[Elevator Man]

I have two very nice-looking male Flos growing out from my last batch of seeds - see here: https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=36498

I already have two nice female phenos, with two more new ones, and I'd like to cross some male Flo with pretty much everything I have, as the starting point for some new personal lines. The thing is, there are two male phenos, one is very Blueberry-looking (the one in close-up), with very chubby leaves and straight stems. The other one looks more like a normal indica-leaning pheno. Neither of them resemble much the two female phenos so far grown, which were more sativa-leaning.

So my question is - given the extra complexity of using two separate males to cross out, would it be better to try and decide which one will ultimately prove beneficial and just use one, use both separately, or just mix the two pollens together and dose the lot with the mix? I'm hesitant to do that, as it would mask the traits more. If anyone has a clue, I'd appreciate some tips.

[SEEDYNONO]

if you've got 2 males.. and you have the space to work with.. i'd use pollen from both. pick whatever female you want to cross it with. take 2 cuts of it. grow them out. then pollenate each one with a different male flo. keep them seperated. that way you can have 2 seperate seed batches to compare and if one creates a bunch of duddy plants you will know its not worth using that male again and stick with the keeper male that gave you what you were looking for. true selective breeding take a lot of time and space but its the only way imo to do it. just chunking pollen everywhere won't help you find that special male flo plant. you must be organized and ready to test and test and document what you find and spend time growing out all the resulting batch of seeds and testing those.

i can't wait to get a flo crossed with elvis diesel. got my seeds in the mail last night and they are germing already.. looking for the best males and females from each strain so i can do some f2 lisa breeding and the flo/lisa marie crosses. i'll probably have a few males and a few females of each to play around with.

[Elevator Man]

Phew - I thought no-one would ever reply - thanks!

I think that's probably the best solution - keeping them separate. Both males look good at this stage - very solid and columnar, but with fat chubby leaves. One is much chubbier than the other though. I found all the Flos start off looking quite indica, and gradually get more sativa as they flower - the females, certainly. So I'm trying not to go too much on appearance at the moment. The main thing I like about Flo (apart from the incredibly clear high) is its flowering speed, and it's poker-straight buds.
One or two of my varieties could definitely do with some of the straightness, and increased bud density. My 'mystery mother' (I think a fast NL#5 or NL5 X Haze) would be a dream cross - it's really dieselly, but with a fragrant floral top - almost like Turkish Delight.
I'm prepared to put the time in certainly - space is more of an issue, as I can't grow out hundreds at a time. But I have to do this now as I think about little else...

[SEEDYNONO]

well you can keep it limited.. say you take two clones of x female plant and get em rooted and going.. put em almost straight into flower and keep them as small as possible and just use a little pollen on whichever buds you want to seed (you don't have to seed the whole thing.. just enough buds to make however many seeds you seek. that way you can have 20-30 seeds (or however many you want to work with) from each cross and you can grow those out and have maybe 10 new female phenos (and maybe some males if you want males of the cross to work with later) from each to grow and compare and then you may find one batch shows much better plants than the other and in the future if you want to make more beans of that cross you know which male to use.. or you could keep going and select the top picks from each set of new plants and breed them together trying to stabilize whatever you wish.. and it can go on and on and you have so many choices what to do along the way!

i'm just going to be looking for a superstar plant in the lisa marie (elvis x sour d ibl) batch of seeds (which won't be very stable or uniform since they are a first generation cross) and then use her as a mom for taking cuts for buds as well as for breeding with a superstar male lisa marie to make f2s of lisa and who knows from there.

if i have enough space and time i want to work with crosses of just about everything i'll have in my garden. flo crossed with lisa marie.. blueberry crossed with strawberry d.. reverse order.. maybe pollenate my current gem my blue moon rocks mom with some nice male too who knows. i just want to be as steadfast as possible to sticking with the best expressions and letting the so-so stuff go without having too much regret. if you just cross and cross and cross and never narrow down the traits its just going to end up diluting the traits and imo ruining the strain instead of magically creating some new wonderous and unique expression. those seem very rare unless you have good senses and judgement and put in a lot of hard work.

[Elevator Man]

I agree with your logic there - I too want to cross these males with everything, despite the potential size of the task, but it doesn't have to be all at once, I guess. And I can always give them out to others to try.
I've wrestled with what to use as a male to cross with for ages - the main thing was to add more sativa to everything in terms of high, but to keep the manageable plant structures that I have already - Flo is the perfect candidate really. I'd even like to cross it with the one female Malawi Gold I have to really try and get some super-stimulant herb, and hopefully bring the flower time down from 12 weeks to something more useful!
The two males are starting to grow taller now, and generating some little balls already. I can't move them out of the nursery room yet due to space issues, so I'll wait a week or so, and then give them a room of their own to flower out...

[Red]

I loved your observation on the changing of the Flo in veg. She does start out looking like a phat more indica based plant, only to thin out more as she gets older. I agree with EV. Pollinating just a few buds on your girls is a very effeciant way to test. Sometimes we harvest pollen and add a little flour. Then we just paint individual buds with a brush. I look forward to seeing your sucess. Good Luck!

[Elevator Man]

Red - what kind of dilution do you use when mixing flour with pollen? I was thinking of using cornflour as it's much finer than wheatflour - I guess it depends how much pollen I can collect. I was hoping to get literally as much as possible, split it into 20-30 tiny wraps and then freeze them. That way I can just pull one out as I need them.

One other question - one of the Flo males has 'split' after topping into a branch showing crinkled leaves, and one branch showing perfect leaves - I've noticed this phenomenon before with Flo. If I collect pollen from each branch, is there a chance that they would exhibit the crinkled (or not) trait separately, or is the process not that specific?

[Elevator Man]

Red - here are some photos of the two male Flos I plan to use for breeding. As you can see, they're both quite different now. #1 is more typical of what the other phenos looked like - indica now, sativa later!
#2 is unlike any other pheno I got in the pack - very stubby and short-leaved, with columnar branches, almost like Blueberry. It did occur to me that this pheno may be closer to the 'Flodica' variety? I've never seen it, but this one looks almost like a pure Afghani male I had years ago...
You can also see the 'split' between the normal leaves on the top-right branch, and the twisted ones on the top-left.

Anyway, next week they get a 12/12 room of their own to get better aquainted, and hopefully we'll get some pollen flying before long. Hope they remember they're supposed to be straight...

Both:



Pheno #1





Pheno #2

[SEEDYNONO]

nice specimens elephant man! my flo beans are out of paper towels and in the soil now just waiting for them to poke up through. i'll get a little grow diary started when they get rolling. can't wait.

[Elevator Man]

Seedy - It's weird how the crinkly leaf trait is restricted to one stem only - like it's multiple plants stuck in one.
I had this occur in the first batch of seeds I grew - I got a male that I topped, and ended up with three main stalks. One had purple male flowers, one had green male flowers, and one had purple female flowers! All totally separate from one another. I decided that one was just too freaky to get into bed with any of my ladies...

But if the trait is restricted to only one stalk, I'm just wondering if pollen from each stalk would affect a cross differently? One to ponder - I don't think I have the space or the time to test all these permutations. But if Red, or DJ have, it would be great to know for certain!