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A room full of swinging dicks...
- Thread starter WaterFarmFan
- Start date
Thanks for playing, but...
https://media.giphy.com/media/o2QvQ7crqtxHW/giphy.gif
He he I really am curious how many pollen grains per gram. I could find very little information on it.
this is crazy! Any Rez gear?
TpM
TpM
I have 6-7 year old pollen collections that are still viable, its all about how you handle and store it
My mama always said "crazy is as crazy does", or maybe it was "life is like a pack of pollen chucked seeds, you never know what you're gonna get." Haha
I have a couple of crosses that I made with Chem DD and Double Strawberry Diesel. I hunted a stellar DSD x Sour Lifesaver female (very diesel dom) that is going to get hit with a bunch of this pollen. The Chem would always throw a few nanners late in flower so I decided to not work with it anymore. Rez was a douchebag of the highest order, and hopefully he became someone's bitch in prison, but that fucker put out some fire back in the day.
I have 6-7 year old pollen collections that are still viable, its all about how you handle and store it
Hey Bird! If you have a single piece of advice on handling and storage, what would it be? I am hoping to achieve that level of long-term viability.
my usual process is as KISS as it goes. once I have my identified male, if I have room he's secluded until deep into flower. at a point I think Ill have a decent amount of pollen to be saved, I knock him onto a big piece of mirror or glass to collect. depending on the amount, I let it rest a day or so before bagging and labeling it, then its immediately into the freezer. if its not isolated I usually make a impromptu 'male box' with a plate underneath that will catch anything that drops before the mirror/glass step. it all stays in the freezer until needed, at that point I take as minimal an amount out to use as possible and put the rest back in the freezer asap. then I just pollinate my branches as need be.
as far as how well it works, this first male I saved pollen from was from the 2010 ograskal release and it made beans just fine this last run.
ABird, Great explanation on the pollen storage. Awesome, 8 years viable pollen. Knowing two different people who have had whole houses pollinated, How do you keep the pollen isolated from the rest of the grow? My buddies tell me it's as bad as having spider mites if it gets loose.
only once did I have a whole run get seeded, and it was my very first using all bag seed, where a missed hermie branch wrecked everything. running from seed, if there's a line I want to save or keep I watch it very closely into flip. there's usually about a 2-3 week time frame from when male flowers show to when they first start opening. I use that small time frame to look for traits like frost, spacing, etc that might pass on. as far as isolation, I have a small cab a la blynx style that I'll put him in if its open. otherwise with the 'male box' I make sure its fed well enough to last longer between feedings so I don't need to bother with it until collection time. so far cross pollinations have been very minimal from kept males, a good stable plan goes a long ways
as long as you plan ahead you should be good. the separate cab also has its own filter so the pollen doesn't escape that way either. size plays a big role too, Im not saving giant bushed out males
my usual process is as KISS as it goes. once I have my identified male, if I have room he's secluded until deep into flower. at a point I think Ill have a decent amount of pollen to be saved, I knock him onto a big piece of mirror or glass to collect. depending on the amount, I let it rest a day or so before bagging and labeling it, then its immediately into the freezer. if its not isolated I usually make a impromptu 'male box' with a plate underneath that will catch anything that drops before the mirror/glass step. it all stays in the freezer until needed, at that point I take as minimal an amount out to use as possible and put the rest back in the freezer asap. then I just pollinate my branches as need be.
as far as how well it works, this first male I saved pollen from was from the 2010 ograskal release and it made beans just fine this last run.
Some really great info! Thanks for sharing! I just moved my first collection to the freezer.
Hey Zeez. You are absolutely correct about pollen spreading by the air. This is especially true if pollen is collected somewhere with a recirculating air system like a house. It is primary reason that I am doing this collection method where I stopped all female flowering for the duration. There are several flaws, like cross-contamination, but to me this was the best way to get the most diverse amount of pollen to make the most crosses that my space would allow.
As to isolation question, I used multiple HEPA filters, both inside and immediately outside male flowering space, to try and minimize pollen spreading. A few Phresh Intake Filters connected to powerful fans can really recirculate and clean the air.
https://growershouse.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=phresh+intake+filter
After that, it is just basic sanitation by isolating clothes after visiting pollen room, cleaning floors so that you are tracking with shoes, ect..
This is something that the person hunting a single male or two should really pay attention to. No pollen will drop the first two weeks after 12/12 switch - NONE!!! And I observed that it was closer to the 3 week mark for most as you noted.
The moral of this is to NOT BE AFRAID to leave your males mixed with females so that you can better observe traits to make a better selection. Put all of your males from a stain into flowering instead of picking one during veg. Certain traits will only show after the flip.
If you are really paranoid, you can do a box inside a box. Get a large wardrobe closet with doors that can be sealed and then build your isolation chamber inside. Have a HEPA filter in both the isolation chamber and the outer box.
However, make no mistake about it. I do not care how careful you are, when you collect and filter, pollen will get in the air and likely on anything around collection site. You could minimize this by collecting in your isolation chamber.
The truly best advice on this topic (and only if it is an option) would be to flower your males offsite from your females. This was not practical for me or likely many here, but I think it is the only way to 100% avoid and any unanticipated pollination.
size plays a big role too, Im not saving giant bushed out males
Hehehe What are you saying? I throw out some big boys for this party. Part was the fact that these were the original seed plants (not clones) and another is that I mistimed my last female finishing and these overvegged by a few weeks. It was more than a bit unruly, but I am very happy with my collection totals. First collection was about 40-50 grams, second was well over 100 grams and final should be in 50-75 gram range. This works out to about 6-10 grams per plant.
Just curious, what is the average amount of pollen that you collect from a single plant with your methods? Would love to hear from VG and others on this as well.
just that size management can play a role in pollen management. the male I kept this last run was a super lanky strawberry diesel x nycd that got to 3' tall before flip. knowing that it would 2x-3x its size again after flip I manicured the main stem down to just over 16-18" while lst'ing main leads back down across his body. during that first week I made sure to keep tying branches down as the box ceiling was only 28" or so.
as far as weights go even only a few grams of pollen can go a long ways. It can be strain dependent, but Id guess I get anywhere between 2-4 per as I usually only hold males until week 5 or 6, but the wifi bx I set aside dumped an assload over nine weeks as he was just stacked. usually Im just picking the best appearing male out of only a few, those that do 50-100+ plant selections probably have a much better system in play then I do.
Maybe or maybe not. You would certainly see more traits running bigger numbers, but how can one practically test other than growing out the offspring? The logistics of that (see this project) become a nightmare and increases exponentially as size increases. If you are looking solely at physical traits (like purple carrots or something) than it is easy. But someone previously speculated running numbers of 10K+ to find a true gem. Without very advanced lab equipment and custom analytics (think big pharma), it is just pure insanity and even then a pipe dream. Female flowers have to smoked by people to be judged. I can not tell you how many phenos that I found that looked like Mike Tyson but punched like Felicia. Frost does not equal potency without the right terpene combination.
