Pollen Chucking update - 9th March
Plan A; My efforts to reverse a selected minor lower stem of each the 3 photo girls was unfortunately a failure. I sprayed Colloidal Silver for about 31 days between 4 and 6 times a days, only missing 1 day from rain, I even gave each stem about 40 pin pricks with the idea it might assist, but alas no. I might make another attempt next grow and use an greater strength of CS, instead of 24ppm, maybe 50ppm as that was mentioned by
@Bionic Chronic NZ and
@NuttyProfessor and others in successful attempts.
Plan B; I have some saved regular White Widow XTRM pollen in my fridge that has been stored with desiccant sachets and rice grains, but it is 3 years old and was 'used' over several weeks before going into the fridge. Plan B was my only backup plan if Plan A's attempt to reverse sex failed, Plan B was my backup which would at least allow me the chance to make regular seeds if nothing else, but only
if the pollen was still viable. But along came Plan C.
Plan C; On my previous grow last year, I made a seed order with a grow buddy, but the orders were seized twice by Customs
, and come Spring time we had no female seeds to grow
. From the previous 2 years I had made some regular seeds, which is what we fell back on for last year's grow. They were White Widow XTRM and a cross I made with Gorgonzola, both from AMS, the cross which I'll abbreviate to 'WG' was the favourite for both of us (based on the percents given for the parents it could be 55:45 Sativa dominant, I think Jack Herer is something similar and I wonder what that is like). The WG gets you feeling nicely enhanced, but leaves you with a clear head that makes it good for doing things and socialising, the pure WW is tricky for socialising
. Anyway, I still have several jars of both the resulting WW and WG bud in my stash cupboard, but my grow buddy had almost run out and he had grown some more of those regular seeds this year because he liked it so much. One of the regular seeds he grew turned out to be male. He saved some of the pollen, but unfortunately, he didn't really store it that well, so I don't know how viable it is. It has been in his fridge but he stored it along with the greenery that came with it and sounded like there was condensation in the bag too. I asked if he could take it out of the fridge and try to dry it out and see if there was any dry pollen amongst it.
This was all he could get:
That was all he could get, but it must be still a few thousand grains, but is it viable? We'll see in a few weeks!
So this afternoon with the hint of continued dry weather I attempted to pollinate 2 relatively minor stems of each of the 3 photo girls, including the single stem of each plant that I sprayed with CS (as if I am not going to use them to toke on, I might as well use them to pollinate for seeds as well).
I had planned to dust it on the selected stems but there wasn't anything to pour out, just a little pollen dust coating the inside of the bag. So I resorted to Gandalf's method to pollinate the buds (Gandalf is a 'green fairy' in NZ who kindly grows cannabis illegally for folk's medicinal needs), his method is just to put his finger in and get some pollen on it and wipe the chosen buds with it. I just wiped my finger around the inside of the plastic bag and hoped there was enough to do the trick and that it was viable.
With such a limited amount of pollen I had to think whether I need to make a primary choice first, so I started with the Mango Sherbert, because it's trichome buildup seems really impressive (altho it was the first to start flowering) so if I had to choose one I'd quite like at least a cross of the Mango Sherbert for it's genetics. The Godfather OG is maybe half a week behind the Mango Sherbert, but each day it is looking increasingly very tasty too, I might do an update on her next. The Strawberry Cough is the least advanced in flowering of the 3 girls, but wow all 3 strains are full of promise for their potential genetics, so if I haven't mentioned it a hundred times already, I am really curious to smoke test these babies and see how they compare to last years WW, WG, and Gorilla Glue (an auto). I have been smoking for decades but only recently I have had 'named' strains to grow and compare them with the universe of strains out there that folk are praising and discussing. I have been wondering where my bud experience sits in the scheme of things.
I started wiping my finger from the bag to their pistils from left to right beginning with the Mango Sherbert, 2 stems of each plant, and I put a tag of electrical tape around the base of each stem so I can identify them once harvested and dried.
From left to right; Mango Sherbert, Godfather Og, Strawberry Cough
I will post more on the Godfather shortly, as I took a close look and some pics will post them later, need to stretch my legs! The Godfather's buds are looking really promising too, some unexpected lovely purple calyx's that look quite striking.