Curious if anyone here Flowers All their males in one open space? (Or is there too high of a chance of cross contamination?)
Currently I have a male room, and each male gets its own tent.
3 Likes
Yes, in my enclosed front porch it gets 12/12 sunlight.
2 Likes
Separate room for sure, I just had a few snipped branches in a cup of water, over a piece of glass. But I left the male in the flower room for the first 6-7 days. It was a day too late and a few seeds were made in the females preflowers that I didn’t intend lol.
2 Likes
hmm sounds good! I was more worried about pollen getting mixed up between the males, but if I only harvest one at a time it sounds like it should be fine. This way instead of being limited to tents, I can actually throw down and preserve/progress more lines at once. (females are all separate, this is a male only room.)
If you have fans running and pollen sacs releasing pollen, you won’t be able to prevent cross contamination from happening. I recently grew 2 different male strains side by side in a closet, but thanks to the cold weather and low heat produced from the LED, I could get away with not using a fan.
3 Likes
Yeah no fans. Only filtration. But that’s pretty much my main worry. Maybe separate spaces is the best bet. I’d rather not take chances.
3 Likes
Yeah if you have both tents connected to the same duct work it’ll mix. If they are in the same house they end up seeding everything even outside sometimes, lol.
I’ve been trying to keep males while others flower and I’m getting a large seed collection, ha. It’s fun though. It’s tricky moving between the two. It travels on your clothes, shoes, hair… but it’s a fun learning experience. I’m still letting it happen a lot. If you’re careful you can limit the seeds to a smaller amount. Have fun!
3 Likes
I haven’t really had any other issues. Don’t really end up with seeds where I don’t want. Pretty meticulous about those little things.
Tents are negative pressure so it just sucks pollen towards filtration.
I was just stoned and was wondering anyone is keeping a bunch together. But yeah… on second thought it doesn’t seem like the best idea.
1 Like
I have been wondering this as well… I wonder if there might be a way to do it tho, like having some transparent dividers with each section having its own extraction (negative pressure as you said) and own inlet with no fans?
May area has relatively low RH, think the highest I have even seen is 50%, so maybe I could get away without one?
Cleanish trash bags as tents over each male as it’s releasing the pollen. Once it starts, it’ll continue regardless of light schedule. Hell, I left mine in the room with just natural daylight since it’s winter with short day periods.
3 Likes
It doesn’t get too humid in the trash bags?
Would clear bags be preferable tho so they get some light tho?
How many days would you have it on and how do you take it off without spreading it everywhere?
Tie it/seal it at trunk bottom and chop trunk below it or something?
These males are from different varieties? If they are, I would only use fresh unopened flowers for pollination. Take a cutting, dip it in water to get all the pollen off of it. Swish it around too. Then put the cut stem in a glass of water and use that for your pollen source. The cuttings can be placed in a window and if it’s not too cold, should do just fine. If you are trying to keep strains separate, I would say that there would definitely be a risk having them all kept together in the same tent.
3 Likes
No, I’m talking about making a fame of some sort, even catbird box with one side cut out, then put a clear bag over to make a tent. The one I’m using is a personal one person shelter. Currently using it as my quarantine/fumigation tent
6 Likes
Oh that’s super cool, so when you put a clear bag over that frame, there are no issues with temp/rh? At what point and for how long do you keep it like that?
It depends for me. If I do bring a male out he will be used next to females I expect to be fully seeded then he either goes back for reveg or I use and dump as I keep clones of keeper males as well. If I have multiple males I keep them in a neg pressure area filtered and use branches I cut off to pollinate specific matches only before putting the branch underwater and soaking it for mulch. I’ve used a glass jar to shake each of the male colas into and a paintbrush to put it on the hairs in cases where I can’t have any loose pollen whatsoever. The shaking all happens in a filtered tent so no big deal.
2 Likes
Where do you guys think is best location for the negative pressure exhaust vent in the tent?
I know a lot of people have them up top to help with heat, but if heat was not an issue, would that still be ideal? I was thinking maybe it might pull some pollen up but also that maybe some of that pollen being pulled up might separate from the draft and fall back down (onto other males/collection areas; obv bag collection is less of a concern)?
I also thought low extraction may not be ideal as far as where CO2 accumulates.
I put the filter on the inside of the tent and exited through the top rear through a dust shroom as well just to double filter. I had one fan on a speed control to dial in the neg pressure. Make sure to not go too crazy with the neg pressure. I imploded my tent with months of pressure from a 6" Vortex. Tent was trash after. So far this year I only am working with one male I really dug from last years selections which makes things a lot easier. Remember you can always pull all the balls off and strip a male down/ reveg if not totally sure you wanna work with him yet. No balls no pollen.
2 Likes
I imagine there is a point where it would be too early to strip the balls?
Would that be just a yield concern or also potency?
How do you know when?
I’ll be rocking small 2x2x3 micro grow boxes and just using cpu fans with double filters as well, maybe a cyclone filter thing as well but we’ll see… but yeah, I doubt/hope that won’t be an excessive neg pressure.
1 Like
I’ve let males go to the point where the first flower is about to open. At that point if I’m not ready for pollen, I pluck all the male flowers off the plant. This will buy a week or two time for the flowers to regenerate, provided you don’t miss any. if you just need to buy a few days or a week, just take off the mature flowers and leave the very tiny ones. Always keep your eye on these little flowers, because every strain is different and some will grow faster than others. I’ve done this to the same male plant two or even three X. Each time the flowers seem to come back quicker, but by the third time they don’t seem to come back with the same vigor. You can regenerate a male plant anytime before it is finished flowering and has fresh flowers forming.
5 Likes