Breeding question for the experts >

I wonder about this feminized male issue too.

Anyways, I personally think that at the bottom of the feminized matter, we really do not know yet if it is completelly safe and as always at such times people divide into groups of optimists and conservatives and one group tries the new stuff while the other group protects the old stuff from possible damage. Which is cool. I am myself optimist though, I think that feminization does not change genes, there is not any reason to think it passes any damage, it allows for selfing and thus quicker breeding and as such is a neat technique.
Also overcoming selfing barriers is common practice that does not raise an eyebrow in breeding world. Feminized crosses are side issue of this.

Strains losing vigor after some breeding is documented, expected, understood and in most cases easily repaired (see "inbreeding depression").

a feminized male is: a male plant that is showing female characteristics. It was explained to me that you are not getting all females you are getting females and males that are lacking a specific gene that causes it to grow as a female.

"Elements of the past and the future combinin to make something not quite as good as either"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AckvdGbk4w

tusseltussel said:

a feminized male is: a male plant that is showing female characteristics. It was explained to me that you are not getting all females you are getting females and males that are lacking a specific gene and causes it to grow as a female.

"Elements of the past and the future combinin to make something not quite as good as either"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AckvdGbk4w

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Is there any literature on this feminized male concept? Maybe a post by a reputable breeder somewhere? This is the first time I'm hearing of this.

scoobydube said:

ya it does ive just seen it more in a feminized seed....no hateing on feminized seeds you can get good plants out of them

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I've always noticed more hermies with reg seed

homebrewer said:

Is there any literature on this feminized male concept? Maybe a post by a reputable breeder somewhere? This is the first time I'm hearing of this.

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I have no reference for you. This concept was explained too me by a breeder I trust and it seems logical so I'm ok with it. From what I understand of it the problem would only occur if you were to
keep breeding the same line of fems.

tusseltussel said:

I have no reference for you. This concept was explained too me by a breeder I trust and it seems logical so I'm ok with it. From what I understand of it the problem would only occur if you were to
keep breeding the same line of fems.

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Can I ask which breeder?

fem'ed seeds and regular sexed seeds have just as much of a chance to hermie as each other..

if you use a hermie prone plant to breed with, no matter if for regular sexed seeds, or fem'ed seeds, the hermie trait being dominant, will show up in most of it's offspring.. the thing is that most respectable breeders don't use hermie prone plants to breed with..
using a chemical such as collodial silver, to FORCE an otherwise female plant to grow male stamen is just that.. no chemical, no male flowers.. it's not that the plant is a hermie, it's the chemical forcing an otherwise female plant to grow balls.. this does nothing to change the dna of such plants.. x plus x is always going to give you an x, hence feminized seeds..

if you use a mother that is prone to go hermie without the use of a chem like c.s, then yes, the offspring will also carry this trait, but this has nothing to do with the feminized process, it's just bad genetics.. regular seeds from a hermie mother will be just as likely to hermie as plant that was fem'ed using that mom.. yay science if fun..

Yes, it can be done. The resulting seeds will produce both male and female plants in 99% of cases. You are likely to observe a higher female:male ratio, although that is not definitive in all cases.

That being said, I don't recommend it for a number of reasons, many have already been stated and touched on.

Ninja Mechanics said:

Yes, it can be done. The resulting seeds will produce both male and female plants in 99% of cases. You are likely to observe a higher female:male ratio, although that is not definitive in all cases.

That being said, I don't recommend it for a number of reasons, many have already been stated and touched on.

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i've yet to see one reason to not use fem'ed as breeders, other then he said she said it's a bad idea..


what do you have to say they're not good?

From my own personal experience, I would not use feminized seeds if they were produced through what is known as "selfing." I have selfed a purple power female in the past, and the offspring was very inconsistent. All the offspring looked similar to the mother, except in size. There was a handful of really small pathetic inbred plants.


If your feminized seeds were produced by an experienced grower, it is highly unlikely that the seeds were produced by allowing a plant to pollinate itself. The breeder probably forced a female to produce male calyxes, collected the pollen, and pollinated a completely different plant of the same strain. I would imagine that a feminized plant of this manner would be ok for a breeding project.


I would definitely proceed with this project just out of sheer curiosity.

More importantly, I would refrain from distributing any of these seeds, until I have conducted certain tests with a few hundred plants of this strain.

what do you have to say they're not good?

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We(the growers) generally grow weed to produce seedless bud that you can roll up, pack bowls, etc without having to pick seeds out. Correct? Feminized plants are produced by pollinating a female plant with the same or other females plants pollen. Why does the female plant produce pollen? For several reasons, most of which are not in your favor as a seedless cropper. Female plants(and males) are capable of self-pollinating. Its thought to be a survival mechanism. People(the growers) have observed that a plant that undergoes some type of stress or unfavorable inconsistency during growth(this can be during flower or veg) that they can pollinate and impregnate themselves. The trait is known as hermaphrodite(diocious plant), containing both male and female reproductive mechanisms. Some plants are more susceptible to stresses, in turn some plants will impregnate themselves more often than others for more reasons than some. Through observation people have been isolating these plants that can take more stress and handle more inconsistencies than others. Why? Because most people grow indoors, under artificial, inconsistent conditions, for the purpose of harvesting seedless crops.

So here is my point and opinion on the matter; A feminized seed(seeds resulting from female plants purposely coaxed into impregnating itself or others), is a hermaphrodite, plain and simple. Most of the seeds are stable and will not produce a hermaphrodite prone plant, however this is directly related to the manor in which the seeds were produced in the first place. Some practices and methods yield more stable outcomes. There's nothing wrong with this I don't think. Feminized seeds have their place in the industry, don't get me wrong. The problem is people keep producing these type of seeds, then breed them with other genetics that were not produced that way, or pass clones along to people who have no idea in some cases if it was feminized or not, they breed with it and there you go, you now have some watered down feminized genetics tainting whatever you had started with. That is where people are making the mistakes. Those degraded genetics(feminized seeds) are making their way into stable seed lines accidentally and in many cases purposely. Because of this, you are now more likely to run into a hermaphrodite prone plant. Sacrificing the potential of a seedless harvest. Sure mistakes happen, but if you can avoid them, why wouldn't you?

Example of why I don't condone the feminized industry; I know several folks who have feminized plants, then grown those seeds, and further feminized a plant from the original feminized selection, continuing to do this will cause a number of mutations to take place, one major mutation being sterility. The seeds will eventually become non-viable and the plants will produce sterile seeds, it only takes 5-6 generations in some cases. Now you tell me how you think feminizing a plant is "okay" for the health of the gene pool. Diluted, hybridized and messed up as it is already, how is it okay to do something like that? Doesn't make any logical sense to me. I don't see how you could even come up with a counter argument on the matter. I wouldn't even consider your argument if you got it published and certified by as many "educated" people as you could. Ive learned through experience that feminized plants are no good. Not to me. Its partially opinion based and partially fact based. If your seeds are bad, your plants are bad. Plain and simple. Seeds are more important than some care to speculate or admit.

Aside from that, it has been noted by several reputable breeders who have ventured and experimented heavily with this route(including myself), that feminized plants produce a less potent terpene profile, less growing vigor and all around less resistant genetics in terms of pest attacks and diseases. Those reasons alone are enough to make me open my eyes and see the big picture. Healthy seeds produce healthy plants. Simple as that. Feminized seeds are not "healthy" in the regards I and many others find to be crucial as a cannabis farmer. You can argue it all day long and give me 100 reasons why you like feminized seeds and find it okay to practice breeding with feminized plants, I stand my ground. Its like comparing Monsanto's genetically altered seeds and non-GM seeds. The evidence is staggering yet the majority of people remain careless and ignorant to the fact that genetically modified seeds are producing harmful plant materials, among other issues.

On another note, I understand that a plant that has been self-pollinated purposefully or accidentally through natural or artificial stresses can be bred with stable genetics and everything will work out in the end. It happens in nature. Plants self-pollinate themselves, the plants grow up and get pollinated by normal males, or even in some cases sexually unstable males. Life goes on and the genetics will remain healthy and viable. Many of the landrace, heirloom, seeds grown over the thousands of years that people have been cultivating cannabis have most likely in many cases been subject to this occurrence. It would be ignorant to excuse the possibility. The key to the survival of the current landrace and farmed seed lines has been normal breeding, male and female. Period. You don't trek into the jungles of Panama and find populations of only female plants, sorry but it just doesn't happen. Mother nature is my teacher, not the commercial feminized "seed companies".

There was a handful of really small pathetic inbred plants.

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I agree. Feminizing and back-crossing are both examples of accelerating the inbreeding process, narrowing the gene pool down to a minuscule pathetic display of plants. In my opinion it is pure laziness to practice either of those. Back-crossing can happen in nature but not often enough for people to observe regularly which means to me I shouldn't be doing it either. Both methods will spawn unfavorable issues in the future generations.

Ninja Mechanics said:

I agree. Feminizing and back-crossing are both examples of accelerating the inbreeding process, narrowing the gene pool down to a minuscule pathetic display of plants. In my opinion it is pure laziness to practice either of those. Back-crossing can happen in nature but not often enough for people to observe regularly which means to me I shouldn't be doing it either. Both methods will spawn unfavorable issues in the future generations.

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what if the minuscule pathetic display of plants happens to be all the traits one would want from that plant? say, potency, flavor and flower time for ex.? c99 comes to mind, and i don't think anyone with a bit of breeding knowledge would say c99 is a bad plant to breed with..

That is up to you as the grower/breeder, you make the call. After all, we are growing for ourselves. Minuscule pathetic display is quite a broad description and I was simply referring to Farmers Hat's description and experience. If you find plants you like, by all means do as you please with them. Feminize them, inbreed them, back-cross them all you want, just be responsible about it. Don't be passing clones and seeds along saying here is my grail seed line. Keep them for yourself if you are selecting them for yourself. If others want them, make damn sure you explain what they are and how they came to be, express the importance of recording what you have and not to go throwing handfulls of what you think to be the grail into healthy landrace seed populations. Sounds stupid but believe it or not, there are people out there who do it.

What are you trying to get at here?

C99 is a great example of something somebody bred to express traits they were fond of. Is C99 a good or bad plant to breed with? That is opinion based. Is C99 a stable and healthy seed line? That's another discussion in itself. There are 100 different versions of C99 going around produced by various people. I see a lot of C99 backcrosses going around as well as feminized C99 seeds. Ive also seen some great examples of properly inbred versions as well as poor examples of properly inbred versions. I personally am not a fan of C99 in most cases. Ive sampled several great hybrids and pure C99. Made a few crosses with C99 myself. It has its uses and favorable traits, no doubt. Just not my cup of tea.

Is C99 a good plant to breed with? Sure, why is that? Because it is a inbred line that breeds true for specific traits that many favor in their gardens. Me on the other hand don't find it to be that valuable. Its opinion based, strictly. I don't like the fact that there was a lot of back-crossing in the line. I wasn't the breeder so I can't sit here and say C99's disease and pest attack susceptibility is due to being back-crosses several times throughout the breeding process, then inbred further using traditional and IMO acceptable practices. That being said, what is acceptable to you?

To me, my goals as a breeder of seeds is to preserve properly what genes are left on the planet. Back-crossing, feminizing, major inbreeding(to a point) are all practices I don't partake in. Diversity is my goal, diversity among healthy seed populations of pure genetics that date back to time periods before people were feminizing plants, back-crossing, etc. That is why I take the stance I just explained. Simply.

what i'm trying to get at is back crossing can be a great tool used to stabilize certain genetics.. i'd not say any plant that's been back crossed is going to be garbage, and therefore no good to be used in further breeding projects.. in fact, quite the opposite, all depending on if the og breeder also happened to look for the same qualities i'm also looking for in the plants of course..

can back crossing create bottle necking of genetics, i think that's quite obviously yes, but i'd not say that back crossing doesn't have it's place in breeding, and saying that something is better just because it's natural has been proven false long ago.. a lot of land race genetics, mostly sativa dom genetics, are prone to be hermaphrodites, are they better then a cross of the plant where time and effort was taken to stabilize it and breed out the hermie tendency just because one is a land race and one is not natural? my answer would be of course not..

and lastly, what about breeding in a lab or where ever is natural? imo, unless it's a bird or the wind taking pollen from one plant and leaving it on another, it's not natural.. nothing wrong with breeding in labs though even though it's not natural, it's called progress..

I'm not trying to say back-crossing, feminizing or any other non-natural breeding practice does not serve a place in this industry. Back-crossing to me is a lazy method of inbreeding. You select only for the traits you see in that plant by back-crossing it. If you were to produce a F1 generation, then produce a F2 generation, selecting for the traits you want and also being able to select for other traits such as pest/disease resistance, continue to inbreed for those traits properly while making selections for other favorable traits, you are going to be much better off than joeshmo over there back-crossing to achieve uniformity. Uniformity can be achieved through other practices and methods that will not bottle-neck the gene pool to the point that all other aspect of growing and breeding have been disregarded. You can back-cross a plant all day long that is resistant to spider mites but there are mutations happening on a level you can not see with your eyes. The mites will simply step right over your attempt by breeding themselves to a point where they can attack those bottle-necked genetics with ease. As apposed to traditional methods of male:female generational breeding where you will be passing on several genetic combinations that the spider mites will have a tougher time unlocking through generational breeding.

Back-crossing has its place. IMO its place is in the trash. You could easily get away with it once or twice or even three times as long as you make heavy selections properly later down the line. Lets face it, back-crossing is lazy, period. Why make proper selections down the road if you are back-crossing to begin with? Why not just do it properly to start with. Many people choose to back-cross because they see result faster. Plain and simple. In some cases it could also be because you have a limited space for growing high seed numbers. If you only have room for 3 plants, of coarse you are going to choose back-crossing over true generational breeding. True generational breeding requires you to grow large numbers of seeds so you can observe a wide range of traits to choose from.

Just for the record, you asked me to elaborate on feminizing seeds which you have not tried to argue since. Now your trying to argue another form of non-traditional breeding which has just as many drawbacks compared to advantages as feminizing does. It comes down to laziness and the need for people to see results fast compared to achieving results over longer periods of time. If the world went to shit tomorrow and I had to choose one seed line from my collection to farm outdoors for the rest of my life, it would not be any back-crossed, feminized or unknown seed line because I don't own any. I would choose a pure bred, regular stable sexed seed line which I have been producing myself. You on the other hand would probably have some feminized seed line that would yield higher rates of failed crops for various reasons. What do you think?

EDIT; In regards to breeding/growing in a lab or indoors at all for that matter. There is no such thing as growing indoors, you are experimenting, always, because it is not natural. Once you take a seed from its birth place beneath the sun, you are experimenting. IMO

lets stick to topic. heres a recent topic on backcrossing: https://www.rollitup.org/breeders-paradise/766029-lets-talk-about-how-harness-2.html

@Ninja
I get all the stuff you are saying, but I can not agree. Claiming that all advanced breeding methods spoil the genepool without a proper explanation is unfair. Its not lazyness to use an efficient method, it allows you to set higher goals while keeping the work the same. Selfing is a quick way to inbreed. That is what breeders want and do. Without exception.

I am not saying diversity is not important. Its just that we want the diversity of a kind we want, not a diversity of bad traits.

Inbred genepools are not ruined. You refresh them with one outcross. Its absurd to claim that inbred seeds are spoiling the game. First pollenchuck and all is good (there are some exception). You will get inbred pools with selfing, full sib, or half sib, does not matter, only a mater of time. Backcrossing as far as I know does not raise heterogenity past the recurrent parent. Keep Bx talk to proper thread pls.

In the short term and everyday practice, people try to raise heterogenity, but in the long term, I think we would agree, we need robust, wide benetic base, no bottlenecks. But How many plants is that really? No one I asked was able to tell. In corn, you should keep 100 parent plants in each gen. That is not selecting of 100 plants, but selecting so that 100 plants is left. Such variety is stable then. In cannabis, I think that only stable varieties are the hippie strains of legends and stories, if they exist. I am not of that part of the world. And landrace, hopefully. I think that any cultivated regular strain would run into ib depression because if botleneck if bred for few gens. But so what, you just cross them. God bless (us) polenchucks. Its all one variety.


If I sound arogant and sure of myself, that is only cause I am trying to express myself as briefly as possible, for your reading convinience I am a begginer and only would like to make things clearer by clashing the opinions. Also english is learned language to me, if anything sounds weird.

I wouldn't consider back-crossing or feminizing a "advanced breeding method". In terms of what and how plants reproduce, you are most certainly "spoiling the genepool" by back-crossing and feminizing.
I never said back-crossing and feminizing was not efficient, I agree on that, however my stance on both subjects(mostly back-crossing) is that it is a lazy method of inbreeding. There is nothing wrong with inbreeding, it happens naturally. If you have 100 seeds and you only grow 50 of them to reproduce seeds, you are effectively bottlenecking and inbreeding those specific genetics.
I never said we were after "bad traits" either. Diversity is beneficial in many way, diversity of poorly valued traits is not beneficial to growers because we grow for specific purposes.

Inbred genepools are most certainly compromised to a point. Sure you can "refresh them" by outcrossing but why would you want to add outside genetics to a pure genepool? Inbred genetics, when done properly, not using techniques such as back-crossing, don't suffer from loss of vigor. You lose diversity, which is a whole other discussion in itself. Diversity is just as crucial as vigor in my opinion, I look at them as two separate types of vigor. With back-crossing, you most certainly lose the healthy vigor those genetics once had, it may not be obvious but it is happening. That is a fact. Back-crossing is not natural, therefore it is not in my best interest to do, or even recommend in any case. My interest is protecting the genepool while also achieving the same goals you and everyone else here has. We grow cannabis to use, plain and simple. My mindset is obviously not "common" but we are here for the same reasons with minor variations.
BX talk is in the right place, someone asked a question here, Ill answer it here. I'm not going to bounce around to different threads on the same subject.
Good point on particular goals being long term and/or short term. I still must stand my ground, short term goals often involve some sacrifice, many growers/breeders/chuckers don't see the sacrifices taking place. That's okay, not everybody is going to see it the way I do and I would never expect them to. My thought process is primordial when it comes to plants of any sort.
How many plants is enough to maintain a healthy population? Simple answer. Two. One male and one female is all it takes, the more you have the better off you are, always. Speaking strictly in terms of genetic diversity and healthy displays of favorable traits to a grower/farmer.
Another good point. Most of the seeds going around are highly inbred, hybridized and not worth a shit to properly preserve the way I'm referring to. The problem is that everyone has stopped growing all those old "hippie strains" and are now growing the inbred, feminized seeds that everyone here seems to be okay with. That's fine and all, do as you please, like I mentioned earlier, if your going to proceed that way, do so with some responsibility in mind. Don't go passing the back-crossed/feminized/hybridized genepools into the hands of people who are going to truly farm the variety. I choose to be responsible by never back-crossing for any reason, never feminizing, and never creating a hybrid that is so many generations removed from its parental contributors. I'm not saying I don't grow or make hybrids either, there is nothing wrong with it, I think its very fun and people have a lot to learn from the many practices involved. My point is simple, there are some negative outcomes when you use "modern methods" to produce seeds. You as the grower have the choice of weighing those options, pros and cons.
Just because a seed line is inbred and depressed does not mean it should be out-crossed with other genetics. Once again, I don't think there is anything wrong with inbreeding, my stance is based on the manor in which you go about doing so. All cannabis is inbred, all cannabis has been bottlenecked, over thousands of years people have lost seeds, segregated genepools, purposefully and accidentally. My goal as someone who chooses to grow from seed for the purpose of reproducing healthy seed populations is to spawn diversity and not reduce the total outcome of possible combinations in any given seed line that is of value to us as a production plant, whether it be for seeds, resins, fibers, etc. The fact that we have varieties segregated for specific purposes is a clear example of inbreeding done over thousands of years. Its nothing new, however back-crossing and feminizing is new and is the wrong way to go about it IMO.

BTW, those old hippie strains are most certainly still around, due only to those who grow and reproduce them properly. The reason more people don't grow them is because like you said, most people have short term goals in mind. Not everyone wants to grow 100+ plants and collect 50,000 seeds for the purpose of preservation. There are still plenty of true farmers and families in various countries all over the world who farm tradition varieties using traditional methods. That's what I'm trying to get back to.

You do not sound arogant, sorry if I'm coming off the same way. I am always open to new ideas and healthy discussion. I do have a hard head though hehe Ive spent a long while speaking with people who have learned English and there is not any barrier for me, I can't say the same in my regard. Not sure why but I seem to confuse even those who grew up speaking the English(America) language.

hey Ninja

I agree with most things you write and most certainly with the core belief, that seeds are important and should be protected and cherished beyond their direct short term usefullnes. We need the diversity, no doubt about that. Good thing the heritage strains are still available where you are.

Where we do not agree is, when you say you only need two plants for a stable population. This is the bottlenecking we sometimes talk about. No matter how many plants you will grow in subsequent gens, you will never have more genetical diversity than what those two brought to the table. The etical practice really is, in my opinion, to choose 100 parents of 1000 plants, possibly in subsequent years and do it outside. Never was done here.
As you say, the more the marrier, but I think it goes beyond that. There will be a number, (i would guess (and hope) it would be close to 20) where having less parental plants in each gen will slowly render the strain unworkable.
But I do not know, some things seem to indicate that there is not that much deleterious garbage in the genome. If you can full sib for three gens and than rejuvenate by neighboring line of same initial cross...
I am a theoretical person, I need more experience, this I admit freely.
Also, there nowhere in sights is a reasonable argument why Bx'ing and feminization is bad in any way. Why inbred plants by these methods difer from plants inbred by full sib crosses. And I am more than sure you can inbreed by those.

The purpose of breeding is to create specialized plants for specialized purposes (reasonably true breeding, but genetically dissimilar for plasticity). If you went through the work of creating a strain that yields well outdoor in Norway and is sativa type - high and you spoil it in a way and have to outcross, that is a problem for you (not a huge problem though relative to the initial work). We also have strains with different characteristical terpen and cannabinoid profiles. Would be a shame to lose them. But how many strains really are the same? How much actual trait diversity we have? What i want to get at is, that even if there is many people with bad breeding practices producing inbred sick plants, just because there is so many of them (us? hope not), the genepool is in fact healthy. Only one step - openpolinate a shitload of inbred interchangable strains and voila! Health.

The point is, that all the discussed practices, as far as I know, never bring something harmfull to the genome, except genes accidentaly selected for. Always the problem is a loss of genetical information - genetical diversity.
I would ask you why do you think it is better to breed without feminized parents, the exact reason. It is not naturall is not the whole story. Why is that a problem?

also - I will give here a legitimate situation to use backcrossing, I do not think I heard one on the forums.

You have a great strain you love. At one season you notice weird pest damage. The next season all the plants are gone and there is just a pile of fat happy bugs you do not know. You research and the pest is new in your region, therefore no resitence in your girls. You discover, that seedmakers in the homeland of the pest have resistant strains. You use your strain as a reccurent and the resistent strain as a donor in the selection under the pressure of the pest for the traits of original strain.

You will end up with basically your loved oldtime strain with very little apart the resistence genes exchanged. You will never get here by full sib, or open. You can use the population as such as a recurent though, I guess that would be okay by you? What would you do?

Good points (read first 2 pages and the. Last) like i said ive never done it myself so i wont speak on the matter any further but my position is still the same ill just leave the femenizing and bx breeding with fems to others.