Genetically manipulated Cannabis

[Daniel king]

Im hoping to spark an argument with this one. not sure what section it fits best it though. I want to discuss colchicine treatment as a way to induce polyploidly in plants.
For context, colchicine is the same chemical responsible for the invention of seedless watermelons.
An incredibly rare genetic mutation, that personally I have only experienced once in cannabis, is triploidy, meaning 3 active sets of chromosomes as opposed to a standard diploid. Many growers will never experience a mutation such as this naturally in an entire lifetime.
Colchicine treatment of your cannabis seeds will kill 90% or more of treated seeds, but any seeds that do grow will have more active genetic material, making them inherently stronger and more potent than a diploid version of itself.
Furthermore, seeds produced from a quadruploid and regular diploid will result in triploid plants that will be naturally infertile to any diploid or quadruploid sperm. The triploid seeds can, infact, be further treated , resulting in hexaploidal plants which should be fertile, and inherantly better still. I have yet to discover any research that takes the chemical treatment any further than hexaploidal, but I see no reason it couldnt be repeated even further.
I definitely plan to experiment with this chemical, if I can ever get my hands on any. Even if I morally oppose genetically modified marijuana, this technique is more of a manipulation, creating a moral grey area that I have no problem pushing.

Plus I haven't seen anyone do this to any autos yet. Could be cannabis cup winning, game changing shit to autoflowering plants.

 

[Senseimillan]

Side effects [...of colchicine ingestion] include gastrointestinal upset and neutropenia. High doses can also damage bone marrow, lead to anemia, and cause hair loss. All of these side effects can result from hyperinhibition of mitosis.[14]

A main side effect associated with all mitotic inhibitors is peripheral neuropathy, which is a numbness or tingling in the hands and feet due to peripheral nerve damage. When severe, a reduction in dosage or complete cessation of the drug may be required. Microtubules are involved in vesicular transport. Peripheral nerves are among the longest in the body. Brownian motion is not significant enough in these peripheral nerves to allow vesicles to reach their destination. Thus, they are susceptible to microtubule toxins.

Toxicity[edit]
Colchicine can be toxic when ingested, inhaled, or absorbed in the eyes. Colchicine can cause a temporary clouding of the cornea and be absorbed into the body, causing systemic toxicity. Symptoms of colchicine overdose start 2 to 24 hours after the toxic dose has been ingested and include burning in the mouth and throat, fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain. This can cause hypovolemic shock due to extreme vascular damage and fluid loss through the gastrointestinal tract, which can be fatal. If the affected person does not recover, they may enter the multiple-system organ failure phase of colchicine overdose. This includes kidney damage, which causes low urine output and bloody urine; low white blood cell counts that can last for several days; anemia; muscular weakness; liver failure; hepatomegaly; bone marrow suppression; thrombocytopenia; and ascending paralysis leading to potentially fatal respiratory failure. Neurologic symptoms are also evident, including seizures, confusion, and delirium; children may experience hallucinations. Recovery may begin within six to eight days and begins with rebound leukocytosis and alopecia as organ functions return to normal.[14]

Long-term exposure to colchicine can lead to toxicity, particularly of the bone marrow, kidney, and nerves. Effects of long-term colchicine toxicity include agranulocytosis, thrombocytopenia, low white blood cell counts, aplastic anemia, alopecia, rash, purpura, vesicular dermatitis, kidney damage, anuria, peripheral neuropathy, and myopathy.[14]

No specific antidote for colchicine is known, but supportive care is used in cases of overdose. In the immediate period after an overdose, monitoring for gastrointestinal symptoms, cardiac dysrhythmias, and respiratory depression is appropriate.[14] Certain common inhibitors of CYP3A4 and/or P-gp, including grapefruit juice, may increase the risk of colchicine toxicity.[1]

Im hoping to spark an argument with this one. not sure what section it fits best it though. I want to discuss colchicine treatment as a way to induce polyploidly in plants.
For context, colchicine is the same chemical responsible for the invention of seedless watermelons.
An incredibly rare genetic mutation, that personally I have only experienced once in cannabis, is triploidy, meaning 3 active sets of chromosomes as opposed to a standard diploid. Many growers will never experience a mutation such as this naturally in an entire lifetime.
Colchicine treatment of your cannabis seeds will kill 90% or more of treated seeds, but any seeds that do grow will have more active genetic material, making them inherently stronger and more potent than a diploid version of itself.
Furthermore, seeds produced from a quadruploid and regular diploid will result in triploid plants that will be naturally infertile to any diploid or quadruploid sperm. The triploid seeds can, infact, be further treated , resulting in hexaploidal plants which should be fertile, and inherantly better still. I have yet to discover any research that takes the chemical treatment any further than hexaploidal, but I see no reason it couldnt be repeated even further.
I definitely plan to experiment with this chemical, if I can ever get my hands on any. Even if I morally oppose genetically modified marijuana, this technique is more of a manipulation, creating a moral grey area that I have no problem pushing.

Plus I haven't seen anyone do this to any autos yet. Could be cannabis cup winning, game changing shit to autoflowering plants.

Well moral arguments aside, I wouldn't let that stuff near me or my garden, potential increases in potency be damned.

However, it would be interesting to see if these new 30%+ THC strains are modified like this.

Feminizing with colloidal silver is one thing but killing off 90% of my seed genetics to breed mutants is like the fucking Avengers, and I don't need my kush to spontaneously combust in the cabinet hahaha.

 

[JanSteen]

How did you manage to test for that triploidity? I mean, I've seen cannabis plants with 3 leafs on every node, every year or so, but that doesn't mean it's triploid. It means that callus tissue differentiated in an unusual matter, but it is not a positive test for triploidity. Because after something close to 5 nodes, the plant reverts back to the original state. If the plant would be a true triploid, it would mean that all cells have those three copies, and that the entire plant should behave in such a way. I'm thinking these 3-leaved plants are genetically closer related to cell-division errors caused by snipping enzymes defects, like flatstems and duckfoots are.
I read it a lot, that people say that their plants are multiploid, but I've never seen microscope pictures or even test results to prove that.. Without those, I'm even wondering if we're not mislabeling stuff.

Apart from the dangers of colchicine, I'm wondering how - and IF - the multiploidy will be passed on. In common Violets, tetraploidy only lasts for a single generation or so, and suckers of these plants usually aren't tetraploid like the original motherplant they originated from. If memory serves me right, the same thing happens with sunflowers in future generations. I know that most crop breeders work with haploid plants, that are colchicine-induced to become diploid plants, and breed with those. Any larger number of sets, tends to be very unstable.

Morally and ethically I am not against colchicine treatment, but I'm having serious doubts about whether we should; what isn't good enough about this plant already? I mean, yields are getting better and better, size of AF's is increasing, there are various plants that have various growing times/cycles and there's a broad scala of active content variation to choose from already.
Why colchicine, and not the relatively safe CRISPR? https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170914152355.htm
I mean, you'd need a chemical safety cabinet, a fume hood, proper lab materials and protection to work with colchicine, which would cost roughly the same as doing a CRISPR protocol.
Improving plants is good, but personally I think that cannabis as it is, is pretty awesome already compared to most food crops and even bamboo. If it's size and yield you want, why not go with photo plants?

Then there's always the doubt; will plants with tetraploid sets even have increased expression of traits, or is it just an increased size-thing? If the buds would be 4x the size, the trichomes could be as well, but overall, that doesn't change the relative percentage of THC:Budweight. Since treatment increases both equally.

 

[Daniel king]

Most researchers who ive read about colchicine treatment in cannabis do advise against smoking the product of seeds directly treated with colchicine. However, despite the many known dangers of colchicine exposure in humans, it is also medicine to us. Im attaching a screen shot of dosage instructions for use against acute gout

Quoting a member from the rollitup forum here, "
To use the Colchicine, you should prepare your presoaking solution of
distilled water with about 0.10 per cent Colchicine. This will cause many of
the seeds to die and not germinate, but the ones that do come up will be
polyploid plants. This is the accepted difference between such strains as
"gold" and normal grass, and yours will DEFINITELY be super weed.

The problem here is that Colchicine is a poison in larger quantities and
bay be poisonous in the first generation of plants. Bill Frake, author of
CONNOISSEUR'S HANDBOOK OF MARIJUANA runs a very complete Colchicine treatment
down and warns against smoking the first generation plants (all succeeding
generations will also be polyploid) because of this poisonous quality."
So according to this, yes any further generations will maintain the polyploidy, and while colchicine is poisonous, it is safe for human consumption in significantly higher concentrations and doses than what are required to treat seeds. A singular human sized dose is enough to treat hundreds if not thousands of seeds, and there should be no physical presence of colchicine anywhere on or in the plant. will I risk it? if im honest, probably not. im more interested in breeding tactics, and making superior seeds, and offspring of polyploid are safe, with no doubt.
To answer about how im sure ive had a triploid, im not sure. Ill never be sure, until ive had a polyploid that ive induced, so that there is no doubt. That plant was what got me researching polyploids though, so ill be bitten by curiosity until I try it on my own.

 

[Senseimillan]

Bill Frake, author of
CONNOISSEUR'S HANDBOOK OF MARIJUANA runs a very complete Colchicine treatment
down and warns against smoking the first generation plants (all succeeding
generations will also be polyploid) because of this poisonous quality."

Do you mean CONNOISSEUR'S HANDBOOK OF MARIJUANA by William Daniel Drake Jr.?

or

The Marijuana Food Handbook: A Guide for the Sensuous Connoisseur by Bill Drake?

Thanks for the clarification, I just want to buy the right book.

 

[Daniel king]

That was pulled from the rollitup forum, although I would personally download a pdf online if I could find one, rather than spend money on a hard copy. Maybe its just me, but I dont think its right to charge for knowledge.
Nice to see a sparked interest either way, and that's the only book I find when I look for the one he mentions. Im going to look around and see if I can find a copy to share online.

 

[Senseimillan]

That was pulled from the rollitup forum, although I would personally download a pdf online if I could find one, rather than spend money on a hard copy. Maybe its just me, but I dont think its right to charge for knowledge.
Nice to see a sparked interest either way, and that's the only book I find when I look for the one he mentions. Im going to look around and see if I can find a copy to share online.

Please do, the people on amazon want over $200 for a used copy.

 

[Senseimillan]

After my initial reaction, I have to admit to being swayed towards interest rather than avoidance. I found a book at indigo titled COLCHICINE IN AGRICULTURE, MEDICINE, BIOLOGY, AND CHEMISTRY
by O J. 1908- Eigsti, Pierre Dustin

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

It's much more affordable I intend to pick it up in the future.

 

[BII]

The random-type genetic mutations caused by mutagens, such as colchicine or man-made or natural high energy radiation (UV, x-rays, gamma rays, electron beams, etc.) were for many decades used for plant breeding, before precise "genetic engineering" came along. The resulting plants, probably including many or most of the world's current commercial plant species (with GMO versions yet available for only just a few plant species) have been considered 'natural,' with these methods speeding up natural processes (such as happen all the time from cosmic rays hitting gene sequences). You can't in any way call use of colchicine, as crude as it comes, "genetically engineered or modified," with humans not intervening or controlling anything. I think you'll find even radical anti-GMO types are not concerned or even prefer good-old "natural" plant breeding methods such as colchicine.

It would be interesting, if some of the commercial breeder reps on AFN could comment about their companies' use (or not) of mutagenic chemicals, radiation and whatever agents to induce genetic modifications. Most seem totally preoccupied with cross-breeding strains, using existing rather than inducing new genetic variations.

 

[Daniel king]

I didn't manage to find a free download for the Bill Drake book, but I found a modern reprinting on amazon of it here fairly reasonably.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0914...=M0VQWZGBBECTFEACWP0V&dpPl=1&dpID=51-u7ew5odL
might pick it up one day, but for my money I might just as well find some colchicine, and kill a few seeds in the name of dank science.
and that other, extremly old book with the missing pages sounds just as interesting. I could spend the rest of my life trying to fill in the blanks lol.