Which way to cross m x f or f x m

I don't post alot as you can tell by my post count but I have been at this a while now.

So the question better explained

If you are breeding two plants which is the better way to cross them?

Strain A - top quality landrace with both male and female plants

Strain B - a hybrid that carries traits that the breeder would like to keep and have in the landrace again with both male and female plants

So if Strain A is the target strain to keep but a trait from Strain B needs to be added to it which is the better way to cross them

Strain A female to a Strain B male

OR

Strain B female to a Strain A male

Anyone with good experience in breeding and crossing strains have any good advice?

DS

I've heard that the female usually dominates. I think sometimes though there can be dominant males. I would double cross if you're looking for stability down the line.

s.c.mtn.hillbilly said:

I've heard that the female usually dominates. I think sometimes though there can be dominant males. I would double cross if you're looking for stability down the line.

Click to expand...

It doesnt matter male or female. Its all about the genetic pheno and genotype cross.
If ones dominant say height whether its from male or female it will be tall.
Sometimes though a male or a female will be more likely to have a certain trait associated with it.
Id breed strain a female with the male B. Then plant those seeds and pick out the ones that look like strain A and go from there next gen.

Next gen you can isolate a certain pheno, or you can keep breading to get a varied gene pool, (try and find that CRAZY pheno).

Then you can always take those seeds and if they start to lose the traits you wanted back in Strain A or B then you can back cross.

That means taking the current gen seeds and breeding it with a seed plant from the earliest lineage. Lamp

I currently have the following that I want to breed,
tell me which way you think I will have the best
chance to get the results I am looking for.

Results wanted
Short flowering time
Close node spacing
Fast rooting clones
Sweet citrus smell
Weight when finished
Plants and their traits

Plant A ( male and female, strain A )
fast flowering time 7-8 weeks
very very close node spacing
Fast rooting clones
No citrus or fruity smell
great yeilder in SOG

Plant B ( male and female, strain B )
Long flowering time 10-11 weeks
very spread out nodes
semi fast rooting clones
TONS of citrus smell
to tall for SOG
this one also carries a bad hermi trait

Which way do these need to be crossed to stand the best
chance to get the results I am after,,,,,

Strain A female X Strain B male
Strain B female X Strain A male


DS

i've heard to get that single trait you want from the said strain...you could look for the recessive male of said strain.

recessive males are ones that show later than females

keep in mind, these are some notes from a friend thas a good very knowledgeable breeder, and i may have gotten something wrong...but ill check for you

Thanks for stopping by lb.
Any notes you could find on it would be great, and anyone else with breeding notes that show which way is the best way to carry on a certain trait is would be good to.
there are only 10 grown out at any give time, the keepers are moved to work with them and the others are flowered on out and forgotten.-> better explaination (1. one mother - one clone 2. clone flowered - best mother kept 3. other mothers flowered)

if you're going for landrace, you would breed males and females that in your opinion are the BEST representation of their breed.

if breeding medical pot and looking for recessive traits such as color or massive resin quantities, you work with finding recessive males.

if trying to in breed a strain, select your phenotype, select your growth qualities, and selectively in breed male to female from each generation. you can back breed to the mother if variation begins to take away from your gq's in the third generation, but remember that a true ibl is one that is 6+ inbred generations.

imo, the BEST way to breed is by growing thousands of seeds, all kinds of strains. from the greatest, you'll come across one or two that stand waaaaay above the rest, for their own reasons. THESE are MY breeders, the super moms, pot to end all pots! from there, i would use a method from those described above, depending on what i was wanting to accomplish by breeding.

you should always have an idea of where you want to be before you begin. this is especially true with breeding. have a plan, and work toward making that plan reality.

hope this helps!

told ya i get ya some help ds

thanks kp2 and lb for bringing this info my way.
unfortunatly i cannot do thousands at once, but i have been pecking away at this now for close to two years on one particular strain. everything was going great until that he she showed up then all bets were off and i have been fighting this issue for about 6 months now. I think i have it under control but i wont know until this next set of seeds drop. If it is good to go then I will be bringing in a pheno from a land race that I like alot. Guess that will take another two years to get under control.

Thanks again for the help guys

DS

ok ur going to have to "test cross" the two strains...so that u know what traits are dom and recessive...in the plants..by growing out the f1's..and taking notes..then stable-ize strain A and strain B for the traits u want.via IBL (its the fastest) when they breed true for what u want, you can cross them and go from there...it real hard to tell u over the net because it alot of info&time if u want a new stable strain...a good book is cannabis breeders bible by greg green...now if u just want some beans to grow then get two pure/true breeding strains and do a f1 cross and grow them and have funn......MEANGREEN.....

Thanks for the insight, see if you can recommed a way to fix what is happening here then. Thanks again for the info and any other help you might be able to give.

what I had/have is a strain that was fairly stable for the most important traits that I want from it however it has been becoming increasingly more hermied. even crossing a known male back to its mother which was chosen because it nevered showed any hermie traits, the seeds turned out to be more hermied than the first cross of that male with its sister plant. then there was a new male grown out which took some time to find the one that was needed, and the first cross of that male back to the original mother turned out to be just what was needed. The seeds taken from that cross were then taken and grown out to find sibiling with like traits, when they were crossed the hermie trait showed back up, just not as bad, that is where it is right now. out of 80 seeds that were kept and 10 grown out 3 of the 10 showed hermie, 2 of the 10 were male and 5 were true females. They may carry the hermie trait but hopefully with this male crossed back to a true looking female the hermie trait will remain recessive and can finally be bred out of the line.

This might get confusing but this is as far back as the records go
Super dank ass bag seed that was supposed to be a mix of several strains, however the whole bag seemed to be the same strain.
Several generations were made from the original mother and this is where the last male came from.
Of the several generations that were grown out one or two mothers were kept and this is when the records started.
SO
Original mother (O-MoM)
----X generations
-----one male kept (Male1)
O-MoM x Male1
---- F1's (first sign of hermie trait at about a 25% ratio)
F1 female (no visual hermie traits showing ) x F1 male == approximatly a 75%+ hermie ratio
**** went back to the old seeds looking for a better male (Male2)
O-MoM x Male2 === F1b -- 2/3/5 (hermie/male/female) about a 20% hermie ratio on the first 10 grown out
F1b x Male2 === waiting on the seeds to mature

I hope someone can follow all that, looking back at the records it got confusing to even me for a little while.

Down the road when this get stable enough I want to add in another white strain that was crossed into this mix at one point in time. Of course that was back before records were kept up with.

DS

yup looks like ur on the right road..ur hermie trait is heterogeneous in ur plants it seems..all of those seeds are from the same parernt plants right??....i think if u keep back crossing to the O-mom,u mite get ride of that herim trait..i whould find a nice male from ur F1B and back cross it to ur O-mom (if that the palnt u want ur beans to look like) ..then ur ratio will be lower or no hermies at all ..if this is ur 3rd back cross u should be getting there nice to see someone takeing time to breed and not just crossing plants "JUST CAUSE"......MEANGREEN.

Actually it would be the first back cross to the O-mom if I went that way. The way I went was back to the Male2 instead of O-mom. In the first try (with records) I went inbred f1 x f1, but the second try with a different male I went f1 x Male2 (still inbred but back crossed to parent).
When I went f1 x f1 the hermie trait increased, that is why I decided to go with a back cross to the male instead of the female hoping that the males hermie trait is more recessive (?) than the females hermie trait. Even though the O-mom does not show the hermie trait it must be a dominate recessive. Always showing up in its offspring but not in the mother.
Sometimes I wonder if I should just drop the strain altogether, but I really like what the O-mom brings to the trait table.
The smell is almost air freshener quality, and I mean like one in a can. So much so that if you never saw the plants you would never know that there is pot around. The high is not the greatest that is why I want to bring in a white strain. The O-mom has many sativa qualities which I am ok with as long as the streach when flowering doesn't get any worse.

Anywho, I will be dropping off the online posting for a while, not real crazy about posting so much. I will be watching and reading though.

Thanks for all your help.

DS

dont drop it...maybe just breed for smell and the high, make these traits really true breeding..then maybe use other stock for shapeing/structure of ur "goal plant"...it may be easyer if ur only looking for a few traits a plant...P.S. i whould love to see pics of ur plants u can PM me if u dont fill like showing them on a open thread..

interesting i love breeding threads subscribed

me said:

Original mother (O-MoM)
----X generations
-----one male kept (Male1)
O-MoM x Male1
---- F1's (first sign of hermie trait at about a 25% ratio)
F1 female (no visual hermie traits showing ) x F1 male == approximatly a 75%+ hermie ratio
**** went back to the old seeds looking for a better male (Male2)
O-MoM x Male2 === F1b -- 2/3/5 (hermie/male/female) about a 20% hermie ratio on the first 10 grown out
F1b x Male2 === waiting on the seeds to mature

Click to expand...

Ok from this post I have taken 30 seeds that were F1b x Male2, and after 4 weeks of allowing the seeds to mature they still did not fully ripen. Well I say that because only 1 out of 10 that cracked actually broke the surface of the medium. 10 out of 30 cracked and the remaining 20 never did anything but soak up water swell and molded. How ever there is batch two comming which is the real batch that I am wanting to harvest. The genes of the F1b that was pollinated are much more along the lines of what I am wanting to keep. I am letting them go all the way out 5 weeks to mature. Well thats all I will update for now. Sorry I don't post pics but 1. I dont really like posting in the first place and 2. I dont have a digi camera other than my cell phone and that just isn't worth the space that it takes up on the cell phone.

DS

why not do a inbred cross of the 2 males and the 5 "true females" from your O-MoM x Male2 cross...and see if the hermie % goes down?....use both males, and cross them to each female..and see what male/female cross does best for hermie%....mite take a long time but if u really want to know....MEANGREEN..

I have 10 more of the F1b down now and I will keep the males from this 10 to breed with the females from the same 10.

The first 10 that turned out with the 2/3/5 ratio have been removed from the cycle for the most part. The 5 females are giving off 2 clones each for flowering and then cut way back to regrow more braches. The two males donated thier pollen and were killed off. I still have enough pollen to work with for a while from these two. Oh and the five females will be narrowed down to 2 after this next pass of cuttings. Mainly to make room for the next 10 that are comming up, but also to narrow down the gene pool that I am wanting to keep. I will update again in about 2 weeks when the next batch of seeds are put in to germ. I am also working on a better layout of record keeping to post so it is easier to follow along with this as it happens. Looks like it might take another year or better before all it figured out. I already know what I want to call this if I can get it to work,,,,,,, CCR (Clear, Clean, and Refreshing) very clear buzz, not much trimming, and minty refreshing smell and taste.

DS

found this if ur intersted:http://books.google.com/books?id=_aK7dTNS1qkC&pg=PA70&lpg=PA70&dq=recessive+genes+in+cannabis+strains&source=bl&ots=A_FcJv92C0&sig=AAN_URYs2JGIc3L5UHPm_1LTx8A&hl=en&ei=a44DSuunMJPAM47TgYQD&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1