Generations, pheno types, ect?

Hey everyone. I was just lookin to get educated on generations, pheno types, ya know, all that good shit. I couldn't find any good info that realy explains these things so I figured my friends on RIU could help me out. Maybe school me on the subject or point me in the direction of some good info on the matter? Any help is appreciated guys. Late........

Bump.......... not even a link?

I don't know what you mean by generations, but phenotype is just variation in plant characteristics based on the parent plants. In other words, a phenotype is like one's brothers and sisters. You all look alike, but your height, weight, eye color, hair color, etc, will all vary to differing degrees.

I mean generations like a 2nd, 3rd generation clones. Idk Thats what I think it means. Just trying to understand the basics of like genetics. Like does a strain loose or gain potency after so many times of cloning? Just an example. Also strain genetics. Like haze, kush, white, purple, ect. I mean, is there like a father/mother strain to all white strains? Best I can explain for now. Thanks for the phenotype info homebrewer. Short, sweet, and to the point.

DaMidnightToker said:

I mean generations like a 2nd, 3rd generation clones. Idk Thats what I think it means. Just trying to understand the basics of like genetics. Like does a strain loose or gain potency after so many times of cloning? Just an example. Also strain genetics. Like haze, kush, white, purple, ect. I mean, is there like a father/mother strain to all white strains? Best I can explain for now. Thanks for the phenotype info homebrewer. Short, sweet, and to the point.

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Some people report cloning clones for years on end with no reported loss in potency. I would not call this a 'best practice'. You should have a healthy mother that you clone from when you need plants. That being said, I've never had to go beyond a 3rd generation.

In regards to your other question, strains can have a murky lineage. Maybe a grower takes a particular pheno and decides to rename it something catchy and hype it up on forums? Maybe a seed company steals genetics from a competitor, feminizes the strain to sell it and name it after himself? All strains should have parent plants but these days it's hard to tell where a strain has come from.

So how does the generation thing work? Like if you take clones from a mother plant, the clone would be a 2nd generation, correct? If you grew that clone out and cloned it, it would be considered a 3rd generation clone? I figured there wouldn't be a way to know about strain origins. But how did it get so potent? I always hear people say todays weed isn't like it was 30-40 years ago. How did it go from 5-7 thc% to 25plus thc%? Thanks for your wisdom thus far homebrewer, plus rep

DaMidnightToker said:

So how does the generation thing work? Like if you take clones from a mother plant, the clone would be a 2nd generation, correct? If you grew that clone out and cloned it, it would be considered a 3rd generation clone? I figured there wouldn't be a way to know about strain origins. But how did it get so potent? I always hear people say todays weed isn't like it was 30-40 years ago. How did it go from 5-7 thc% to 25plus thc%? Thanks for your wisdom thus far homebrewer, plus rep

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I suppose you could count a mother from seed as generation zero or one, and subsequent mothers from clones would be numbered accordingly. Like I said earlier, some people clone clones for years and don't think their product suffers. I've personally never been in a situation where I'm needing to deal with a 10th generation to see how it compares to the second generation (...like I'd even remember ).

In regards to potency, I've seen arguments saying pot is getting more potent and arguments saying it's just the same as it was 40 years ago, the availability of that 'good' stuff has just improved. See article below:

Myth: Marijuana Is More Potent Today Than In The Past. Adults who used marijuana in the 1960s and 1970s fail to realize that when today's youth use marijuana they are using a much more dangerous drug.

Fact: When today's youth use marijuana, they are using the same drug used by youth in the 1960s and 1970s. A small number of low-THC samples seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration are used to calculate a dramatic increase in potency. However, these samples were not representative of the marijuana generally available to users during this era. Potency data from the early 1980s to the present are more reliable, and they show no increase in the average THC content of marijuana. Even if marijuana potency were to increase, it would not necessarily make the drug more dangerous. Marijuana that varies quite substantially in potency produces similar psychoactive effects.

OK, right on for the info Homebrewer. Its all much clearer now. Appretiate it.

Maybe some of these will help:

Genotype : The genetic makeup of an organism.

Phenotype : An organisms expressed physical traits.

F1 generation : The F1 (first filial) generation is the hybrid offspring produced in the cross pollination of P generation plants.

F2 generation : The progeny of self-pollinated F1 generation plants.

Dihybrid Cross : Breeding experiments between P generation organisms that differ in two traits.

P generation : The parental generation in the cross pollination between two true-breeding plants that differ in a particular trait.

True-breeding Plant : A plant, that when self-fertilized, only produces offspring with the same traits. The alleles for these type of plants are homozygous.

Allele : An allele is an alternative form of a gene (one member of a pair) that is located at a specific position on a specific chromosome. These DNA codings determine distinct traits that can be passed on from parents to offspring. The process by which alleles are transmitted was discovered by Gregor Mendel and formulated in what is known as Mendel's law of segregation.

Homozygous : Homozygous refers to having identical alleles for a single trait.

I hope some of these help. Yes, the last two are "extra". That said, I don't believe that clones are considered another generation. Maybe I'm wrong; but a clone is just a copy of any plant. Lets go back to the example for Phenotypes given before with children from parents. One child will be pheno A, and the other pheno B. Both are part of the same generation. This is how I understand it.

Ahhh, I see now. Don't know why I didn't catch that. So when breeding, an F2 will be better than an F1 from the same strain?

Define, "better"?

Let me explain it another way which is much more simple, and in lamen's terms...

True Breading Plant - Kinda like grandparents... But if hermied, would make seeds that are EXACTLY like the original hermied plant.
P Generation - Parent generation. Two Grandparents with different traits made your parents, or P Generation.
F1 Generation - Two P Generation phenos (brother and sister) breed to make the F1 Generation.
F2 Generation - Two F1 Generation phenos breed make F2 Generation offspring...

and so on, and so forth... Until you find yourself breeding plants that have the traits you're looking for, and it's repeatable. In other words, everytime you breed those plants, you get the same results. Now you've made a stabilized strain... or a True breeding plant.

Better in every way. Like consistent growing characteristics, maybe a slight thc% inrease. Maybe a stronger smell or taste? Things like that. I've heard people say 'wait till you see her kids". lol I'm guessing their refering to the F2 generation since clones don't change.

DaMidnightToker said:

Better in every way. Like consistent growing characteristics, maybe a slight thc% inrease. Maybe a stronger smell or taste? Things like that. I've heard people say 'wait till you see her kids". lol I'm guessing their refering to the F2 generation since clones don't change.

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Ok. I understand.

I'll put it this way; most purposeful breeding is done to reach certain goal(s). Usually, the traits are present within two separate plants that woud like to be combined into one. Usually, this is never achieved perfectly within the F1 generation. And if it is, it isn't stable (repeatable) yet.

So I guess the best answer to your question would be, yes. F2 gen is better than F1 due to the fact it has been more "refined" for the purpose of breeding the two "True Breeding Plants".

However, if you wanted to create your own strain, or just try something new... Nothing is wrong with an F1. If you want a stable strain to just grow and grow and grow from seed, the later gens would be better. Lots of variation between plants in the F1 generation. Variation lessens the further into the generations you get. The goal is to have little to no variation between the plants within the same generation. At that point, it's a stable strain. The end product from seed is repeatable.

I hope I explained that well and it makes sense.

Sounds about right bro. I appreciate your help.

Are the seeds you buy from seed banks considered to be stable strains or Im I still confused??

growcheese said:

Are the seeds you buy from seed banks considered to be stable strains or Im I still confused??

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Some sites like Nirvana can offer discount seeds because they're F2 seeds. I'm under the impression that other companies such as Serious seeds sell F4s which are more stable.

growcheese said:

Are the seeds you buy from seed banks considered to be stable strains or Im I still confused??

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It depends on the seed bank, like homebrewer said. Again, this is why some banks are more reputable than others. Some banks are selling F1 generation seeds and calling it whatever another seed bank has created as a stabilized strain. This is very common; F1 and F2 seeds being sold and just naming it after the targeted strain because the parent strains are known. Also, they don't normally disclose what level generation the seeds are. They just sell the seed, and unknowing customers buy the name. True enough, it may have come from the same strain parent plants as the better know and famous strain, but it's not the "true" stabilized strain that a reputable breader put the time into to get the reputation it has.

That is one reason for example, the parents of Sensi Seeds' Jack Herer are unknown. Many other newer strains, it's parents are known and are easily copied and resold by other banks... usually F1 or F2 generations.

Don't fret. Older strains for the most part have been distributed for so long, now if you buy say, Northern Lights from 90% of the larger seed banks, you're getting the real stabilized strain. This is true for the most popular and older strains. But some strains have become popular, and are NOT from the original, true stabilized genetics.

I'm not going to go into which strains are heavily copied... but I'll say this. When buying seed, do your homework on where the strain came from if you're really concerned about its genertics. If you just wanna grow some fire-assed weed, any seed will do as a place to start. So basically, get your seeds from the bank that created the strain if you specifically want to mix say Jack Herer and Blueberry. But if you just smoked some good shit last night, and had some good shit at a buddies house, it doesn't matter if those plants are stabilized or not. Sure, it helps. But you're creating something new anyway. It's going to take some time.

I'm ranting now... sorry.