Silver Thiosulfate - What to do when closed staminate flowers fail to mature into pollen producing anthers

Breeder's Lab
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Hi y’all

I have noticed that with some strains it’s very easy and straight-forward to use STS and have a female plant drop pollen. With others, though, it takes a whole lot more STS solution for any staminate flowers to emerge. As most of you will know, the silver blocks the ethylene needed for female flower development, leading the plant to produce male flowers in lieu of female ones.

I have come to notice that in some strains, this excessive need for silver then goes on to cause problems later on in male flower development, as there is also a need for ethylene to mature the male flowers. Male flowers will develop, but they will refuse to swell and open.

When this happens, one can wait till the proverbial cows come home, but even if the flowers succeed to open, there will be little pollen, if any, to collect, and eventually the plant will wither and die, immature flowers included.

Ethylene is used widely in a variety of fields, not in the least in the artificial ripening of fruits, but also in flowers. It’s also secreted by bananas and a bunch of other fruits.

Knowing that ethylene is the missing factor in male flower ripening, I decided to do an experiment. I’ve conducted this experiment 3 times by now with comparable results each time.

I placed a cutting that was STS reversed but refused to ripen into a clear plastic tote with a banana peel inside, placing the tote in a partially sunny but not too hot place. I keep the lid cracked to avoid heat buildup.

I check up on the cutting regularly to see what the flowers are doing, how much banana I can smell inside the tote, and if it isn’t getting too hot or moist inside.

After 2 to 5 days inside the tote, flowers will have turned from green itty bitty stubborn roid rocks into yelllowing bulging balls ready to pop any moment. They might not ever actually open, and they may not become the biggest balls ever, and it could be they only give you a fraction of a more pollen-performant specimen, but they will develop, and they will have some ripe pollen stored in the anthers.

I like to harvest the flowers when they are fully bulged and look like they are about to open, though they may not open at all so at this point I give it a day, sometimes 2 or 3 depending on my schedule, and then I just harvest the most swollen and yellowed flowers, harvesting the anthers from the flowers right away so the anthers can dry a bit and open up.

I leave the anthers in an open petri dish to dry out a bit before mixing with some corn starch and dried rice and collecting it into an eppendorf tube. After a couple days more I’ll store it in the freezer.

These are my observations so far. Feel free to conduct your own experiments and/or join the discussion or simply use to your benefit as needed.

Wizzlez :heart: :yellow_heart: :green_heart:

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From what I understand when I had this problem with a GDP plant, was that it’s genetics were so strong as a female plant that it would not produce pollen, although it made flowers.

So I would speculate that plants that have been previously feminized through this process, will be easier to repeat the process with, than plants that have never been worked on or have very strong female genetics.

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I’ll give away my secret. For stubborn plants I do my normal STS spray then continue to hit them with colloidal silver spray each day after.

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I have observed the over use of CS will inhibit pollen production. I like this simple method to improve pollen production with ethylene. :+1::seedling:

I recently had a similar issue, I could have used this technique. :thinking:

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As I was reading this post I was thinking to myself… I wonder if you put a banana in a bag with the plant it would help… then you explained it all away. Very cool experiment and good thinking. All this is to say that I’m not a clever man but you explained it very well. Planning on trying some reversals at some point so I’ll be bookmarking this one.

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Very cool, love this!

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Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Personally I’m 50/50 success rate from my fem runs. They produce sacs 100% of the time but only half of them have dumped usable pollen.

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High @Wizzlez

Have you used the pollen to make seeds? Were they all female?

I’m actually here at OG because of this sterile pollen problem. I’ve used STS 3x separate times on the same strain, got plenty of nice looking sacs, and none opened.

Last time I ground the sacs, and got pollen, but it was sterile… or I just fucked up…again.

I’m glad you brought this up :slight_smile:

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I have, and I’ve fucked up a few times with it. I mean, when they develop properly it’s easy to use it for pollen and it’s viable alright. But I’ve had a few that failed to develop and of those I’ve tried, IIRC, 3 strains with banana in a box.

For now, as best I can tell, when using the extra ethylene method, it seems there’s less pollen and it needs to be harvested at the right moment for it to be viable; cut the flowers, open them, dry them out, and if they drop pollen on their own, as far as I can tell from my limited experience it seems the pollen will work.

But to be completely honest I am working with a lot of different strains and I’ve had 2 instances happen where a bit of pollen went flying about, so I can’t say anything with absolute certainty for this round yet. I’ll have to determine that by using the F1 seeds, and the pollen again.

I have had at least 1 plant that was a complete fail for STS pollen, but it was only the third plant I tried to reverse. Those flowers failed to develop yellowing swelling anthers. I did rub the anthers on some female flowers when the anthers where withering away, but it never even looked like they held any pollen to begin with, and the branches I marked for that strain had, in total, for 4 branches on 4 strains, 2 seeds, so I’m counting those as stray beans from another fother. Going to have to try again for the failed strain. IIRC I started spraying that one a bit late, so I think I just need to time it properly this time for it to work.

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Greetings @Wizzlez,
i just stumbled onto this thread but it’s a great topic and very timely for me.

I’m reversing Frankenstein clones, the very paragon of stubborn femaleness!

I have been successful thus far, but my latest had me worried.

After four STS treatments, four days apart, I hadn’t seen any development beyond the wild proliferation of wispy white pistils that characterize the mother clone Frankie plants. My experience is that continuing to spray, or adding CS treatments to an STS reversal isn’t productive. Only time I saw empty sacs was when I oversprayed CS and burned the shite out of a clone.

I was pleased to see this morning that my Frankie-pollen reversal was showing Staminate expressions. Little bunches of grapes that should inflate in a couple of weeks. Weeks late, but looking good.

So, what slowed things down? For one thing, I put the clone under 12/12 lighting a few days before beginning the STS sprays. Normally I keep the plant in veg until a few days to a week AFTER the first application. Maybe it’s important to start the Ethelene gas before hitting Go on Flowering?

I also think the cold weather here in New England may have delayed the reversal timing. It has been cold and dry for weeks here. I’ve been chasing VPD more or less successfully but I bet my reversal plant is stressed, and that always slows things down.

Last but not least, my commercial ready-mix STS is a little past its expiration date. It has been properly stored, and it apparently still works, but I should refresh my supply. I have been using “Store Bought” STS with a concentration of 3mM.

Anyways, great conversation here, hope these observations add to the discussion. I look forward to getting to the bottom of the Empty Sac problem so we can all avoid it in the future.

-Grouchy
PS
It seems that the most efficacious STS concentration is 3mM.

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Interested in hearing more on the results you have observed.
But I have to say I am skeptical it will work.
Why you ask?
Well if I see any male flowers on a female plant I spray ethylene to make them go away.
Now whether or not ethylene has the same effect on mature male flowers, I don’t know, it should but I have not tried it myself.
Remember Ethylene is typically used to reverse males.

Good luck
shag

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