At their breeding station in Israel, F1 SeedTech is still working hard on the development of short-day Cannabis F1 Hybrids for the professional market. "We are running this project in an advanced climate-controlled greenhouse in collaboration with our partner RCK – Science-based cannabis genetics. The goal of this project is to obtain uniform seed-propagated varieties with specific traits such as high cannabinoid content, high flower yield, pathogen resistance, and high-quality terpene profiles."
"In the current breeding cycle, we are growing two different sources of genetic pools. The first genetic pool is composed of advanced IBLs with a high homozygosity level, which has been developed by RCK in previous years. Additionally, we have included many S1 lines coming from the plant introductions of the last season to increase genetic diversity and introduce new traits into our F1 Hybrids varieties."
Professional breeding involves more work and control of plants from the greenhouse. "Recently, we took cuttings from the mother plants to continue with our breeding activities. This step is crucial in our breeding process to perform self-pollination on the plants selected. The harvested cuttings are currently rooted in trays and will be conserved until they are used for pollination and seed production."
In the meantime, the IBLs are characterized at the end of the vegetative phase. "In this stage, we have collected phenotyping data to draw the first conclusions about which plants show a superior phenotype and which ones will be discarded. In addition, we moved all the mother plants to the next module of the greenhouse to induce flowering. Now the plants are growing in a shorter photoperiod in larger growing tables and lower plant densities, so we can see the full potential of each genotype during the most important stage."
"On the whole, we can conclude our breeding program for short-day varieties is progressing successfully," the team says. "Furthermore, there are many potential IBLs will be selected to develop new F1 Hybrid varieties in the coming season."
For more information:
F1 SeedTech
[email protected]
www.f1seedtech.com