at the very least, pass on the ability to do the same thing under similar circumstances. I'd ditch it.

JonnyBlunt88 said:

Thanks... I like to think I'm using solid stock, which many have attested to using TGA genetics... others not so much.

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Well, let me put it this way: for breeding purposes the stock used to create the parents of the space dawg would be a lot more 'solid'.

Yodaweed said:

... Just because you ran a few cycles doesn't mean anything that is probably less than a year of running clones. Vigor loss takes years not a few cycles. Treating a plant poorly is not how a plant loses vigor it loses vigor from living much longer than it should cannabis is not a plant that naturally comes back each year.

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We've run this particular strain of Skywalker for over 12 years now and probably 60-70 cycles. I'd respectfully submit that over a decade of direct experience might be enough to develop an informed opinion based on facts. The strain has not lost one tiny little bit of its vigor. If anything it's gotten stronger as we've learned it's idiosyncrasies. We've cycled through at least 10 series of mothers over that decade plus. No loss of vigor, no damaged genetics, no shit. Just fine cannabis each and every run. That is our experience and we're sticking with it.

I'd also suggest that cannabis can and does lose its vigor if treated poorly. Just look at some of the interwebz geniuses here on RIU ripping off leaves and branches, sticking nails through stems, boiling roots and playing with unnatural light cycles. Proof is in their outcomes.

Your assertion that "cannabis is not a plant that naturally comes back each year" is simply incorrect. If the cannabis plant did not reproduce and "come back each year" then we wouldn't be having this conversation. Not sure how you could make that statement and expect anyone to take you seriously.

Peace.

I'm new at all of this. I grew from bagseed with metal halide back in the 70's. I grew for a few years and had kids etc. I quit smoking in 92 and started again 4 years ago. I started indoor led growing and have had a Sourd clone I took from seed. I have grown this strain for 3 years and I just tossed the current mother. This round of clones has very little vigor compared to the original and much more leaf. It was a slow decline. I don't know why. I thought clones were like love, forever. But on the plus side I found 2 good SLH phenos.

Knott Collective said:

We've run this particular strain of Skywalker for over 12 years now and probably 60-70 cycles. I'd respectfully submit that over a decade of direct experience might be enough to develop an informed opinion based on facts. The strain has not lost one tiny little bit of its vigor. If anything it's gotten stronger as we've learned it's idiosyncrasies. We've cycled through at least 10 series of mothers over that decade plus. No loss of vigor, no damaged genetics, no shit. Just fine cannabis each and every run. That is our experience and we're sticking with it.

I'd also suggest that cannabis can and does lose its vigor if treated poorly. Just look at some of the interwebz geniuses here on RIU ripping off leaves and branches, sticking nails through stems, boiling roots and playing with unnatural light cycles. Proof is in their outcomes.

Your assertion that "cannabis is not a plant that naturally comes back each year" is simply incorrect. If the cannabis plant did not reproduce and "come back each year" then we wouldn't be having this conversation. Not sure how you could make that statement and expect anyone to take you seriously.

Peace.

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It produces seeds and dies, not like a rose bush that survives the winter by going into a hibernation state. There are two different types of plants , annuals and perennials. Look it up marijuana has a cycle of life, not a 20 year growth period it is unnatural and plants can lose vigor and clones from those plants wont have the same vigor they once did.

Yodaweed said:

It produces seeds and dies, not like a rose bush that survives the winter by going into a hibernation state. There are two different types of plants , annuals and perennials. Look it up marijuana has a cycle of life, not a 20 year growth period it is unnatural and plants can lose vigor and clones from those plants wont have the same vigor they once did.

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Thanks for the scientific explanation and extensive references...

Knott Collective said:

Thanks for the scientific explanation and extensive references...

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I didn't know I was writing a bibliography thought I was commenting on a roll it up marijuana forum.

I don't use myths in the grow room, loss of vigor is most likely user error.

Yodaweed said:

I didn't know I was writing a bibliography thought I was commenting on a roll it up marijuana forum.

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Words matter. Punctuation helps. If you had used "annuals and perennials" in your original reply and included a period to separate two run on sentences near the end of your post its meaning would have been much more clear. But what came across was a snarky "if you'd grown more than a few cycles" and "go look it up" reply that deserved no more than it got.

I'm not sure how much experience you or others have had producing medical grade cannabis for the legal cannabis industry, so I always try to give each poster the benefit of doubt. I try to help when possible to relate sound techniques that have been proven over 20+ years with repeated positive results. But my time is limited to a few minutes in the morning or a bleary bit before shut-eye. We are super busy now working 60-80 hour weeks as we continue to build our legal California mutual-benefit, non-profit cannabis corporation. We only have the last and most difficult step to go, a retail dispensary, before we are 100% vertically integrated.

Hardest work and most fun I've had in my life. Peace & out. Got to get at it...

Knott Collective said:

Words matter. Punctuation helps. If you had used "annuals and perennials" in your original reply and included a period to separate two run on sentences near the end of your post its meaning would have been much more clear. But what came across was a snarky "if you'd grown more than a few cycles" and "go look it up" reply that deserved no more than it got.

I'm not sure how much experience you or others have had producing medical grade cannabis for the legal cannabis industry, so I always try to give each poster the benefit of doubt. I try to help when possible to relate sound techniques that have been proven over 20+ years with repeated positive results. But my time is limited to a few minutes in the morning or a bleary bit before shut-eye. We are super busy now working 60-80 hour weeks as we continue to build our legal California mutual-benefit, non-profit cannabis corporation. We only have the last and most difficult step to go, a retail dispensary, before we are 100% vertically integrated.

Hardest work and most fun I've had in my life. Peace & out. Got to get at it...

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Don't give up man! Some of the best people I met in life were the ones I was grinding 60-80 hours a week with trying to build up the collective. Beautiful what you guys are doing and thanks for bringing quality meds to people. Not many folks understand how much schwag there is and how much the dank really is rare, even if it is abundant at times.

I have seen some nasty pesticides and dirty tricks like using bug bombs during flower, high in heavy metals and butane infested hash. Not everyone knows how to produce quality. It is a way of life that a lot of people think is easy. I also apologize for my grammar, I am really bad at it.

Sativied said:

I got the same shit issue in ICE (8 year old seeds), and some of its offspring. They look like immature seeds, peas almost, being pushed out of the calyx sometimes even with a pistil growing straight through it. It's the reason I stopped working on my ICE cross even though it expresses the main trait I'm breeding for (whorled phyllotaxy) more than others. It's just not an acceptable trait. I actually rather have mature seeds as those are easy to remove. And while it may be a result of nurture, like a stress-hermie, i.e. phenotypical, it's still, always, based on DNA.

It's not like it mutated or altered the DNA, the genotypes, but more likely their expression, the phenotype. If you were to use that clone for breeding, you likely, at the very least, pass on the ability to do the same thing under similar circumstances. I'd ditch it.

Click to expand...

So it sounds like it was a recessive trait that hadn't expressed itself yet... that makes alot of sense. I will ditch them, and have to
watch out for further TGA strains that may have this recessive trait, if that's possible. I'm curious if all of the phenotypes from that
Space Dawg stock would have eventually had the same issue, or if it was just within this pheno, like a mutation of sorts.

Thanks for the information everyone... got the info I needed.

Yodaweed said:

Once the genetic is degraded you can't fix it, chop the mother and start again, I know it sucks but once you lose vigor the plant never fully gets it back (from my experience). That's why it's important to take good care of your mother plants they can last 20 years if cared for properly. Bonsai the roots and it will help tremendously.

Click to expand...

Genetics don't degrade they change. After a mutation occurs during cell replication in the clone further clones will be more likely to show this mutation.

I've always wondered if it's loss of vigor people see, or if that particular plant is changing over multiple cycles to become more adapted to its environment requiring tweaks to nutrients, etc.

Some phenos of plushberry f2 seeds i made do the same thing must be rec genes from space queen male