Re: Donpaul.p's latest 400watt hps grow,
hi all,
@bozzo420, in theory the answer is yes, how ever i dont self polinate the plant the bananas are on, i have got seeds from self polinated plants but not run tests to find out if all are fem seeds, but i can say up till now all the seeds planted from the pollen put on other plants have turned out fem with no hermie traits,
i mean at the end of the day to make fem seeds you use silver colidiol or what ever its called and stress the plant and force it to go hermie then collect the hermie pollen, this pollen is then put on fem plants and all seeds will be 100% fem or their abouts, i have purchased fem seeds that have turned out male so you do run the risk of having the odd male turn up, out of all the fem seeds i have purchased only 1 turned out male and that was the jack flash fem from herbies, i have let herbie know about this in case it was a dodgy batch of seeds,
so as for self polinating them i guess it should work the same, how ever the plant may then contain the hermie trait, maybe someone else can jump and advise as i have only used the pollen from the bananas to put on other plants,
when i ran my last fem experiment i put a fem plant in flower and at the start of flower i kept stressing it with light leaks during the dark period, this made the plant hermie, but it did not grow bananans it just grew the usual male ball type flowers, when i used this pollen i ended up with around 500 seeds off 2 plants, i grew a couple of seeds from each plant and both turned hermie a few weeks into flower, which was around the same time i stressed the mother plant, so i dont use them seeds,
but when i read its the pollen from the bananas that produce the fem seeds i thought id give it a try, i didnt want to go the silver route due to it making the buds not safe plus my dog eats any leaves he can get his hands on so if i turn my back for a few seconds to fetch water their is the risk my dog could eat a leaf with silver solution on it so i looked for a different option, thats when i was told about the bananas and instead of stressing the plant early in flower let it flower a few weeks longer and it will produce bananas, then this pollen will be the fem pollen i was trying to get, so far all seeds planted from 3 different plants have turned out 100% fem so far, so it looks like i have managed to get fem seeds,
it just seems like its the pollen that comes very late in flower thats needed, so maybe the seed breeders that use silver solution do it towards the end of flower, i have not tried stressing the plant late in flower to produce bananas just in case it increases the risk off hermies, but with my next round of plants im willing to give it a try, ill do a fem plant 12-12 from seed so it dont get to big then ill stress it towards end of flower and try the pollen from them, then i can tell you all if that works as well, but im a few months away from that yet,
but so far the best method i have found is stressing the plant by keeping it in flower to long, make sure their is no pollen around else the plant will reproduce and might not produce bananas, the plant produces these bananas as a last resort to ensure it reproduces, so all strains i think should have this safety feature, all i can do is try different methods and pass on what i learn, if i can get fem seeds and help others do the same then im more than happy to run tests and document my findings,
it wont be long before i know enough to write a grow book, maybe a few of us should get together and come up with a 420mag grow book, im sure with all our different ideas and skills we could write one of the best grow books out their, i have read several grow books which dont cover certain ideas or different methods of growing,
maybe thats something for the future and possible something 420mag might want to consider at some point, im sure with the amount of top members this site as got it would be one of the best grow books around,
a bit long winded but hopefully i answered your question bozzo420, if i missed anything else or you want to ask anything else then ask away and ill do my best to answer.
oh one more thing, once you see the bananas you need to wait for them to open to release pollen, then it takes a couple of weeks for seeds to develop, once they have developed do not pull the seeds out of the buds before they have dried as they continue to grow during the drying period,
@tm420, if you want to go down the stress route to try and force hermie quicker then i found light stress is the best method, exactly like you mention by giving it plenty of dark, but during the dark give it random hours of light, so wait few hours then give it 1 hour of light then back in the dark, make it random, the plant will think the world is ending and go hermie, but i did this early in flower and it produced regular male flowers and the seeds turned out hermie as well, i will try stressing late in flower with my next round of plants, if it produces bananas then it might be quicker than letting it flower for 2 or 3 weeks longer which does work, light stressing usually takes 3 to 5days, just make sure you let the bananas ripen, i usually wait till i see one slightly starting to open then you can harvest the plant, hang the buds up with some dark shiny paper under neath then everyday give the stems a gently flick and the pollen will fall out onto the paper or place paper back over the buds and tap pollen into that, i usually prefer dark shiny paper so i can actually see the pollen,