Hey All,
I am about to embark on trying to reverse my first female to try and collect some feminized pollen.
I was following the recipe outlined by @ReikoX (as written by Chimera). All seemed pretty straightforward however when I mixed my silver nitrate into the distilled water it took on a rusty colour that quickly turned to rusted colour precipitate. I mixed the 2 solutions together into my spray bottle but wanted to be sure this was Normal prior to spraying my girl?
This is what I have and how it looks mixed:
For those of you that have done this before - does this look right??
Thanks!
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A quick googling would indicate my distilled water ain’t so pure!
The immediate reaction suggests some sort of chloride or other reactive content in the distilled water… WTF, oh well. Will try again to confirm and then switch to a different source.
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That looks like oxidized silver. That happens with silver plating solution from contamination.
Edit: the dark color shouldn’t diminish the efficacy of the solution.
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You are correct that your water is not pure enough.
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Your distilled water is ozoned O3 from what I’ve learn when ozone mixes with h2o it will form peroxide that most likely oxidized the silver in your mix.
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Awesome - thanks for the feedback…
I’ll look for non-ozonated distilled water.
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Ok - it appears ozonating distilled water is common around me. Regardless - round 2 slightly better!
No precipitate or discolouration when I mixed the silver nitrate and distilled water.
I did however get discolouration when the 2 solutions were mixed together. No precipitate - just discolouration. Is this normal?
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It should still be usable. It’s going to be weak, but use more!
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I ended up spraying the solution I made about 10 days ago on the plant. Sprayed all over Until runoff.
No sure about it’s strength - but it certainly took a toll on the plant!
It’s alive but dropped and /or damaged most leaves.
I sprayed again lightly today - so we’ll see. It’s been flowering 10 days now so we’ll have to see what happens 
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Shockingly I poked my head in to see how the potential he-she was doing and to my surprise it is fully developing male flowers! It’s very early - but as long as they mature and drop pollen I’m good.
Success so far!
Question - can you pollinate female flowers on the same plant you treated with STS? I realize the ideal is to pollinate a non-reversed female… just curious on the above.
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Yes you can if it has some nice white viable hairs left.
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Have very good male flower formation but I’m noticing an issue!
2 flowers have opened… but no pollen. No visuals sign at least. I know reversed females produce less pollen - but am I looking at a potentially sterile reversed plant?
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It’s probably not sterile, but the pollen won’t be produced in large quantities. I usually dry the plant at full maturity and then shake it in a trash bag. You’ll get enough to work with!
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Ya I see some pollen dropping now - but not a significant amount.
Isn’t pollen only viable for a few days? Or am I totally off there.
When is a male plant considered ripe?
Would love a quick rundown of how you do it - sounds perfect!!
I don’t have my female ready for pollination so I was hoping to harvest a bunch and make some seeds later!
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All pollen requires some moisture to activate it’s biochemical reactions for growth. (Pollen grains grow in a similar way to how a seed grows, by shooting out something akin to a tap root, and transferring the genetic material to the inside of the female pistil tube, then it’s carried to the ovary and impregnation takes place.) The key is that the less moisture available the more viable pollen you will have. Keeping it cold and dark will also help. Pollen can be used years later as long as it’s super dry and tossed in a freezer.
When the majority of pollen sacks have opened up, or the plant starts dying, which happens just a couple weeks before the flowers of the same strain would be finished maturing (few translucent trichomes and mostly milky, or amber, trichomes).
I usually wait for the majority of the sacks to open. Occasionally I’ve had to take them early, because of the health of the plant, but I’ve usually still gotten a decent amount of pollen by drying all of it quickly and shaking it in the garbage bag. I usually hold all of the stems together, put the tops into the bag and wrap the bag edge around the stems. Then I just beat up the bag by swinging it, lightly, against a wall. Shake the bag so all the pollen falls to the bottom and mulch the plants. Collect pollen from the bag into a container, pour some desiccant beats in with it, label it and toss it in the fridge. Free desiccant beads are found by cutting open any of that little white satchels you find in a zillion products, that usually say something along the lines of “Don’t eat me” on them.
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Great! Thanks for the reply - very educational.
Right now about 15% of the sacs have opened with very little visible pollen present. I’ll leave the plant and let at least 80% open and and chop it and shake it in a bag.
Hope that will work! Time will tell.
I have a few natural males to run after this and then pollination time.
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Here is some info I found online about this.
how-to-make-and-use-silver-thiosulfate-solution
Here is one using Colloidal Silver.
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Love ya work @ttutone , welcome to overgrow.
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Wish I could give you 100 likes for that post Sebring. Amazing and fascinating! That’s what I consider a gold nugget of info on the forums. It’s not often I come across this kind of goods. 
hat’s off to you sir!
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I have been given 500ml of ionic colloidal silver for free and would love to cross some of the females I have (or at least get some S1 seeds from my main squeeze), will that work for this also?
If not I will just go to the local charity shop and buy a hallmarked silver spoon or something and just make some.
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