[DeMonet]

I'm embarking on my first pollen chuck, having collected some pollen from one male, and I'm about to flower two more males in my tent in order to collect and store that pollen as well.

I've kept pretty good notes on all plants involved, male and female. Some (a couple of MK-Ultras) pre-flowered well before the others, explosively so. In terms of size and vigor, they're well nicer than the other 2 females, which took much longer to show their sex. In fact, I had them in the male tent for awhile before they showed. In fact in fact, I'm still not sure about one of them.

Anyway, does this early pre-flowering imply anything about them, apart from the tendency to pre-flower when exposed to some stress, like low light or being rootbound?

Thanks in advance for any comments and guidance!

[Dropped Cat]

My opinion is the males that preflower in veg are iffy, and females
that preflower in veg can be difficult to root cuttings.

More to the story than my simple observations, and other members
will hopefully add to the discussion.

Good thread.

[troutman]

Maybe you can use them to breed with to try to speed up the average flowering time.

Other than that, I can't see anything good with them as later males tend to be better.

[WelderDan]

Other than the convenience factor, I haven't noticed any correlation between early pre-flowering and quality of product. But then again, it's not something I really pay attention to.

[stim]

I have always steered clear of early flowering males as a rule of thumb. I also do not like large stud males. I believe these are hemp characteristics! I prefer the apically stacked tightest nodal spacing, smallest (without being a runt of course) and latest flowering males for my breeding. I want the women to be the stars. Pre flowering can also be a condition of blue lighting and phytocrome red and far red response. If there is no red or far red light flowering is not retarded in the plants. It is the dark time that the plants use to signal flowering when they see red and far red their phytocrome helps them stop flowering that is why more dark means flower time to the plants. So if you aren't blasting just blue light in veg then you truly know who are/is the faster/fastest preflowering plant/s you have.

[djonkoman]

I'm not sure. but at the moment I'm somewhat sellecting against the earliest flowering ones in a cross I made.
my reasoning is that I guess/suspect early flowering(based on the number of nodes present when I first see flowers, not based on time passed since germing) indicates a shorter juvenile period(I'm growing them behind a window, so they're on flowershedule right away from seed, so they don't really preflower but go straight into real flowering).
I'm working with some early outdoorstrains, and last year I had some issues with plants starting to flower right after plantout on guerilla, before the longest day, then revegging(some revegged and eventually reflowered fine, one was a leafy mess I threw in the hashbin, and some stuck to flowering and gave an early mini-harvest).
while the later strains were ok. so I have 2 solutions for that issue: either I plant out the earliest strains later(towards the end of may or in june), or I try to breed a strain that's still early, but with a longer juvenile period so it can be planted out earlier without starting to flower before june 21.

no idea yet if it will work, but that's my reasoning to select against the ones that already show flowers at the 3-4th node.

however it also has it's uses, my experiences with early outdoorstrains is that they consistently show preflowers around the 6th node(can be between the 6th-8th node, but usually I can sex them at the 6th node). that makes it very easy to sex plants before planting out on guerilla, so I don't have to visit to remove males.

I personally exclude males who are too quick.
then I evaluate the remaining males.

[argo430]

i believe early flowering plants show the dominate traits of the plant and the later to show hold the more recessive genes but it's just an observation.

recessive males are the best.

[bigbadbiddy]

Originally Posted by ~Papillon~

recessive males are the best.

citation needed

That is an opinion, not a fact and it is based on ....... what exactly?

The explicit preference to use recessive males in breeding imho stems from a lack of understanding and ability to judge males by breeders who do this. It is the same line of thinking as with feminized seeds.

"Meh, identifying a "good" male requires me to grow out how many generations of progeny? And compare them with each other and make selections and inbreed and LABEL AND CATALOGUE EVERYTHING ALONG THE WAY ?!?! no please and thank you, give me that recessive male or colloidal silver so I can just focus on the female cause the female I can judge muuuuuuch easier!".