The Cannabis Breeder's Bible

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Book: Read The Cannabis Breeder's Bible for Free Online
Authors: Greg Green
expressed phenotype of your plant.
    Recessive
    Recessive describes a gene, allele or hereditary trait perceptibly expressed only in homozygotes, being masked in heterozygotes by a dominant allele or trait. A gene is called recessive when its effect cannot be seen in the phenotype of your plant when only one allele is present. The same allele must be present twice in the gene pair in order for you to see it expressed in the phenotype of your plant.
     
    BACKCROSSING
    The backcross breeding method.

    Dominant/Recessive and Genetic Notation
    Assume that the dominant ‘B’ allele carries the hereditary trait for Big Bud, while the recessive ‘b’ allele carries the hereditary trait for small bud. Since B is dominant, a plant with a Bb genotype will always produce Big Bud. The B is dominant over the b. In order for a recessive gene to be displayed in the phenotype, both genes in the gene pair must be recessive. So a plant with the BB or Bb gene will always produce Big Bud. Only a plant with the bb gene will produce small bud.
     
    Now that we have explained the basic terminology of plant genetics, we can move on to the next step: rudimentary breeding concepts as laid out in the Hardy-Weinberg law of genetic equilibrium.

    THE HARDY-WEINBERG MODEL OF GENETIC EQUILIBRIUM
    An understanding of plant breeding requires a basic understanding of the Hardy-Weinberg law. To illustrate the value of the Hardy-Weinberg law, ask yourself a question, like: “If purple bud color is a dominant trait, why do some of the offspring of my purple bud strain have green buds?” or “I have been selecting Indica mothers and cross-breeding them with Mostly Indica male plants but I have some Sativa leaves. Why?” These questions can be easily answered by developing an understanding of the Hardy-Weinberg law and the factors that can disrupt genetic equilibrium.
     
    The first of these questions reflects a very common misconception: that the dominant allele of a trait will always have the highest frequency in a population and the recessive allele will always have the lowest frequency. This is not always the case. A dominant trait will not necessarily spread to a whole population, nor will a recessive trait always eventually die out.
     
    Gene frequencies can occur in high or low ratios, regardless of how the allele is expressed. The allele can also change, depending on certain conditions. These changes in gene frequencies over time result in different plant characteristics.
     
    A genetic population is basically a group of individuals of the same species (Cannabis Indica or Cannabis Sativa) or strain (Skunk#1 or Master Kush) in a given area whose members can breed with one another. This means that they must share a common group of genes. This common group of genes is locally known as the gene pool. The gene pool contains the alleles for all of the traits in the entire population. For a step in evolution—a new plant species, strain or trait—to occur, some of the gene frequencies must change. The gene frequency of an allele refers to the number of times an allele for a particular trait occurs compared to the total number of alleles for that trait in the population. Gene frequency is calculated by dividing the number of a specific type of allele by the total number of alleles in the gene pool.
    Genetic Equilibrium Theory and Application
    The Hardy-Weinberg model of genetic equilibrium describes a theoretical situation in which there is no change in the gene pool. At equilibrium there can be no change or evolution.
     
    RANDOM MATING
    Wild non-random mating resulting in unknown male donors.

    Let’s consider a population whose gene pool contains the alleles B and b.
     
    Assign the letter p to the frequency of the dominant allele B and the letter q to the frequency of the recessive allele b. We know that the sum of all the alleles must equal 100 percent, so:
p + q = 100%
    This can also be expressed as:
p + q = 1
    And all of the random possible

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