"Selection of a male Black Russian was not as easy. The first mistake people make in selecting a male is by choosing the most vigorous. Remember those complexities I mentioned earlier? Well, the recessive drug traits we seek are stashed away in non-vigorous males. Think about the plant in the wild, the natural progression of Cannabis is back to Hemp. The drugs strains we have today are a direct result of human intervention. Robert Clark says it better “In the wild, the early males always win the breeding contest. Without proper selection, these early males cause "acclimatization" of the variety, and a decrease in drug quality. This is the "dominant" state of Cannabis. If it were otherwise, why would we need breeders? All you would have to do is let the plants do their own thing and they would become more potent over time, but they don't. The only way drug varieties ever get better is through human intervention in the natural order.”
So, in order to find these recessive traits we choose males based loosely on the following. At time of germination are there any capitate trichomes on the cotyledon leaves? The number and frequency of non-glandular trichomes; this can be a great indicator of future glandular production. The earliest males to show sex get tossed, no ifs ands or buts. Dominant males are useless for drug (misuse of this rule has caused more hermaphrodite strains than the world deserves) Cannabis. If these basics are followed during each male selection process, then this gives us a much better chance of finding the genes we want. This is not meant to be a guide for anyone, just a basic explanation of what a “Cannabis Breeder” looks for when selecting strains to work with and/or improve upon."
"We selected the male which was the slowest to show sex, this theory is based upon “breeding selection processes” spelled out in my last article. We are looking for the ‘recessive drug traits’ in the male rather than ‘hemp dominant traits’. The male we choose was the very last to show sex and he best met all of our other selection criteria. (The other males were passed along to other TGA members for testing.) Large tight stamen clusters on a selected male is also a good indication of quality, as you can see; our dude has nice tight clusters. You can also see ‘resin blobs’ on his empty stamens. I have never before been able to see the ‘resinous glue’ on an empty stamen, mainly because I have just recently upgraded my camera and I am now able to photograph down to one centimeter. This male was tested by ‘out-crossing’ with a known ‘true breeding IBL’ Orange Skunk, known as Orange Velvet. The off-spring was grown-out to determine if the proper characteristics would be passed on. The out-cross of Orange Velvet and Space Queen was created by MzJill, the strain is known as Jilly Bean. This hot new strain is winning over gardens everywhere; with a dank orange-mango smell and more resin than the original Orange Velvet mom. My favorite phenotype smells like a candy store! We now have a male that we know will pass along the proper taste, potency and in the case of Orange Velvet, added yield as well."
