Choosing a keeper

How do you do it? If the initial seed run throws nanners and doesn't smoke like the rainbow colored unicorn one was hoping for does it get trashed or do you still keep cuts and try to do it better, does one simply say this strain doesn't work well with my dwc and not try it in soil

People complain about people doing seed grow reviews on only a couple seeds, so what if they grew a whole pack but only grew it once? How many bad reviews are there because people think they're a master grower and didn't like the way a plant came out on their first try

Don't bother keeping cuts of hermie stock.

Get more seeds and grow again.

We all have setbacks and the best of us move on, and grow on.

mexweed said:

How do you do it? If the initial seed run throws nanners and doesn't smoke like the rainbow colored unicorn one was hoping for does it get trashed or do you still keep cuts and try to do it better, does one simply say this strain doesn't work well with my dwc and not try it in soil

People complain about people doing seed grow reviews on only a couple seeds, so what if they grew a whole pack but only grew it once? How many bad reviews are there because people think they're a master grower and didn't like the way a plant came out on their first try

Click to expand...

Depends what criteria is being applied I think.
As a breeder one would have to be ruthless , with a list of must have traits, gender stability being one of them.
For average grower trying to find that special plant that meets the big 3 in criteria it's not so difficult. Yield, Potency, Flavor..... If you can find that one plant that offers all 3 , there's your keeper.

It is grower subjective though and sometimes a keeper just isn't found in one pack of seeds. There are breeders out there that aren't satisfied with thier work unless an "average grower keeper" is found in every pack.

Dropped Cat said:

Don't bother keeping cuts of hermie stock.

Get more seeds and grow again.

We all have setbacks and the best of us move on, and grow on.

Click to expand...

Why you cull these?
Chem genetics= hemie genes
Cookie genetics= hermie genes
Diesel= hermie genes
GG4= hermies genes

It's personal a choice. I'm re-running a hermie I got from heavy chem genetics chem D x (chem 4 x chem D ibl) I have 2 other sisters that show no male flowers.
It's somethig to be aware of because cannabis plants are naturally hermaphrodite, which we breed away from. And try to avoid inducing through stress.
For me the basis of a keeper depends on my goals, personally I need medicine so it very personal and effect based and how much I just can't get enough of it. Now if your growing for other people then that would be different and you may need to take dufferent things into account for what constitutes a 'keeper'

there is a difference between a hermaphrodite and a plant that expresses late nanners. Late expression is what i figure has given way to many unintended seed lines.... it is called rhodelization , not hermaphroditism. Big difference in my opinion.

The answer is easy-

Keep YOUR favourite until you find something better, there's no reason to throw away the best you have until you find something better, is there?

Tynehead Tom said:

there is a difference between a hermaphrodite and a plant that expresses late nanners. Late expression is what i figure has given way to many unintended seed lines.... it is called rhodelization , not hermaphroditism. Big difference in my opinion.

Click to expand...

Cool thanks Tom now I know that I don't have to put a bag over my head in public from the shame of some of my genetics showing male flowers at 8 weeks and beyond.
Besides late expression the genetics I listed and relatives of them can herm, not at the end but at any time due to stress (or not even perceivable stress. What do you call that? They have hermie genes right

Edit: I thought it were the case that wild cannabis had a high rate of hermaphrodism and the domestication selection pressure has been to rid this from the genepool. I've never seen wild cannabis so I wouldn't know.

I have struggled with this. Some of the best smoke of my life is from a hermy plant. Has anyone tried Monterrey Florel for herms? I tried that Switch stuff and it didnt help at all. At this point when I am pheno hunting I try to be more ruthless. Ive had my curiosity bite me in the ass and seed a whole room creating a nightmare. I run dwc for flower. When i am testing seeds, i veg them out and simply fill a bucket with water and throw a hugo block in it. I fill it with nutes from any dwc res and just keep it topped up w an air pump and stones going. Its basically a janky yet very mobile nft. Once i can see who is hermy or male i can cull them without them needing to be scrogged or taking up any big real estate in the room. They never finish as productive or high of quality until they see my dwc. I pick through the girls and they get their shot. After a run or two with the stable girls IN dwc i decide who stays or gets the chop. Any harmful herming, i toss them, meaning if it led to any pollination(white seeds or ripe ones). Some of the karma sour bx2 i just ran had a few nanners but only one caused any pollination that took, shes already gone. Stabilizing the strains going forward will lead to a more stable genetic pool in the future.

what drives me crazy is I make a cross to create something new to work with or to combine flavors I like.... I send out some testers to friends and they grow them with no issue. I grow the same beans and they hermie on me around week 5 LOL drives me nuts as I think it must be something I am doing to stress the plants.

I'm no expert on these things but to avoid hermie or rhodelization traits , it is my belief that one must stress test 'both' the males and females one plans to work with before making a batch of seed with them. Stress them with light leaks, temperature highs and lows, bug resistance , drought stress, overwater stress and PH extremes.
I would throw it out there that most breeders are not doing these stress tests

I have reduced the amount of hermies by pollinating the pre-flowers with true male pollen early in veg. It appears that a plant is less likely to herm when its carrying a few true male seeds.

Regarding the Florel, has anyone tried it to reduce herms flowers?

Isn't it obvious that a plant that herMiEs are a danger to a breeder who has numerous strains growing
It seems weird when conversations turn to landraces that herMiEs are regarded as a kind of fatal flaw but it's ok when Chem strains do the same thing.
Just an observation

.............. said:

Why you cull these?
Chem genetics= hemie genes
Cookie genetics= hermie genes
Diesel= hermie genes
GG4= hermies genes

It's personal a choice. I'm re-running a hermie I got from heavy chem genetics chem D x (chem 4 x chem D ibl) I have 2 other sisters that show no male flowers.
It's somethig to be aware of because cannabis plants are naturally hermaphrodite, which we breed away from. And try to avoid inducing through stress.
For me the basis of a keeper depends on my goals, personally I need medicine so it very personal and effect based and how much I just can't get enough of it. Now if your growing for other people then that would be different and you may need to take dufferent things into account for what constitutes a 'keeper'

Click to expand...

The OP didn't say what genetics he growing.

If he was popping:

Chem genetics
Cookie genetics
Diesel
GG4

Then I agree that tweaking grow techniques are beneficial,
and not to blindly toss the mum plants, if the genetics are worthy.

But if he flipped a bunch of generic plants that showed intersex from
the beginning, then my post is relevant.

Let the OP chime in with more details, and we'll go from there.

Im'One said:

Isn't it obvious that a plant that herMiEs are a danger to a breeder who has numerous strains growing
It seems weird when conversations turn to landraces that herMiEs are regarded as a kind of fatal flaw but it's ok when Chem strains do the same thing.
Just an observation

Click to expand...

With Chem you could guess that all the work was done in Afghanistan by farmers as a subsistence crop. But who knows.
Im pretty sure Karma tried his best with the Sour Diesel stock he has but couldn't completely clean the line yet.

all of those strains listed are chem strains lol, I didn't really start the thread to ask what I should be looking for in a keeper, more so for people to share what they look for/their criteria, and also to bring up the issue of negative reviews when a strain might not have been given a proper chance

I'm growing some white dawgXgoji og and stardawgXspace queen, the white dawg goji had some full on male flowers on some lowers but there has also been some heat stress, I'm definitely going to run the cuts I have taken but will ultimately have to wait to see how they smoke

Choosing "a keeper" also requires an investment on many plants (25-500) to observe, catalog, look for traits you want to pass on to future generations.

A keeper is picked because it's a good marijuana plant, not because you grew ton of seeds and you picked the best out of those.If the seed line is garbage you can grow thousands of seeds and still wouldn't find keeper-quality in them.

If the plant isn't good smoke when grown in hydro, it won't be top smoke when you grow the same plant in soil. There isn't that much difference in the growing style. The plant needs to be a top plant to begin with.


I bought a 5 pack of Barney's CBD Critical Cure, grew out one seeds and now it's my keeper. I still have 4 seeds in the fridge. Much better looking plant than Barney's have pictured on their website of this line. Strong medicine. It's a 10-11 week strain, i've flowered her to 16-17 weeks a couple of times, over watered her, temps too high, abit over fed and she has never grown a banana on her buds. Top plant. Stable plants seem to be a rarity.

My Black Domina keeper is the only female i got out of half a pack of seeds and it's one of the best indicas i have ever smoked. i still have 5 seeds in the fridge. Grows few nanners a week before harvest but only few.

How many Chem seeds there were originally?


Then again..
When i was looking for male to Bx to my CBD Cure keeper, i grew over 200 seeds and only found one male that was really the quality, terps and looks i was looking for.
So some times the keeper is the first and only seed you grow, sometimes you need over 100 seeds to find the one.


My CBD Critical Cure

My Black Domina (Ortega-pheno)

I agree, you don't HAVE to grow hundreds of seeds to find a 'keeper'.... if you find one that you REALLY like out of a few seeds- keep it, until you find one better (if you want to keep looking).... but if the one you found checks all the boxes that make you satisfied, your mission is complete.

Choosing YOUR keepers is completely dependant on what YOUR mission is.

Aridbud likes to breed, and has for quite some time, so what he is looking for may be very specific, and he may enjoy looking through huge numbers of plants to find exactly he's looking for, while someone else might just want a decent yielder of 'dank' which is easy to find.

mexweed said:

all of those strains listed are chem strains lol, I didn't really start the thread to ask what I should be looking for in a keeper, more so for people to share what they look for/their criteria, and also to bring up the issue of negative reviews when a strain might not have been given a proper chance

I'm growing some white dawgXgoji og and stardawgXspace queen, the white dawg goji had some full on male flowers on some lowers but there has also been some heat stress, I'm definitely going to run the cuts I have taken but will ultimately have to wait to see how they smoke

Click to expand...

Is cookies a chem strain?
You could say they're all skunk strains lol.

GoatCheese said:

A keeper is picked because it's a good marijuana plant, not because you grew ton of seeds and you picked the best out of those.If the seed line is garbage you can grow thousands of seeds and still wouldn't find keeper-quality in them.

If the plant isn't good smoke when grown in hydro, it won't be top smoke when you grow the same plant in soil. There isn't that much difference in the growing style. The plant needs to be a top plant to begin with.


I bought a 5 pack of Barney's CBD Critical Cure, grew out one seeds and now it's my keeper. I still have 4 seeds in the fridge. Much better looking plant Barney's have pictured on their website of this line. Strong medicine. It's a 10-11 week strain, i've flowered her to 16-17 weeks a couple of times, over watered her, temps too high, abit over fed and she has never grown a banana on her buds. Top plant. Stable plants seem to be a rarity.

My Black Domina keeper is the only female i got out of half a pack of seeds and it's one of the best indicas i have ever smoked. i still have 5 seeds in the fridge.

How many Chem seeds there were originally?


Then again..
When i was looking for male to Bx to my CBD Cure keeper, i grew over 200 seeds and only found one male that was really the quality, terps and looks i was looking for.
So some times the keeper is the first and only seed you grow, sometimes you need over 100 seeds to find the one.


My CBD Critical Cure
View Image
My Black Domina (Ortega-pheno)
View Image

Click to expand...

Another way to look at is - as well as making the 1:1 with your chosen male- but to have selected and used many more males to maintain diversity and then you would have good seed stock. Then you can go back within the pool. Because the true test is what's within the progeny. Even though picking the male is all you can do, it still could be the wrong one.

Hi, ........


I'm not taking a piss, so i hope you won't get offended and i'm not aiming this at you..


But this "open pollination"-thing seems to be a fad going around the boards these days or maybe i just happen to bump into those comments quite often these days, don't know.. But sure, it's a valid method in soma case and/or at some point, but it seems to me that this suggestion is thrown around too often and many times people seem to forget the bad things this might do to your line = breeding in bad traits you've missed.


For a Bx-project, I agree that it is wise to use more than one male for safety/back up/diversity ...if you'll find more than one usable male, that is ..but i'd use these separately, not by open pollination. You can always mix the best lines afterwards if you used the males separately, but if you breed in bad traits from a dodgy male or two that slipped in among the other males you used in the open pollination, you can then accidentally pick genes from this bad male later on, which can ruin an important project or cause alot of extra work.


It's already quite difficult to find sexually stable plants to begin with out of many seeds sold today, so i don't wanna taint the seed project with possibly using a dodgy male in open pollination, if i really do find sexually stable male and female plants. These things are easy on paper or to talk about on ICMAG forum but to actually find good breeding plants is a different ball game completely.


..it's not easy to go thru 200 seeds if you live in a one room apartment and work with small cabs and a tent. Believe me. If you make 3 to 5 sets of seeds with the plants you've found the project will take me the whole year. I'm sick of it after that, no joke. It's a lot of daily work/watering when you're using tiny cups (2dl) to go thru that amount of seeds.


I understand open pollination with landraces, or if you wanna maintain/preserve an IBL-line, or if you only have few seeds to begin the project with, or in case you're planning just to pheno-hunt for top smokes and not for proper breeding.
..but especially if you're looking for a male for a Bx-project like i was, and you want to find nice bit of traits from the mother's side, so that you can find more of those traits in the Bx1-generation which is the point of the whole Bx-project, then i'd make seeds with only one male at a time.


To really sex-test males and females, Sam Skunkman suggests you should flower the plants till the plants start to die on their own, which is several weeks past their normal harvest window.

I did that with a Nevil's Haze-Vietnamese-A11 hybrid male, tall plant in a tiny cab - light hanging outside the cab (in my living room! ..yea, i'm not married ) complete drag the whole grow
..and on the 10th week of bloom the fucker started to grow female pistils! So fuck that, not doing that again, LOL, i'm not gonna sell seeds to anyone anyways. I'm using the males separately and then test grow the progeny. Usually i've flowered the males around 5-6 weeks, till i get enough pollen collected, if they hermie after than then i'll see it on the seeds it made when i grow out some females. Some males grow pistils before 6 weeks of 12/12, some don't.

About Diversity..
Most of the seeds sold today aren't stable, they are not true 'varieties', they are polyhybrids that are about just as full of different kind of phenotypes as landrace-lines = the phenos are all over the place with many indica/sativa polyhybrids being sold today, so i doubt i will be bottlenecking anything too badly if i inbreed the line for 2-3 generations using only one male per generation.
Sure, my plan is to do f2 - f3-lines of some of the Bx-generation(s) later on, if i ever get to that point, but now my goal is to stabilize the line abit. The plan is to make Bx2 lines with as many good males i can find (..till i grow tired of the project myself. LOL) and maybe then keep different kinds of Bx-lines going, if they are any good.
..Also, i'm not trying to make an exact copy of my CBD Cure keeper, thou of course i want alot of those traits in there, but i keep bottle necking and vigor in mind.


So different methods for different projects.
Peace.