I'm still a beginner myself, but I've been a little confused about the way people use the term phenotypes when talking about seed suppliers. So I did some research for myself and wanted to share.

If any experts would help me along or correct any bad information I would be grateful for that.

So lets start with the most obvious question. What is a phenotype?

Boiled down to an overly simple answer it's basically any distinct trait about an organism you can observe and classify. This includes physically, chemically, behaviorally, and more. More specifically it's narrowed down to a population or set of organisms.

For our specific application of phenotypes we only care about ones that are valid for plants.

Now that we know what a phenotype is why is it important and how does it play into growing Cannabis?

This is where it gets more complex and not as clear cut. Genotypes of your plant will determine all possible phenotypes. Genotypes are the genetic information your plant receives from its parents. It seems to me that most of what people refer to as "phenotype stabilizing" is just selective breeding. The grower just looks for the plants with the best of all traits to breed and removes plants with any undesirable traits in the next generation. This is done over and over again until the phenotypes are consistently the same. The overall point is to remove as many recessive genes out of the pool as possible.

But wait can it be that easy? I'm afraid not.

Seed companies have the money to grow their breeding plants in very stable and consistent environments (or so I would assume). So, who cares? This brings us to another point that needs to be considered. The environment the plant is grown in and how that plays into phenotypes.

This is where things really get less clear. So I think we can assume that even the best selective breeding is only so effective. I doubt you can ever totally isolate recessive traits. It's also well known that environmental factors can influence phenotypes. Environmental factors are pretty much anything that isn't the plant is self and encompasses a huge amount of variables. Water, soil, air, light, temperature, and more are all things that change wildly between growers. So it stands to reason that even the most stable of phenotypes can be made less stable due to these changes.

Hopefully this is a good starting look at the basics of genetics and how they play into your growing. Please feel free to add or correct information as necessary.
socket Reviewed by socket on . phenotypes for beginners I'm still a beginner myself, but I've been a little confused about the way people use the term phenotypes when talking about seed suppliers. So I did some research for myself and wanted to share. If any experts would help me along or correct any bad information I would be grateful for that. So lets start with the most obvious question. What is a phenotype? Boiled down to an overly simple answer it's basically any distinct trait about an organism you can observe and classify. This Rating: 5