I want to reverse this plant to Self it, Do you think its ready to start spraying? I keep getting conflicting information on WHEN to start spraying with STS. Its an Auto flower Tropicana Poison, and I only have 2 seeds of this strain, I really want to self it and fully seed the plant, the stem rub on it smells AMAZING.
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It is well past time to start using STS on this plant. You start using STS on an auto as soon as the first set of true leafs form.
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See that is the part of the conflicting Information Im finding. I have read what you just said, and I have also read Just as you first start to see the first flowers forming,and I have read that you spray about about week 3 which is roughly where this one is.
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Well that is a choice you will have to make. I can not tell you what information you should follow.
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There does not seem to be a concensus on it either, and the Auto Breeders I have reached out to have basically Ignored me.
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All I can say is that I have started it as soon as the first set of true leafs form and had no problem.
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When I’m reversing an auto to self-pollinate and pollinate another plant, I will start one about three weeks before the other.
This one will be reversed by starting STS applications about five days before flowering (usually sometime between day 15-25).
I will then treat every five days for a total of five treatments.
This has been a successful method for me on more than one occasion.
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You have plenty of time to reverse that plant. I try and start spraying STS one week before the first pistils appear if I slightly miss that event no big deal. I go heavy on the STS treatments; I try to spray once in the morning and once at night each day for like two straight weeks. When I feel like it’s been sprayed enough I cut to once every 3 to 5 days until I see mini pollen sacs forming. The easiest spot to see those in in the apical bud and at first it might be hard to see em. Takes a bit of a trained eye.
No need to spray the entire plant. You only need to spray the nodes, and soak the bud sites as they are forming. I rotate though those areas several times in a spraying as sometimes the STS evaporates kinda fast. I’ve never seen a plant show ill effects from too much STS and I act accordingly.
Also consider adding a wetting agent. STS beads up a ton without one. It is still effective no doubt, however with a wetting agent added you will get better coverage when spraying , and have more confidence. You should add it after your STS is all mixed up and ready to go. This is the one I use.
Here is a picture of a Scarlet Grapes auto I reversed last week. If you look close you can see the tiny pollen sacs. GL!
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Matey your auto is perfect for spraying STS I sprayed mine at that size and it’s 6 times as big now and just starting to show balls.
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Hey @Acro . Do you have any thoughts about this?
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I agree with what has been said above, definitely not too late. I also see no problem with starting earlier as @darkillusion suggested, just means you might end up spraying a few more times.
I aim to apply STS at around the day 21 mark (3 weeks) and have had great results so far.
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I breed too many regs to be much help. But, You can do this much later than most think, it just gets less likely it’ll work the longer you go. I think 20-45 days will work for most autos. I usually just do select branches.
a little tidbit of note, you can pollinate an auto, if it’s healthy and still has white stigma, just about any point in the life cycle and have it finish seeds. Basically, that auto of yours will often live another 30-40 days past its typical harvest date, and well beyond that, just to make you some progeny.
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I am gonna try A suggestion I got which is wait until it Just starts to flower and just starts showing the first few pistils and then spray. This will be my third attempt at reversing an Auto and the first two failed horribly, flowered out, no pollen, no seeds and i just had to trash the whole plant. Needless to say Im nervous I hate wasting seeds.
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Wait until you only have TWO of those seeds…
So you gotta make it happen!
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I only Had 2 of those seeds, ONE is planted and I have ONE left so I GOTTA make it happen! To be fair tho, I got them in a trade, so I only started with 2 of them. If I cant get the selfing to work, I will still hit them with auto Pollen that I have coming so at least ill get a cross out of it.
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I’ll tell ya a story…
I totally thought that I dicked my Emerald Fire OG auto fem project. I was busy with life and not really paying attention to the plant like I should have been. Well, she went into flower quick!
I thought for sure that I’d missed my window. But, I carried on STS treatments as usual. I was literally treating preflowers. And by the last treatment, small buds.
It definitely worked. I was amazed.
I couldn’t really collect any pollen because of the size of the flowers to sacs. And unfortunately heshe did not produce a good amount of S1’s.
But!
It was able to pollinate the second seed plant and allow me to make the EFOG F5.
Moral of the story:
Don’t ever give up!
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Oh I dont plan to give up! If it dont reverse, ill just cross it lol.
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Here’s what I did, Took forever, but I didn’t get pollen not until day 50 and after… Use parchment paper to collect pollen be very careful. You only get a small amount. (Other posters are correct next time around I will start spraying on about day 14-15.)
My experience—
May30, 2023.
“It took about 8-10 drenching sprays of homemade STS
Silver Thiosulfate Solution to get a Fast Buds Tangie’matic Auto to produce pollen.
I started spraying on day 21
& last spray on day 48…
Male pollen pods amazingly showed up around day 51 ***
I almost gave up !!!
Well I harvested very small amounts of pollen for the next 40 days (til day 90 or so), I then dried the plant on day 111 & ground it up (seriously)…
Ended up with a 1/4 Gr or so of yellow/white pollen in one batch & the sifted ground up plant in another, figuring there must be some pollen in it…(there was because on my recent last grow I used two grow areas & the ground up plant pollen mix produced seeds as well).
Overall it was worth it, but using famous words “it was a long strange trip”)…
Conclusion- I’d start spraying on day 15 even if the plant isn’t starting to flower, then I’d spray every 3 days NOT 4 or 5.
((It was very hard to find good information on STS spraying in Autos specifically… One forum poster mentioned Sativa dominant plant strains are harder to get to convert to male sex & sprays every 3 days VS 4-5-6 or so.))
So if you’ve mixed your STS correctly then remember that Frog being swallowed by the Crane & his hands wrapped around the birds neck…
Never Give Up !!!
My Auto Tangie
Day 75, Applied STS eight times starting on day 20 didn’t male flower till day 50 & many of the flowers look more like stressed banana Hermies, but some are pods!
Pollen pics:”
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I am trying to reverse an auto female with coloidal silver. I sprayed at lights out 4 days in a row when I saw the first white hair. This always works for photoperiod plants but this autoflower seems stalled. I dont understand what happened. 
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Also, here is the formula I used for the STS. I went 1/2 on everything.
I USED THIS FORMULA
ON Tangie 12/2022
I used formula below & reduced part A & part B by 1/2 when both A & B were made
You now have a sprayer bottle with a 1:9 dilution of STS and water. (Basically the same as YouTube video I saved under STS solution)
Below instructions:
Rinse all tools very very very well to remove silver chems etc
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