[MileHighGuy]

Here is a SwT#4 IBL Daddy that is absolutely the sweetest smelling plant I've ever smelled... it's what I've been searching for. So, I want to make some crosses right now while I'm 22 days in on my girls in flower.

Oh, and it's just sitting inside a bedroom away from the grow getting natural sun through a south facing window...







Any advice would be great.

I want to make sure I pollinate soon enough so the seeds have time to fully develop. I will only be pollinating the bottom branches of a few select females. I want extra pollen in case I F up.

[MileHighGuy]

4 weeks of 12/12 approximately...

[SOTF420]

Hey brother, just caught this thread. Is your male showing any open pollen sacks yet?

If you want to pollinate for seed then you need to do nothing more than dust fresh pistils with his fresh pollen using a small paint brush or q-tip. You can even use your finger, the ladies love that.

You know pollen is viable and has worked after the pistils change color and wither a few days after pollination, usually like 2 or 3 days. This let's you know the pollen grain has in fact reached the precious ovule down inside the calyx and is making a new life inside This is where the sacred salad toppers come from
Then you just need to keep your ladies healthy and water them regularly and the seeds will be mature in about 35 days under normal lighting conditions. Co2 may speed up this process and I have seen big healthy mature seeds in as little as 28 days before. You will know they are mature when they start breaking out of the calyx's and have a dark shiny surface coloring instead of a lighter green color. Not all the seeds will mature at the same rate and some will still not be fully mature at finish if you pollinate a plant in mid flower so normally for best results you want to apply pollen to the fresh white pistils right at about 3 weeks or 21 days flowering for most strains that take 8 or 9 weeks to flower. Some Sativa based strains obviously can be pollinated later as they take longer to show ample pistils. If you fully pollinate a plant do not plan on getting much smoke from it once all is said and done although it can be great for making hash afterwards. A gram of Sweet Tooth seeds is about 35 seeds and if you grew 1 oz of fully seeded buds roughly half this total weight would be seeds if fully pollinated so that could potentially give you 14 grams of seeds x about 35 seeds per gram which equals something around 500 salad toppers.

Seeds mature quite quickly and grow rapidly on a healthy plant, it's really amazing to watch it happen sometimes even I am blown away at how fast they just appear out of nowhere seemingly

With pollen though less is always more so just be careful and don't have fans going and blowing it everywhere or you will get more seeds than you wished for although in my book that is always a best case scenario They are just so tasty & crunchy you know?

For drying and storage of pollen you need to shake the fresh pollen into a few clean small white envelopes (this is what I do) and lay them flat in a slightly warm dry place for 24 hours to let the pollen dry out. I have found around 75 F is optimal with good air movement over the envelopes in the form of a small fan sucking air away from them, but RH must be low and under 50% or it will not dry out properly and will lose viability once stored. The lower the RH the better.

I cut my pollen about 50% with fresh clean organic cornstarch to help keep the pollen grains separated in storage and also to help it spread easier when applying in the future. This is not necessary but I like to do this and it works great, some people use flour but I think it's a bit too dusty and cakey for my liking. Cornstarch.

So after drying out the pollen and cutting it with some cornstarch, then each one goes into it's own freezer bag with all the air pressed out (in the sealed white paper envelope). On this I write the day and variety and so forth. Then I take that and put it in a jar with an airtight lid or you can also use one of those seal a meal machines and vacuum seal it. The idea is to have multiple packets of pollen for future usage without having to repack and reseal it which would surely cause it to lose viability after storage and then re-opening. A little pollen goes a long way if you are just making seeds for personal use, I mean the entire second Sweet Tooth #4 IBL batch I made came from like a 1/2 teaspoon of pollen or so and made thousands of big fat healthy edible seeds. That pollen was saved and stored as described above and had been frozen for a few months before usage. Pollen does not either stay 100% viable or totally lose viability either, it's going to usually be somewhere in between so store more than you need and in the future you may need to apply more than would be required with fresh pollen to get the seeds to set.

Okay, so after putting your envelope or similiar little paper packet in a freezer bag and then marking on it the contents and date (very important!) and either putting it in a jar or vacuum sealing it then it can be put in the fridge at 35 F or so if you plan to use it very soon within like 30 days I would say, otherwise just put it in the fridge for a day or two and let it come to the cold temp, then transfer it into the freezer for longer term storage. How long is uncertain, some people say it lasts for years if temps are constant and zero or below. You can also add a pack of silica or just loose silica beads to the interior of the jar or vacuum seal packet before storage if you think moisture could be an issue ever and want to ensure the longest possible storage length.

Pollen viability is very uncertain really and there are many factors involved like strain type for instance but most importantly is that it's coming from a healthy viable male to begin with and drying it and storing it properly to prevent any moisture from deactivating the pollen grains, that and light. It needs to be well dried, kept cold, and kept in the dark so it can make more tasty little round salad toppers later on when you need it again.

Other than that if there is anything I missed feel free to ask that's what I am here for!

Much love

[MileHighGuy]

WOW. Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you.

I'll let you know how things go!!

This male is the sweetest grapefruity citrusy plant I've ever smelled and I'm happy to report some fresh pollen!!

Time to pollinate before it's too late!!!

[DoobieDuck]

Mile High..nice pix..hey if I'm not too late, I bend the plant over a mirror or piece of window glass and just let it fall for a couple days. Then every couple days scoop it up with a razor blade and put in t little vial. Some people freeze it, I've done that. But fresh is best. Be sure to not have the glass in the sun where it would get to hot, direct sunlight. I use a paint brush. Peace...Good Luck..DD

[SOTF420]

Let there be salad topper making then MileHighGuy!

Please keep us updated on the grapefruity progress mang

Much love DD! Good info!

[MileHighGuy]

I pollinated These 2 C99's





I hope it all works out, I'll let everyone know how it goes when I notice some seeds.

Thanks again for all the help and support!

Peace

Damn SOTF, that's a hell of a write up

Never tried to store, but I like to collect my fresh pollen. Bend the tops to the side, place a sheet of paper underneath the tops. Collect the pollen by picking up the sheet of paper in a few days

Cotton swabs to spread it on the ladies.

I have a habit of not letting males out of beer cups though

Have fun, once you get going, your hybrids are endless

[MileHighGuy]

WOOOOOOO!!!!!!!


I See a baby Seed Forming and lot's of darker hairs in the area where I pollinated

[SOTF420]

That's fast man! Sweet Tooth pollen does kick ass though, very potent stuff!

Good job, and so the cycle of life continues and more salad toppers shall be brought into this world to help save mankind from evil and boring salads. Thank you for helping to grow & spread the good seed brother!

Keep it Grapefruity!