Let's say you have a male & female plant, let them go to seed and do this for several generations of inbreeding, will these "grandchildren" be as potent as the original? I know cloning maintains the traits, but what about going to seed?

i dont see why not. especially if you introduce new genetics into the pool every now and again...

__________________

Well, unless both parents are pure, the there WILL be variations
when grown from seed.
Only a clone can be an exact copy.

i think that if you self seed a female then the offspring should be exact copies of the parent...

__________________

The reason I ask is because I have heard that inbreeding cannabis over successive generations in a temperate climate will cause each generation to have a potency loss until it reverts to a hempy state. Introducing a new strain into the stock will cause hybrid vigor, but I am talking about straight generations of the same strain, no outside genetics. For various reasons one may have to completely shut down their garden, therefore no clones, and having some seeds on hand to restart when the opportunity presents would be advantageous.

well as long as you have those seeds handy it should be ok... if the seeds are different strains to start with the variations in genetics is enough i think.... i really wouldnt worry about it that much. after all inbreeding like that is part of the process in creating stable strains...

__________________

i would think that with selective breeding your seeds could become MORE potent but new genetics never hurts. just creates new

__________________
they call me ishmael, and mobys music sucks. smile if you get it.

I am no expert but from what I understand it take several generation for a strain to stabilize and produce the same offspring each time. They start off as F1s and are very unstable. You can get many variations of genetics. Next after some time they become F2s and you dont get as many variations. After several years of breeding the same beans they become F4s and you get the same phenos each time. I dont think potency is affected by this process. I could be wrong! If your beans are from the same stock and they are F4s you should have no variations if you keep breeding the same ones over and over. Potency I am not sure about but I dont seee how it would get lower over time!

If both parents are pure, and the same strain, the only
variations in seed plants should be vigor.
As soon as different genes are introduced, seeds COULD
produce plants that show characteristics of the '3rd' gene set
in varying degrees, some good some bad.

If the parents are not pure and/or different strains,.. well then,
you got your work cut out for you.

Stabilizing a strain is easy, stabilizing it while keeping the desired
traits and losing the undesired ones is the trick.

So, a 'loss' of potency compared to the parent stock may simply
be due to recessive genes coming through..