** A thread for stimulating discussions **
Today I finished harvesting 200 seeds. That plant was pollinated by two different males. I noticed that the seeds were different colors and sizes. One of the males helped produce really dark small seeds, while the other male produced large light brown seeds with high contrast stripping.
Until today, I thought a female plant would produce identical seeds regardless of the pollen donor. Now I have seen that the males play a much more significant role in seed quality production.
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@Farmers_Hat so with this statement, any chance you know which daddy made which seed?
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Yes. The MTF male made the large seeds, and the SSH made the small seeds.
The SSH male was used to pollinate 3 different plants, and all three produced small seeds. I pollinated 2 Valley Ice plants and 1 Malawi with the SSH male.
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That’s really fucking cool. I wonder if it would be possibly to selectively pollinate two seperate branches on the same female and compare that way as well. Looks like the males bring more to the table then people give them credit for.
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Thats exactly what I did with one of the plants. Dusted two branches, each branch with a different male.
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Oh that’s fucking mint. Precious experiments. Do the seeds look the same from all females that was pollinated by the same male. If so then that leads one to think that the male is responsible for the make up of the seed outter shell and size. Specifically.
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The seeds look similar for the 2 Valley Ice plants. Small, dark, kind of purple.
The seeds on the Malawi are also small and dark, but they are a different shape.
I dont have that SSH male anymore. It does make me curious about your statement regarding the outer shell and seed size. Its quite plausible that there might be some correlation.
Im definitely going to be paying closer attention to this phenomenon. I wonder if anyone else has observed a similar thing.
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I plan to pollinate skunk #1 to skunk #1, the meat breath to skunk #1, and possibly a bogbubble to a skunk #1 so I will definitely be keeping this in mind.
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I think you would still need a second male, of a different strain. That way you can make seed comparisons with a single plant.
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Males definitely play a huge role, it’s just harder to know what to look for when selecting males versus females.
LOTS of genes can be linked to the Y chromosome, based on what I know from breeding guppies. There aren’t as many that are Y-linked as there are X-linked, in my experience, but there are still plenty. 
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Actually, guppies kinda work the opposite, now that I think about it. Males are the colorful ones that fully express the traits we select, and females will show just the main body color and maybe a little bit of color and pattern on the tail and/or the dorsal fin. 
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@slippy790
Are you an aquaponics grower? 
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Let me get confirmation I can use a male from this tester batch as male number 2 and I have an experiment to add to this.
Kinda maybe? 
I do use the mulm from my tanks for my plants, and I’ll also use aquarium water in a pinch if I don’t have fully bubbled/dechlorinated water ready when I need to water. 
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What is mulm? Would using my daughter fish water add fish poop to my plants?
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I have noticed that different genetics produce different sized seeds. Autos produce smaller seeds, chem produces bigger seeds.
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I’ve also noticed Chem strains producing big-ass seeds. LOL
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So, using the fish water might be more beneficial than just regular dechlorinated tap water, but probably not by much.
Mulm is the actual solid waste that accumulates in and/or on the substrate (gravel works really well for building up a good layer of mulm). It’s usually sort of a fluffy-looking brown semi-solid goop.
I get mine by using a hose to siphon it out into a bucket, then I’ll put an air stone in it and the mulm will settle into the bottom overnight. Then I just pour off the excess water, stir up whatever is left that I’m gonna use on my plants, then give it to them.
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Oh okay. I have a vacuum that sucks the water out once you suck on the hose. I know it sounds bad but let’s keep it moving lol. So just save the water and let it settle on the bottom and then I’ll have some goodness for the plants. How much is safe to give.
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