7xstall
Well-Known Member
as i was posting this i found a great thread by videoman about collecting pollen. https://www.rollitup.org/do-yourself/6911-collecting-male-pollen.html
There are always questions about how to A.) Identify male plants and B.) How to begin creating your own strains or just make seeds.
The first part, identifying male plants, is fairly easy. Within 1-2 weeks of germination you can spot which ones are male with 90% certainty. They stretch further and are generally lankier; they appear more flimsy and often reach seedling fluorescents before the rest.
If you dont see any growth pattern differentiation early on, the next piece of evidence to look for is going to be preflowers visible after the plant has begun early vegetative growth. When the plant receives 12-13 hours of dark it will begin to show sex within a couple weeks. Male plants will show sex before females, so this is another big tip off that your plant is male. If you see anything other than new leaves at the 3rd, 4th or 5th growth nodes on some plants and NOT on the others, it is very likely that those showing something are male. Given a few more days to grow, the positive identification will come when you see something similar to this:
Once you see these male preflowers it will be only a week or so before you can spot the female preflowers with the definitive two white hairs emerging.
Having male plants is not something to panic about, the females develop more slowly so if you see the preflowers and you dont want to breed or make your own seeds go ahead and remove the males at this point. No pollen has been released at this stage.
If you DO want to breed strains or simply avoid buying seeds, read on.
About a week after spotting the male preflowers some of the male pollen pods will be ready to open. This usually coincides with the development of a male cola, a dense population of pollen pods at the top of the male plant.
You can spot ripe pods by their size and their lighter shade of green.
The pod at the tip of the scissors will open and release pollen within 3-5 days.
Using a clean pair of scissors and a new plastic bag clip the bunch of pollen pods off of the stem and allow them to fall into the bag. The lower bunches usually mature first so take them out.
After collecting a few pods leave the bag open and place them under warm light to allow them to continue to grow. Moisture needs to escape the bag so be sure you keep the bag open, place something in the opening if needed.
After only 30 minutes under the light a couple of these freshly collected pods have opened and released their pollen. Allow this to continue for up to two days, or until all the pods open and are dry (smaller immature pods will not open).
To apply the pollen, dip a small paint brush or toothbrush in and flick the pollen onto the female flower. Your seeds will be ready soon.
Also worth pointing out, this is an outdoor grow and I did this cutting just after a nice rain. The high humidity and dampness will keep the mobility of any escaped pollen grains to a minimum: no accidental pollination.
There are always questions about how to A.) Identify male plants and B.) How to begin creating your own strains or just make seeds.
The first part, identifying male plants, is fairly easy. Within 1-2 weeks of germination you can spot which ones are male with 90% certainty. They stretch further and are generally lankier; they appear more flimsy and often reach seedling fluorescents before the rest.
If you dont see any growth pattern differentiation early on, the next piece of evidence to look for is going to be preflowers visible after the plant has begun early vegetative growth. When the plant receives 12-13 hours of dark it will begin to show sex within a couple weeks. Male plants will show sex before females, so this is another big tip off that your plant is male. If you see anything other than new leaves at the 3rd, 4th or 5th growth nodes on some plants and NOT on the others, it is very likely that those showing something are male. Given a few more days to grow, the positive identification will come when you see something similar to this:
Once you see these male preflowers it will be only a week or so before you can spot the female preflowers with the definitive two white hairs emerging.
Having male plants is not something to panic about, the females develop more slowly so if you see the preflowers and you dont want to breed or make your own seeds go ahead and remove the males at this point. No pollen has been released at this stage.
If you DO want to breed strains or simply avoid buying seeds, read on.
About a week after spotting the male preflowers some of the male pollen pods will be ready to open. This usually coincides with the development of a male cola, a dense population of pollen pods at the top of the male plant.
You can spot ripe pods by their size and their lighter shade of green.
The pod at the tip of the scissors will open and release pollen within 3-5 days.
Using a clean pair of scissors and a new plastic bag clip the bunch of pollen pods off of the stem and allow them to fall into the bag. The lower bunches usually mature first so take them out.
After collecting a few pods leave the bag open and place them under warm light to allow them to continue to grow. Moisture needs to escape the bag so be sure you keep the bag open, place something in the opening if needed.
After only 30 minutes under the light a couple of these freshly collected pods have opened and released their pollen. Allow this to continue for up to two days, or until all the pods open and are dry (smaller immature pods will not open).
To apply the pollen, dip a small paint brush or toothbrush in and flick the pollen onto the female flower. Your seeds will be ready soon.
Also worth pointing out, this is an outdoor grow and I did this cutting just after a nice rain. The high humidity and dampness will keep the mobility of any escaped pollen grains to a minimum: no accidental pollination.
Keeping with Darwin, it is all survival.......a female plant will produce - 10 to 20 thousand seeds. Once the daylight starts to wane the plants realizes it must reproduce. That one female will produce mucho seeds, but it has to get pollinated...consequently, when the conditions are poor, there are more males to pollinate that one female.
the better the conditions, the