I have so many plans, after I reset in a few months, strawberry diesel x space dude pheno hunt in one tent various fem photos in another winners of the pheno hunt will get a seed run in the 2x4😁
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ReikoX picks his males pretty much the way I pick mine. The only thing I would like to add is to look for trichomes on the selected males that meet your criteria.
Just remember that it is still a crap shoot in what you get. It is the work you do in the next generations that will create a good stable strain.
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Already learning, didn’t know males had trichomes 
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The most important thing is picking males from lines that consistently produce good females, or males from inbred lines with known stable traits.
Don’t put too much “stalk” in stem rubs. I don’t think that males that display “female” traits are desirable i.e. trichome coverage. Pick a sturdy vigorous male(s) that look phenotypically similar to the best females of the line.
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what he said - @ReikoX
offspring is the only real way to see what a male female combination gets
that’s why beanz should be tested before selling (many major breeders do not)
I try to test everything but it is a slow process
I also do not like fast males - females don’t like them either (wink, wink)
and remember pollen goes everywhere and gets into sealed tents (you have to open them sometimes) even if you are very careful
I only work with 1 male (or various but of the same strain)
therefore you always know what the possible stray beanz are
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There was a good thread last year about choosing males for breeding: How do you pick your stud?
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I disagree, and so do many others. This is only a few examples:
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There’s lots of old wive’s tales in the community with no data to support it. Doesn’t mean it’s true.
Example, people say “don’t use the early flowering males because those are hemp” and “don’t use the vigorous males because that’s hemp” and “don’t use plants with hollow stems” all sorts of oft-repeated but unverifiable advice. I don’t think males with female characteristics are more desirable.
Most of the breeders out there are full of it, IMO. They don’t know what they’re doing any more than anyone else. The best plants I’ve grown have come from “pollen chuckin’ nobodies”.
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I did a weird experiment… To grow the worst buds possible, but in good soil.
I took bagseeds of overfed commercially grown strains, and overfed the heck out of them, and hit them with the absolute saddest males I could find. The resulting seeds were grown correctly. The worst of the worst plants looked amazing. Tasted good, better than you can buy at least. The yields were huge huge to average huge. The effect was a crap shoot, leaning heavily in marketability’s favor. None of the bud smelled strongly enough or had a distinct/strong enough flavor for market though. Not a one out of hundreds.
Moral of the story: the only hard part to breed from current stock is the part you can’t advertise on Instagram. Don’t pay attention to any “breeder” who isn’t focused on smell chemistry. You couldn’t grow a frostless low yielding plant with today’s available genetics if you tried. That’s where Skunk really went I think. Traded quality chemicals for quantity chemicals.
I once heard a guy in a video say OG Kush fathers will have a vinegar smell. Can’t remember who the guy was. I’ve tried sifting through youtube to find the guy but it’s hours of kindergarten trash.
Stem rub? Means something. Don’t know what. Almost every plant I grew for 3 years straight, the stem rub on the bottom leaves would be sour peach rings, dead on, every plant. I have no idea what it means, but I’ve never smoked a sour peach flavored bud as a result.
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Anyone got some book recommendations on the subject?
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There are many books on breeding. None that I know of dedicated to just picking male plants.
The problem lies in that it is all conjecture and not fact as far as what traits are actually passed to the progeny. Some traits can skip generations and there are dominant and recessive genes. There is no hard rules on what is passed and what is used in the progeny as a lot of it is chance.
We can narrow those undesired traits through selective breeding. But in doing so we also narrow the gene pool for future generations of that particular strain.
By picking for certain traits we dont know what was lost that could be desirable.
So as I said above a lot of this is chance and why most “breeders” should be picking from a large gene pool. But there is still no way to tell what was lost in that selective process except what is seen in the following generations.
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But if you would like to do some reading on the subject of breeding you can try this:
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Those two articles don’t really disagree with the post you were replying to.
The female chromosome carries more genes than just sexual expression. Among the other alleles, like 10% of the thc genes reside there, too. So when you use a male, if his “female traits” aren’t dependent on the same alleles as the females, it’s still heterozygous even though they look like they match. So instead of doubling up the traits, the progeny is just another random assembly.
That’s why I usually just say: run >100 plants and pick the best females. Match them to the most similar males and progeny test.
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MeanGene said stem rub that smells like dill pickles; if that’s what you’re thinking of. I haven’t double-checked but I’m pretty sure this is the one.
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Look to cows and agriculture / silviculture. Animal husbandry is leaps and bounds ahead of cannabis
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I’ll get there one day, but that’s beyond my capacity for the foreseeable future.
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Here is what I was responding to:
‘I don’t think that males that display “female” traits are desirable i.e. trichome coverage.’
Skunk Mag:
Leaf hairs and trichomes are basically the same things. So, for superior resin production (and terpenes ) in your offspring, you want your males to have the genetic potential to donate those properties; denser trichome formation means increased resin production.
Kalifa:
Some males are covered in trichomes, just like female plants. Not all good male studs produce lots of trichomes but that is always a good sign.
Not trying to argue here because I am certainly no breeding “expert”. But we do pick female traits in males to pass on to females. Cluster formation for one is a good example. I see no logical reason why potency in a male would also not be passed to it’s progeny. Is it not the same concept as both parents having blue eyes increasing the chance of the children to inherit that trait?
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Well that’s just silly. These kids nowadays want us to believe the espousing different opinions means we’re opponents, and there’s no way we can both be correct. One of us must go! 
But for real — there’s nothing wrong with an impassioned argument; but there is something seriously wrong with people being so invested in a belief that they hold a grudge against anyone who disagrees.
But back on topic — what I’m saying is I believe specific combining ability is more important than which traits the male displays. The last Kashmir male I chose is a good example of a beautiful plant with a lackluster breeding potential. He looked the part, but his kids on average just weren’t what they could have been. He was a little too dominant.
Some males are ugly, but make good breeders because all of the visible traits fall into the background, and the moms traits get amplified.
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That makes sense to me, I’ve got friends who are smart, fit and attractive whose kids are literally none of those.
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I totally agree with your points in this post.
Impassioned discussion is a great way to learn.
Grow on brother……….
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