I need tips on making seeds

I want to make some seeds. I'm not going to bother with things like which strains I'm crossing so it doesn't take away from this thead but they are both 8-9 week strains. It's funny how little info there is out there on this. Even grow books neglect it. Here are my questions:

How far into flower should the female be to pollenated?

How long does a male take to give pollen?

Does making healthy seeds have any special fert requirments?

How long after pollenation does it take the seed to be ready?

Any post harvest drying out of the seed?

Any other tips?

How far into flower should the female be to pollenated?

If you start males and fems into flower at the same time, the male will put out pollen long before any substantial buds form.. this will give you less, but generally larger and mostly ripe seed. Once pollination takes affect the plant stops making buds for the most part (indoors anyways) and unless it's a long flowering sativa, won't make much additional bud.

For the above reason I like to stagger my males, and put them into flower 2 weeks after the females.. Which roughly equates to pollination in the 3-4 wk of flower, depending on the males speed dropping pollen.. I find this gives me much more seeds overall, but slightly smaller (maybe 10%ish), and more immature seed at the end.. also, more smokable bud.

You can also pollinate preflowers on veg plants if you jus want a few seeds..

But if u have pollen ready, and are looking for seed production, i'd suggest pollinating at about 3-4 wks, which will give them exactly enough time to ripen in the 9 wk window..

If you jus want a few seeds, then it doesn't really matter when you do it, jus as long as you have about 30-40 days left and some white pistils.

How long does a male take to give pollen?

About 1.5-2wks IME for indica and hybrids, but it differs depending on how mature/healthy he is going into flower, and the strain of course. Sativas likely take longer..

Does making healthy seeds have any special fert requirments?

Not really, i'd feed at about 3/4 strength to full strength.. I find fully seeded plants don't need quite as much nutes, but a lightly seeded one will take full strength.

How long after pollenation does it take the seed to be ready?

Some people say faster, and in hydro or great conditions i'm sure it is faster.. but about 35-40 days IME, but i like to give it as long as possible to try to get any stragglers to mature.. but the majority will be ready in 40 days.

Any post harvest drying out of the seed?

Ok, if i take the seed off the plant as soon as it's dry (7-10 days hanging), I then like to put them on a plate, or bowl, one layer thick, and jus keep them in a warmer dry area exposed to the air for about 5-7 days.. maybe 70-75 degrees max..

But, if u dry and then cure your bud, and harvest the seed as you smoke the bud, there's no need to dry them at all.

Any other tips?

that's about it.. it's pretty simple.. you'll find your own preferences as you do it.

good luck.

Perfect timing on this thread Shmokin. Bein a first timer myself it's nice that you asked all the right questions in one thread. Saved me some trouble.

Great info as usual Beancounter. Later fellas

Thanks, I hope to be counting beans soon.

its pretty easy I just finished my first cross and i am currently test growing it along with a few others too. I did basically what bean said.. and I've had 28 out of the 31 seeds that I tryed to sprout pop and 26 out of those 28 are still doing wonderfully. heres some pics.. not trying to thread jack or anything.. just trying to let ya know what he says works gl man!!!

making seed is easy ... it does not have to be complicated ...

like they say, if you can grow , then you can make seed ...

the plants will really do all the work for you, all you have to do is guide them a bit

if you have the resource, then the very easiest and simple method is to simply dedicate a grow out of your SELECTED males & females in the same area ... let them flower freely together and i PROMISE you will end up with more seed then you can possibly use

peace ... nexus

beancounter summed it up really. i always get pollen before i flower add it at the second or 3rd week let the strain go a little long to get the most mature seeds. when going for seeds i could care less for buds. the more seeds the better right?

just one thing i have to add, POLLEN GETS EVERYWHERE!?!?! it will travel in ways you cant imagine. so make sure your really carefully unless your doing a full seed run. then after sterilize the room/area.

I'd just like to add some tips.

A white pistil {hair} is a viable calyx {seedpod} ready and able to recieve pollen.

After dosing the plant with pollen you should see alot of these white pistils turn brown and wither at the tips working it's way to the rest of the hair within 24-48 hours...

Does anyone know by means of paying very close attention how long a white pistil will remain as such {that is in a consistant and friendly, pollen free environment}?

NoNameNoshame said:

Does anyone know by means of paying very close attention how long a white pistil will remain as such {that is in a consistant and friendly, pollen free environment}?

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It depends, I've seen pistils on some strains brown/die in a day or less.. I've also seen pistils take up to 4-5 days to die.. so long in fact, that i thought the pollen was sterile.. It was ECSD with DC pollen and she ended up loaded with seed, packed to the gills.

beancounter said:

It depends, I've seen pistils on some strains brown/die in a day or less.. I've also seen pistils take up to 4-5 days to die.. so long in fact, that i thought the pollen was sterile.. It was ECSD with DC pollen and she ended up loaded with seed, packed to the gills.

Click to expand...

yea the pistils on my cross went out in about 20 - 25 hours.. it was nuts...

I've also seen pistils take up to 4-5 days to die.. so long in fact, that i thought the pollen was sterile..

Click to expand...

Well, this is interesting, as I pollenated some clones a week ago with some frozen pollen, and they have taken ages to wither - I'm still not sure whether some are withered from the battering they got from the paintbrush, or they're just genuinely slow. They are under fluoros, rather than HID, and are pretty small, so maybe it's just a much slower process this way.

The pollen was definitely viable before I froze it, as I've just germed some seeds it produced. And it was frozen with great care, with no humidity, and no sudden jumps in temperature. Under HIDs, most had withered within three days - under fluoros it's taken a week, and I'm still not 100% sure yet...

Thanks guys.

If I wanted to freeze it is there anything special I should freeze it in?

How long will it stay viable frozen/unfrozen?

I had a seeded run of lowryder. Got about 400 beans. Did basically the same as beancounter suggested. However, the ladies didn't stop budding. Just grew and grew. Must be an autoflower thing.

Good question though about the length of viabillity. Been wondering that myself.

Spaced...

depending on how long you pollinate for sometimes the plants will continue flowering.. if you just do a light dusting of your plants once with pollen, they will continue to flower fairly normaly..

When I do my seed projects, i usualy let the male pollinate the females openly for about 1-2 wks minimum, after 2 wks the pollen production drops off, and any pollination at that point won't properly mature..

I've done the same thing but put the males/fems in flower at the same time, and I ended up with basically one layer of fat, dark beans, the plant didn't bother making buds at all.. Now, this was under floro, outside or under HID u may get a lil more action from your plants, and maybe the autoflowering did have something to do with it..

But in general, after a fairly heavy pollination for seed production, you will get very little additional bud/pistil growth.

I'm wondering whether I should have sprayed the plants afterward - I left them a good three hours before I did, but given there's no heat problem, and therefore no fans in my pollenation space, it may have been better to just have active pollen around as long as possible. They're totally isolated from my main grow space, and that's still in veg mode anyway, so I was probably being a little over-cautious here. Once the main room is on 12/12, I'll stick them all in there to finish off - it may just be the fluoros that are slowing it down so much.

I did read that frozen pollen is viable for a shorter time after thawing than fresh pollen - though I did these immediately. We'll see - I'll update as and when I see some significant progress...:

Just an update on this - my seeded clones are fine, and are progressing well - it was a combination of cold, fluorescents and small pots that was slowing the whole process down. I've had them in the main room for a few days, and they've sped up dramatically, so in a few weeks I'll have every strain crossed with Flo, and I can begin the next stage.

What I think is best is to try and isolate the top branches from the pollen, and only hit the lower budsites with it so I get a fair amount of smoke too. (I hate seed in my smoke, who doesn't)

I'm pollenating half of my main grow plants in a few days, so we'll see how isolated I can keep these. I'll be doing two branches on each plant with two batches of Flo pollen, and am aiming to produce a few hundred this time on each plant for giveaways to friends.

I didn't have much accidental pollenation of other plants last time I did this, and to be honest I was really glad I did get a little, as I got 20 seeds from what turned out to be an incredible skunk pheno - they all looked identical when I pollenated them and I was kicking myself later for not doing them all. But when I smoked it, every main bud had just one or two seeds buried in the middle, which was a really nice suprise.

But considering how packed in my plants are (see sig), I don't expect too much random pollenation - just have to keep all the doors closed and don't sneeze whilst you're doing it...

excellent thread!
great advice beancounter.
this should b a sticky here.
peace,
pwf

Here you go - mission accomplished - I hope. A big trash-bag over the plant, leaving the branches we selected exposed, then bagging/labelling each branch as we did them. I'll let you know in a few days whether it worked...