How Are New Cannabis Strains Created?

If you are interested in learning more about phrases like hybrids, backcrosses, phenotypes, and parent strains, welcome to our cannabis plant breeding guide. During the cannabis plant breeding process, a male and female cannabis plant are essentially bred to combine and refine the genetics of the two strains. This will result in a new cannabis strain or a hybrid strain.

What Are The Benefits Of Breeding Cannabis Strains?

After more than 50 years of breeding, cannabis has undergone many changes from the original landrace strains where it all began. Cannabis strains are bred to combine specific strain traits, strengthen and purify strains, or enhance specific strain characteristics, such as:

• Specific aromas
• Higher yields
• Increased potency
• Faster grow time
• Specific flavours

Breeding Cannabis: The Basic Concept

Breeders will need a few female cannabis plants of one strain to get started with their endeavours, as only female cannabis plants can produce the buds consumers ask for. However, one or two male plants of a different strain will be necessary for pollination depending on how many females you have. A male cannabis plant can pollinate up to 20 female cannabis plants.

Once the female cannabis plant is pollinated, it will start to produce seeds that have the genes of both its male and female parent plants. You can harvest those hybrid seeds once they are ready and grow them separately. These new cannabis plants will be a new strain, or a hybrid.

The Process Of Breeding Cannabis Plants

After carefully selecting two parent strains for breeding, a male plant and several female plants are placed in a breeding chamber so that all the pollen can be contained. Breeding chambers can get quite high-tech, but they can also be as simple as an enclosed space with plastic sheeting on the sides.

Once the plants are in the breeding chamber, you can choose to grow them vegetatively for a couple of weeks under an 18 hour light cycle to increase their size a bit, but this step is optional. You can also just immediately place them on a suitable flowering light cycle, for example 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness.

Pollination

The mature male cannabis plants will produce pollen sacks in the first few weeks of its flowering phase. The pollen will gradually start to release from their sacks, travel through the air, and land on the female plants, ready to pollinate them. 

Having a dedicated and enclosed breeding chamber for your plants is important as it will contain this precious pollen and prevent other pollen on the outside from getting in. You can help your plants along during the pollination stage by shaking some of the pollen from the male plant onto the females, or by collecting pollen from the male plant and applying it directly to the females.

Growing And Harvesting

After pollination, your female plants will continue to grow. After a total of about 3 to 4 weeks, they will start to flower and grow seeds as well as buds. These seeds will have the genetics of both the male and the female parent plants.

Once these seeds are fully mature, they can be harvested and stratified (dried). This is done so that the seeds will be able to germinate later on. These seeds can now be grown on their own outside of the breeding chamber. It is important to note that you will usually harvest your flowers about three to four weeks before you harvest your seeds.

The Role Of Phenotypes: Ensuring Consistency

Usually, the process of breeding cannabis does not stop after the first round. Hybrid strains typically go through many generations of breeding to strengthen their desired genes and to make sure that their descendents will be consistent. 

During cross-pollination, each new seed that is created will have different characteristics from its separate parent strains. As each seed is unique with different traits and combinations of traits from their parent strains, they are called phenotypes.

Plants that produce a set of phenotypes that have lots of variety are called heterozygous. In the wild, female cannabis plants rely on wind pollination. They will often be pollinated by many male cannabis plants, resulting in a variety of different seeds with different characteristics. Therefore, wild cannabis plants produce seeds that are heterozygous.

When it comes to commercial cannabis, you want seeds that are homozygous with the same set of genes. A homozygous plant will consistently produce the same seeds  that have the same genetic make-up every time. This ensures that buyers and consumers can expect the same plants and or seeds time and again.

Once a strain has been cross bred, the breeder will have to choose which phenotype they like best. Breeders can base this choice on multiple factors, including trichome production, aroma,  bud structure, flavour, or their growing capabilities. 

Going The Extra Mile: Backcrossing

High-quality breeding still has a few more rounds to go. Once a breeder has successfully crossed their strain, chosen the specific phenotype, and finally found the strain they have been working towards, they will usually strengthen its genetics through backcrossing.

During backcrossing, a breeder cross-pollinates a new strain with itself or one of its parent plants, basically inbreeding the strain. This makes the strain even more homozygous, enhances its desirable characteristics, strengthens its genetics, and ensures that its genes will pass down through generations.

Breeding new cannabis strains requires lots of effort, time, and patience. From selecting parent strains and pollination to phenotype selection and backcrossing, breeders have to invest their all to get a hybrid strain with the perfect characteristics. Whether breeders are looking to increase their yields, strengthen and purify strains, enhance specific strain characteristics, or fasten their plants’ growth time, cannabis breeding is the way to go about it.

If you are looking to start breeding your own new cannabis strains, a wide range of possibilities will become available to you. You do not need to start at a commercial size, you can still get into breeding cannabis with a simple breeding room setup. Have fun mixing and matching strains and producing new types of cannabis. Let fun and innovation guide you!