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U<\/span>ntil recently, if you created a unique hybrid or preserved the last specimen of an exceptional genetic line, you had absolutely no way to copyright your difficult, proprietary work.<\/p>\n Consider the example of Sam the Skunkman<\/a>, an American cultivator who moved to Amsterdam<\/a> in the mid-1980s, bringing along with him a veritable treasure trove of seeds from across the world and hybrids he\u2019d created or preserved.<\/p>\n It would be easy to make a long list of Skunkman seeds that entered \u201cthe scene\u201d once he started supplying Dutch seed vendors, but it\u2019s probably more effective to just list two: Original Haze and Skunk #1 \u2014\u00a0a pair of legendary strains that made a dramatic and permanent impact on the cannabis gene pool that endures to this day.<\/p>\n While there is still a long way to go before we have a complete picture of cannabis genetics, today we know enough to launch an exciting new project that both utilizes this data as well as adds to it: The Phylos Genotype kit<\/a>.<\/p>\n We are finally mapping the cannabis universe and it is a thrilling thing to behold. What has been a mysterious area of botany \u2014 shrouded in myth, superstition, the fallibility of memory and the dearth of specific information due to years of underground status \u2014\u00a0is now becoming more and more clearly defined.<\/p>\n Photo Courtesy Phylos Bioscience<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Since beginning their Cannabis Evolution Project<\/a> back in 2014, the Portland<\/a>, Oregon<\/a>-based company Phylos Bioscience has been vigorously pinning data points on the map, and the donations of genetics they\u2019ve received since the project began have gone a great way into establishing a skeletal structure of the genetic relationships between many of our modern cannabis varieties.<\/p>\n When it comes to Skunkman\u2019s genetic legacy, the science speaks volumes. From the gene pool they\u2019ve accumulated thus far, Phylos researchers have boiled down the genetic ancestry of all samples to six subgroups, which appear to be the genetic pillars of all cannabis strains.<\/p>\n \u201cSkunk\u201d is not just one<\/i> of those pillars \u2014\u00a0it seems to represent about one-third of the entire species.<\/p>\n Although he has found success in many other areas of cannabis, Sam the Skunkman has never received his just dues for the verifiably large contributions he made to modern cannabis genetics.<\/p>\n San Francisco Bay Area-based breeder Dragonfish Farms<\/a>, best known locally for their work with the Red Congolese variety, is one of the first in the industry taking advantage of Phylos\u2019 services to identify the original hybrids they\u2019re developing.<\/p>\n Dragonfish Farms co-owner Tyson Graham was introduced to Phylos by the farm\u2019s attorney as a way to insure their intellectual property would not be exploited by others.<\/p>\n In Graham\u2019s view, the great lengths Dragonfish went in order to preserve Red Congolese for many years (as well as the arduous process of making the hybrid seeds \u2014\u00a0like Red Alien, a Red Congolese x White Fire Alien OG hybrid of exceptional potency \u2014\u00a0and selecting phenotypes) more than justifies their claim to the resulting genetics.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re just the little guys trying to protect ourselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Anyone who has gone through the time and effort involved in a propagation project of any kind \u2014 but perhaps Sam the Skunkman most of all \u2014 would readily agree.<\/p>\n For the purposes of this article, a clone of Sour Diesel <\/a>was acquired from a randomly chosen, well-established nursery. Why Sour Diesel? It\u2019s hard to think of cannabis variety that more frequently ends the statement: \u201cthat\u2019s not the REAL [insert strain here].\u201d<\/p>\n Of course the real question is, does it work?<\/p>\n When the results were received from Phylos, the answer to this question was yes \u2014\u00a0more or less.<\/p>\n In the first section, \u201cClosest Genetic Relatives,\u201d the sample resided in a slightly<\/i> different area than others labeled as just Diesel and East Coast Sour Diesel on the map of genotype connections.<\/p>\n The same genome profile had been tested before, according to the second section that detailed \u201cClonal Relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n This submission also overlapped with submitted varieties named just Sour Diesel and also some called Platinum Headband, AJ\u2019s Sour Diesel and NYCD, among others.<\/p>\n Sour Diesel\u2019s \u201cGenetic Novelty Score\u201d in the next portion of the report was almost fully to the side of \u201ccommon,\u201d which should be a surprise to no one.<\/p>\n The \u201cPopulation Profile\u201d section illustrated the six genetic subgroups discussed previously and listed Sour\u2019s heritage as almost 50\/50 from the OG Kush<\/a> and Skunk subgroups.<\/p>\n Breeders of the future will be able to utilize the \u201cClonal Relationships\u201d category to find varieties that fall into distinctly different familial subgroups to better exploit the advantages of hybridization.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The \u201cGenetic Variation\u201d chart will also be extremely helpful: by seeing where a variety falls on this chart, one can breed for relatively \u201ctrue\u201d traits and predictable results (less variation) or those that have more variation and will lead to progeny with a wider spectrum of characteristics \u2014 either can be quite useful to a plant breeder, depending on their intent.<\/p>\n The final entry in the results is \u201cGenetically Distant Varieties,\u201d which suggests which strains might be useful in breeding projects with the submitted sample type. While some of these entries seem logical \u2014 Colombian Gold x Sour Diesel does sound quite interesting, does it not? \u2014 others are puzzling. Chemdawg was listed as being genetically distant from our Sour Diesel sample, which almost defies explanation and may be an anomaly.<\/p>\n Photo Gracie Malley for Cannabis Now<\/p>\n<\/div>\n So was it the \u201creal\u201d Sour Diesel? Yes, in a way: it was definitively the same plant as other things named Sour Diesel, yet slightly removed from other plants also named Sour Diesel.<\/p>\n In the future that Phylos is building towards, with the work done previously and with the samples these kits will bring, there will be no such confusion. The Sour Diesel of the future \u2014 we\u2019ll just call it \u2018Future Diesel\u2019 for the sake of explanation \u2014\u00a0 will have its genome charted and placed firmly on the map. Then growers will be able to submit a sample for testing and find out if it really<\/i> is Future Diesel.<\/p>\n And if cannabis follows the traits and methods of other disciplines, there may even be organizations handing out pedigree certifications to make sure the Future Diesel carried by stores and propagated by nurseries is the \u201creal deal.\u201d<\/p>\n Originally published in\u00a0Issue 26<\/a>\u00a0of Cannabis Now.\u00a0<\/em>LEARN MORE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n TELL US,\u00a0<\/strong>do you want to know the true genetics of your cannabis?<\/p>\n The post Uncovering Cannabis Ancestry Through Science<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Genome testing kits take the guesswork out of identifying strains. Until recently, if you created a unique hybrid or preserved the last specimen of an exceptional genetic line, you had absolutely no way to copyright your difficult, proprietary work. Consider the example of Sam the Skunkman, an American cultivator whoContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":20482,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,1380,306,85,351,2096,107],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20481"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20481"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20483,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20481\/revisions\/20483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/phyloskit.jpg\")
<\/p>\nGenome Testing<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Uncovering Cannabis Ancestry Through Science<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"