The selection of a new cannabis variety or type that can adapt itself to the climate in which we grow in outdoors is simple but requires many years to give plants time to stabilize themselves.
The initial step is to choose two varieties that have given great results outdoors in terms of growth and vigour, productivity, resistance to parasites and to environmental adversities in your climatic conditions. In this way, characteristics and genes particularly suited to that place will be favoured.
The first step consists in finding a robust female with lots and enough compact buds and choose a “late” male, that is to say, a male that has flowered later than other males. Also, the male reveals great qualities when it has a strong smell. You’ll cut the peak and test the smell. If the smell is very pungent, the plant will be a great father for future seeds that we will want to make.
It will be enough to wait for the flowers to open and collect the pollen on a paper and with a little brush spread the pollen on the buds of the female when they are at the stage of white filaments. We will just have to wait until we see the capsules swell up containing seeds. Once collected the seeds, they will be tagged with date and name of the parents.
If you have chosen a type without a name you can note down the general characteristics of the plant (height, colour, time it takes to be ripe and scents).
The surprise will come with the first generation of plants where you’ll be able to notice and keep record of the new growth and colour, characteristics that may be similar or totally new compared to the plants you started with. Often they are mixed.
From now on begins the real selection, that is, you’ll have to choose the best features to make your plants stable over time and increasingly stronger and self-sufficient. Weak plants, which grow too slowly and get sick easily will be removed or not chosen for selection and seed production, you will thus make a positive selection.
Year after year you will notice that your plants will get stronger and stronger, becoming more and more productive and independent.
The characteristics will stabilize and you can finally say, after about seven years, to have created your own personal strain. After seven years of crossing within a population, the genetic characteristics tend to stabilize and your plants will take on stable and homogeneous characteristics.