What it means to have a stable strain

i know a lot of information about this is availible on here. but after a forum search, i couldnt find anything specific.

when you say that a strain is "stable" what does that really mean? that its offspring, clones, and what not, produce similar--and desired--results every generation?

what does it mean to have an "unstable" strain?

KrazyAnneBanks said:

i know a lot of information about this is availible on here. but after a forum search, i couldnt find anything specific.

when you say that a strain is "stable" what does that really mean? that its offspring, clones, and what not, produce similar--and desired--results every generation?

what does it mean to have an "unstable" strain?

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means that the strain is ready for commercial sale.

If I take og kush and cross it with lemon skunk it will be an unstable strain because well i dont know exactly why. But the seeds you buy have been bread thousands of times probably to create the cross of the 2 plants into 1 stable strain.

usually means the strain will breed 'true', you'll get plants that were like the parents, called an inbred line

so with that in mind, an unstable strain is just something that hasnt been "proven" to give consistant "results" right?

and when you say "inbred" youre talking about plants that give repetitive characteristics of their parents, getting the desired "traits" as it were...

that sounds about right
some will refer to strains that hermie easily as unstable

so why is it so hard to stabalize?

i think stabilize is a loose term, nirvana is well known for strains that produce quite a variety of phenotypes
they call 'em stable, so breed a strain and call it stable, others seem to

To me it means older strains that have withstood the test of time as opposed to the next new strain du jour. If it has been around and a lot of growers have gotten similar results and those results were good - that's stable.

Bump. Seriously, bump.

Stable genetics is a loose term but generally refers to the strain's genetic characteristics. Things that make a stable strain:

disease resistance
no genetic deformities, including but not limited to no weird growth patterns and low chance of hermaphrodite
produces viable seeds
consistently favorable traits such as height, smell, node structure, strong growth ect.

Edit: just realized this is from 2009..lol that was a huge bump skeet

Skeet Kuhn Dough said:

Bump. Seriously, bump.

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http://howtogrowmarijuana.com/marijuana-strains-genetics/

To me stable for cannabis means no hermaphrodite or auto/photo traits where they shouldn't be. However in all other plant breeding it includes all of that and no different "phenos". Weed breeders are too lazy to do enough back crossing to get consistent results.

texasjack said:

To me stable for cannabis means no hermaphrodite or auto/photo traits where they shouldn't be. However in all other plant breeding it includes all of that and no different "phenos". Weed breeders are too lazy to do enough back crossing to get consistent results.

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Pretty much on point. People are supposed to breed down multiple times to make sure the number of possible phenos is lowered and no herms as well as no photo/auto where it shouldn't be. People don't want to breed down for perfection they are ok with selling seeds that might take someone 100 seeds to find a keeper. People who breed down well bodhi and la Plata are two who breed down to f5's and allow only 3-5 possible phenos. So if you pop 5 or 10 seeds youll find mainly females 90% fem rate on regular seeds, no herms, and you'll have all keeper plants. It makes it so there's some variation but not much allowing the tru strain that the breeder was going for to be appreciated by everyone

Alot more breeders do too those are just two popular off the top of the head.

High_Haze said:

Edit: just realized this is from 2009..lol that was a huge bump skeet

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Ikr I was thinking the same thing when I bumped this thread. This question piqued my curiosity and I googled it. I found this thread right here at home at RIU and I just had to bump it to see if we could get a little more info. I did check out growweedeasy.com but I also wanted to get some layman's input. Thanks to all for the added info.

Skeet Kuhn Dough said:

Ikr I was thinking the same thing when I bumped this thread. This question piqued my curiosity and I googled it. I found this thread right here at home at RIU and I just had to bump it to see if we could get a little more info. I did check out growweedeasy.com but I also wanted to get some layman's input. Thanks to all for the added info.

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Ignore all the genetic mutation hermie bs that goes round these sites...

a stable line comes from selective breeding. When you set out on a breeding program you have a goal with 2 plants in mind. You will most likely have a pollen stock from males you have come across, which show desired traits ie: dark purple, dense flower sets, short stocky, symmetrical.

Then comes the female which you love but want to impart some different traits(bigger yeild, color, flavor) so you pollinate and see what comes out.

You then take the best phenos from those and pollinate again with the same pollen. Keep back crossing and breeding till you have 2 or 3 phenos that come out when you put that pollen on that mother.

A stable strain is one that will give consistent results when planted from seed, meaning the plants will look very similar. Most strains are now hybreds (indica x sativa) and if the result of the seed planted is an indica dominant pheno type then "all" the indica dom phenos should be relatively the same, while "all the sativa dominant plants will be relatively the same.

This takes years of breeding.

A true stable strain would be true breeding or at least worked pretty true. But in reality it's just thrown around too much and very few work their seeds past F1 most just sell pollyhybrids and even S1's of F1's or poly's.

The seed game is shit I like to buy from breeders because of it cause some people actually work their lines. Most so called breeders just chuck pollen and so do I so I don't see a point waisting my money on the flavor of the week.

bluntmassa1 said:

A true stable strain would be true breeding or at least worked pretty true. But in reality it's just thrown around too much and very few work their seeds past F1 most just sell pollyhybrids and even S1's of F1's or poly's.

The seed game is shit I like to buy from breeders because of it cause some people actually work their lines. Most so called breeders just chuck pollen and so do I so I don't see a point waisting my money on the flavor of the week.

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Im not sure where you get your info from but for many years it has been a well known fact that any company that is 'SHIT' will last under five seconds due to them getting flamed by every forum and grower. Normally it is the grower that is the problem and the goods growers keep these companies alive because they dont have any of these problems. If you said Sensi or Dutch Passion give out crap seeds id have to say this is completely bull...