Shaggy's Guide to Hormones used in Cannabis

You can only push genetic so far before you see a negative result.
Some strains more ...........some less!!!
Thanks for your input!
shag

GSPfan said:

It just means that we need to be educated on the subject. Everything when not used reponsibly can hurt you. I think the same could be applied to hormones in plants. But, like humans, I think the hormones would be best used for repairing and helping weak plants instead of making a plant resemble Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime.

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I agree I just want to nudge a plant into the form I desire!!!

im interested if anyone ever got any where with enhancing production of trichomes (sorry us old timers grew up saying crystals im not always bound to exclusively using the appropriate academic botanical terms). did anybody playing with that specific parameter of influence through plant hormones get a usable regimen down on any single pheno that didnt make the plants go wonky? is it worth it to try to force higher trichome production?

(Comments in red)

xxxstr8edgexxx said:

im interested if anyone ever got any where with enhancing production of trichomes.

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Hi xxxstr8edgexxx

I'm also interested in peoples results on increasing trichome & terpene production, very keen , but it's hard to get exact numbers/PPM's on how much of a given hormone or hormones someone has used to increase trichome production.

Hormones aren't the only substances that are known to increase trichome production.
the ones that I know of are:
1. Potassium Silicate
2. Methyl Jasmonate (Works with Gibberellin)
3. Gibberellins (controversial results due to unobtainable suitable PPM)

Potassium Silicate has been known to increase trichome formation. (Not a hormone)
Source: http://bigbudsmag.com/grow/article/use-potassium-silicate-get-more-thc-trichomes-march-2012

xxxstr8edgexxx said:

did anybody playing with that specific parameter of influence through plant hormones get a usable regimen down on any single pheno that didnt make the plants go wonky? is it worth it to try to force higher trichome production?

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Not yet. But I have just applied Potassium Silicate, so I'll report in a few days if there is any noticeable jump in trichome production.

I have Gibberellins but can not use the hormone yet because I don't have (MeJa) Another hormone) to use it with, yet.
When I get my hands on some Methyl Jasmonate (MeJa) I will begin applications to see whether these hormones do increase trichome production and terpene production.

Here is a good link on the topic called Gibberellin + Jasmonic Acid = more Trichomes?
Link: https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=200972

Side Note "Gibberellin and jasmonic acid together will have a synergistic effect on both trichome number and density, Jasmonic acid is also responsible for increasing THC within the trichome.
GA-3 increases the size of the trichome/resin glands allowing MeJe to increases THC & terpenes within them.

xxxstr8edgexxx said:

is it worth it to try to force higher trichome production?

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I don't see it as forcing, just maximizing what it could all ready do under optimal conditions & I believe it is worth it also just for the sake of experimentation, I don't mind experimenting & making mistakes, because then I can report back my results & people will benefit & progress the art of cannabis cultivation

xxxstr8edgexxx said:

im interested if anyone ever got any where with enhancing production of trichomes (sorry us old timers grew up saying crystals im not always bound to exclusively using the appropriate academic botanical terms). did anybody playing with that specific parameter of influence through plant hormones get a usable regimen down on any single pheno that didnt make the plants go wonky? is it worth it to try to force higher trichome production?

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Please read the entire post!!
As I have spent tons of time on it already and it is not complete.

I will not be updating this guide with the latest information on a regular basis...So do check back and reread if need be...Please

All those that can dispute anything at all in this guide ...please speak up....it was made for the purpose of learning the truth and sharing it with others!!

"Any who wish to profit himself alone from the knowledge given him, rather than serve others through the knowledge he has gained from learning, is betraying knowledge and rendering it worthless"

shag

i personally love the results a 20-20-20 does vs a diff nute profile.

silica and calmag should be staples calmag being the most used one.

Salt concentration varies but less is better. (experiment and increase as plants tell you)

also an increase in temperature will put these regulators working more (increased plant metabolism)

I see everyone is a big tria fan. That being the case increase c02 concentraton in room too see max results.

Do you foliar your regulators on?

@ shaggy

i use growmore 20-20-20 with added botanicare calmag @ 5ml per gallon. i dilute the 20-20-20 from powder to a liquid concentrate.

i use the calmag all the way till last 2 weeks of flower i have not tried other sources of calcium.

my temps in the summer reach 93 and i notice no ill effects just more water consumption.

Hew Shaggy I love your thread. I like the charts/graphs and the scientific explanation. I just got some Florel and want as much info as possible.

Hey Shaggy,

I looked thru the thread but wasnt able to find the measurements I need. I may need to look into ratios maybe. I am not sure.

I will keep looking or possibly someone will chime in with an answer.

Thanks

BayBHuey

Amazing fookin thread.
Keep up the great work!
V.i.t.r.i.o.l.

Interesting.....
here is how I used Ethephon:
-SamS

Fertile female flowers can be induced in male plants by ethephon (2-chloroethanephosphonic acid) and NIA 10637 (ethylhydrogen-l-propylphosphonate). Interestingly, stamens could be seen arising even from fruits. Stopping the application of growth regulators caused the plants to revert to their original sex. We hypothesized that in Cannabis, GA and ethylene act as male and female hormones respectively, and that the expression of sex is controlled by a balance between their endogenous levels. Abscisic acid (ABA) is able to overcome the GA induced male flower formation (Mohan Ram and Jaiswal 1973; Mohan Ram and Sett 1985).

Mohan Ram H Y and Sett R 1985 Cannabis sativa; in CRC
handbook of flowering (ed. Halevy A H) (Boca Raton: CRC
Press) Vol. II, pp 131–139

Mohan Ram H Y and Jaiswal V S 1973 The possible role of
ethylene and gibberellins in flower sex expression of Canna-
bis sativa; in Proceedings of 8th International Conference on
Plant Growth Substances (Tokyo: Hirokawa Publishing Co)
pp 987–996172


Although many environmental groups worry about toxicity resulting from use of growth hormones and fertilizers, the toxicity of ethephon is actually very low, and any ethephon used on the plant material is converted very quickly to ethylene.

XY = male
XX = female

Females turned to male have only XX so when bred to a normal female XX the result is always XX, female. The change to male is not genotypic it is phenotypic expression. The female is not permanently changed to to male, the genes have not changed.

Males turned to female are XY so when bred to a normal male XY the results are half the seeds are XY male, and 25% are XX female, And 25% YY male if they can survive, because YY often do not. Again the change to female is phenotypic not genotypic expression. The male is not permanently changed to female, the genes have not changed.
Get it?

Try this , use XY x XY as the parents.
http://scienceprimer.com/punnett-square-calculator
Cross:
Punnett Square

XY × XY


..........X......Y
X.......X/X....Y/X
Y.......X/Y.....Y/Y



Genotype Probability
sex X/X 25.00%
sex X/Y 50.00%
sex Y/Y 25.00%


Genotype Frequencies:
XX: 1 ( 25% ) female
XY: 2 ( 50% ) male
YY: 1 ( 25% ) male if it lives

Maybe you need to find or make a super male YY and cross it times a normal XX female, you should get all XY, male? I think so.
That is a technique commonly used in asparagus breeding. The male is the desired sex in asparagus production so breeders find a superior YY male and cross it with a superior female so that all resulting seeds are male. As you mentioned it remains to be seen if YY males would even survive/ germ/ reproduce in cannabis. I imagine it would be easy enough to figure out by sexing a thousand plants and checking your male/female ratio... who knows YY males may even look different than normal males.

Producing YY males may have countless uses. In breeding and evaluating genotypes... etc.

So today I sprayed a male clone with ethephon, 1ml to 1 liter of water.
I will see what happens...
999 ppm is I think, the same as 1 ml to a liter of water. This is what I used, 1ml. It is pure ethephon from Bayer, but it is a liquid so it is not actually pure. And that will screw up my numbers, but I did a start anyway. Sounds like the real ppm will be maybe half what I thought?

Ethrel (ethephon 480 g as/L) is what the label says.
Ethephon @ 750 ppm sprayed once/week for three weeks. The effect was such as to produce pistills enough for making seeds, which was my only goal- to create male selfs and male:male seeds for use in breeding/research- ie towards the development of pure XY lines. The above mentionned regimen is sufficient to that end.

I have not used the technique for testing males via their 'pistillate characteristics' in the purest sense, although the plants clearly showed 'pistillate characterists' in the appearance of their resin profiles/smell etc.

I imagine continual application up to 6 weeks for most WLD indica individuals would be sufficient to produce femlae 'buds' on the male plant but further research is clearly in order. The plants I was working with never recieved enough light/space/energy to produce buds and thus truly evaluate the females by smoking.

Once the plants were were fertilized I stopped the applications of ethephon (ethylene as a primary of the 7 plant hormones has many many functions in the plant and I didn't want to interfere with seed development). Of course the fertilization dramatically slowed further floral development as the plants directed their energy into the devellopment of seed. I suspect continued applications combined with more light and space would produce larger floral clusters than shown in the included pic (below).

The 'booseted' regimen would surely produce enough floral mass for use in GC/MS applications for Cannabinoid and Terpinoid analysis quantification/analysis, as you can see even the seeded pistillate clusters produced enough mass for GC testing.

I found some stuff here in the US in one pint bottles that's readily available and cheap.It goes by the brand name FLOREL-(Ethephon[(2-chloroethyl)phosphonic acid]).According to the product label it contains .33 lbs. Ethephon per gallon which roughly works out to a little over 30 gm/l.I see you're using 1 ml per litre of 480 gm/l so I guess I can use about 16 ml/l to achieve the same result?Ebay has it for about $20 US with shipping.

Well my first attempt at transforming a male into female was not successful, I used 1ml to 1 liter of water. I will try again with 2-5ml in 1 liter of water.
My male clone had two main stems, I treated one and left the other untreated. The treated branch did not flower, male or female, the untreated branch did flower male as normal.
Chimera had suggested my ethephon levels were to low, I bet he was right.
I will try again shortly and post the results.
-------------------------------------------------------
1 ml per liter of water, sprayed 3 times, first time first day of flowering, second a week later, third a week later. Try not to spray all the leaves as it will kill them, just spray the areas where sexual traits will show.
Here is the male plant at just over 3 weeks flowering. It first started to make male flowers then they turned mostly female, over 90%.
It can be used, and with careful use you don't have to spray and burn the leaves, just spray where sexual organs will form.
I will see how good the flowers turn out.


I did finish the plants.
They are very resinous and very strong smelling, sweet by the way, not surprising.
I will try smoking them soon, but as a non-pot smoker, I am only doing for science.
They are almost dry and did set some seed that I made by turning the top of the male clone to female and using the pollen from the bottom male flowers to pollinate the "female" flowers. The seeds should be 25% YY super male if I am lucky. If I breed with these to a normal XX female all the seed produced should be XY, male.

So I did smoke a few bongs of the female flowers from the transformed male, sweet, great taste and smell, great potency, typical Skunk #1. I also ground up the rest and made one bong of resin, total FMCD, but not quite as good as my best female Skunk#1 resin.
This method can be used both for judging what smells and tastes are passed on by males as well as the type of high and strength.

If I did it again I would do it as early as I can in the growing season, I would not spray any of the leaves just the sexual parts or where they will be. I would also spray once a week for at least 5 weeks maybe more for late flowering varieties. And I would use pollen from a different variety male to make the seeds instead of selfing with the same plant. But as I have said I am not sure if there is any reason to do this, other then I can. As for using the technique for judging the males contribution to a cross, this works easy, although, the flowers produced were wimpy, they were well frosted and the smells were all there, as well as type of high and strength. I hope people use this to help breed better plants and to help people reach their goals all that much faster.

All I judged is the smell taste and the strength of the high, it was not fair to judge other traits with transformed males to female.

Stress testing for intersex:
Photoperiod disorders. Light leaks.
Photoperiod shock from 20 hours light to 8 and back up to 20.
Lumins disorders, too high or too low of lumins.
Too Hot or Cold.
Too Wet or Dry, air or soil.
Nutrients out of wack, to much or to little.
Pruning shock, plant or roots.
Transplant shock.
Insect shock.
Disease shock.

Male clones transformed to Female to judge male smoking qualities

Use Ethrel (ethephon 480 g as/L) it breaks down to Ethylene
1 ml per liter of water, sprayed 3 times, first time first day of flowering, second a week later, third a week later. Try not to spray all the leaves as it will kill them, just spray the areas where sexual traits will form.

Do not spray any of the leaves just the sexual parts or where they will be formed. I would also spray once a week for at least 5 weeks maybe more for late flowering varieties. As for using the technique for judging the males contribution to a cross, this works easy, although, the flowers produced were small and wimpy, they were well frosted and the smells were all there, as well as type of high and strength.
It can be used, and with careful use you don't have to spray and burn the leaves, just spray where sexual organs will form.

Use Ethrel (ethephon 480 g as/L) it breaks down to Ethylene
1 ml per liter of water,
1 ml per liter of water, sprayed 3 times, first time first day of flowering, second a week later, third a week later. Try not to spray all the leaves as it will kill them, just spray the areas where sexual traits will show.
Here is the male plant at just over 3 weeks flowering. It first started to make male flowers then they turned mostly female, over 90%.
It can be used, and with careful use you don't have to spray and burn the leaves, just spray where sexual organs will form.
I would also spray once a week for at least 5 weeks maybe more for late flowering varieties. As for using the technique for judging the males contribution to a cross, this works easy, although, the flowers produced were small and wimpy, they were well frosted and the smells were all there, as well as type of high and strength.

excellent thread Shaggiballs and nice repost of information and experience Mr Skunkman, too bad chemical products like etephon are restricted, i cant buy it in my country until iam a professional of horticulture/agriculture...

Thanks Sam

Your input is always highly regarded!

That is some really great information you shared!
I will reread it again now....probably later and tomorrow also.
Thank you again for your contribution!
Shag

Thanks for sharing!

thanks sam and shaggy. this is extremely helpful and extremely well timed info. i am about to have a bunch of various archive seeds males and would love to breed some crosses with them. i was intimidated by male selection relying on running out progeny for verifying the male as well as the process of reversing males for discernable characteristics. in the past i have had mixed results doing outdoor seedsaving by selecting m,ales for structure and whatever smell i can get. i will employ this protocol wne i run this next faceoff pheno hunt.

Sam_Skunkman said:

Interesting.....
here is how I used Ethephon:
-SamS

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Tag

Hi Shag,
Not sure if you already know this pages... if you don't, you might love them!
Abscisic acid
Auxins and more about auxins
Cytokinins
Ethylene
Gibberellin

And there's a lot more, also about photoperiodism and light reactions etc.