Grafting Marijuana -Multiple Strains One Mother Plant

[Marley]

That's amazing!

And now I have another project!

[Weasel]

Here are a few pics of this plant now at three weeks flowering (well actually the first couple pics are a week old).
The three separate strains, so far, appear normal -as they would if they were ungrafted. From everything I read, I was expecting a greater influence from the rootstock and some sort of 'blending' of the three. But time will tell.

[Weasel]

Greenthumb, interesting thoughts. You probably read through this thread enough to realize that I know almost nothing about grafting, so can't really expand on the ideas much at the moment. People have definitely grafted female cannabis on to male rootstocks. I'm not sure why, I wasn't paying much attention when I read the info, but I think they were implying there may be some advantages to it. I can't imagine what.
Komatchi who sometimes comes and goes here knows far more about grafting than I do. The most I've seen of it has been multiple varieties of cherries on the same tree, or multiple apple varieties on one.

My three sativa graft is doing well. I'm almost done creating a second one as backup. Had a bit of a 'oh shit' moment when I found out that the Panama strain, which is the rootstock, is a heavy feeder and actually needs twice as much food as the Malawi and the Thai that I grafted on to it. The Panama is a new strain for me and I'd mistakenly assumed that it would have roughly the same needs as the other sativas I've grown, which have all been pretty similar.
However, I've been told by someone with a bit of grafting experience that it should be ok, and the plant will mainly be driven by the needs of the rootstock and conform somewhat to its habits. Whew.
This person also talked a bit about the idea of 'genetic mingling' or however you want to put it, between the strains. He said that no genetics are actually exchanged, it's more of a temporary influence. Pollinate one of the strains and the seeds would contain the same genetics as if the plant wasn't grafted. Take a clone of one of the strains and it will grow up to be a normal plant of that strain.
Anyway, I'm glad to hear that there's hope for these strains with very different needs to live on the same stem. Thought I was in trouble there for a while.

[sila'red'u-r]

I really appreciate this information.It was a National Geographic article which I read about an large amount of different fruits on one tree. At 63 I really don't have time to roll the dice on fruit (or nut) trees.My little 2.5 acres will most likely be my last home and there is no room for error,if I'm to enjoy eating (and tokin) the fruits of my labor.(ok that sounded cheezy even for me. lol)
I'm going to go with your and especially your Grandmas' advice(always bet on family)
Again I really appreciate the time you put into the research and advice.I intend to live to be a 100,but you may have saved me years of failure.Thank you so much.

[PigSquishy]

Weasel Since this question has been brought up I have been scouring the books and information I have on breeding, I had this same question at one point... Take a male branch and cloning it onto the female plant, and while I have nothing which directly gives me this answer. However trying to find this answer walked me back through the things I do know, but to some degree have forgotten to perhaps look at again. The first is "stress" as of course the books and information always brings out the changes which can occur do to being stressed, some strains and plants can take lots and lots of stress and well as we all know there are others who at the first signs of stress have some sort of an issue. One thing which can happen as a result of stress is "mutations" and then it got me going back to the main point of breeding for seeds, you want to always start out with a true FF and that brought me right back in the book to the point of how to find and select a true FF to become a mother. Then I was brought back to the process of how to best select a male for the breeding project. Now let me make it clear this book's goal is to teach you to grow and breed stable strains with the hopes of bring able to bring it to market (commercial or private) where the end customers are happy with the end results they get when they use your seeds.

Well this may not mean anything to the standard grower, I keep coming back to the point in my mind... either someone would want the best genetics, the best of everything you are looking for... or you are looking for the randomness of bag seed outcomes. In the book they do discuss the randomness of cross pollination and how so often this doesn't work so well in nature hence why so much of the natural cannabis crops have such a high fatality rate when left to nature to do its thing, but at the same time only the traits which work for that plant in that environment will stand a real chance of survival which helps to weed out bad genetics in nature. However in the inside environment this doesn't hold true, and genetics good outdoors may not be the genetics you want inside, and thus we get right back to the selective process of making sure we are choosing the right mother and father, verses just randomly. By the time I got done researching this out trying to find the answer... I concluded that it seems to boil down to the point... If the idea of this works of grafting a male branch onto a female plant there is some sort of a major issue with it somehow beyond what I can figure out or find. So many stoners sitting out there trying to bring their own strain(s) to the market, pushing to win that next cannabis cup award, wanting to that guy you listen to and trust on YouTube, in the Forums, etc... if this actually worked out as well as one might hope it does, then it begs the question why aren't more people doing it or talking about it?

The gardening magazines for the year have been arriving and I have been going through them again to plan out what seeds to get, and in most of them they have a couple of these 5-In-1 trees, they will grow 5-Fruits on just one tree and honestly they aren't even that expensive, and I've seen them in their since I was a kid. But in all my years of going to the nursery, other people's gardens that were seriously HUGE, I've never in all my years ever seen anyone have one of those trees. My grandma had 36-different fruit trees, and when I asked about getting one of those she told me the head of the nursery she went too told her to stay away from those trees and don't ever plant one, so she told me the same anytime I ever had a question about them. Thinking of this thread I looked at them and wondered why is it always the same 5-fruits, why nobody ever has one... If this works so well in this fashion why isn't it being done more? Yet I was told by a friend at the nursery a few years back when my one fruit tree died down to the ground, broke off and then shoot up another tree, I assumed it was the fruit tree again, however I was told they use a fast growing root structure to then graft the much slower fruit tree onto the root system to get more fruit trees out the door into customers hands, thus the next tree coming up may be the tree from the actual root system, not the fruit tree I think it is.

Perhaps someone else can take this information and points and help to sort it out a bit more... but that is what has been on my mind relating to this point.

[Weasel]

Someone was just asking me about that a couple days ago- about grafting a new top into a harvested stem. Intact root system, an already vegging top, once the graft takes she is ready to grow.
Seems kind of far fetched, but if a graft can take on a clone cutting while it simultaneously grows roots, as Komatchi said, it does seem at least like a slim possibility.

People self pollinate for seeds pretty regularly. I don't think there's any difference between hermie-ing a branch of a plant and pollinating it with itself, and -using that branch to pollinate a clone of itself, if you can understand what I'm trying to say.
Yes there is more genetic diversity if you use two completely different plants, but then you have a cross as opposed to a selfed plant. A cross, even with another pheno of the same strain, always brings more uncertainty. Seeds from a self pollinated plant still have a few different phenos to choose from, but not as many.
I don't know shit about breeding though, and even what I just said might be wrong.
I didn't read what happened to make you disappear there for a while. Maybe you posted it elsewhere and I missed it.?
I'm getting the feeling that grafting is quite easy. The advantage to doing it the way I am is you don't need a humidity tent as I think you do if you are doing it the 'regular' way with cuttings as opposed to living plants.

[sila'red'u-r]

So weasel,I normally shake the dirt off my harvesting plant and rinse the dirt off the roots,then put it in distilled water overnight as a way of one last water flush before starting the drying process.This year I just cut them off near the dirt.Been in the process of moving,so I haven't empty the old plant containers (roots/stocks) now after catching up on this thread,I have to wonder,,,if I had had another strain could I have grafted it to the left over root/stock of the harvested plant.I have several Frisian ducks I may start another strain and do some grafting myself.
The reason I mentioned grafting a male to a separate female,was I read if you make one branch of a female into a male you will need a separate female plant to make feminized seeds .the plant with the male branch will pollinate itself and cause inbreeding,those seeds are not used ever to continue the process.If it's two strains I've read it takes several generation to 'stablelize the new strain. There is also talk of genetic drift when grafting two strains. I believe green75 said the unknown strain was dominate.in green75 grafting.

With all my Frisian ducks grafting a normal cannabis with it may be interesting.May try it with a white widow BECAUSE the new Auto Duck is a cross between an 'auto white widow' and a Frisian duck'
Who knows what I'll get ? white plus the ducks purple flowers ,,,,a lavender widow duck.!?!? I really love all you people here you pull me down the rabbit hole with Alice everytime,,,

"Remember What The Doormouse Said,,,,Feed Your Head" (White Rabbit by the Jefferson Airplane)

[bobsakamoto]

it's cuz they're in the same branch on the plant fambly tree....or so i've read.

[sila'red'u-r]

Years and years ago it was said 'Hops'could be grafted to cannabis and you get a hops plant with THC.
They used hops in pillow cases to help you sleep,old time sleep remedy.
The Mary Jane Super weed's guide to legal highs listed them.I tried smoking hops in the 70's it tasted like,,,worse than tobacco ! (have we met bobsakomato)? :

[mcruderalis]

I still would like to see a cross between Dr.Grinspoon(not your typical looking plant) and Frisian Duck,definately not like reg.cannabis.

[Weasel]

Thanks McRuderalis. Nice to see you back around. Well that's what I just did I suppose, except I cut them free each time. Hmmmm. Maybe you'd get some interesting effect from keeping them together, I don't know. You would definitely want to have them all growing in the same pot though, otherwise it would be a pain in the butt.
Plants like to grow upwards- so that's the direction most of the growth will go if we aren't there messing around with things.
It would be interesting if you had several nearby trees sort of arched and grafted together, and the trunks grown thick over the years. Or some very slow furniture making possibilities come to mind. Stoner ideas...

[mcruderalis]

What if one grafted two living plants together some how ,or 3 or 4, "let the circle,,, go unbroken" If anyone could do it it would be you !

[Weasel]

...our sky became filled with flying machines criss-crossing the earth carrying billions of humans around to every last remote corner spewing poison and CO2?
And then someone else figured out how to do it better? Etc. (I hope).

It's interesting though, to be in these times and see it evolving, from all the hard won knowledge we collectively hammered out and painfully developed about growing cannabis in the worst of times- to a million people online now who've never grown a vegetable or a houseplant before and are figuring out their new hydroponic setup, to these mega corps sweeping in to ride on our backs and do it all 'better' and sell their product back to us.
Agriculture has been around for a long time. Most of what we are 'learning' had been known for thousands of years. There is very little new knowledge that comes up in forums, mostly we're just dealing with the consequences of prohibition and talking about stuff that's been figured out a million times over. Oh well, as long as we're having fun...

[PigSquishy]

Oh I have noticed, I have also noticed that for every person who tries something there is something to learn from it... How many people tried repeatedly to invent flying and failed until...

[bobsakamoto]

The cannabis world is a bunch of people in basements trying to invent the wheel. In case you haven't noticed.

lmao!!! SO FREAKIN' TRUE THO!