Are New Cannabis Strains Legitimate? How the Industry Creates \"New\" Genetics from Old Ones

By: Simon

About 'NEW' strains from 'OLD'=legitimate?

There are several 'new' varieties of seeds which are similar (or almost similar) to existing plants.

You might be wondering:

Is it legitimate to take an existing strain and call it something new? Where do you draw the line between genuine breeding and lazy marketing? In this article I share my honest perspective as a breeder with over 30 years of experience.

Real Examples: Cinderella 99, Cheese, and Skunk#1

For example, the original Cinderella'99 comes straight from Skunk#1. I was gifted an original clone back in the day. I grew and smoked it with Rob Clark. His friend Sam the Skunk man (a.k.a. David Watson†) was the creator of skunk. Rob had seen and grown many skunks over the years and to him this was just another skunk plant. I think he was right.

But that being said, even though when the source is Skunk#1, you could select a special individual and cross breed with it over multiple generations. Then you could end up with a plant which may still be recognizable (by some) as an off shoot of Skunk#1, it could also have markedly different characteristics. The Cinderella '99 we saw back in the day was not really indistinguishable from Skunk#1, but in another situation this may be different.

An example of that is 'Cheese', also derived from skunk. This was just an exceptional Skunk#1 plant with this typical cheesy scent. It sparked a whole line of cheese-plants from different seed co.'s.

When Deriving New Strains Is Legitimate

So, it is possible to breed from a known line of cultivars something apparently different. It usually starts with finding a remarkable plant among plants grown from a certain known cultivar. It doesn't need to be a negative thing to start with a plant from a known variety.

Cutting Corners: The Lazy Way to "Breed"

People could spend time breeding, putting in the work. But there are certainly a lot of people who like to cut corners and hate to do too much work. They work from that one plant they found. Pollinate it with pollen from some male plant and voilà; you have a new name and start selling those seeds.

The Kush Explosion: Same Plant, Different Names

Also look at the variety of 'Kush' plants. They are a lot of similarities with little differences between different Kush variants. So they all have different names, but you could also put them all together in a big population of Kushes. People want something else but also still recognizable as kushy. The result is a wide collection of Kush-variants, all with another name.

When to give something another name is highly arbitrary.

Differences vs Similarities: The Big Question

It's a matter of choosing. "Do you prefer to see differences, or do you prefer to see similarities?" is the big Q. Differences lead to different names, which means more seeds of different cultivars to sell, which is better for a seed company. Hence we see a lot of that.

The AK-47 and Cherry-AK Story

Our AK-47 lead to the Cherry-AK for example. That made a big name for itself in the USA. We could have started to sell Cherry-AK as a different seed for example. But this slightly different AK still was and is a part of AK47. So I let it be like that. Everybody can find CherryAK amongst AK47 plants. It was my choice that AK47 and the CherryAK were basically similar and to not start with a new name.

When Money Drives the Decision

Things are a choice. And if there's money to be made then the choice for a seed company is usually: a new name. I have seen several different Kushes from the a company grown together. To see the differences between them. It was pretty hard to write different reports on all those different Kushes which were really all quite similar. Again; its all about what you wanna choose. You wanna see differences or similarities?

When differences lead to making more money then that is what you will see. Every difference will automatically lead to a new variety, a new name. Thats the landscape of the cannabis industry today.

Final Verdict: How to Judge for Yourself

I'm sorry if I have shattered your beliefs. But like I said: it doesn't always needs to be a negative thing to derive a 'new' variety from an already known cultivar. If the differences are indeed big enough to legitamately call something 'new', then it is a good thing.

An aberrant plant can indeed be so different that this practice of using such a plant to create a new seed line is justified. It's mostly arbitrary to decide that 'this is a new genetic line and this is now a new variety with a new name'.

You need to look at every situation by itself to determine if it is justified to call it something else or not. Thats how I look upon it. And yes, there's a lot of laziness and cut corners to be found in the cannabis industry, because it seems primarily to be money driven.