BREEDERS SERIES: JESSE DODD, BIOVORTEX
AN INTERVIEW with BIOVORTEX
What's your thought process behind selecting cultivars to cross?
It's a complicated question and involves so many different variables. For example, I will look at plants that I enjoy and then I will select for desirable traits – from the male plants that I am using the pollen from and the females that I am pollinating. Some traits I look at include structure, morphology, disease, rot and powdery mildew resistance. And then of course the things that I love in plants in terms of flavor, nose, and effects as well as trichome structure. I also have to factor in when different plants mature and the end use - are they being grown for flowers or will they be a hash plant?
Breeding is very much about community for me so many of these new crosses come from projects that I do with friends. It’s always interesting because plants will of course vary by things like climate and terroir.
We learn interesting things about these plants over different seasons. For example, the Cherry Lime Dog F3 (third generation cross of cherry lime pop x black DOG) grown at Briceland Forest Farm a couple years back was bred for extreme terpene production with a bright euphoric nose (high in myrcene) coming over from the cherry lime pop (bred by Meangene). We pollinated and labeled a lower branch from each plant to make the next F4 generation. After the plants were harvested and the flowers cured, we went through each flower and evaluated the aroma, structure and flavor and chose our favorite for me to continue working with the seeds from that selected mother plant. Cherry Moon aka Cherry Lime DOG BC1F2#4 is another version of Cherry Lime DOG developed for Moon Made Farms’ that I back crossed to the original Black DOG before making the next generations. This breeding technique led to a shorter plant with balanced structure and dense frosty flowers that mature quickly and develop an aroma of floral cherries mixed with berries and gas from the Black DOG that still had the myrcene, but was accented with more ocimene and limonene. During the fires a couple of seasons ago, the Cherry Moon showed drought resistance, in the dry mountainous area, after not being watered for almost 2 weeks when Tina was evacuated. Other taller thin stemmed varieties experienced more stress from the lack of watering. This was really interesting to learn and could inform a breeding selection process in the future. The thick stems and short stature led to a more resilient plant that required less resources that was outstanding in flower production.
What are some of your current projects?
A good example of a breeding process in practice is taking place in one of my hash beds right now. (I will grow separate beds / have separate hoop houses (made from upcycled plastic waste from old cultivation sites) that are pollinated by specific males depending on my current breeding projects). Each varietal in the hash bed is a known selection for hashing. This last year I absolutely loved the GMOB (GMO x (Banana OG x SFV OG x Black Dog)) from Radicle Herbs. They thrived at the farm and developed perfect trichomes for hash while showing incredible resistance to mold and mildew despite being harvested in the cold and wet days of early november. So I decided to cross a GMOB selection with Hazelnut Cream, another tasty hash cultivar that I thought could benefit from the hashy and resistant genetics of the GMOB. GMO and Banana OG genetics have great hash properties and the GMOB plants took those properties to the next level. Working with one of my favorite hash makers Sam of Dab Logic, we selected high yielding full flavored selections to breed with for the next generations. Out of that work I chose a stand out male (GMOB 392 x GMOB BC1) to cross with the Hazelnut Cream – the idea is that I then end up with a heartier stock that has all of the flavor and hash qualities from both varieties combined. This year I chose a strong, resistant male with the desired stem rub aroma to pollinate the 11 varieties in the hash bed (Athene Sour Kush II, Motorbreath 15, Chemy Jones, Mandarin, Sherbert, Papaya Punch, Ice Cream Cake, Gmob 392, GMO, Banana OG and Hazelnut Cream).
This is turning into a fun collaboration this year with Radicle Herbs and Dab Logic. Hash plants are often grown indoors in a controlled environment, but when you can grow these plants outside, plants grown under the sun in really good soil are incredible. The GMOB hash collected from Radicle Herbs’ plants processed by DabLogic last year was the most terpene diverse varietal out of any batch Dablogic has ever seen! This is a testament to the amazing biodynamic farm as well as the genetics and hash maker. We hope to do a Biovortex x Radicle Herbs’ release this year and I am super excited for that.
[Readers note: GMOB stands for Garlic, Mushroom, Onion, Banana or Grown Men On Bikes - a joke about shady dudes on bikes in towns like Eureka]
Where does intuition come into the process?
Intuition is a big part of the process. I have an outdoor bathtub in the ferns, next to the breeding garden, and this is where many of my ideas come to fruition or when I get inspiration to try certain crosses together. It’s a time when I can have a state of mind where some of the breeding puzzles I have been wrestling with get solved. I have been growing cannabis and seeds for 25 years so my intuition is really embedded into every step of the process.
How can you tell if a male has desirable traits?
It comes down to a few factors. First is the stem rub for smell - this is a way to detect flavor and robustness of terpene development early on. Also important is the vigor and health of the plant. I am looking for things like stem rot or mildew. Because I am in a damp, humid climate, I will even put male plants close to one another in the shade and see if mildew and rot appears – those will not be used for breeding. Next, I will look at the timing of flowering; for example I might not want something that will trigger really late or too early in the season. And then of course, the structure of the male flowers. For example, I may want more of a cone / nug shape for a plant being grown for the flowers. But if the end goal is hash, then I might want an open structure with more surface area for the trichomes to come off easily in a hash extraction process. I make mini deps from recycled hoops and these are used to space out the time for pollination and also act as a physical barrier to avoid contamination.
How do varying cultivation methods affect your breeding process?
Generally, all of the farmers I work with are growing regeneratively, mainly because that is my community and the people I enjoy collaborating with. Some of these farms include Briceland Forest Farm, Moon Made Farm, Radicle Herbs, Organic Medicinals dry farmed in Shively and Green Source Gardens in Oregon. I also enjoy collaborating with the occasional indoor living soil garden like Moon Valley Cannabis in Sonoma. From a breeding perspective, having many growing cycles indoors allows us to observe and experiment with new crosses around the year in a shorter period of time than a full term cycle. It’s great for breeding choices and R&D.
What are you excited about right now?
Right now, I am collaborating with Deepak aka Irrazin with India Seed Exchange which has many seed varieties from the Pakistani / Afghanistan / India region. We crossed the Mazar-i-Sharif (a heirloom Afghan varietal) with Black Dog BC6 (6th generation backcross). The result was a true to form hybrid called St. Ashley’s Mazar aka Mazar DOG. This is turning out to be a really beautiful F1 hybrid - uniform, gorgeous, thick structure, stem, and leaves that turn dark purple underneath and a dark green topside that gives way to a black purple as she matures. Ashley was my dog who passed away and she loved to chew on the Mazar leaves, so we placed a Mazar bouquet on her grave when she passed. I then found out from Depak that “Mazar” means grave stone or shrine and Mazar-i-Sharif means grave of the saint so Mazar x Black Dog BC6 became St. Ashley’s Mazar because I planted the mother above her grave to develop the seeds. This year I am excited about the new crosses I am making with St. Ashley’s Mazar. She is one of the strongest, beautiful and resistant plants I have ever seen grow in the coastal fog and her aroma is truly unique with an indescribable sharp funk unlike any other cultivar I know. Sometimes it makes me think of smelling a Sir Marks A Lot pen as a kid. Currently, I am also in the process of breeding with heirloom hash varieties from seeds Irrazin had collected from the Quetta region in the Pakistani province of Balochistan.
What genetics do you want to see more of in the future?
I’d like to see people breeding for their own place (in terms of climate, soil, altitude, etc) and what they like in terms of effects. I love seeing collaborations born out of love and separate from commerce. Cannabis is a sacred plant that deserves our respect and the second you treat something as only a commodity you separate yourself from the sacred aspect of a spiritual plant. Smaller personal breeding projects are also a way to have a deeper relationship with plants and to learn more about nature.
In terms of the industry, I’d like to see more innovation and diversity in the future. The market will go through phases of what are ultimately great cultivars that people get tired of - think of Ice Cream Cake, Blue Dream or Gelato for example. So I’d personally love to see new flavors coming out but I think it’s important to honor those great cultivars that hit market saturation.
Who are your favorite breeders?
Mean Gene in Mendocino has an amazing memory and nose for cannabis and is so astute with observation. He has such a good brain and spirit for the work and he is just a really good dude. Deepak from India Seed Exchange is doing some of the most important work in regards to cannabis preservation and information sharing on the planet right now. He is also a great breeder and I am really looking forward to the Double Dalai x Black DOG Cross he recently made. Jason from Equilibrium is so prolific in his work and such an amazing seed collector and cannabis activist. Katie Jean of Emerald Spirit Botanicals mixes spiritual intention with scientific analytics that have led to extremely important cultivars with unique and medicinally important cannabinoids. Green Source Gardens is an Oregon-based cultivation who also does incredible breeding work and is a farm I have been sharing seeds with for a very long time so it's been cool seeing some of those genetics in their tenth generation, bred with so much love and intention. I really love seeing my plants in other peoples’ gardens.
Podcast / “Potcast” —> Long deep dive interview.