Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Most Advanced Marijuana Book on the Shelf, November 29, 2005
If you are new to growing then this is not where you want to be going. So you have been warned. There are other books that are designed for beginners and advanced cannabis cultivators like "The Cannabis Grow Bible" by Greg Green (the same author as this book). However if what you want is the science of the cannabis plant from a botanical perspective with information on modern breeding concepts and how the seed/clone industry works, or if you want to expand your cannabis knowledge to the cutting edge then read on.
The book is divided into a number of sections. It starts by introducing us to the cannabis genetics market "an overview of the cannabis strain market" and explains what cannabis seeds and clones are all about and the differences between the two. It then covers the science of breeding "Basic Breeding" and explains the various principles involved. By the end of that chapter you will understand genetics and can apply these models to any living organism. The author then explains how parent plants are used to create multiple strains "Donor Parents, Pollination and Seeds" which clarifies why several strains all have similar parents, for example Kush, Masterkush, Jack Herer, Jack Flash, Blueberry and Flo, before taking about compatibility issues when attempting to breed new strains. You can see all of these different standards in action if you investigate the seed market. This book tells you how they do it. The next section of the book goes into the science of cannabis cells, DNA, evolution and mutations. Here you are shown a number of mutations that seem to occur naturally with the cannabis plant with ways of forcing mutations in the cannabis plant by using mutagens that you can buy from a local gardening store or the chemist. This is a big topic that explains all those strange things that growers see when cultivating cannabis. The process of Tissue Culture is explained and anyone who wants to try and produce several hundred cuttings from a single plant in one go without any regeneration of the mother plant can do it by experimenting with the methods outlined in that chapter. It works and involves slicing leaves into small samples for culturing in small dishes. Before you could only generate as many clones as the mother plant had branches to give up for it. Now we can slice leaves to produce much more. There are many intervals in the book where breeder's talk about their work or explain how they go about creating strains or the market is explored to find what growers have been buying and what growers like to see from their plants. There are methods here for quarantining foreign cuttings so that you do not accidentally bring plant diseases into your grow room. Gender related issues, an interesting debate that still rages on today, is explained using both scientific principles and real world growing situations. In the "The Cannabis Grow Bible" we are given methods of sex reversal for producing seeds from a female by a procedure called selfing (also covered in this book), but "The Cannabis Breeder's Bible" shows us how to actually completely reverse sex in the cannabis plant. How to turn a female into a male (note: not a hermaphrodite but an actual male plant). This is some of the most amazing cannabis knowledge you will ever read. The end section of the book is a complete morphology of the cannabis plant which talks about each part, piece by piece, a sort of `cannabis anatomy'. All the different ways that cannabis can be continued either by seeds or cloning by cloning and pollination are covered along with pollen and manual pollination techniques. You get lots of information on hormones between the pages. Polyploidy is correctly explained for the first time in any publication. There are notes of Cannabinoid Biosynthesis with some molecular structure diagrams. If you have any advanced question about the cannabis plant then "The Cannabis Breeder's Bible" is exactly where you should turn. If your question is about horticulture and cultivation then consult "The Cannabis Grow Bible".
This is a complete cannabis book full of illustrations, photographs and a huge color section. It goes into such a diverse range of cannabis topics, across the board stuff, that you will turn to it time and time again for advanced cannabis information. As a sequel to his other book "The Cannabis Grow Bible", it just goes to show how important that book is for any and all cultivators. Owning both of these books is a must for anybody who wants to have a very good cannabis reference library. You can't go wrong with both of them and knowing the information here will help better your judgement about some of the pseudoscience that is put out there by other cannabis publications. This is the one that gets it right.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Serious Marijuana (a book for all plant lovers who want advanced material), June 4, 2006
To have gone through this book and come out the other side is a profound experience, like some sort of a futuristic biology class that specialized in the stuff that gets you best baked. I would not hesitate to force any kind of plant lover to gravitate towards this book like it was about a rose bush or an apple tree. It is a progressively deeper and meaningful insight into the world of plants and the humans who care for them. On one page we are getting an illustrated history of the evolution of the cannabis plant and on the next page how to use materials to enhance the genes that make flowers big like they where back in the prehistoric ages. It is unparalleled in the way its advanced scientific information is brought out in a practical and applicable manner to your grow. The best part is that we can have it all now. The fact that Greg Green is a cotemporary makes now the best time to repeat what he is advising because you can do it the same way with the same stuff. The evidence is in the book. Nowhere else, anywhere else, has anything, even remotely addressed the kind of topics in this book, let alone experiment and produce consistent results with them. This kind of detail is avant-garde marijuana research. It is influencing and changing the way cannabis cultivation is done on daily bases.
Chapter 1: Overview of the Cannabis Strain Market
Chapter 2: Basic Breeding
Chapter 3: Donor Parents, Pollination and Seeds
Chapter 4: Compatible Breeding Models
Chapter 5: Plant Cells, Growth and Hormones
Chapter 6: The Code of Life
Chapter 7: Evolution and Mutations
Chapter 8: Tissue Culture
Chapter 9: What the Market Wants
Chapter 10: Quarantining Foreign Cuttings
Chapter 11: Breeding Talk
Chapter 12: How to Protect Your Work
Chapter 13: The Breeding lab
Chapter 14: Product Testing and Dealing with the Consumer
Chapter 15: Seed Gender, Plant Gender and Sex-Inherited Traits
Chapter 16: The Effects of Chromosome Modifications In Cannabis
Chapter 17: The Evolutionary Conduit of Dioecious Cannabis Plants on the Outcome of Inbreeding Depression with Cannabis
Chapter 18: Cannabis Plant Morphology and Breeding Traits
Chapter 19: Advanced Floral Traits
Chapter 20: Advanced Breeding Principles
Chapter 21: The Basics of Cannabis Photosynthesis Chemistry
Chapter 22: The Scientific Classification of Cannabis, Cannabinoids and Cannabinoid Receptors
Chapter 23: Force Flowering Concepts and a Correct Approach to Calyx Development
It is thanks to fresh new invigorating material like this that we are finally going to get a pause in the factory pumped out marijuana cultivation articles that get rehashed every year. For anybody who wants to be blown away by a Marijuana book, be blown away by Greg Green.
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Recommended for the amount of information, April 11, 2006
This is one of the best books about the cannabis plant I have read. It is dedicated to the science of the cannabis plant. There is some advanced growing material in here also but the cannabis plant is talked about for nearly 300 pages without getting boring. You will reference this for life.
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