pollinating outdoors for seed production

Here is my scenario: I have 16 photo plants growing in the ground outdoors. These consist of 8 Ball Kush x3, Northern Lights x1, Orange Sherbert x2, Pineapple Chunk x3, tangerine Dream x3, Purple Punch x4. As well I have 6 autos outdoors in 5 galloon grow bags. Sweet and Sour x4, and a random freebie cross x2. So, 16 photo period plants and 6 autoflowers for a total of 22 plants. All plants are from seed and feminized.

I am looking to make some seeds this year. The intentional kind for once! I have 3 types of pollen that i have purchased online. Meaning no male plants required.

The male pollen types are: Bubba 76, Mimosa, Garlic breath. All F1 pollen.

My understanding is that using male pollen on a feminized seed will create regular (non-feminized seeds). The packages state that the best time to pollinate the plants is the 3rd and 4th week of flower. Being outdoors can anyone confirm this? Im in SW Ontario, Canada and preflowers are already showing. This being my first attempt I am not going to be disappointed if things dont go as planned but it sure would be nice to make some seeds intentionally! Im planning to just pollinate a few branches. Anyone know what week/month generally is 3rd-4th week of flower? I've grown for years but never counted the weeks outdoors.

Other than the timing of pollination, Im curious if anyone has any recommendations on which pollen to use on which strains im growing!!

I know that Mimosa has Purple Punch in it, so Im thinking Ill try that on my Purple Punch plants and should get essentially purple Punch seeds with a bit of Clementine in there as well. Sounds cool to me. Im curious if Bubba 76 mixed with 8 Ball Kush would be good? Blending two kushes???

Anyone have any suggestions? Again, I have 3 types of pollen and 6 photo strains and 2 auto strains to possibly make seeds with! Im not big on making seeds with the autos just because the resulting seeds will be all over the place.

Thanks everyone!

Week 3-4 is about right but you can do it anytime you see white pistils. Basically just want to make sure the plants will have 4-5 weeks after pollination to fully mature.


As far as what to hit with what, I'd just hit one branch on every plant and label the branch with a piece of tape so you dont get mixed up. You can do all the guesswork you want based on parental lineage but none of that really matters until you start growing out the offspring.

thank you. I agree with your thinking. Im not looking for a "seed crop" by any means or even to use all 3 pollen samples. Just looking to make a few hundred seeds(?) (More? less!?) I'll just see what I end up with numbers wise. Just want the experience and to have some "free" seeds to try next season of an interesting mix of strains. but yeah, the lineage doesn't really matter if it kicks ass! I get ya there!

waterproof808 said:

Week 3-4 is about right but you can do it anytime you see white pistils. Basically just want to make sure the plants will have 4-5 weeks after pollination to fully mature.


As far as what to hit with what, I'd just hit one branch on every plant and label the branch with a piece of tape so you dont get mixed up. You can do all the guesswork you want based on parental lineage but none of that really matters until you start growing out the offspring.

Click to expand...

I've pollinated single branches for seeds, I was initially just hitting the lower branches by "painting" on pollen with a small paintbrush.

Didn't want to hit the upper branches due to pollen falling down and making seeds on everything.

I would harvest the bud on the upper branches, and allow seeded bud to continue to develop on the lowers.

Exactly what im thinking of doing! Besides the gravity of pollen falling on lower branches if you pollinate upper branches, I think that by just pollinating lower branches you would avoid that issue and as well the buds are generally more "wispy" and small anyways on lower branches.. great for seeds. Could be wrong, but thats my logic. keep the big buds on upper branches and make seeds on the lower quality low branches

Ganjihad said:

I've pollinated single branches for seeds, I was initially just hitting the lower branches by "painting" on pollen with a small paintbrush.

Didn't want to hit the upper branches due to pollen falling down and making seeds on everything.

I would harvest the bud on the upper branches, and allow seeded bud to continue to develop on the lowers.

Click to expand...

Beats said:

Exactly what im thinking of doing! Besides the gravity of pollen falling on lower branches if you pollinate upper branches, I think that by just pollinating lower branches you would avoid that issue and as well the buds are generally more "wispy" and small anyways on lower branches.. great for seeds. Could be wrong, but thats my logic. keep the big buds on upper branches and make seeds on the lower quality low branches

Click to expand...

You are correct. The only thing I was worried about at first was that seed production is slow on the lowers, but don't worry, once you harvest the upper buds, more energy goes to seed production on the lowers.

It's just difficult to be patient sometimes.