Jul '24 (edited) • Custom Connoisseur Cannabis
How to create the perfect strain
Well the perfect strain is pretty subjective but let’s look at strains that have already been made that are exceptional and analyse what makes them so great.
Think about some famous strains from the era of true breeding after the 1960’s where people were creating stains from scratch. From landrace genetics. Skunk is a great strain to study on this case as it Revolutionised the culture. It’s was one one the first, I’d not the first strain that was a selectively breed hybrid of landrace genetics from different parts of the world. It displayed positive traits of both sativa and indica strains and did away with most of the negatives of both.
So let’s dissect skunk. As far as I understand, it’s a mix of 1 indicating variety, afghani, and two sativa namely Mexican lowland sativa (the lowland sativas can be thought of as being chunky sativas, whereas the highland sativa tend to be thin and lean) and a highlands sativa (Colombian). The ratio I believe is supposed to be something like 75% sativa expression, 25% indica expression.
So with that in mind let’s assume that the two sativas were crossed together first, then one of those offspring was crossed to an Afghani. Sounds straight forward right? Well actually every phenotype has to be selected before being chosen to breed. Once a hundred has been made, ideally it needs to be stabilised to be used in a future hybrid or else recessive traits may be popping out all the place and lack of consistency will result.
So I’m this example we plant a bunch of Mexican and Colombian sativas and search for amazing phenotypes. To learn how to identify and select good phenotypes you can read this post about it here (https://www.skool.com/art-peeps-2024-5656/how-to-identify-desirable-traits-in-cannabis-strains?p=5b6ab904). Next step is to cross the two previous together in the traditional sense of males to females. One the seeds are ready, plant them and repeat the selection process as outlined in the post linked above. Once you have a stable strain in the f4/f5 generation, it’s time to move on to hybridising that now stable strain. When a strain is fully stable it can be considered its own variety and not just a hybrid of two strains. This is sometimes referred to as an IBL (in bred line).
Now we select a clone ideally of the chosen mother from out now IBL Mexican x Colombian sativa and pollinate it with a male (or vide versa) afghani. We plant a bunch of those seeds, select winning female phenotypes and pollinate them with their Matching male’s. We then plant loads of the f2’s expecting big genetic diversity in this stage and search for the same winning phenos and make seed. We keep doing this, chasing the same expression until about f4/5 until it’s an IBL. (Side note: if you come across crazy cool unexpected phenos along the way, dont them, and don’t feel the need to use them in your project either, just keep them to the side, make a clone and work on it later. Many great stains popped up unexpectedly in a breeding programme with a totally different goal)
Now we have our version of a classic exceptional strain. The combination of pure indica with pure sativas is often magical in terms of size, trichome production and especially terpenes. It’s surprising how a sharp kinda fruity sativas crossed with a pungent stinky indica can create crazy candy gummy fruit smells for example even after the first hybridisation.
Follow these guidelines and create a work of art. It’s rare these days to breed from the ground up and many popular s stains today are poly hybrids of hybrids made in the early days.
Warrick Duncan co-founder
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How to create the perfect strain
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