The method of pollination?

[DankSwayzee]

Ok, the general basics make sense to me. A male carries pollen and then pollinates the female in order to create seeds.
I have read about Mendel and some other aspects of breeding but my question is VERY basic.


The method you use to pollinate a plant. Say I wanted to pollinate a few bud sites in order to get some extra seeds. Is it as easy as ripping a pollen sack off of a male, getting pollen onto a q-tip and applying to said bud sites? Is there a specific time to do this into flowering in order to optimize seed superiority?

 

[Guest]

It's pretty much as simple as you described. Here's what I do for select budsite seeding. Seeds take 4-6 weeks to mature. I usually pollinate 2-3 week of flowering.

1. Collect pollen from male (Pollen will keep a few months in fridge if needed)
2. Pull your female to be pollinated out of the flower room (to help keep from accidentally pollinating others)
3. get a artist brush, the real small paintbrushes, dip in the pollen and paint the budsites you want pollinated.

When you go to put the pollinated female back in the flower room, make sure there is no fan blowing directly on her, that could spread the pollen to others.

What I do is wait 6 hours, then put her back in the room.

HTH

 

[DankSwayzee]

Cool, once I get up and running with everything dialed in just the way I like it, then I can think about making my own seeds and making a few extra crosses. Female Seeds Cinnamon x Nirvana Bubblicious might be tasty.
Could call it Cin-a-Burst

 

[YeshijaH]

I like the topic y'all, just be carefull about storing pollen in a fridge or even at all. I wouldn't do it after reading an article that showed the male cannabis pollen under a microscope after time, freezing, storage etc. Even just storing the pollen in a test tube for a short period(like 1 hour) caused the little perfect spheres of pollen to start getting all dry/shriveled. When frozen they shattered and broke. It's almost like trying to use a stored female flower to make seeds. Although I think it may work just not very well. Soma told me he just "leave the males in the room" so the Ladies can have a boyfriend to make them pregnant instead of artificial insemination (if you want to be real conservative and old fashioned you could make a little humor and have a wedding ceremony for them before they honeymoon i.e. concieve seeds. I have definetely had the best results making seeds with this technique. If you only want seeds on one branch maybe the best thing to do would just be to cut off a small but healthy and mature male flower that is just starting to open up and release it's pollen. Before this, the pollen is green wet and immature. once the male flower opens, the pollen will be mature and more yellowish/gold color. After this short time when that flower releases it's pollen it will just be a dried up pod and some stamen w/ no pollen left on it. I feel that thinking of seeds and seedlings as babies has helped me to make the best seeds.

 

[YeshijaH]

Some pregnant ladies:







Somaskunkx Sol-left, Lavender Clone from Soma-Center, NYCDiesel clone from Soma-right, Landrace Nigerian- Right back










These pics are of YeshijaH's BUDDAH'S SISTER Loaded with unofficial feminized Buddah's diesel seeds I made. This is actually my favorite way to make seeds. I had a completely female that gets stressed in some way(I bend all the branches in half and bend em up again( basically super violent and excessive supercropping) and this makes a few stamen in her flowers but no actual male pollen sacks. In other words she is getting so stressed that she turns hermie a bit to try to survive her genetics. If you can zoom in you will see some little stamen in the dried female flower but no actual male pollen sacks. These stamen were totally dry and inactive when she finished. I think the crucial thing is that it is certainly true the seeds take 4-6 weeks to mature and you want them to be hard and very completely mature so they are busting out and ready to fall off the plant when it is clipped. To do this you really have to do your supercropping in the first week of flowering to make the female turn hermie in the second week of flowering. This way you avoid her making stamen too late which can ruin the buds by making a little immature seed in every calyx. Then all the weed is useless exept for making hasj/extracts/butter. This technique is also great for making backcrosses of one plant. The only thing is that while the one's on my roof from this technique were 16 out of 16 female, Inside they can have a tendency to turn hermie with any kind of stress, including: Not enough light, overwatering, underwatering, excessive supercropping, not enough space, etc... In my opinion it is better to get 50% hermie in case of stress than 50% male no matter what you do. But most people will disagree with this and I agree with them for real breeding purposes it is much more stable to use a true male. For people who don't live in Amsterdam or California though, my technique works well for preserving varietes you want to keep.

















Here are three pregnant ladies: Left- YeshijaH's Buddah's sis center-yeshijaH's NYCDiesel right- YeshijaH's somaskunk x Sol

I made the seeds for these plants in the colorful ones above in amsterdam in 2004 by the same technique of making a female produce pollen. then I did the same to the yeshijaH's nycdiesel below center which made fresh 2007 seed stock all crossed by the big multi-branched Diesel Ma/Pa.

 

[YeshijaH]

Pregnant NYCD clone from Soma grown on porch in Amsterdam west 2004

Pregnant Somaskunk x SOL Top:


The pregnant bottom branch of some of solere's original Somaskunk from 2000

 

[DankSwayzee]

very nice work yeshijah.
I think if I do go to making seeds, I'll have the males in a different room and, come time, will pollinate them freshly.

 

[fjällhöga]

there should be no problem with freezing pollen .. for sure it has to be bone dry before entering the freezer ... ,otherwise the last H2O in the plant material would expand whilst freezing and destroys the pollen

 

[Americangrower]

FJ ...I read in 1 of the mags HT, Skunk, Red eye, WeedWorld... can't remember which 1...

Anyhow.. there was a test done(with microscope pics) with pollen where it was frozen, refrig, left out... and for sure frozen lasted much longer. The expert said to freeze it as soon as you collect it...don't leave it out to dry...just add flour or leave it straight and freeze..

just thought I'd share..

 

[fjällhöga]

yeah i heard of the method with adding flour .... , but y the hell you want to dilute the pollen grains ...

does the flour anything with conservation or anything ??? to be honest i have never tried to mix my back up pollen

 

[The Slickster]

Yes, it is as easy as getting the pollen to the budsites, nature does the real magic. On the flour, it may cause mold, so cornstarch may be better. Some people want to dilute it so as to stretch out a small amount. Really you don't have to do anything except pick the male to let sit next to or in front of the fan and allow to naturally pollinate. You can pick off some pollen to dry, refrigerate, and then freeze for later. The complicated part is trying to know what your male has to offer, and saving his genetics one way or the other for possible use after the offspring has been seen and samples, is but one sure way to know just what it is that you have.

Before finding what you want, first to get rid of that which is hopefully not wanted. No early autoflowering males, unless wanted. Good genetics, a healthy plant, strong odors are a plus, any differential colorings, and if it has trichomes, well then that is definitely a good thing. There are many things that people do and do not look for in males, and so it is maily up to the choice sampling, the rest is hopeful guesstimation and understanding that the offspring will turn out a bit different than the male used which is another good reason to keep good males alive or pollen preserved for "king and queen" pollinations, backcrosses, incrosses, outcrosses, etc. Without sexual reversals and eliminating females that do express any hermaphroditic tendencies.

 

[DocLeaf]

VERY basic. The method you use to pollinate a plant.

1) - induce flowering to determine sex.

2) - pick the healthiest male and female parent plants.

3) -collect male flowers.



Note: male flowers can be treated as cuttings for short periods. then dried to release the pollen like any other flower :wink:



4) - pollinate female flowers with fresh pollen.




The above is long,,, it is much easier to place selected male and female plants into the same space and let nature do its thing

NEVER be tempted to harvest seed early,,, did this at least twice before now and lost out on some genetics

hope this helps
peace
dLeaf

 

[Guest]

What do you look for when you select a male as a pollen donor besides health?

 

[DocLeaf]

the progeny / off-spring it produces :wink:

 

[fjällhöga]

like doc said it ....

you have to test the male ( every single one , and at best everyone on the same female clone ) and the offspring produced by the same female clone , so you can point out the phenotype´s added from the male ...

 

[fjällhöga]

but ....

IMHO you should flower the males out untill they start to "DROP OFF" their balls with no new one´s coming out , otherwise you will not see the definate stature/habitus of the male .... , as well the resination is only judgeable to a minimum .... , those are some very important things when " breeding " not making seed for # on sold packs

* the same is for female clones ... , heavy resination as nuggets does not stand for only good offspring ...

 

[DocLeaf]

^^^


For example, ibl or homogeneous lines often lack the vigor of hybrids. When out-bred however they produce excellent off-spring with lots of hybrid vigor displayed (and often an enhanced cannabinoid profile.

Ditto a dominant male and dom. female might not marry as easily as one dom. and one recessive plant when breeding.

Ultimately, the proof is in the pudding, and it's eating...

 

[Guest]

Very interesting. Thanks.

I'm kind of in a situation where I can hold back maybe a male or 2 and grow them out.

Basically I'm only going to be able to just pick a male and use it's pollen and hope I get something interesting or unique eventually out of the six strains I have on hand.

I have growing from seed now...

The Hog
Norther LightsXBlueberry
Sex
AfghaniXFucking Incredible
God Bud

I have these as clone stock...

OG Kush
Purple Kush
Hash plant
Dynamite

I was considering using a male from The Hog because it has lot's of phenos I hear and there's the possibility I may add yield to one of the exotic strains.

 

[Dlux]

I worked with the hog back in the late 90's...you are right about the yield. Mine had NL, hog, silver pearl and maybe super skunk, I had quite a few strains back then and do not recall the actual recipe.
This was the result....Double D

I use the paint brush method when you want to be very specific as to which plants get pollenated...but the shake n bake method is the way to go if you really want a huge bag of seed.