[CoastalKind]

Hello ICMag people and thank you for coming to my thread.

I am growing 4 strains this year and will have the opportunity to do some breeding. However I cannot decide which male to use to pollinate the girls.

Here Are The Strains!

Hell In A Bucket = Sugaree (Grapefruit/Cinderella 99) ♀ x Gorilla Princess (Original Glue/princess 99) ♂

Granola Funk = Girl Scout Cookie Forum Cut X Wookie

Buddhas Hand = Lemon Thai Indica landrace X Snow Lotus

Blackberry Dream = (Blue Dream/Strawberry cough) X Blackberry Kush

I will grow one female of each and need to choose the male from this list to cross with all 4 of these strains.

[MJPassion]

Who's the 5th lucky lady?

I'd use 2 of those males, maybe even 3.

What are your goals?

If you just trying to make seed for your future, you might consider using a male from each variety to cross to the other 3 (or4) females as well as make a filial generation for each variety.

I'll tell ya now too,
Once you head down the road of making your own varieties you may never stop.

Smoking cannabis may not be addictive but growing it sure is... and making seed for yourself is even more so.

The seed to seed cycle of life is absolutely fascinating!

[CoastalKind]

Yes, I know. The bluedream X Blackberry kush is my own work. The bluedream x strawberry cough was gifted to me by a friend who made that cross and the blackberry kush was gifted to me by a friend who bought a bag of some killer bud that was totally seeded. I suspect the kush had one go hermi because they all came out inbred and wierd. But after crossing the best blackberry kush female with the totally out bred bluedream the F1 generation was incredibly vigorous. The only problem with it is certain phenos can be hard to trim or low yielding indica dominate plants and most of the phenos are very mold susceptible when the weather gets shitty in autumn.

I cant use more than one male because I only have one spot to do the breeding. With a limited number of plants. The landowner said he would allow 6 plants in total for the purpose of breeding. So i will have at least one of each variety and 2 of one variety.

[DoubleTripleOG]

For me it's not always about the parents of a variety, that are the deciding factor of which male I use. Rather which plant(s) possess the qualities with their outward appearance/smell that I think would add to the plants I'm making seeds in.

From my very limited experience, I've found that males with a branchy structure, and closer internodes, that more closely resemble the way a female plant looks/smells in veg make better hybrids than the "beanpole' males. Stronger skunk smelling on a stem rub, rather than just "vegetation" smell or really any kind of strong smell(fruity/chem smelling) has given me the best results.

For example, I just did a seed run. I had 4-5 different male plants that had been growing for awhile to chose from. I had a couple males with "famous, popular parents" (OG, Green Crack , Chemdog). However I chose a male from an inbred Bubblegum line for the pollen donor. He had the best structure out of all the males, smelled of pink stick gum and skunk on a stem rub. Seemed like the best choice in my opinion.

I'm far from an expert, just like to make my own seeds, and had experience to offer for you. Sometimes the "strangest sounding" crosses can turn out some really nice plants that you never thought would come from those lines. I have read and been told for the most amount of genetic combinations, using multiple males and multiple females from both sides is the route to take. My $.02

its personal preference ,
its going to depend on what your going for ? what are you trying to achieve ?

or is it a good old pollen chuck , and your just hoping for the best ? research the strains see what you want to try to pass along to the offspring .

now that being said ,
my best guess without research and not having grown any of these strains . my choice would be granola funk : why ? because wookie is renowned for terpz and gsc seems to always be great in combinations as it brings nice density , potency to buds .

then its going to come down to what traits the male has and how dominate he is , too what he passes along and comes out in the offspring .

[Betterhaff]

I remember a thread where the grower was using 1 male to pollinate a group of select females. This was back when Nevil was posting and he remarked he would do it somewhat the opposite. He said you know the females, phenotype wise, but it's harder to see what the male has to offer. His suggestion was to use numerous males to pollinate select females. His point being what if the 1 male selected didn't bring anything to the table.

[rykus]

I don't see any sort of reason or advantage in doing a pollenation of this sort...

First as was mentioned using only 1 untested male is un advisable at the best of times, second is all those potential males are fairly loose crosses, so all the resulting crosses will be likely way less consistent than the previous generation.

If it where me I would honestly try to keep as many. Males alive as I could till they start to show pre flower. I would then select three of my favourites from each variety and use them in a little group action on my favorite female(or two) of the same variety,respectively, to tighten up the cross and get a whack of F2 's to sort through...

If I had to use one male ,I guess I would select the hell in a bucket as it is the closest thing to a line bred male you have.... Still a crazy poly hybrid though...

I still just don't see the advantage of making seed till you grow out the females and see what each one needs to improve.... Doubt one male would fix many traits on 4 other varieties unless it was very planned..

That said, fuck it, making seeds is fun, I just learned after years that the poly x poly are less fun to sort. Through after for winners, lol... Still lots of cool shit to find and always fun growing your own cross.... But once ya do a few Bx 's and work a line for a season or two it can be way more rewarding, and is honestly better for the plant IMO...

Have fun

And as I always say, do what you want, you will anyways... Just remember us crochettyold fuck telling you how it is, lol

[CoastalKind]

These are all legitimate points. I wish I had the luxury of doing it more systematically and sorting through hundreds of f1s and trying to stabilize f2s and f3's. The reason I wanted 1 male and 5 females was so that I had some idea of there lineage but still had a fair amount of variety. I suppose I could use a couple of males from the same lineage.