How to determine what Male to use?

So I have popped a lot of seeds and have had a few males in my room, but I am really not sure what makes a male a strong male for breeding or not. I am looking to keep some strains around for a while and so I would like to scout out a male to help me do that.

I do understand by looks, like node length and height but what else makes a male plant a strong contender in the breeding rooms of the greats?

post pics you can select a male just by the looks the more healthy looking fast flowering and resistant to nutes

Pass it Around said:

So I have popped a lot of seeds and have had a few males in my room, but I am really not sure what makes a male a strong male for breeding or not. I am looking to keep some strains around for a while and so I would like to scout out a male to help me do that.

I do understand by looks, like node length and height but what else makes a male plant a strong contender in the breeding rooms of the greats?

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My wild guess: "does everything you want your females to do, but isn't female."

Robustness, structure, symmetry, color, resistance to shock or disease... maybe?

I've always wondered what people mean when they claim to have a prized male, because by far, the two most important factors to me are flavor and potency. I don't see how you could possibly evaluate a male on either of those points

I pick based on structure as long as it is a good healthy plant

domino7 said:

I've always wondered what people mean when they claim to have a prized male, because by far, the two most important factors to me are flavor and potency. I don't see how you could possibly evaluate a male on either of those points

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You could sample what grows from the seeds produced by its pollen... a lengthy process no doubt, but if you "strike gold," and your male is still alive... great!

In the breeders boutique stickies they suggest pollinating each stem with each male you have, labeling them obviously, keeping them alive- or via clones (seems much more reasonable space wise), sift through the results and find which you prefer, the female (taker of the pollen) will be your stable variable, may take a handful of seeds per each male to narrow it down- but at least you can determine which one was the winner.

firstly, dont flower them in the same building. if you must put a garbage bag over them.

males are more robust and show more vigor. they stink alot during veg and some will show sex faster than others.

I personally like short squat plants, indica wide leaved structure.

cull the runts and or tweaked out ones.

My fave is to keep your different pollens separate. use a hobby paint brush and pollinate a branch. wrap it in a baggie and tape or rubber band. use the next pollen and pollinate a different branch and label it. bigger the girl the better. keep the branches as far from each other as possible. or you can obviously pollinate more than one gal, but you dont want to seed the whole harvest.

let it sit for a little while, giving them a lil shake here and there and rinse with water to prevent pollen from getting around.

do this in the garage or outside if possible.

Last one to show sex

Im trying this out too. I was a little weary of picking the biggest most robust ones because Ive heard those end up more towards the hemp/mid grade end of the gene pool. I picked ones more based on stem smell.

BustinScales510 said:

Im trying this out too. I was a little weary of picking the biggest most robust ones because Ive heard those end up more towards the hemp/mid grade end of the gene pool. I picked ones more based on stem smell.

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Smell is very key to how my pollen chucking, seed slingin', growing ninja, buddy also picks his males. He then does test runs, to see which of those males are king.

domino7 said:

I've always wondered what people mean when they claim to have a prized male, because by far, the two most important factors to me are flavor and potency. I don't see how you could possibly evaluate a male on either of those points

Click to expand...

You judge the prized males by the inbred offspring they produce, and they are kept in clone form for sperm production for years.

Stem smell may be a good factor to think about but that doesn't give us any clue of what hetero and homozygous traits are there or dominant. If you went purely on smell you could miss out on taste, if you go purely structure you could miss out on colors, or hybrid vigor etc etc. testing the offspring of ALL the males is the only way to find what traits you want to stabilize, and even then you may not have the right mum for the best results, save pollen from every male and cross with every female you have.

get a male from an IBL like deep chunk with he vegetative traits you desire and 9 times out of 10 itll probably be what you want, that or sort through a crap load of male progeny to find a "keeper"

smell.. and growth structure.. and how quickly they flower.. and how big of flower clusters..

then after using a male.. pop some seed.. and see how it really went.. if the females from the seeds all turn out to be good.. then u found a good male.. if they don't.. then u gotta see what they did bring to the table.. and what the mom brought..

good luck man.. but I started by using my first decent male.. made seeds.. and then learned over time as to what to look for in a male..

For autos the more desired traits are it's healthiness, squatness, it's resin production.

Male selection -

"There is no shortcut, you have to pollinate the female, mature the seeds and then grow them out and see what the males bring to the table. There is a few things, tackiness, resin production, flavor, stem rub on the male, hollow stems is an indicator that it is more drug cannabis than fiber. Again, there is no shortcut, you have to sprout those seeds out and see what they do to fully determine what the male brings to the table."
-DJ Short

"But if you are just looking for traits to look for, I tell people all the time 'If I have a bunch of plants I'm growing out and there is one star plant within the group that I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it is female, and it turns out to be male, at least flower them out and see what the flower clusters look like. From my personal experience, if you find a male that produces resin, that is a male that you gotta jump on. Pollen can have smell, there can be fragrance to pollen, that is also a trait I tend to look for. You have to use them, you have to grow them out in large numbers, not just crack a 10 pack."
-Scott Reach

All this was transcribed from the Free Weed podcast from High Times.