Pheno Degradation

Hey Guys hope all is wel Ive got a Question for all the Old Timmers , Advanced Growers , Ive been working with 2 Selected Pheno’s for the past 6 runs it was feminized f1 seeds from a company that i trust but thats not what this is about . I started with 3 beans for mother plants , cloned them and flowered the clones (1.First run) i got 3 different phenos 2 of them were very much alike and the 3rd was a bit of a runt , (2.Second run) i ran only the 2 phenos that i Liked and all went very well , now this is were i think the degrading came from , i lost my veg room as well as the 2 Mother plants and the second run was 2 weeks into flowering so I tried to atleast save the genetics so i took clones of flowering plants (Monster-cropping) and did the 3de run with only Monster Cropped clones and had a verry succesful run , So for the 4th Run i decided that the monster cropped clones did so well il do it again the branching was alot more and the yield dit increase not dramaticly but it had a fair atvantage ( i have to add that this strain was/is never the best producer, but the buds and the terpenes and the high was extrodanairy, best ive ever grown) during the 4th run i got my veg room up and running , so i took clones also Flowering from the 4th run and reveged them to become mother plants , and here is were it all started to go downhill I had a pheno of both plants i liked and both of them had the same thing happen to them , Run no.5 was normal clones taken of the 2 phenos that I reveged and the Yield was terrible on both phenos , also the look and terpenes weren't so pronounced as they use to be , Ive just finished Run no.6 also both phenos from the Reveged mothers , and the same thing happend both plant just arent the same as they used to be Terpenes are not as pungent , buds are not as covered in tricomes as the were , and the yield is just terrible can someone with more knowledge please let me know how this happens can a strain or Pheno start to degrade if the mother plants came from second generation monter croped clones?

I have been running clone from clone for a decade or more
Every now and again I have to VEG one out and treat it like a mother to get strong clones again
It hasn't failed me yet

A few people have mentioned genetic drift that's caused by stress.
Maybe @quiescent can help.

I had trouble making sense of what you said completely, however; generation cuts can certainly lose vigor at variable rates. I don't have a ton of experience with this issue, but I will say that hitting your cherished and exhausted cuts with some qualified stud pollen may be the best thing you can do to restore vigor.

Herb & Suds said:

I have been running clone from clone for a decade or more
Every now and again I have to VEG one out and treat it like a mother to get strong clones again
It hasn't failed me yet

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Thanks Herb & Suds my Mother plant from the 2 phenos is in the best condition they can be both are about 4 months old now but still i get these issues ive not yet read or seen this happen.

Chunky Stool said:

A few people have mentioned genetic drift that's caused by stress.
Maybe @quiescent can help.

Click to expand...

Thanks Chunky Stool “Genetic Drift” describe’s this perfectly , I would not say that my plants were stressed in any way except the fact that they were takin from flowering plants and they did go thrue that reveg stage a bit which is stess in its own way , would you mind if i rename this tread “Genetic drift”

UncleReemis said:

I had trouble making sense of what you said completely, however; generation cuts can certainly lose vigor at variable rates. I don't have a ton of experience with this issue, but I will say that hitting your cherished and exhausted cuts with some qualified stud pollen may be the best thing you can do to restore vigor.

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Thanks UncleReemis , sorry i know it was a bit much to follow , just trying to explain the best i can , I don't make my own seeds wil def get there someday but for now ive only been trying to select a couple of females that i like and clone of them this was the best ive come across so far just sad seeing it change the way it does.

Knowing when the last time you replaced your bulbs if not using LEDs is my starting point reading your post.

Paragraphs will also help.

quiescent said:

Knowing when the last time you replaced your bulbs if not using LEDs is my starting point reading your post.

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This makes a lot of sense , I just replace mine every run and didn't even consider it

I have never personally experienced genetic drift. Longest I ever ran a cut was a little over 7 years.

That said, I read that tissue culture prevents any drift.

Renfro said:

I have never personally experienced genetic drift. Longest I ever ran a cut was a little over 7 years.

That said, I read that tissue culture prevents any drift.

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And supposedly can "erase" the micro-genetic changes that have occurred over time. I'm more certain that epigenetic changes affect offspring more than the traits of the plant as the op described.

Herb & Suds said:

This makes a lot of sense , I just replace mine every run and didn't even consider it

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Been there, done that with stretching bulbs past their prime.

Some people think if the bulbs are still kicking out light, it's all good. Needs replaced at least every 6 months for optimal performance. I understand why people are hesitant to replace them, trust me..... I replace 15-20 eye hortilux bulbs a couple of times a year, you can do the math lol.

quiescent said:

Been there, done that with stretching bulbs past their prime.

Some people think if the bulbs are still kicking out light, it's all good. Needs replaced at least every 6 months for optimal performance. I understand why people are hesitant to replace them, trust me..... I replace 15-20 eye hortilux bulbs a couple of times a year, you can do the math lol.

Click to expand...

"But I'm upgrading to LED soon."

Genetic drift is when there is a change in how often an Allele shows up in a population of plants or animals.

Muller's ratchet is a population genetical model that describes the random accumulation of sightly deleterious mutations in finite populations with limited amounts of recombination. If Muller's ratchet operates long enough it can lead to genomic decay that is strong enough to drive a population to extinction. The rate of deleterious mutation accumulation from Muller's ratchet is difficult to predict. Muller's ratchet gets its name from the fact that the loss of fitness in the fittest individuals of a population due to the accumulation of deleterious mutations cannot be reversed, if there is no recombination and no back mutation (like in an asexual population with an infinite genome)"

Asexual reproduction compels genomes to be inherited as indivisible blocks so that once the least mutated genomes in an asexual population begin to carry at least one deleterious mutation, no genomes with fewer such mutations can be expected to be found in future generations (except as a result of back mutation). This results in an eventual accumulation of mutations known as genetic load. In population genetics, genetic load or genetic burden is a measure of the cost of lost alleles due to selection (selectional load) or mutation (mutational load). In theory, the genetic load carried by asexual populations eventually becomes so great that the population goes extinct.

Plants free of disease and pests won’t degrade that quickly.

I would start operating under the assumption that you have some sort of pathogen.

Personally, I wouldn't keep doing clone after clone of a clone. Mainly the genetics are stagnant and stagnant genetics are prone to abiotic stress thus the genetic drift over time to a point of genetic degradation.

Seeds are the ideal way to grow (male x female ideally), it ensures genetic variance thus translated to plant vigor.

If I have a strain that I really want to keep and breeding it with a male is not an option for whatever reason. I'll make the first few clones then out of these clones, I'll reverse one to pollinate another clone.

What I'm doing above is 'recombining' genetics, bear in mind that each seed that it will produce will be unique from each other no matter if it came from the same genetic pool. There are other genetic process aside from Mendelian genetics that will effect the outcome of the seeds.

Out of these seeds, I'll select the best plants and do the same process again.

But I really prefer male x female it's more rewarding

Genetic drift isn't what many people seem to think it is.

Genetic drift is the variation in the relative frequency of different genotypes in a small population, owing to the chance disappearance of particular genes as individuals die or do not reproduce.

Many people on this forum are referring to genetic mutations, instead. In order to get genetic degradation, you would need the following to happen:
1. A mutation would have to occur in one of your plants.
2. The mutated cell would have to survive and reproduce.
3. The mutation would have to be stable.
4. The mutation would have to be in a place that produces new growth, or somehow manage to spread from a leaf or other part of the plant, back down to the growth point(s).
5. That plant would have to be the one selected as a mother.
6. Mutated tissue, likely a growth point, would have to be selected as the cutting.

After ALL of that happens, and you have a some clones carrying that mutation, you have to consider if it is actually a degradation? The mutation may be a slight change in an internal process that doesn't make a perceptible difference in the appearance or effects of the plant. It may also be something as minor as making the pistils 0.1mm longer.

Was looking into this topic recently...anyone have anything else to add?

I’ve heard a lot of people suggest, and have done myself, leaving the clone outdoors for the summer under some real sunlight.

Then once it’s loving life, take some clones and run them again.