I often wonder how breeders keep male pollen from spreading to other segregated females in the same facility and or property. It seems mail pollen is so small and can float far. What is the strategy of breeders to not get pollen mixed up with other females/grow areas? It just seems almost impossible to make anything other than one strain at a time on the same property with total
Confidence. Somehow the breeders do it because the plants that I get are different. Just wondering what the techniques are from the master breeders.
I am far from knowledge able on this …but I read alot about breeders selectively using one male with majority of theyre crosses. So maybe they don’t start breeding until a male is chosen?
So they flower 1 male (clones) at a time in the whole building or property? That would for sure prevent cross pollen floating thru the ductwork etc. If a breeder wanted to breed a pure sativa room and a pure indica room on the same property with seperate males in each tent how can they prevent the cross pollen travel I wonder?
Isolate all the males in a separate, sealed room with no air exchange to the females. Simple to say, not quite as simple to do… but it’s certainly possible. Bag pollen and apply it to the females.
Spray what you can down with water and keep dry the part you want to flower.I did a side by side pollination same plant two buds got two different types of seed and I didn’t get a single seed elsewhere.I just finished smoking up that outside one and didn’t find one bean other than the two single skirt buds I knocked up
my Idea does sounds pretty safe though !
Again. I was just taking a stab in the dark.
I haven’t any experience with pollenation.
You came to the right place.
They’re are a number of breeders here.
Good question.
I think you have it figured out . They may not even do open pollenation and just dust the females with pollen .
Maybe a dedicated male jail and collect pollen from they’re desired candidates.
Great start to a interesting discussion.
I have only ever done selective branch pollination with a vial/bag of pollen and a makeup brush. I will toss a bag over that branch for a few days and bounce it around in there a few times before I take the bag off. I do multiple strains of pollen per plant and I have never had seeds pop up were I did not want them yet.
I think flowering males at a different location miles away would be a option for a company that wants to make all kinds of crosses pure with almost total confidence using the above mentioned techniques. You would have to have a “partner” to do a seperate grow tho so nevermind.
Also breeders may own and have multiple
Property’s that flower males at one and be able to flower/seed females at the other. Not everyone is poor like me ha ha.
The type of breeders you’re talking about keep one single bag of pollen til they die.
Example:
Everything in the 707 library that’s not fathered by kush cleaner came from a “tester” or is bagseed from a festival in Missouri or some shit.
On a small scale, spaying and bagging virgins is the safest and cheapest way.
With some organizational skills and discipline you could do 5+ simultaneously
Edit: I’ve done up to 8, it was quite draining lol
They make translucent woven pollen bags for breeding. PBS Pollination Bags.
You can make a simple chamber with a hepa filter exhaust, @GrowHard had one made out of a clear storage container.
But if you don’t grow to sell flower, it doesn’t matter if you get pollen everywhere, assuming you’re only doing one pollination at a time. It only lasts a few days once it’s released, and once the male is dead it’s over.
@Peg it doesn’t last forever…shelf life of pollen even frozen is limited. They might keep that male around potentially for decades though.
I make my pollen so that it is ready just before my females are ready to receive it. By the time my females are ready, my pollen is already bagged.
I only take seed from places that I put pollen.
Any seed in an unmarked position goes into a random collection with the mom named and marked as a random. And sometimes a possible dad.
I’ll usually grow a few of those out by throwing them in a plant That isn’t far from harvest.
Once they are finished, I know the dad by it’s tastes and terp profile. “Usually”.