Hi All - looking for a bit of help. I reversed an NL clone we’ve had for a while to hit a bunch of cuttings using STS.
All worked well - applied STS once per week for 4 weeks and have a plethora of male flowers. The flowers didn’t really open or throw pollen - no biggie, just collected and dried male flowers and ground them, which released quite a bit of pollen.
I have applied that pollen a few times over the past week… not one pistil is showing confirmation that they are pollinated. None changed colour or withered and certainly no signs of and swelling bracts…
So I’m stuck! Ideas? Could I be dealing with sterile pollen after a reversal?
I have a bunch of flowers (some still live, some drying) that I plan to just keep grinding and applying. Wanted peoples thoughts on what may be going on.
The problem may be that you’re not allowing it enough time without the ethylene blocker for the balls to mature and drop pollen. STS is an ethylene blocker which is why they grow male parts, but they need it to mature. Try putting an over ripe banana under them, it should provide enough ethylene to mature the male flowers to get viable pollen.
I’ve had a CS reversal do the same thing, got one bean out of a whole clone I pollenated thoroughly. Some plants just throw sterile or mostly sterile pollen I guess.
There are definitely some plants that are pickier about reversing. If you had good conversion, but poor pollen drop and/or viability, try pulling back the treatment. Try 2 treatments 2 weeks apart, or just one treatment.