b"grow cannabis outside of greenhouses and warehouses, disease resistance definitely factors into his breeding program. If you have a cultivar thats a superstar in every other dimension but shows a susceptibility to disease, generally you need to breed a hybrid combining the best traits of that plant with the hardiness of another, more disease-resistant cultivar, he notes. Then a selection process needs to happen to zero in on the versions of the new hybrid, combining the highest disease resistance with the other desirable traits. Once thats achieved, you still need to stabilize by continually backcrossing the new cultivar over multiple crop cycles. NEW VARIETY DEVELOPMENTIndeed, genetic stabilization in Morphys view is considered one of the brass rings of achievement among todays canna-bis breeders across the world. He explains that for a long time, producers operating in the underground market generally did not strive for stabilization, a problem which still lingers today.These breeders continually pushed for better yields and higher cannabinoid percentages but did not settle on one phe-notype and stabilize it through multiple generations of back-crossing and selective breeding, he says. Over the past 20 or 30 years, breeding in North America was very much aboutCannabis seedlings, ready to be transplanted. (Photo: Dutch Passion)creating new strains, where first generation (F1) genetics were bred with other F1s and still other F1s. Once a strong phenotype was identified, it was cloned for production rather than bred for stabilized seeds. So, in contrast to traditional agricultural products like corn, where you get a pack of seeds for one cul-tivar and they all grow exactly the same, you cant find a pack of cannabis seeds these days where every seedling or plant it produces grows identically.This, he explains, has created a legacy of genetic instability that the legal cannabis market is still grappling with, since much of the source genetics for now-legal production originated from the black market. Its impossible to get a really stable strain without putting in a tremendous amount of work, with many cycles of backcrossing and selection using a large number of plants, Morphy reports. This is a watershed moment in the history of cannabis genetics as the industry is achieving the scale required achieve high levels of stabilization. Eventually, producers will be able to plant a field and all of the plants will be uniform. But the reality is that right now, most producers are still at the F1 stage with their production genetics.It is an interesting paradox, in Morphys view, since theChad Morphy, one of the lead breeders at GreenSeal Cannabis.original genetics of most cannabis plants comes from landrace(Photo: GreenSeal Cannabis)cultivars which were grown and stabilized over many generations of backcrossing in countries like Afghanistan and Thailand. The landrace genetics have been washed out now by all of the hybrids-of-hybrids-of-hybrids that have been created over the last few recent decades, he says, and its ironic that the proliferation of cannabis genetics worldwide has actually reduced genetic sta-bility and not increased it. We believe it should be an important mission for todays growers to return to these best practices.TIME TO STABILITYSwiss Cannabinoid just started marketing its Matterhorn CBG cannabis seeds in April 2020, and Ghidossi says it took him three years to get it stable and ready for mass production. How long it takes to make a stable variety really depends on what genetic material you start working with, he notes. It's all about patience and trying different solutions.According to Llos, it generally takes two to five years to develop a stable new variety. His approach to genetic stabili-zation is not to necessarily work just with male varieties, but sometimes feminised ones as well. But mostly we work with clones in order to achieve stabilization, he explains, repeatingCannabis plants. (Photo: Swiss Cannabinoid)the same crosses with the same individuals. EUROPEAN-SEED.COMIEUROPEAN SEED I 7"