Spoiled by fems, sexing in veg, no time for preflowers

@Lunash76, you can take clones 3 weeks after you flip them as well or sooner when they show sex. It also gives you a look at there bloom traits and aids in deciding whether to keep them or not.
Just my two cents.

1 Like

Thank you!!

1 Like

where do you usually Put your male plants?

2 Likes

I keep the male(s) in with the females until they are ready to bust. Then I put them under a different light in a different room and collect pollen.

All the best

1 Like

Do you store pollen? Back when I had more time on my hands I was reversing autos with CS. I was successful and did make seeds. The pollen I stored was not viable after trying a few months later with a different strain. To the best of my knowledge it was very dry and I stored in little vials in the fridge. Donā€™t know what happened but, it turned me off pollen storage.

The crazy thing is I have read storage posts saying when they were ā€œhippiesā€ they would just dry the male flowers and store in the old style camera film capsules for the next year. That is how they bred back then?? Blew my mind LOL

2 Likes

I run DWC just once but with great results. Changed the water once a week, took samples with a sort of pump stick to check nutes and forgot to check pH as i used Advanced Nutrients pH perfect.

You could go away some days and your plant would be there waiting for you. Faster, cleaner, no pests, why did I change to soil? Looking for more variety and plants in different stages, thatā€™s all ā€¦ :sunglasses:

1 Like

I donā€™t have much experience freezing pollen. I have some in the freezer right now but I wouldnā€™t guarantee viability.

2 Likes

Forgot to say I also sterilized (baked) flour to mix with the pollen. This was suggested on several forums at the time. Maybe some new tek has come along. Still nothing. It is doable, I see people here and on strainly trading and selling pollenā€¦ And like I said, dried flowers in film capsules?! I think sometimes I can overthink and over-research things to deathā€¦ Literally!

2 Likes

Iā€™ve also heard of using a few grains of rice

2 Likes

I took 3 cuts about 35 to 40 days into flower and all had roots in 10 days.

The goofy looking front 3

5 Likes

Omg this was the motivation I needed! Thank you so much!!!

2 Likes

I used to work at an estate that had a collection of cycads. We collected pollen on wax paper and folded the wax paper into ā€˜envelopesā€™ of pollen packets. Those packets were then placed into 35mm film canisters (yes, back in the old days :wink: ) and then those canisters went into the freezer. The pollen will be viable for several years.

4 Likes

Thatā€™s when automation comes in. Coco or hydro is perfect for keeping soil moist.
With soil we let it dry fully this can be achieved but as you need to alternate between feed and water can be just as hard or harder.
With coco or full on hydro this is more easy. But drippers can be a problem with salt build up clogging them up.
My grow is in upstairs room if I done hydro I would do deep water culture as Iā€™m out all day and want my plants to stay upstairs, not open front door to find them in front room where I had a leak.
When I first moved this part of country we moved into flat that previous tenant flooded the aquarium shop underneath and had gone on the lamb from authorityā€™s !

2 Likes

Thatā€™s interesting I have a friend who used to use a simalar product called equaliser apparently this was formulated for Thames water and apparently no ph testing done.
The guy runs a site Ftw free the weed.
He is sponsored by quite a few of the Dutch seed banks. To promote there work, Iā€™ll try link him if you like but we haveznā€™t linked for a few year now.
Over ten year since spoke in person but he was in Majorca for ten years.
Back here now last time I see him he was looking at year inside but done 4 rest on tag. That is probably 12 years ago!

2 Likes

A plant with a Tap root grows stronger because is the main root of all of the root system of the plants, and only seeds have it.

1 Like

If your keeping bonsai mothers, I Personally found it easier and more consistent to train from a clone than from seed. I would put the original seed plant into flower as soon as Iā€™m confident the cutting has started to root, just make sure to label each plant and cutting. Since I stopped growing years ago, it became easier to make feminized seeds at home. So instead of keeping a male around, if I wanted to produce seeds, Iā€™d get some STS and turn a small clone into a hermi and use it to cross pollinate another strain or a sister plant, just not itselfā€¦ though Iā€™ve read of a few success stories of self fertilized seeds being fairly true to strain and not just a weakling.

2 Likes

Iā€™ve been really looking into STS. It flies in the face of what appears to be American growing practices, but I think when it comes time to retire a strain, I will be doing this. Just to save genetics.

I will say, I have joined a few seed co-ops today and wonā€™t be doing that with those. At the very least, I will be keeping mothers and fathers so I can make some regs and then go from there. The whole point of a seed run is to preserve and in the distant future replenish if needed. This is the responsibility you take on when opting in to one of these, from what I have gathered.
Today was my first time. I signed up for Bodhi Pura Vida and a strain I know I will recognize from the '90ā€™s, Northern Lights #5.

Edit: I store my seeds in Mason jars 1/3 filled with dry rice in the fridge for longevity.

Breeder strains though, I will be retiring with STS.

What you just described is exactly my plan, other than I will put in the flower tent first and see sex. Keep the best ones, and go from there. I just donā€™t have the room for pheno hunting. Clone the top and begin the SCROG. I will still have time in in veg (in case it fails) to take another cut. Tops seem to be the best for cloning, in my experience.

I sincerely appreciate your advice! :heart:

2 Likes