Producing Feminized Seeds Using Colloidal Silver

[NotaDrinker]

Geez, I can't see anything on that plant with all those trichs covering everything up
I do know that I did find several seeds deep within the bud structure, as well as several easily visible, so I would not bet against that plant being seeded. And god does she look tasty.
Everything else looks amazing Granny.
Best Wishes!

 

[Dr.Blue]

I am living that right now. My 7-8 days of treatment are altering the plant in it's entirety but it doing it in a progressive manner. For a while I was drooling over the drystal covered buds but now Dr. Jekyl is beginning to show.

 

[DennyinCA]

Great update Granny. So much valuable info here. This is most likely my untrained eye, or possible wishful thinking for your sake, but I've circled an area on one of your Mazar pics as a "Could that be a seed in there". If not, hopefully they're buried inside.

 

[OG13]

OG13

YES!!! I want seeds from your strains!!!!!!!! Most of my autos showed sex around 28 days, so you might be close... or maybe the light is holding them off! Really interesting on no dark possibly holding them off. That makes sense cuz I read that shorter light periods for autos can quicken the start to finish time (and also decreases yield - more light equals larger end yield). When I found out I couldn't clone the autos, I was real disappointed. But I'm not anymore cuz we all got the cure here!!!

OK, day 26, the auto finally flipped and started showing hairs, so is the clone, not even rooted yet. Oh well, she's getting CS spray so we will just self her.

 

[BigIrishDoode]

love this thread, im prolly doing some fem cream caramel and super auto sativa autos soon,,but i have only 1 feminized of each granny do you think theres any way i can self them, or will i need to cross? i have some regular non feminized auto seeds perhaps it would be best to just breed them to the fems ,providing i get a male, i will have 6 in total for the regular autos, mi5,hymilan blue diesel,and auto assassin, what do ya think?

 

[Mr. Krip]

Granny, Sorry for all the "Likes" but I just got caught up on this journal, and
GREAT job!

Excellent, detailes and thorough info and great pics illustrating the process!
5 stars & +REPS!

 

[Dr.Blue]

Beautiful pictures Granny! What kind of camera do you use?

 

[Granny420]

Geez, I can't see anything on that plant with all those trichs covering everything up
I do know that I did find several seeds deep within the bud structure, as well as several easily visible, so I would not bet against that plant being seeded. And god does she look tasty.
Everything else looks amazing Granny.
Best Wishes!

NotaDrinker

Hi Honey!! I've got questions for you!!! I'm going to be doing a seed update and have questions for you there...

I do feel I should get something for seed off the auto Mazar cuz I just harvested a few seeds from the Thunder Bloody Mary I crossed the Mazar's pollen with. I pollinated them the same day with the same pollen - but then I also re-pollinated the Mazar 2 more times after that... so if I got a few seeds from one, surely I will get some from the other! *I hope!*

 

[Granny420]

I am living that right now. My 7-8 days of treatment are altering the plant in it's entirety but it doing it in a progressive manner. For a while I was drooling over the drystal covered buds but now Dr. Jekyl is beginning to show.

DOC

That's exactly what I felt about a few of them that were putting on bud... thoughts went to being able to self the plant... and then later... urg!!!

My camera... is a Finepix. I use a high resolution and a lot of macro settings, and then edit/crop further in Paint Shop Pro. Thus, it is rarely ever a natural pic I shot. Thank you for the nice comments, sweetie.

Ahh... Doc, honey... you had said that pollen could be stored in the fridge for 6 months and I was not aware of that and questioned it. Since no one responded to my question, I did go look up a bit more and found a few places that said viable pollen success at 4 to 6 months with refrigeration - so I apologize for even questioning your recommendations!!! I learn more every day! However, I will still probably freeze mine just so no grandchild takes my pollen outta the fridge for a snack!!! LOL!!!

 

[Granny420]

Great update Granny. So much valuable info here. This is most likely my untrained eye, or possible wishful thinking for your sake, but I've circled an area on one of your Mazar pics as a "Could that be a seed in there". If not, hopefully they're buried inside.

DennyinCA

It's like finding Waldo, eh? I do think I should have a few seeds at least cuz I used the same pollen on another plant and it gave me a few (update today)... I sure hope so!!!

I am learning more and more all the time. I hope others can learn by my mistakes too - so they don't make them!!!

 

[Granny420]

OK, day 26, the auto finally flipped and started showing hairs, so is the clone, not even rooted yet. Oh well, she's getting CS spray so we will just self her.

OG13

Good for you, honey!!!

 

[Granny420]

love this thread, im prolly doing some fem cream caramel and super auto sativa autos soon,,but i have only 1 feminized of each granny do you think theres any way i can self them, or will i need to cross? i have some regular non feminized auto seeds perhaps it would be best to just breed them to the fems ,providing i get a male, i will have 6 in total for the regular autos, mi5,hymilan blue diesel,and auto assassin, what do ya think?

Irish!

Hi honey!!! I loved the cream caramel and didn't get to make any seeds from it - but I have pollen galore after 3 months of this plant growing sacs!!!

I highly suggest you do not spray the upper parts AT ALL (try to self). Just spray the bottom 2 to 3 nodes of growth - and spray it until you start seeing sacs (3 to 4 weeks). If in the end the pollen is too late to pollinate the top, you can save the pollen and buy another seed or cross it with something else (the choices I am left with cuz I sprayed the entire CC plant and had no female to pollinate in the end). If it works well, you can pollinate the top to self these!!

Can you do both? If you have regular seeds, you sure could pollinate a branch or two with regular male pollen (I did this on a few), so if all else fails - you have the mixed cross seeds too???

It is always SO WONDERFUL TO SEE YOU IRISH!!!

 

[Granny420]

Granny, Sorry for all the "Likes" but I just got caught up on this journal, and
GREAT job!

Excellent, detailes and thorough info and great pics illustrating the process!
5 stars & +REPS!

Mr. Krip!!!

honey!!! Oh my is it good to see you here! Don't be apologizin' for "likes" - we LIKE the LIKES!!! It's still a "learning" journal tho - and today's update will let everyone know that!!! Good or bad - honest reports is what you'll always get!!! LOL!!!

 

[blkmetal]

Ok so this is my first post! I have been lurking around in this thread for a couple of weeks. Anxiously awaiting updates..I just have to say thanks Granny!..This is an awesome thread! It's very inspiring..Its so thorough too! You rule!

 

[Aaron Quix]

If you carefully polinate with the fan off You won't get many unplanned seeds. You can store pollen in the refrigerator for at least 6 months but once you take it out and let it dry again before use you aren't going to be able to put it back in the refrigerator again for another use.

Do you have to dry the pollen before storing in the refridgerator! Or do you put it in while its still fresh, and then pull it out for use within that 4-6 month time frame?
Sorry if I missed it in an earlier post, thanks in advance!

 

[Granny420]

UPDATE: FIRST FEM SEEDS!!!

Yep... a celebration AND a bit of a bummer!

I was going to wait another week to harvest seeds, but I bumped the auto Himalaya Blue Diesel and 2 of the seeds I could see (one right on top), FELL OFF!!! That sucked, but finding out the seed count within plants ALSO SUCKED!!!

I'll get right to it and then hopefully NotaDrinker can help me figure out what I'm not doing right???? I sure don't want to steer anyone wrong here - so please speak up if you can help, honey?

When I harvested the remainder of the HBD, I got only 10 more seeds. And I couldn't find the 2 that fell off! UGH!!! Out of the 10 seeds, 7 look viable.

Since I pollinated the Thunder Bloody Mary (which is a cross of Mazar and White Dwarf) by crossing it with the CS treated Auto Mazar pollen in a similar time frame as the HBD, I decided to harvest the seeds from it before they also fell off! I could see 3 seeds and they all looked finished. I got a total of only 4 seeds from this TBM plant crossed with CS Mazar pollen.

Here are pics of those seeds...

I am very disappointed in the small number of seeds and need to figure out what I am doing wrong!!! One per bud???? Come on!!!

At the end of last week I also took one TINY little bud from the purple plant I seeded with MALE pollen. I am having a very hard time knowing if these seeds are finished cuz they are so dark in color. Here is a pic of the bud and seeds on the day they were taken... This was MALE pollen (regular seeds) with ONE pollination, and I got 8 seeds from one small bud.

I am really stumped as to why I am getting so few fem seeds. Here are a few things that might be contributing... but I would really like any advice NotaDrinker could give cuz he had a lot more seeds in the end!!!

1. At first, I was taking the female pollen sacs too soon. I did learn I had to wait longer for color changes to take place. Maybe I need to wait even longer until they are real brown??? The first pollination on each plant may not have taken for this reason - but I did re-pollinate these a second time. The HBD actually was the only plant that "shed" pollen for me (without me pulling out a dried pollen sac), so I really thought it was prime when I pollinated the second time on the HBD.
2. Maybe I was trying to pollinate at a wrong time (too early)? I did some more reading and did learn the calyx has to be mature in order to produce seed. I don't know how this could be a problem tho, cuz I pollinated approximately once weekly on many plants (not these first two tho). I also feel since I am having such success with male pollen, I must be pollinating at the right time???

Well, that's all I can think of for reasons!!!

But I am amazed at the difference in the number of seeds produced. Here is a picture that includes the fem seeds I collected today from two different plants along with a few bags of seeds (right side is one plant's seeds in 2 bags cuz I sorted some of the better seeds out) that came from 2 plants I pollinated ONCE with male pollen...

So... I am very disappointed in the number of seeds returned and just know I am not doing something right!!! NotaDrinker had a LOT more seeds!!! But I won't feel sorry for myself - I DO have feminized seeds (more than I started with!) and will figure out what I did wrong and correct it!!! I'm still working on other strains, so I am still experimenting for a bit longer. NotaDrinker - HELP!!! Advice???

Now, there are sure other things to compare with the seeds... such as size and color... Below is a pic that includes both fem seed strains (fem pollen) taken today (bottom), a few of the purple auto blue himalaya regular seeds (male pollen - center), and some of the regular (male pollen - top) auto blue himalaya seeds that blue one came from...

Along with being lighter colored, the HBD (bottom right) seeds are sure small! Not that this makes any difference on the end plant... just noting there can be differences between seeds.

I dried the purp seeds for a few days and last night I put 3 of the 8 regular seeds I got from that one small purple bud into a wet paper towel to see if they would germinate. I can't tell from the color if those seeds are viable. The top of this plant is seeded with it's father pollen, and the lower branches of this plant are *hopefully) seeded with Cream Caramel and Mazar. The bottom was pollinated later and will have seed harvest later (I hope!) than the upper part of the plant.

Anyways... that is the poop on the first fem seeds. After reading what I did, I will be re-pollinating plants in the future. I read that if a plant is pollinated early, before the calyxes have matured, there will be fewer seeds. Outside in nature, the males release pollen repeatedly and the female will develop more seeds due to being pollinated repeatedly. This is one thing I can do.

I do feel male pollen is so much easier to work with!!! When it sheds, it's ready! And for me, one good pollination has returned many many many seeds. But it sure does take up veg room space to have to figure out what is male from seedlings. I sooooo want female seeds so I don't have to mess with this! Maybe I am just too impatient to wait for viable pollen???

I am going to get this right yet!!! I have a few seeds, but really want to work on getting a lot more seeds per bud!!! One seed per bud is NOT enough!!!

But I do have a start... I think at least 7 viable HBD and 4 TBMxM... that is 11 more fem seeds than I had!

Please let me know if you have any advice! I am still treating and pollinating other strains. I am seeing one seed in 8 days on the Mataro Blue and on the Red Dragon from one pollination, re-pollinated both of them today after seeing how few seeds I got here!

 

[Aaron Quix]

Granny!! Sounds like nothing has changed over here in the last couple of months...AWESOME as always
Just wanted to drop in and say hello, hope all is well!

 

[NotaDrinker]

Mmmm, my bet is the nonviable pollen. Like, maybe it is like this. If you pollinate a stigma with nonviable pollen, then you have rendered it useless. When you re-pollinate, the only stigmas that have a chance, are the ones that were spared the first failed attempt. That's the only thing I can think of.

I didn't do any drying, crushing or anything. I used fresh pollen that was plucked seconds before, and I tapped the sacs directly over and around the areas I wanted to pollinate. I could see the pollen floating in the air. The sacs that released pollen the easiest took no effort to remove at all. They basically fell of into the tweezers, and these are the ones I pollinated with.

How long from pollination harvest for those tiny seeds Granny? They look very small, but I did read and see some pics of seeds of all sizes and shades, so maybe they are ready.

Considering that your male pollinations went well, the issue must be with the feminized pollen, or the process or CS used to make it... Maybe the CS you used has a stabilizer in it or something? Try making your own, it is simple, and very cheap.
But I dunno Granny. I wish I knew what I was doing so that I could steer you in the right direction.

 

[DennyinCA]

First off Granny, Congrats on the new seeds. I'll celebrate and share a toke....

And sorry about the low number of seeds. I'm too new to be able to see problems, but I have read a bunch and thought maybe I could run through my logic and offer my thoughts. So here goes.

What you said in item 2 in your posting "I also feel since I am having such success with male pollen, I must be pollinating at the right time???" does seem to rule out the timing of the pollinating. And the following text that I copied from an article on Pollination Techniques, backs up your thoughts on the timing.
A pistillate flower cluster is ripe for fertilization so long as pale, slender pistils emerge from the calyxes. Cannabis plants can be successfully pollinated as soon as the first primordia show pistils and until just before harvest, but the largest yield of uniform, healthy seeds is achieved by pollinating in the peak floral stage. At this time, the seed plant is covered with thick clusters of white pistils. Few pistils are brown and withered, and resin production has just begun. This is the most receptive time for fertilization, still early in the seed plant’s life, with plenty of time remaining for the seeds to mature.

That makes it sound like if you have the pollen available, multiple applications would be a good thing.

So, here's a question. Besides the pollen itself, is anything consistently different between the two processes (using male pollen vs female)?
- Like maybe applying it differently. Possibly having a smaller quantity of the female pollen and being more careful, not wanting to waste it and maybe getting too close and touching the pistils, as opposed to generously dropping it with the male pollen.

If you mentally go through both processes and can say nothing else is different, then you can figure the problem is with collecting or storage of the female pollen.

You have found that female pollen sacs rarely open and drop pollen on there own. You've also found that shorter spraying times made it appear that she wasn't turning, but that after additional time she did indeed turn. Is it possible that the process of pollen development is also delayed, and that if given enough time the sacs would dry on their own and release. I guess I'm agreeing with your item 1.

The other thing that's different with male and female pollen is the amount of handling necessary, since you have to pick and dry. Is moisture or some other form of contamination getting to the pollen as the sacs are picked off with tweezers? And finally, I've read that you add rice to soak up excess moisture, but I'm having a hard time visualizing anything coming out of the freezer into warm air and not condensing some. Is there a way to minimize that? Doc's method of refrigerator vs freezer is less of a temp change and less chance of condensation.

NotaDrinker, Did you need to store your pollen before applying, and if so frig or freezer?

 

[NotaDrinker]

Like I said. I did not store, dry or in any other way manipulate the pollen sacs after I picked them. I picked them off and tapped them over the buds 1 by 1.
It has to be something with the pollen.