Does making seeds make sense?

[Herborizer]

I grow for personal. I keep six strains (6 mother plants) in perpetual mothering. Then take clones and veg/flower those in another room. I only grow 6 plants at a time in the veg/flower area. This works really well.

From time to time I wonder if I would be better served by making seeds of the genetics I have. Saving me the cost of running 6 mothers 24x7. Save on the electricity of the exhaust fan, light, etc. Also save on the 2nd reservoir, nutes, etc, etc. Also save on the trim time of the mothers. Since these mothers probably produce enough growth to make 75 clones (each) every two weeks (which I just cut and throw in the compost pile).

So from time to time I consider using colloidal silver or one of the other techniques to self pollinate one of my plants at a time. Make a couple hundred seeds of each genetic. Then I could just use these for each grow.

In YOUR opinion is this a good idea?

My fear with going the seed route, is that I will somehow weaken my genetics with this self polination. I have some decent genetics (Deep Chunk, GDP, Hindu Kush, Blue Dream, Green Crack, Lavender, and Sweet Tooth). I have never ever had a Hermie issue. I worry that I could start having one. I also worry that the ending medicine won't be the same. Are these valid concerns?

P.S. Forgive my newbieness of breeding and genetics. I am not even sure of some of my genetics can produce seed. Like Green Crack I believe is a clone only. Not sure either way. Just trying to learn here.

 

[OrganicOzarks]

My first thought is the time added from sprouting from seed instead of cloning. Also I would agree that if what you have is stable, and working for you, then why would you want to risk degrading the genetics? To me in your situation I do not see a benefit. I would however add that why not give it a try, and see what you think about making seeds. You never know where life is going to take you. You may one day need those seeds. Maybe today is not that day, but who knows what tomorrow will bring.

 

[headband 707]

I do seeds and I have some clones I love and I really love my clones lol.. There is a Skunk#1 that is very hard to find that floats around here and she is a clone and I would never give that baby up and another Purple Kush that is the same. Obviously if I had the room to throw the seeds I could find some sweet phenos and start with that and with all the right conditions and on and on lol.. I'm not sure I have been convice to manipulate the genetics yet I do believe I would need to look further into this subject to give an honest opinion about it.
Very few ppl here either know how to keep mom's or clone off of clones and the plant begins to lose the potency that it had when it first came to town .
RKS was one of my favs and you never smell this anymore..
Steven Harper enacted a new law that if a cop even smells a real skunk on your property he is allowed to search it even if it's a" REAL SKUNK"!! there are real skunks all over BC.. peace out Headband707

 

[supermanlives]

i always make backup seeds of everything. but i dont use cs just a few males and females.

 

[Iron_Lion]

Learn how to keep bonsai moms, take the cuts that you need, veg them and flower them.



For about $60 you can build a box just like this one, it holds up to 8 4x4 square pots and it can run either 26 or 52 watts of daylight cfl. Small pots, light but regular feeding is all that you need, and when they get too big take some new cuts and start some new small moms. When you want to keep the moms in between grows but dont want them growing too much, cut it down to 1 26w cfl so they grow slower.

 

[Big Eggy]

Edit: Doah Iron Lion beat me to it

Have you thought about Bonsai? I used to keep 5 mothers and a father under 2 x 10w mini strip lights.

but as Supermanlives says make seeds where you can just incase.

check out the Bonsai link in my sig.

 

[kannabeans]

ide say do both keep bonsai mothers like eggy said, plus make seeds for back up because you really never know

 

[festivus]

With the economy on the verge of meltdown, I see making seed as an insurance policy. If the world's currencies collapse, we'll be forced to barter for goods and services.
What better commodity to trade with than cannabis/cannabis seeds?

Am I an alarmist? Probably... but we really never know what the future holds.

 

[Anti]

Does anyone have a link to a really good colloidal silver thread?

 

[Classy@Home]

I've grown from seed, and then cloned the hell outta everything that came up. I'd make seeds if I had a cross to try, or to continue the autoflowers I've spent too much on.

Cloning is soooo easy - pretty much foolproof if you keep it simple. If I can, a shaved, nutless monkey could...

 

[Rysam]

I like clones for speed but plan on doing an open pollenation on my next indoor run to ensure a bounty of seeds. You never know what the future brings.

 

[LouDog420]

I like clones for speed but plan on doing an open pollenation on my next indoor run to ensure a bounty of seeds. You never know what the future brings.

^^ This. Backup seeds on the first run with an OP, then keep your winning clone going. Backup seeds are for worst case scenarios, as the clones are what I want for production

 

[guerilla415]

i think im with the general consensus here, keep mothers AND make seeds.

bonsai moms are pretty easy and cheap to make and maintain, plus alot less room.

sounds like a bonsai mom of a decent size could supply you with all the cuts u need and more. i use t5's and a cheap ass house fan in my mom room and thats it. my cloner and mother plants prolly take up only about a 4x4 space and uses less energy than just one fan in the veg or flower rooms. you could even use some shelves and fit them into a 2x2 and 5 or 6 feet high area if u needed to.

good luck.

guerilla

 

[IE2KS_KUSH]

I keep mothers, and make seeds. Do it all no reason not too.

 

[Iron_Lion]

With the economy on the verge of meltdown, I see making seed as an insurance policy. If the world's currencies collapse, we'll be forced to barter for goods and services.
What better commodity to trade with than cannabis/cannabis seeds?

Am I an alarmist? Probably... but we really never know what the future holds.

Excellent point, I never really thought about it that way. I could imagine using seeds from dank crosses as currency.

The majority of the world has the wrong idea about MJ, they think the buds are whats worth the big bucks, but quite the contrary good seeds are worth their weight in gold.

You can easily make some dank crosses at home that you might pay 10-15$ a seed for if you bought them. I just harvested 1 fairly small plant that was fully seeded and I'd say I got well over 1000 nice mature seeds from that 1 plant.

Like others have said, take all of your females and do an open pollination with a worthy male and BAM, you've got P1 stock for life, mix and match and the possibilities are endless.

Also to the Herborizer, I dont know if you know this but you can also make feminized F1 hybrids, take a female, reverse it, collect the pollen and hit up all your best girls, the seeds will be feminized. This really opens the door to new possibilities that otherwise wouldn't be possible.

Another point to throw out there, you can also reverse a female without STS or CS, some strains can be reversed with extended periods or environmental stress, or I also heard that if you leave a fully flowered female flowering for a long time past its harvest date it can also reverse and start throwing pollen.

 

[nomaad]

Seeds are a very important part of preparing for the unknown future. Seems to me that for such a contingency, an open pollenation is preferable to S1s because you'll have more potential for stable hybrids... Not that S1s of awesome clones isn't a good idea too. I am just thinking about end times/ zombie apocalypse scenarios.

 

[Herborizer]

Awesome feedback everyone!

 

[sso]

i like making seeds, both crossing strains and perpetuating a line.

i also keep clones and reveg plants, the more i like a plant, the longer it sticks around

but making seeds of the same line gives me variations on that smoke and crossing with other strains gives me further still that.

plus, there is this fact, clones are vulnerable to a variety of things, being identical, if one plant gets sick, the others will follow, wiping out your line.

seeds are backup as well, providing for the future.anything goes wrong, i got my cache of seeds and my hidden cache of seeds.

plus as i said before, variety is a great spice to life, making seeds gives me that and greatly so.

 

[BorgClone]

With the economy on the verge of meltdown, I see making seed as an insurance policy. If the world's currencies collapse, we'll be forced to barter for goods and services.
What better commodity to trade with than cannabis/cannabis seeds?

Am I an alarmist? Probably... but we really never know what the future holds.

ye i tell this kind of shit to people all the time and i believe it also seeds of open polinated process are something worth having and im not talking ou Godess only , heirlom seeds your grand mama had are some of the best things you can gather and maintain with value and use for a long time...

I totaly love my clones because they are fast but if i find a worthy male i hit up and stock seeds... there is no reason not to...

 

[sso]

on the original question, i prefer using males, but yes not having any males i might make col silver (pretty easy actually)

and make me some seeds

(just for shits and giggles, id also use the col silver to pollinate a branch on each of the other plants with the col silver plant pollen, getting all female crosses of your favorite strains )


but getting seeds of your favorite plants, how can that be anything but "fuck yeah!" ?

mostly identical plants, all female and there to be planted if something goes wrong with your grow? (i hear of people keeping clones at least 9 years, same strain, probably longer, probably for infinity, but what if you need to go on a long trip? would be handy to just shut down and start with seeds again when you came home)