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Thread: When to pollinate? or How long do seeds need to mature?

  1. #1

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    Default When to pollinate? or How long do seeds need to mature?

    I have a couple of girls three weeks into flowering. I also have some male pollen. I think I would like the buds to get some size before I pollinate. Maybe that is a bad idea. On one plant, I am going to only pollinate a single bud.

    1. How long do seeds need to mature once pollinated? This will determine the last date I can pollinate based on expected finishing times.

    2. If I pollinate a single bud, will the rest of the plant keep making flowers like a virgin? Or will the single bud cause it to be more focused on caring for the seeds? ie. Will it affect yield on the rest of the plant ?

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    Day 20-30 is ideal for pollination to ensure the seeds are ripe close to harvest. You'll be waiting around 6 weeks for the seeds to mature.

    Pollinate a lower branch but be extra careful when applying the pollen. Remove the plant you wish to pollinate from the grow room and turn all fans off. Use an artists paint brush to apply the pollen to the lower branch and cover the branch/bud with a thin paper bag to stop the pollen spreading once applied. Remove the bag after 2 days once the pollen has set in.

    Providing you don't spread pollen to the rest of the plant this method should still allow you to grow budding plants with a similar yield

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    I've never played breeding with photos, but I have with autos

    I've always pollinated a whole plant so take Blue's advice above for pollinating a single branch!

    But when I've done mine, I've taken the girl outside, chucked the pollen on, gave her a shake, left her for a couple of hours & then sprayed her with water to kill the remaining pollen & then, once dried, chucked her back in the grow room

    About 4 weeks gave me the seeds I needed
    It's Not What You Know, It's What You Can Prove

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    Out of interest M_C how many seeds were you pulling from a full pollination ?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Blue View Post
    Out of interest M_C how many seeds were you pulling from a full pollination ?
    'kin hundreds!! It's took me nearly 5 year to give most of them away... & I still have 'kin hundreds left LOL

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    Yeah you get a silly amount lol
    Jus think.....every pair of hairs on a bud is 1 seed.
    Buds are made of cylaxs (however you spell it)
    So a whole bud could be made into seeds.

    You can also use see through zip bags to
    Cover branches.to make it easier.
    Same for if you cs spray them.



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    Need to try this

    Sent from my SM-G900H using Tapatalk

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    My 2cents as baptem lol If it can help the most curious to pass the line, i will be happy.
    Don't be affraid it's long to explain rightly but simple to understand. Damn i need to take pics of seeds, lets go.

    Just somes little lingo basics before, to best understand what i will try to share (with my average english, sorry) :

    seed calibration / caliber : just like the Letters/Numbers with eggs at supermarket, it's the dimension of the seeds. But for us it mean a lot more. Who have never buyed a seed pack with woody immature seeds inside ? It's exactly what we don't want in having the privilege to do it ourselves in (relative) small quantities : bad seeds. The "normal" caliber of a seed will depend mostly on the female used, then on the strain used. You can have small seeds like "small ovoid tomatoes seeds" calibers with the purest hazes and to have "rounded coconuts" caliber with the majority of old school skunks.

    On left (sorted) seeds of an hybrid of twos landraces wich produce small seeds, on the right (unsorted) fresh seeds of Jack Herer.

    seed maturity / immature seeds : Lets look closer the Jack Herer seeds.

    - 2 on left have the right caliber and are fully mature. The texture of the flower where they borned is printed neat in the shell.
    - 3th from left, a trap. Good caliber but immature and partially "finished" by the plant. I generally keep them as "grace C" for outdoors, experiments etc...
    - the three others are immature, have bad caliber and are "woody". I eat them with paprika and a little oliver oil in my salads lol

    pollenization windows : this is the parameter to quickly master to virtually have no limits in creativity.

    It doesn't matter wich strain is in the game, the female and the male selected have a common "pollenization window" to respect.

    When it concern only F1 plants to backup in F2 that's not very hard to master because they have near the same "latency" between the vegetative state and the day that they will show theyr first flowers. You can eventually launch one clone of each, and let them flower together until the female have all her flowers "pregnant". It can be applyed to all genetics wich are (too many these last years) close in pedigree. A skunk with a skunk stay easy to drive, no matter what kind of funky name they carry for the market.

    Like that, a little SOG clone can give an average of 50 AAA grade seeds without eating too much space/time/efforts/calculations.

    SOG clone seeded "AAA".

    Now, if you want to stock strongly one cross (like ~300 seeds for your vault) this technic become a sacrifice. To increase the production of this clone will be a lot more strategic.
    To increase the number of seeds that a female can produce it's very simple : you have to wait that more flowers come. But one more time you're not supposed to produce tons of seeds for oil, animals feeding etc ... but as a genetic ressource. If you push too much the maturity of your female flowers you will have an adverse effect that will reduce the average quality of your seeds. Mostly immature, unfinished, empty for somes, mold ... the list is long.

    It's impossible to fix an absolute timing for all strains for the females. If i take the twos extrems that i have in stash, i have one that need to be pollinated after its 5th month of flo and another one within a single week after the switch. If i give the average between the twos, to give an "universal timing", you will fail the twos and you will fight with the offspring like hell. All is not lost, you have a formidable tool that can be used for everything : your eyes.

    This is, imho, the best compromise of developpement to pollinate a female :


    The buds have strong and dense "ping pong balls" with thick bracts/pistils (like "hairy"), and are not yet running the trunk and the stems to fusion themselves in big buds. To known when it's ready or not (and to note the timing on paper for further hybrids or anything else), start to judge the pistils first.


    This one is not ready yet : near translucide "pistils" and a very little ball of tight flowers that is too many dense to welcome your seeds in good conditions. That's all. Watch, wait and act.

    And now the last thing to digest about the "female window" is the work that she have to do. Because it's an intensive one for all strains. We are used to grow "sensemilla" and to judge them this way. In fact, in these specific conditions, they are lazzy bitches that we feed to do nothing else that become the more fat possible with the less effort possible. A dryed grammer is a dryed grammer for all of us : it's precious.

    A SOG clone seeded early is the caricature of this process. It will stop suddently his rush and concentrate all its energy to produce the seeds. The root mass can become incredibly dense and hard during this process, like that :


    60 days later (for a skunk), the clone will appear like Tyrion Lannister aside its sisters of the same age.

    The more the plant is tall and possess effiscient "solar panels", the less it will be caricatural. Somes strains like the sensi SK#1 restart a second flowering over the seeded flowers, i mean plainly. And you don't want that, you want you seeds exposed to a good air flow and lights (but not to cook theyr faces under a 1KW HPS in another hand).

    I use mineral nutrients like a lot of growers, so i will speak on it but it can be extended to others cases. Seeded plants don't like any form of boosters except the root stimulators. Forget the "bloombastic booster of hell", hormons, PK, all ... and stay fixed to your base during all the process (A+B). If you don't master the twos components and theyr effects on the metabolism on your plants, just increase the nutrients in taking care that your leaves never become shiny like plastic plants in airports.

    If you master more, you can unbalance a little your basis to add more PK and by this way offer a stable feed during all the process. This is not sensemilla, the less you change the feed chart, the better it is for your seeds.
    The compos are writed in bottle if any and generally the "white/crystalizing/hurting when you cut your fingers" juice is the one to increase. Take care to don't defoliate like nuts, every single leaf will save your ass if any you do a mistake. Bend stems to expose them, over to defoliate.

    Now the male, and i known that for a great majority they are just UFOs for them. To keep it the simplier possible to explain : males are just the brothers of the females, nothing else. So they will eat the same way, have the same needs etc ... just treat them like your females and it's ok. BUT THIS TIME ONLY i firmly advise you to use mineral PK at half dose at end of the planned vegetative stage to help you to synchronise your couple. It will increase the speed, the quantity of the pollen and the lenght of its release too, if ever you have to isolate him then pollinate differents females one by one.
    It can be tricky in the majority of setup, but you can avoid to throw the first releases of pollen on female ... do it. And wait for the second opening waves of balls, more mature. The male is flowering in three times, just like females, nothing change on this side too.

    Twos differents cases to maybe give ideas, all setups are different and you have to adapt :


    This one had his own room and flowered alone until it was fully mature, then i moved females clones in his room. Simply. This is off course the best case that you can have.
    He was flowered under a 250 HPS, but like females, when you switch in 12/12 you see flowers in any case. You can use everything that you want and keep it cheap.


    This one is a SOG male started in a 1Kw CFL flowering box then isolated in a simple paper box in a corner of a garage, with a 10W CFL inside and timer. It's enough to let him throw his "prime" pollen and accumulate mature bags until the females are ready to join him for a reverse gang bang. In these conditions, keep the medium light (in weight) and water with a spoon lol It's an image but with the minimum vital amount of light, he will naturally eat near nothing.


    When he reach this maturity in his paper box, he's ready for the fiesta.

    Maybe somes are not so in ease with the flowering stage of males so i will describe the steps as simple that i can :
    - little balls are forming around the apex or around the tops if "topped" in veg
    - the balls grow in a full bag that will be start to hang by a little stem
    - the ball open, letting visible the fresh and wet "pollen bananas". If you take one in hand and crush, you will have a light green past that appear a little like wet sand. You want it yellow.
    - the bananas start to dry, then it's the release.

    Harvesting seeds

    If you have any doubt, wait that the plant die and that the seeds start to fall lol Thats the best way to begin and to don't crush your head. Feed the plant until the end, seeded plants are not flushed.
    Seeded weed do fine dry sieves hashs that age very well.


    When you reach this stage, you start to check near daily if everything is well. Specially with short internodes strains and dense flowers. They have to be vented properly with good airflow.
    When they start to "marroon/dark" by the extremity like that, the process of drying of the flowers can start within a week. If it's not by the extremity, you have a problem. Lower the humidity, vent more, bend the stems to let them "breath". Never germinate or stock seeds that are rooten or attacked by mold. Even if you wash them etc ... Just throw them in trashbin.


    These yellow flowers are ready to harvest. You can eventually take them gently in letting all the flower around until it fully dry and separate.


    Don't remove manually the flowers around freshly harvested seeds. Let them like the picture, raw, and let them dry a little in a cold and dry place. Let the flower "print" his texture on the seed in drying.
    Don't put it directly the whole stuff in zipbag or anything like the picture, i used gaz for an experiment. If you want to have fun with chems, treat fresh seeds for best results instead dryed ones for a better penetration.

    You known that they can be put in stock simply with the texture.
    Oily ? Not ready yet
    Greasy ? Perfect, put it in a bag or direct in soil.

    ----- EXTRAS -----

    Up to you to decide what you will do with that, it's just a personnal habit among thousands ...
    - when you manipulate a male, stay calm, close all doors and windows, cut off air flow, use gloves and no amples clothers, and everything will be fine. thats not plutonium.
    - use fresh pollen when you can, specially for your most important projects. Direct from the male. No, i never freeze my pollen and yes it's a true choice.
    - i rub my males on females to apply pollen, no intermediary. It's messy but simple et effiscient as hell. And the male "like" that if you have to pollinate multiple females with gaps in timing.
    - a clean fridge is the best place for your seeds. a messy and molded fridge is the worst place for your seeds.

    --------------------

    All of that is not conditional to make your seeds. But it's important to known what you're doing if any you encounter a problem, so it's better to present it complete imho.
    My hope is to stimulate somes to pass the line, to join all the guys around the globe that move our genpool. The more we are, the less we can become bored by always the same weeds. And at least it give you the possibility to mix as you wish.

    I've not writed about selections, it's a matter that change totally the dimension of what you do. Stay freestyle of you think that you will loose the pleasure to do that, or simply if it imply sacrifices that can't last forever. Breeding cannabis need more constancy that anything other else.

    Never let someone emit critic on your efforts to make your own seeds. Seed makers, pollen chuckers, breeders, geneticians ... all of that is pure BS in our little green world of stoners. You are breeding a simple Skunk#1 in a closet to have fun ? You get my respect by default and i hope that you will spread this automatic respect all around you. You think that your valors, your work, your methods etc ... are on the top shelves ? Compare with the best weed you can get, do cups, go fight for real, the truth is finally always in the bud.

    Have a nice grow and a million seeds to throw all around the globe !

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