You will first need to develop your vision or a cannabis breeding goal and write it out, you can start by asking yourself:
- Why are you trying to make seeds?
- What are you trying to accomplish?
- Are you trying to combine the best characteristics of two (2) different strains to create one (1) ultimate strain?
You may only want to breed plants for your cannabis garden so you can have seeds for the following year’s crop planting and you will want to set your goal and then create a roadmap to get to your final destination.
Step #2 – Find Cannabis Seedlot
Find variable seed lots and this will be rather easy with how many seed producers are out there to select the seed of a plant that has a range of variation for most of the traits that you are looking for.
Step #3 – Grow Cannabis Variations
The more plants that you grow the more variations you will see from one (1) plant to another even if they are from the same parents.
Choosing as many plants as possible is always preferable since some recessive traits have a potential for developing rare phenotypes, which only occur in one (1) out of every one hundred (100) or even one (1) in every thousand (1,000) cannabis plants.
Step #4 – Find Desirable Characteristics
Select only plants that closely match your breeding goals. Breeders choose plants for future breeding based on desirable cannabis characteristics that they find and like.
There must be a balance of positive and negative aspects of each plant because some plants differ greatly in certain traits while being otherwise nearly identical. The selection is up to you, though it is best to find and pick only the healthiest as well as disease-resistant ones possible.
Step #5 – Keep Potent Varieties
For potent varieties, select only the most potent plants and you can talk with seed companies to figure out how high the cannabinoid levels are. Some varieties that perform well under artificial lights will also perform well outside though the opposite is not always true.
Post-harvest selection requires either partial seeding of each plant or keeping a clone of each. By keeping close to every plant that you are growing you will be able to grow a new plant instead of re-vegging a flowering plant, even though it is still an option.
Growers will create the variety that will best suit their specific growing environment, pest resistance, and smoking tastes. Once you have bred your plants and have the outcome that you are looking for then you can now choose whether or not you want to produce the seeds commercially for the general public or keep them as your private strain.
There is a need to protect the genetic resources that cannabis has left since governments around the world are out to seek and destroy the plants. Over time, if these genetics are not kept and preserved, the government will have destroyed them and their valuable genetics to preserve cannabis resources.
Some of the best breeders strive to advance and improve a given variety or population while preserving the variation present in the traits that are not under selection but can prove valuable for future breeders of cannabis. Some breeders create a variety that suits their specific growing environment and smoking tastes.
Many cannabis varieties are less susceptible to botrytis (grey mold) or powdery mildew so it is best to find out which plants are less susceptible to pests and diseases in your area. It is important to protect and preserve the genetic resources that cannabis has left to carry on to future generations.
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