It seems pretty straight forward; keep smoke-testing the females until you find one that does the trick and use its clone for seed.
But…what about the male? I’m on my 10th bowl of nanners and I’m not feeling too much of a buzz (hopefully you know I’m just kidding). What are your selection methods for studs when potency is the end game? Are there any specifics you look for when deciding to kill or keep your males?
Size, quickest grower, specific genotype etc. Also a stem squeeze for good terpenes, and they have also used a chemical that makes males flower (opposite of sts, cs,etc) but honestly it’s the breeders discretion
Do you think there is any correlation between potency and any of those traits? Or is all that based off of gut instinct or Grow-Bro science? Don’t get me wrong, gut instinct and Grow-Bro science can, and has, lead to some pretty major breakthroughs…just wondering if you’ve heard/read/noticed any of that to be the case.
Look up chimera of chimera seeds and read his stuff they might have some hard factual data now but the 10 years or so ago i read it i can’t remember
I’ve always heard to look for what you want in a female such as vigor, smell, trichome production etc. I’ve also heard from breeders which I look up to that you do not want quick flowering males. The autoflowering or quick flowering males might indicate the presence of “hemp” traits which is no good for thc potency. Take the late flowering males for higher thc production is the rumor. Seems to make sense but I have not seen any journals or studies to verify this information so who knows.
You start to be more addictive than the weed itself Mac ^^
Smoking males was always considered as a shame, even when breeding is the main goal. So in a way, guessing is more respected than testing on this subject. But i’m a shameless guy and yes i’m testing their flowers just like females ^^ And yes, if i invested to have a personnal chromato at home to test all males … i will stop to do that and will only use my noise lmao
But you need a serious auto-discipline for that and pay the price or it’s off course useless to do it. You can’t evaluate a male on potency between twos blunts, you need to “starve your weed’s daemon” for that before. I personally need 2 to 4 days (in practicing sport) to able to evaluate a male’s batch. I generally do it the morning very early to can open again the jars the soonest i can ^^
You’re not in the obligation to smoke them even if it have the advantage to be faster. I personnally prefer to do lassi bhang, it’s more pleasant and imho more accurate to judge the profile. Don’t underestimate this shit ^^, but i don’t want to spoil you on it lol
I work backwards.
Instead of selecting one male to breed with, I select the worst, earliest flowering, spindly little pos males and turn them all into nutrients. Whenever possible, ill use the rest of the males to collect pollen and mix 1:1:1:etc before knocking up any females. Preferably there would be as many males as possible, but I can’t risk news of a cultivation charge being brought up in family court, so plant limits dictate I usually keep around 3 brothers of a given type.
My method is based off the idea that by removing undesirables, ill automatically end up closer to my goals without risking one shitty male setting a breeding program back a whole generation by producing shitty kids.
I assume you then plant extra seeds and thin weak seedlings?
When have smoking males been considered a shame? Must be a new thing.
The male flower can be potent, it might not be THC, but there can be active compounds in the male flower (pollen and resin) If it’s terps, THC or what ever I don’t know, a lot have happened over the years in the sciens.
But I even got old morrocan hash recipys that uses male pollen as a flavor agent, where you mix up to 10% pollen into your sifted kiff.
Find a THC producing male, that will be the No1 goal in breadin for potency.
Good luck - they are rare but you can find them!
I can’t count the number of “WTF” i got when i’ve explained that ^^
Even sometimes from some breeders themselves lol
My favorite way to do a creamy/expanding dry sieve ^^ Sweet Tooth males pollen is stunning for that. My turn to say WTF now, i was thinking than it was a secret only know by a litle number of frenchies lol Even F.Cannoli never speak about that lmao
good vibes of sharing here ^^
Might be spilling secrets here I shouldnt hehehe - I am sure a lot of this is the stuff there’s been lost over the years.
I had two morrocan friends, who’s uncle was an old timer hash farmer. Got the chance to meet him at a wedding reunion thing, I was invited to after their sisters wedding.
After getting him really stoned, he told me alot about how they used to do, before the war on drugs started.
Tried a 10% pollen mix, after leaving the buds on the stalks a full year. Then pressed it, and it should be stored another year around 30-40 C degrees. So once the hash was ready, it was already 2 years old. But damn, that was some quality smoke and the structure had changed compleatly. From a hard solid brick, to a soft and flexible texture. Flavor was really good!
Full (safe) disclosure bro ^^, i’m in !
Here we are overloaded by morocco hash of all grades since decades, weed is very less common in the street.
I consider personally as a “reward for patience” the hash of my seeded females. Very mature and full of fragrances, a good pollen on it being the cherry on the cake. It help the texture and “streamline” a bit the smoke too, because the basis is very oily in general. No way, i will show how i do it when i’ve enough matter ^^ My process is relatively fast (outside the curing).
As a hash maker, this is something I would look for in a male. One thing I think people dont do, and should, is bring their males to full maturity. Often people will flower the male until a branch drops pollen, then kill it and move on. The male clusters will give a clue to bud structure. The resin production and terpenes will peak as well.
Edit
Here is an example of a male in full flower, notice the bud structure.
From this post by @LED_Seedz
exactly what reiko said… i look for vigorous males that have resin and terpene production along with flower structure
I’m very interested. Where did you come across these recipes?
I got them told by an old moroccan hash farmer, an uncle to two brothers I knew a long time ago.
I thought this was impressive - obviously if you ever see a male like this, you use it! @ProfessorP Blue Heron:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BkVqolABOWW/?taken-by=dynasty_genetics
I test the potency of male plants by making edibles. I have a low tolerance for a grower and mmj patient, but I think this might be effective for others as well. I’ve made whole male plants into edibles infusing them into coconut milk, or heavy cream. You can make the infusion into any sauce, soup, or desert you like. The other method I have used is to make juice with the flowers and leaves by blending them thoroughly with water and then straining it with a tea strainer. Depending on the potency, the juiced males can sometimes give me an overwhelming but short lived edible high. Other times, I only get medicinal effects and muscle relaxation. This is only an indicator, but it can be informative of the terpenes, medical attributes, and potency level.
Primarily, I select males based on structural traits and hardyness. I never use males with obvious pest or mold/mildew susceptibility. Generally I look for good branching, numerous bud sites, and good flower structure. Of course, the traits I’m looking for vary greatly depending on the project, and whether I’m breeding for indoor or outdoor growing.
“You will know them by their fruits”
For true male selection - and actually this is also true for selecting mothers for seed production - the optimal way to select males is to judge them by their offspring. This way is of course more time consuming - particularly for males because you can only realistically create test-seeds from a single male at the same time, while from the same seedrun you can do progeny testing of several females.
You will need 10 seed runs to create seeds for progeny testing of a matrix of 10 males and 10 females, while seeds for progeny testing of 10 females can be made in a single run.
I doubt many breeders perform this step for males any more…
Edit - another way to select males is to select them based on the performance of their sisters. Obviously this only makes sense if you’re a real breeder using large populations:)
This is also worthwhile when creating crosses. It would be preferable to select the male for a cross from the most stable side.
Wow. I just learnt something. Had no idea male pollen was in the hash mix. I love a bit of nice Moroccan hash.
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