Ive never done a seed run myself and was hopeing some of the more knowledgeable members could help explain what to look for in a male. Any advice would be much appreciated.
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From what I’ve read, mainly structure, speed of growth and smell. Unless you’re looking for specific traits from a strain you are working.
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My nose is about dead these days… Too much fun in my 20s 
maybe i should keep a clone of each male and dust the lower mids with a bit of each… Each branch get dif pollen that way i can test out what the combos of each male and female is 
this is gonna take awhile
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Basically what Grease_Monkey said, look for just a lot of the same things you would in a female, just know that it will be growing pollen sacs instead of buds.
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There isn’t any one way to do it. It depends on what you’re trying to get out of making the cross, and that will tell you what you need to find in the male. Like if your mom is too tall, pick a male that doesn’t stretch very much. That kinda stuff.
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Ok that makes sense. Thanx man my search is usually bud quality (the high) over anything else since i just grow for me and my wife atm so ill probably have to wait to see what each produces in the end before making a choice which to keep. Also i would feel like a piece of crap if i put out seeds that didnt perform to my own standard’s. Well i got some ghost og x stardawg f1s going atm so wish me luck 
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Well depending on how devoted you are to a cross, you can get very involved. The most accurate way to get what you want is to keep a mother plant, and then start testing males a few at a time. Make the cross and then grow a few from each male out until you find it.
I think you can pick a male more easily for yield than flower quality though. It’s difficult to say what it will do until you’ve tried bud from the cross. And in some ways, I think it’s easier for home breeders to use multiple males and then hunt a mom from the hybrid, use her to make F2s and then backcross those to her. I plan on doing that for some hybrids I’m working on.
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Im pretty ocd and obsessive… If not for my wife id spend all day in my garden… And i originally got these to try and bx to get it closer to the ghost og side
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It’s actually possible to reverse males and see what their flowers look like, however that’s pretty advanced and not many breeders actually do that.
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How would you go about that???
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Sweet, then if you’ve grown it before, you might recognize its phenos in the males.
I’ll give you an example of a male selection that I’m working on now. I have a fem only strain I made that I wanted to work on, and make into a regular version. I’ve grown it before, so I know what it looks like. Usually it has a tall, big central cola, and small side branches. So I gave some seeds to someone, and he crossed it to 88g13hp. He sent me back the seeds and I grow them out.
I know that G13 is often used because it does a good job controlling stretch, which is something that could help. I now want to cross this back to a selection of my original strain, so I grow several males and eventually reduce down to 4 for full flowering. I see 2 main phenos emerge. One pheno has a tall central stem with smaller side branches. The clusters are round and concentrated on the end of the branches. I can identify this as a pheno more similar to my strain. The other one is shorter, has higher side branches and flowers that extend more down the stems. This is more toward the 88G13.
In my case, I am crossing back to my original strain but I want to bring in the features of the 88G13, so I narrow down to the two males from that pheno. Next I decide between them based on the other features that differentiate them from each other.
So you can see that if you get to know a plant you can more easily know what to do with the males. And especially if you are working with two stable lines that have been inbred, then you can more easily figure out what you’re doing because you don’t have an excess of expressions that you’re trying to identify.
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Dude you are amazing thank you that is the type of explanation i was hoping to get. Years ago i had ghost cut so i got a pretty clear picture of what to look for. I might just need to work with it for a few years until i get it were it gets stable. Thank you again brotha
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Lefthandseeds gave you a lot of good informations​:+1:t3:
He weel noticed that this is a difficult work to do when you try to be perfect and use a lot of males etc…
To add just a little something to what he said :
As passionated growers, not professional ones, just keep in mind that’s your feeling and a lot of unknown luck when you make crosses. So just have fun and make what you feel 
For example, I like to cross big sativa mothers with big indica male. And just see what happen 
Like lefthandseeds said, it’s just when you smoke the buds of the females from the cross of your unknown male that you will discover if it’s a good one or not
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I usually look for thick, sturdy stems and big balls.
Cookie 
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Genuinely interested.
As the title suggests, say I have stain A and B and decided to breed them.
What are the criteria for choosing the male/female of strain A?
What is it that determines the choice of sex of a strain to be bred with the opposite of the other strain.
If I liked a strain, what makes me choose the female over the male for breeding?
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Genuinely interested.
As the title suggests, say I have stain A and B and decided to breed them.
What are the criteria for choosing the male/female of strain A?
What is it that determines the choice of sex of a strain to be bred with the opposite of the other strain.
If I liked a strain, what makes me choose the female over the male for breeding?
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Are you asking which sex retains the expressions you are looking for better when crossing to something else? Or how people pick out their dames and also their stud of choice? Either way great conversation!!
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Out of likes @Brujobob
I wouldn’t mind both the questions that uve pointed out being answered…
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The better looking, better smoking plant isn’t always the best breeder. Test cross for combining ability, or self and observe.
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To be mostly pragmatic/fair with you, i should say : the criteria that have the last word there, in the vast majority of the cases, is the experience and the knowledge built on the strains.
I’m suspecting that you’re not asking the very basic question : must I build & follow a breeding plan to blend the trait 1 of strain A with the trait 2 of the strain B, right ? 
The third possibility is by the way a very polemic point : the generic cases of sexual prevalence.
1 : The polemic itself. You have mostly twos groups fighting over it and this is for the usual and classic dick-measurement-challenge-over-the-web only, not to help newcomers in the game to have a comprehensive starting point.
The first group is generally fake scientists vomiting advanced genetic concepts and informations in the face of everyone to prove their credibility. They let also think that they are sequencing the DNA of all their specimens in the kitchen to make a selection, just like you cook pancakes. The synthesis is generally the same on all subjects : everything is possible and everything is impossible, on demand. They generally never see that they only prove their lack of practice.
The second group is generally very dogmatic and count mostly on the star system to push their opinion : the famous breeder A have said, the incredible breeder B have said etc … without understanding that breeders have thrown very contextual lanterns to see your feets in the darkness. Not god’s laws.
The real polemic to assume is that you have to say something that is false in the absolute (in theory), to say something fundamentally true (in practice).
If you understand perfectly this first point, you’re getting out from this stupid historic fight in our green community and you can do something with it, with your dirty hands and on your plants.
2 : The concept of genpool, and specifically OUR genpool. It explain partially the existence of the stupid fight.
In the holly 90’s (don’t get me started on it), the genpool was already narrowed. People dislike when i talk about that but most of Dutch seedbanks was revolving around Ben Dronkers (my own personnal star in this game) and in making shortcuts, around the genpool of sensi seeds. Most of well known European seedbanks have been built by his own ex-employee. The most famous of all being Shantibaba/Scott Blakey, another heavy weight. And if he wasn’t hiring you, you was in in his close circle (like soma, even arjan …).
Add to it the regular ping pong game with the USA and their breeders, that add another layer of useless polemic, and you have a good overview. Just remember this : it was an infernal but very productive and inspired/inspiring genetic circle. Twos continents was fighting in throwing seeds and clones at the head of the other, in saying that they was the “original”. Sometimes with fancy stories that we still ear today, over 30 years later.
I digress with it because it’s important to understand for the subject that most of the P1 (initial parents) of the strains we are smoking today are coming from blends of this period.
It’s why it’s easy to say : to shorten the long flowering time of Strain A, use a short male of the short flowering time of Strain B. And it’s essentially not wrong, because in most of the cases we are talking about the Afghani #1, to say it short ^^
Is the rule “take the male of the shortest strain to reduce the longest” true ? It’s not, it’s just generically true considering the context. Near all growers (of my generation at least) will believe that shortening a Haze with an Afghani is not magic or even a science, just an usual practice.
And that’s the starting point you need to follow with every others questions on sexual prevalence, then you can be more free considering more advanced theories, breeding plans etc …
My very first strain at my teenage age was an africaan landrace directly imported (i was just buying it to smoke it). When i’ve decided to make seeds with the one collected in the weed, i was forced to acclimatize the initial line to alps ^^ In doing this madness i’ve not learned that to shorten a line you need to focus on males, i’ve just rejected the shortcut to do it with a “dronker’s afghani”. In this particular line, the flowering time of males (and specifically the lenght of it before senescence) was mostly a trigger for the general potency, not so for the average flowering time. And, i’ve learned it a good decade later after doing it, because the acclimatization. If i was applying the same strategy on the native ground, not sure i will have the same output or even the same constant phenotype’s occurences and reccurences to base my decision on.
And today, it’s not the 90’s. You don’t necessary have the warranty to have an incredible motherplant with each pack of ten seeds. Actual quality standards are the ones we was expecting from cheap “ripp off” company of the old times. To be clear on the fact that i’m not a fanboy of sensi seeds because my respect for Dronkers (the father), i can quote my favorite smoke : the Jack Herer. In past, only one pack was necessary to obtain the female i was needing. Recently, i was forced to throw near 2K for the same output. And no, it’s not the inflation ^^
3 : The generic “rules”
Because you’re brave to have read my awful english on theses long considerations, you’re now ready to read the right way what i’ve to share, without losing your free will and your sense of the context.
Flowering time : Males are the most efficient vectors, but also the most pricey genetically. If you’re focusing your breeding plan to only take the shortest male, most of your accurate work on females will be crushed hardly , no matter the female’s traits you’re working. It’s where generally you recognize someone that is making lines fom someone that is making seeds : the first will talk about the problematic “timing” between the selected males and the selected females, the second don’t even have any consideration for the maturation of pollen and generally make seeds with male’s pre-flowers. Off course, in hybridization (F1) it doesn’t matter the same way (except the male’s maturity).
Someone in the background is asking : “so,in general, what is the best strategy for a high level of standard?” Splitting the effort : less brutality lead to less surprises. You breed long flowering time strain A for the lemon taste, right ? Push (inbred) your females in seeing how much their taste resist. And, is there a male’s phenotype in your short flowering time strain B with a hint of limonène, even in after taste ? Even if he’s a little longer than the others ? Better choice to choose it and preserve the lemon taste in F1 in shorter flowering time than A, than crushing the lemon taste with a very short F1 right ?
And no, backcrossing (in any way possible, chemically or not) is not a magic trick for everything. At one point you have to be at the level of your goals when you have to juggle with a bunch of selected traits.
Taste : Males are the most efficient vectors, but also the most pricey genetically.
Potency : Males are the most efficient vectors, but also the most pricey genetically.
Roots development : Males are the most efficient vectors, but also the most pricey genetically.
Oh wait, is there a pattern there ?
Do you duty now, and :
- aim the goals that fit your experience : little experience = mono-goal
- know your lines first, in inbreeding them at least a couple of generations
- know your classics : a fancy name is appealing, a hard selection on taste also … but if you’re recognizing the line used behind all the usual BS and fairy tales. It’s even better for your plans. I’m salty on it, today we are at the point that to recognize a skunk is a matter of “expert”. Destroy my cynicism please and sometimes make some places in your crop for classics. And no, i’m not talking about the 500$ bag of seeds in auction that is coming from Jesus itself when he was partying with Bob Lennon in an Area 51 facility. Just classics, most of them are cheap to get.
- burn me in public place for that if you want but : feminized seeds are “seeds to smoke”, not a decent genetic material. Even the “pioneer” of this practice in cannabis market (Dutch Passion) claim it themselves since ages. Listen them.
It’s enough long i think ^^
Edit1 : Added a necessary accuracy on the very first feminized releases …
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