00:01Hey guys, welcome to a new episode of Cannabis Conversation with Max. Today
00:05we're in the Netherlands and I'm coming visiting my colleague and friends
00:08Michael. He's in charge of the F1 Hybrid programs and we here at Vertify
00:13Cultivation for Compound to check out the new R&D program for the new F1
00:17Hybrid that's coming to you. If you want to know more, come and follow me. Let's go!
00:44Alrighty Michael, so we are sitting here in the greenhouse at Vertify. Behind us is
00:50all our great new F1 Hybrids and I wanted to have this discussion with you. What is
00:55the difference between F1 and F1 Hybrid? I expected the best question from you Max.
01:02In general, for me F1s and F1 Hybrids are the same. For me then we are talking about
01:07stable uniform F1 Hybrids varieties. Doesn't matter if you're talking about
01:11tomatoes, cucumbers or cannabis. You're talking about varieties which are
01:15stabilized. We make them uniform by creating inbred line. So you're making
01:19sure that when you start crossing them with the other parental line,
01:23the other inbred line, that every time the same genes and same alleles are
01:28crossed with the other parental line. Okay. So your next generation which is the F1,
01:33every plant has the same genetic composition and showing and giving you
01:37the same phenotype. I know that in the industry and especially in the cannabis
01:42industry, sometimes F1 and F1 Hybrids are used a little bit differently because F1
01:47stands for Filiole, the first generation after a crossing. In my opinion, when we start talking about
01:53F1s, F1 Hybrids, it should be a stabilized uniform variety and that's what we are
01:58making here today and what we are looking at. And if we cross a sativa with an indica, is that
02:04a F1 as well? Maybe in the cannabis industry they will call us an F1. Technically it's not wrong,
02:10you get an F1 seed from this crossing but you first need to really make those inbred lines.
02:16And what is the difference between an F1 and an S1?
02:20Yeah, the S1 and we are going back to the parental lines, the inbred lines. So an S1 stands for
02:24selfing 1, S2 selfing 2, selfing 3. We want to make the parental lines homozygous, so the farther
02:32you go, so from S1 to S2, S3, S4, S5, you make the parental line because this is your parental
02:38line,
02:39inbred line, you make them homozygous and fixed. And the more you do this, the more homozygous,
02:44more fixed the DNA, the genes of your parental line will be. What's an inbred line, how easy to do
02:53it is, how long does it take to make an inbred line, can you keep it easily? That's a lot
02:59of
02:59questions. No, like I said, the inbred lines are the, it's the main goal of obtaining F1
03:04harbets. It's time consuming to make them. It's a number, breeding is a numbers game. So you need
03:08a lot of plants, you need time, you need to run many cycles. So to go to an S6, S5,
03:14S6 inbred line,
03:16it takes you two years at least to be there if everything went smooth, of course.
03:21How many plants will I do the selection for getting to my S2, S3?
03:26Depending on the traits of interest. Some traits you need a large population than other traits, but
03:31most of the time our plots are between 15 and 200 plants. And then we select the best phenotype.
03:39So that means every time we sell, it can go up to 200 plus plants. So when we go to,
03:44let's say S6,
03:46we've already used 1200 plants just to create one parental line. Over two, three years.
03:52All right, that's a lot. The fact of selfing your plants too much, is the plants losing power? Is
04:00the plants like getting weak? Is the flowers getting smaller? Do you get less seeds?
04:06It depends sometimes. But in general, there's some inbreeding depression. So the plants start to be
04:12weaker, less strong, less vigorous when you do the inbreeding steps to fix the DNA, to make it more
04:19homozygous. So the production of F1 hybrid seeds is more expensive. More expensive.
04:23That's why our seeds are a little bit more. And that's an inbreeding depression effect.
04:28So that's why basically F1 hybrid is supposed to be more expensive. You produce less seeds per square
04:33meters. And you also need a lot of space and research and times to get them developed.
04:38The good thing at least is when you cross the inbred lines, in the F1 hybrid, the next generation,
04:43plants get bigger again. Because you hustle the genes, you make a prop heterozygous. So you get
04:48one allele from the other parent and the other allele from the other inbred line. So all the plants
04:52have the same heterozygous genetic composition. So then the question is like, what's the difference
04:58between an F1 and an F2? And what is the difference between an F1 and an S1?
05:04An F1 and an F2, the idea is then completely different. So if you have two plants from the F1,
05:09to make the cross, the next generation we call F2, is that you get a very segregating crop again. So
05:15all you get a lot of different phenotypes, a mixture of plants showing all the genes which
05:22were previously fixing a parental line coming back again in a segregating population. So your
05:28uniformity is gone. Okay. And the purpose of F1 is then lost in your F2. But F2s are very important
05:35for our breeding methods and step. So to identify the genes, are the genes dominant or recessive.
05:42So but let's let's keep it like, okay, the F2 population, what we can say is that F2 populations
05:46are important for breeding. But for home growers, you get everything, you get different plants.
05:51Makes sense.
05:52What we are doing with the in with the breeding steps, like inbreeding the parental lines, is making
05:56the genes fixed. That's your genotype. And the genotype is responsible for the expression of your
06:06your plants, the phenotype. So if you stabilize your DNA, the genotype, the phenotype will react
06:13on that. It will give you also a stabilized uniform variety. So what is the difference between F1 hybrid
06:21and a strain? How would you qualify that difference? When you're talking about strain, it's more
06:28it's a population of plants, but there's not a uniform variety. You see still huge differences in
06:33the phenotypes between between those plants. So what about polyhybrid? Polyhybrid is, as far as I know,
06:39is if you cross two different F1 hybrids, for example, you get a polyhybrid. If you cross two different
06:45strains, you get also a kind of, it's also called a polyhybrid. So now that's what we use today. It's
06:50phenotyping, chemotyping, and genotyping to help us create these F1 hybrids. To me, it's a lot of
06:58people will think it's GMO, but they have nothing with GMO. It's just professional breeding, right?
07:03There's nothing to do with it. It's a completely different topic. I receive these questions also
07:07sometimes, oh yeah, and then start talking about F1 hybrid breeding, and then I get the feedback, oh GMO.
07:13We haven't done any touch on genes, no editing, nothing. It's just we look at what's inside,
07:18we look at the gene, but we don't touch the gene. We just breed normally with plants, right?
07:23A lot of people are asking us, okay, what strain did you use? What is the genetic pull you used?
07:28Of course, and back in 2016, we have to start from somewhere. Fouche, amnesia, gelato, you name it.
07:35But in the end, it doesn't matter. We just want to bring in a lot of variation as much as
07:39possible.
07:40We grow all the plants and start just phenol hunting. We did so many steps and crossing and
07:45breeding and increasing the crop that is not relevant anymore. All righty.
07:51But in the end, it's all about the traits itself. At the, like you said, at the good yield,
07:55good flower structure, good THC percentages, that's where we focus on and not on the names of genetic
08:02backgrounds. Michael, let's talk a little bit about the future. Are we going to be able to lock in
08:08tastes? Because taste is terpenes, monotherpenes, flavorants, different type of compounds. We are
08:14able by following the F1 hybrid methodology to lock in traits. So to lock in our resistance,
08:21to lock in certain terpenes. And then our goal now is to expand our portfolio, mainly in different
08:25tastes, and then bring them uniform and stabilize to the market to replace clients. Colors is not
08:31something we have now our focus on, but the resistances are very important. So we have developed
08:36disease essays to find tolerance, resistances of botrytis and powdery mildew. But our core
08:44traits of botrytis, that's what we have our focus on. There is a lot of people around coming to me
08:50and
08:50say, hey Max, you know, I've been working here and there and we've been doing F1 hybrid for 10 years.
08:56What's your take on that? I have not seen that. I have not seen that. There is a small field
09:02of
09:02competitors. We are with two, three companies focusing on our real F1 hybrid breeding. But
09:08if you go back to the seed banks claiming like, yeah, we make a cross between two different strains
09:14or sativa 2, and then they call it F1. Or they sometimes say, oh, we have F14, F15 already. But
09:20then they do a kind of, probably OP crossing, so op pollination. So crossings between a population
09:26plants with two different plants. It's also a way of getting stability, but it's a different method.
09:34And it's not the same as F1 hybrid breeding. Michael, thank you so much for this time. We
09:40had a great time at Cultivation for Compounds. Thank you for those answers. They were pretty clear. What
09:46we're trying to do here is really like explaining to people what we're doing, because there is a lot
09:51of misunderstanding. Max, I appreciate your invitation for this interview. And I think it's very important
09:57that we keep on going, spreading the news and telling and inform people about F1 hybrid breeding.
10:02We explain you everything. We're transparent. Here is what's the real deal. No more secrets.
10:07That's, I think, a really important message to all our customers. Agree.
10:23Bye.
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