What do you know about males?

[indifferent]

Some good points Kaneh, I've never been very careful about pollen either, but then again, I don't sell any of my crop and don't mind the odd seed in my bud at all, in fact I prefer to smoke plants that have produced a small number of seed as i find they have more complexity to the effect. I often pollinate some lower buds on a plant to make seeds as I like to preserve anything promising and you can tell the difference between that and a plant of the same cutting that hasn't been pollinated.

 

[foomar]

Cannabis pollen is 80-85 microns in size so if you setup any kind of air filtration to prevent pollen getting at your flowerin ladies, it must have a hole size no larger than 75 microns.

Think pollen is a lot smaller than that , drops straight through my 25 micron sieve and i guess around 5 micron or less in reality.


I let them stay in the floweroom till the last day before dropping first pollen , they will finish fine as low as 20 watts/foot under CFL,s from then on or behind a window under most natural light hours.

Add a wetting agent or detergent to water spray or pollen will not be denatured , plain water has not been totally effective and it is still slightly viable once dried out , try it yourself and see.

Contamination of body and clothing is a real issue , deal with the girls before the males or shower after handling males.
My excuse to garden naked and get a halide suntan in midwinter.

Running only one male at a time means that if you do get unintended pollination at least you know the father , source of many good freebies.

One small cutting with a few days veg and flowered in a tiny pot gives around half a gramme of pollen , enougth to fully seed five compact bushy females if you are carefull and two or three if not.

Now flowering a six month vegged male that has been used for clones , will give 20 - 30 g of pollen in total over the next six weeks which is overkill really and better done with small unloved cuts.

If you wanna be sure. smoke a joint in the room you want to pollinate. If you can smell it in your female room half hour later, it's not gonna work.

That is a fine tip Kaneh , i use a fireplace for the same airflow effect.

 

[WestCoast4Life]

Mr. Greengenes

In the past when I specifically wanted to collect pollen I did what you're suggesting with great results.

Cut the top 1/4 - 1/2 of the plant (depending on the height) and stick into a vase/jar/whatever. Within a few days you'll have all the male pollen you'll probably need for months/years as long as you mix it with flour (I prefer rice flour because it's finer) and stick it in the freezer.

HTH

CC

I am very intrigued with what you stated about placing the cutting in a jar. Do you mean that the male flowers will then release the pollen into the jar after it is severed? Thank you.

 

[Clackamas Coot]

I am very intrigued with what you stated about placing the cutting in a jar. Do you mean that the male flowers will then release the pollen into the jar after it is severed? Thank you.

WestCoast4Life

Not into the jar because the water will render the pollen worthless. Cut the stalk long enough so that it sticks out of the water and away from the jar.

If you watch it on a daily basis (maybe more) you'll see the pollen bags beginning to open up. You can use an old prescription plastic bottle to begin collecting the pollen.

You won't need much if you use flour to dilute it.

Same principle if you buy a bouquet of flowers from a florist there are usually unopened blossoms that after a couple of days continue to grow and open up into full flowers if that makes sense.

HTH

CC

 

[WestCoast4Life]

Thank you for the clarification, I'll give this a try. I am in the beginning stages of stabilizing a strain I like and am really trying to get down pollination and how to do it properly.

 

[Elevator Man]

Yeah, pollen's about 5 microns - it goes straight through my purple BubbleBag, which is 25 I think.

I got some HEPA-type filter material from my local vacuum cleaner supplies shop to make my male isolation box, which was 3 micron, I think. The guy asked me what model it was for, and I foolishly said it wasn't for a vacuum cleaner.
"Oh really? What are you using it for?" he asked, quite innocently.
"Erm - spraying paint onto really small objects in a home-made fume-box" - which was the first thing that came into my head, and he seemed happy with that, but it just goes to show how much you need to be prepared in this game, and always be ready to 'speak in German' at the right moment.

"Have a good trip".
"Thank-you" (oh shit...)

 

[grasper]

Males remind me of the male Black Widow spider. They aren't around for long. I FEEL male plants are more tolerable to stressful conditions before they actually give up and die. They can handle crazy light schedules and other stresses well,the more stress,the more they kick off flowers...like they are a dying super hero,"MUST SPREAD POLLEN!!...AHHHH"
I have a male isolated now that I'm stressing the hell out of via neglect,odd ball light schedule, inconsistent watering,weak light source.....IT LIVES.

doing a very similar experiment myself..... the male is actually doing as good or better than the fems in the cab.... lol making me look
bad

 

[WestCoast4Life]

Yeah exactly it's always awkward buying lights/fixtures/fertilizer. Tut mir leid, kann nur deutsch sprechen lol

 

[C21H30O2]

Is anyone keeping male daddies for breeding purposes. I have a couple untested satori fathers and two satorixthaihaze daddies.

 

[cannaboy]

I am germinating again now and have been for a while not killed any males yet I have some blueberry & 3 F13 males. Some tom hills hazes males coming, (Looking into this 1) I have never bought a seed and never will I have a increasing amount of them coming though..some rare strains too. I want a Highland oxacana male from my mates long lost stash, I am keeping no seeds packs like the family silver till last sowing all the old and randoms and passing them on for fun selecting for fine plants to take cuts from gonna make a few batches and do freebies when i get space might do it over the summer,, I hate the idea of seeds not germinating after years of storage so I pop them and keep clones this way you know if the juice is worth the squeeze..

 

[EvilTwin]

I am germinating again now and have been for a while not killed any males yet I have some blueberry & 3 F13 males. Some tom hills hazes males coming, (Looking into this 1) I have never bought a seed and never will I have a increasing amount of them coming though..some rare strains too. I want a Highland oxacana male from my mates long lost stash, I am keeping no seeds packs like the family silver till last sowing all the old and randoms and passing them on for fun selecting for fine plants to take cuts from gonna make a few batches and do freebies when i get space might do it over the summer,, I hate the idea of seeds not germinating after years of storage so I pop them and keep clones this way you know if the juice is worth the squeeze..

Take a breath Dude...

 

[Can & Juana]

Hey CC, I meant to keep chopped bottom part, but your suggestion is even better. I'm a real 'hotdog' with males and leave 'em by the door of the ladies room 'till the last minute. I don't recommend it to others, because it means watching flowers on an hourly basis and you need considerable experience. If nothing else, it's fun to see the looks on growers faces when they see heavy hangin' males about to drop. I always announce, "just hang back a second while I check these boys, don't want any unneccessary air movement!" Of course, I collect only one flowers worth from each male. I use a bottle cap glued to the end of a chopstick to collect. Another chopstick held in the other hand 'pins' the open flower against the bottom of the cap so it can be pulled off in one piece. A little hard to describe the skill, come to my house to learn it right! Fresh pollin is a bit heavier when the flower first opens, so it's less likely to fly around with air currents. This method leaves virtually no extra pollin around, so no water cleanup is needed.

Am I the only one noticing the hilarity?

Thanks Mr. Greengenes, I haven't laughed that hard in weeks!

I've always flowered the males in a tub on it's end, with a small cflo and passive ventilation only. When they look ready to blow, put a piece of paper under a branch to collect the cannaspooch. Sterilize flour to cut it.
About two to four weeks in flower (depending on how many seeds are desired) wait until just before the lights come on to pollinate. Turn all fans off. Isolate a small section of the female/s you want to cannaspoochulate. Place a tied plastic bag over the chosen site and spray the rest of the area with water. Remove the bag from the isolated area and shake a little pollen/flour mixture on there.
The trick here is to not shake more pollen on than can stick to the resiny hairs. A little goes a long way. Turn your ventilation back on.
The next day, spray the entire area with water until dripping wet.
Done.

I'm now going to change two things about that routine.

1. I'm going to cut a branch off the male and place it in a jar of water, because that is a sweet ass idea.

2. I'm going to forgo the paper, for collecting pollen, and instead glue a bottle cap to a chopstick, place it across the top of the jar so the bottle cap is located under a bunch of ripe and ready cannanads, as a nod to Mr. Greengenes comedic genius.

Have a good one everybody~

 

[foomar]

Had me in stitches too , i tend to leave them to the last minuit as well.

The jar trick works well for me and can save haveing a dedicated male room for many.

 

[VerdantGreen]

yes the cutting them and keeping in water is a great way to play about with pollen.maybe root a cutting too and then throw the original if you are short of space.

Deep Chunk males - 5 of them in two jam jars. foil catches the pollen but i tend to gentli remove them and tap the pollen onto a piece of glossy magazine paper and then use it or dry and freeze it.

 

[cosmiccowboy]

the male branch that you placed in the jar will continue to mature and pollen will fall off?

 

[Frozenguy]

I had decided to keep some males. They got rootbound and preflowered a bit, dropped some pollen (i'm talking like two sacs) and then a few weeks later just as i was putting the females into flower, I noticed a seed emerging from a calyx. I damn near just missed it but it caught my eye. Picked it and still have it. Its a natural cross of blubonic from SOL

 

[Dignan]

EDIT: shit, just read the last page of this thread and see that this has been covered. Sorry. Will leave my post anyway as a testimonial to this method of pollen collection.

May have been noted already, but a great way to get just a little bit of pollen... cut a branch off of a male after the first week of 12/12, so that it's just a few days away from opening its flowers. Place the branch in a cup of water/vase and put it in a kitchen cabinet with a paper plate underneath it to catch pollen.

During the day, put it on a windowsill. At night put it away in the cabinet and remember not to open it.

I've done this a couple times and it works just fine. I'm sure the male would be happier with roots intact and under a 1000W light, but who cares about a man's happiness? My wife sure doesn't.

Kidding. My wife's actually awesome.

 

[cosmiccowboy]

so after the 1st week of 12/12 they only need a minimal amount of light?

 

[Dignan]

If we're talking about bare minimum needs... they don't need much light the first week of flowering, either. A cannabis plant can survive and grow under a 40W incandescent bulb. It's just that growth won't be optimal. But when you're just trying to get a male to blow a little wad, he can get the job done with very little light.

 

[VerdantGreen]

the male branch that you placed in the jar will continue to mature and pollen will fall off?

yep, males can take a lot of punishment. these carried on dropping pollen fro a couple of weeks until the bottom of the stems rotted in the water because i hadnt bothered to change it - but by that time i had a lovely pollen mix from 5 males which i used some of, stored some in the freezer and sent some to a few friends

also took cuttings of some of the males for the future before i tossed the original pots.

V.