Deliberate pollination on first go to avoid buying seeds again?

Hi Everyone!

I'm getting ready for my first experiment, for which I've purchased 10 seeds. Call me cheap, but I never want to buy seeds again.

As I'm heading into a big learning experience, what would be wrong with growing all 10 and then if I get a female/male mix, letting the males pollinate the females so they grow more seeds?

Then after harvest I could start all over again with a host of seeds in storage, this time culling the males as soon as I can tell the sex and pushing the females as far as they will go. And when I harvest I can keep a mother plant and grow from cuttings.

This way, if my growing is ever interrupted, I have my own seed to start from. I'm not impatient, so I don't mind spending time doing this up front if it means down the line I have my own seed supply.

Thanks for your thoughts!

i'm doing pretty much the same thing, bit more seeds but same idea
i grow 1 plant at a time, if it's a male i freeze dry the pollen, it stores well(years)
the number of seeds from crosses is adding up
if your plants are hybrids(F1's), then you'll get a lot of variety

breeding might not be easy for a first time grower, id prefer trying to veg all those seeds until you figure out the sex, throw away the males and just clone the more vigorous female. you can to continue to clone those clones. you have an unlimited copies of that female and you skip about 2 weeks of their grow cycle if they were to be grown from seed. some people have said that strains lose vigor after the 6th or 7th generation, but plenty of strains have been passed of for years by clone and its never really seemed to effect their potency.

kryptoniteglo said:

Thanks for your thoughts!

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good luck, I enjoy making seeds almost as much growing weed. Never grown out any of my crosses yet though.

I am not much on autos but making seeds is lots of fun, saves money and you can enjoy the fruits of your labors for years to come. I started with a few strains which I like and have similiar lineage so the crosses are good, maybe not the "flavour of the week" like so many today seem interested in but will match up what I breed to most of what is available today.
You can learn to selectively pollinate branches so as not to ruin an entire plant, one branch can easily give you a hundred seeds. Doing this allows you to use different males on the same females to give you even more variety. Granted making a strain is involved and takes years and many plants but just making seeds for personal meds is the way to go.
Good Luck

canefan said:

Granted making a strain is involved and takes years and many plants but just making seeds for personal meds is the way to go.
Good Luck

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This is exactly what I'm thinking. I think I'm going to be doing one grow a year, strictly for quality control for personal med use. Then when I'm almost through that harvest, start another grow. So I'm anticipating my cultivation being interrupted every year and restarting.

So it's either start from seed again, or turn a mother into a house plant for eight months with suppressed growth until I'm ready again...if that can even be done. I'm clearly just starting out here and am reading as much as I can on different "holding" techniques.

Thanks for all your advice!

Breeding the seeds with themselves will probably not produce stable phenotypes. Most seeds are an F1 from parents that breed true but the F1s themselves are unlikely to breed true.

zvuv said:

Breeding the seeds with themselves will probably not produce stable phenotypes. Most seeds are an F1 from parents that breed true but the F1s themselves are unlikely to breed true.

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This is true, but don't let that stop you.

What you do need to do though is clone/make a mother plant of the best female(s) of the seeds you purchased and keep these separate and un-pollinated.

Pollinate the clones of these plants for seeds and to start your program. It takes several times crossing before you start to get stable phenos, this is why you want to keep mothers of the original plants.

I'm doing the same right now, cubing a nice strain I've been running for going on 3 years. As long as you have the original mother plant going, you're golden.

I would suggest a good book on breeding, mine is "Marijuana Botany" by Robert C Clarke, but there are others.

Wet

@Wetdog

I need to try that cubing business. I have some spendy seeds from Dr GT.

How many plants do you need to grow each generation to make decent progress? I was thinking of growing 10 small clones in one 3ga pot and flowering them as soon as they are rooted.

it's called cubeing 'cause it's 4 times aka cubed

cannabis breeder's bible - greg greene

zvuv said:

@Wetdog

I need to try that cubing business. I have some spendy seeds from Dr GT.

How many plants do you need to grow each generation to make decent progress? I was thinking of growing 10 small clones in one 3ga pot and flowering them as soon as they are rooted.

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All I'm using is the pre flowers from rooted clones. This started just to see if it would work. It does, and the seeds developed under a 18/6 light cycle to boot. The rooted clones were in party cups and this particular strain gets a ton of pre flowers. I did 6 this way and 3 more outside and upcanned to 1 gal containers. Both ways worked great.

What I'm doing is, save the best males from each cross and using this to pollinate the original female clones. All the females that pop from the seeds are killed, so I'm not going in 20 different directions at once. The seed mother stays constant.

A bit of a switch, killing the girls and keeping the boys.

Wet

Thanks for all the advice and book recommendations. I know I have a lot to learn, but I don't mind a challenge!

So growing 6 - 10 plants at a generation you are able to stablize the strain?

Using the preflowers to seed! That's kind of outrageous! Have to think about that.

I was thinking of putting 9-10 seeds in a pot with a clone of the Mother in the same pot and just leaving it outside or in a box with a cfl on 12/12. Kill all the girls when they show. Yeah this time the boys get even !! Nice thing is there is no stress since it doesnt matter if a girl get's pregnant before I cut her.

I should get one of those books and read it !

+rep to Wetdog & MelloKitty

PS. One of the limitations of autos is that you can't clone them and so you cant backcross them with the same mother

I am making seeds by putting pollen on a q-tip and wiping it on a few lower buds. I get around 20 seeds per plant and lose hardly anything in smoke. Mine would be f2 I guess, but they are free and likely to give me some good plants in the future.

I keep the male in another room until he bursts his pods and then transfer the pollen to the eager females that were in another room. Actually I just keep a branch of the male in some water and that is good enough to get pollen. I need to look into this stabilizing stuff or cubing. Don't know if I have the patience though.