Use Colloidal Silver Spray to Make Feminized Cannabis Seeds Like the Seed Banks Do
Pros:
- You're able to produce feminized seeds using any two female cannabis planst (even clone-only strains!)
- You can produce seeds consistently
- You can control how many seeds produced
- Easy to make hundreds of feminized seeds if needed
Cons:
- You will need to find a source of colloidal silver which well be used to soray the cannabis plants as they start flowering. Your main options are: buying colloidal silver directly, buying a colloidal silver generator, or making your own simple colloidall silver generator yourself (instructions below)
- It is not safe to directly use/consume any cannabis which has come into contact with colloidal silver, though any seeds produced by a treated plant's pollen are 100% safe. Some space-starved pot farmers will use the colloidal silver to spray just the bottom branch of a cannabis plant so they can still smoke/use the rest of the cannabis buds. You can definitely do this, just be extremely careful not to get any colloidal silver spray on any part of the cannabis that you will be consuming.
When a female cannabis plant is treated with a solution of tiny silver particles suspended in distilled water, the plant will start to exhibit male characteristics. This solution of silver in water is called colloidal silver and can be purchased from a pharmacy/online or easily made at home. Some people drink colloidal silver for its health benefits and others use it occasionally on plants to help control bacteria, insect, and fungus growth on the leaves.
However, if you thoroughly mist a female cannabis plant with colloidal silver every day for 10-14 days around the same time that she enters the flowering stage, the concentration of silver ions in the water actually act as an ethylene inhibitor/antagonist on the plant, which forces the plant to create male pollen sacs instead of female buds. The safest way to ensure that your plants will actually turn into males is to keep misting the plants until you see the beginning of male pollen sacs forming. If growing indoors, you start misting the cannabis with colloidal silver when you first change the lights to 12-12, and keep misting her daily until the treated parts start showing male pollen sacs.
You need to let the sacs swell like a big empty balloon. You will be able to tell when they are about to open because the leaf section protecting the pollen starts to crack. At this point, simply take the pollen sacs off and place them in a cool dry place for a week and let them start to dry. The pollen will come out if you shake them about a little, or you can also cut open the sacs to get to the pollen inside. Use this pollen to pollinate female plants and you will get all-female seeds that are a mix of both their mothers.
This method is great because it will force almost any cannabis plant to show male characteristics. Unlike the rodelization method described below, you are not selecting for plants that show hermaphrodite traits. The genes of the plant are completely unaffected. This method will also produce a lot of pollen consistently compared to the rodelization method.
The one downside to this method is that it is not safe to use any cannabis that has come into direct contact with colloidal silver. You should therefore destroy the plant after the pollen has been collected. You will also want to ensure that you clean off any remaining traces of silver off your equipment in case you accidentally contaminate another cannabis plant with silver.
Here are the main things to keep in mind when using colloidal silver spray method:
- Make sure you spray the cannabis with a strong enough colloidal silver solution (at least 30 PPM of silver)
- Spray the cannabis thoroughly to almost drench all the parts you want to turn into pollen sacs
- Spray the cannabis regularly, at least once a day for 10-14 days, starting when you change the lights to 12-12
- Spray the cannabis with colloidal silver every day until you see signs of male pollen sacs forming. Some hardy strains may need over 2-3 weeks spraying before they 'turn'.
Where to Get Colloidal Silver
Colloidal Silver is created by submersing two pieces of pure silver in distilled water, and then running an electric current between the two pieces of silver. The electric current will cause silver ions to be deposited in the water which creates a colloidal silver solution.
Buy Colloidal Silver: You can actually buy colloidal silver which has already been prepared and is ready for use. If you're purchasing colloidal silver, try to find a solution that has at least 30 PPM (parts per million) of silver. However,
buying Colloidal Silver that is already prepared can get expensive.
Buy A Generator Kit: A better option is to buy a relatively cheap colloidal silver generator to easily make your own colloidal silver.
This Colloidal Generator kit comes with everything you need including silver. All you need to do is provide the water and a container.
Make Your Own: You can make your own colloidal silver generator at home. The diagram below should illustrate what you need to do.
Items Needed:
- 9 volt battery
- 9v Battery Connector (less than $2 at a hardware or electronics store)
- Pure .9999 or 999 Silver (yes it must be pure)
- Distilled water (yes it must be distilled)
- Alligator clips (Optional: but will make things much easier)
- Soldering Iron (Optional: only needed if you want to use alligator clips)
The diagram above will show you how to easily make your own colloidal silver to make your own feminized cannabis seeds
When you first connect everything, you may be surprised because it will seem like nothing is happening. You will know if it worked by the next day because the whole process will leave a silvery residue on your silver. You may need to use sandpaper or something else rough to clean your silver each time after creating a batch of colloidal silver.
If you don't have a soldering iron and would still like to solder alligator clips onto your battery connector, then I recommend going to a hardware store and asking someone if they will help solder it for you.
Remember to keep your resulting
colloidal silver solution away from any light or it will deteriorate and turn a dark gray color. If this happens, then you can no longer use the solution for creating feminized seeds.
Avoid most problems when making colloidal silver by:
- using pure (distilled) water
- using pure (999/.9999) silver
- giving electrolysis enough time to work so you don't get a weak solution (at least overnight)
- making sure the solution has as little contact with light as possible until you use it
How to Make Feminized Cannabis Seeds Using Rodelization
Pros:
Cons:
- Unreliable
- May not produce many feminized seeds
The Rodelization method is all-natural and is the simplest method to create feminized seeds, but it is also unreliable and may not produce much pollen. Basically, the premise is that some female marijuana plants will start growing male pollen sacs / sex organs if they've been left in flowering too long (past the peak point of harvest). This is a last-ditch attempt by the marijuana plant to pollinate itself so that it at least produces a few seeds. You can collect these male pods and use the pollen inside them to pollinate other female plants. You pollinate female plants by evenly covering their buds with the pollen after they've been in flowering for 2-3 weeks. Females that are pollinated in this way will start growing all-female marijuana seeds. If you're very careful, you can pollinate only some of the buds on a plant which will produce seeds, and leave other buds alone so they can still be used for consumption.
This issue with this method is that some strains of plants never seem to grow male characteristics naturally. Additionally, with this method, you're selecting for plants that have a natural genetic tendency to show male characteristics. This can possibly produce offspring that are more likely to show male characteristics themselves which may or may not be what you're going for. Lastly, even when you do get male pollen sacs from a marijuana plant in this way, there tends to be a lot less pollen than from a typical male plant.
The one great thing about this method is it's completely all-natural so you can implement this strategy with an organic grow.
