When's the best time to pollinate my girls

Quickset

Quickset

Well-Known Member
Hello RIU,

I'm wondering when is the best time to pollinate my girls. I have some GH Cheese flowering for 16 days now, the buds of which are starting to look nice and dank. I have pollen that I gathered from some Nirvana White Window gentlemen which I would like to use to pollenate a few buds of my cheezy girls, providing the pollen is still viable.

Also when pollinating, should I select some smaller, lower buds which are not getting as much light as the upper branches do? If these are pollinated will less light be an issue for seed development?

A final question if I may, I'm wondering if any THC is present within the trichromes at 16 days into flowering? I don't intend to sample, I'm just curious about this possibility.

For your viewing pleasure, I've attached some sample pics of the buds and a picture of a welcomed stowaway (a pleasant surprise).

Could someone please advise with my questions. Thanks!

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M4A1

M4A1

Well-Known Member
Well take into consideration that seeds can take 4 weeks to fully mature. So you want them done about the time you want to hardvest the plant. I just pollinated a plant that was 3 weeks into flowering(3 weeks from the first sign of flowering, not 3 weeks of 12/12 light). This is a clone of a plant that took 8 weeks to finish up flowering. So I gave myself 5 weeks for the seeds to finish up by pollinating the plant 3 weeks into flowering. The seeds should be done alittle before or right at harvest time. It's ok if they are done and still on the plant. You don't want to hardvest your plant and find all green seeds cause you waited too long to pollinate it.
 
Quickset

Quickset

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the replies M4A1 and ! I'm going to pollenate them very soon based on your input and on input received from fdd2blk via his post entitled "Seed production. a tutorial" which I just came across (thanks fdd2blk)!

https://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/20319-seed-production-tutorial.html

Can anyone answer my other questions:

should I select some smaller, lower buds which are not getting as much light as the upper branches do? If these are pollinated will less light be an issue for seed development?

Is any THC present within the trichromes at 16 days into flowering? I don't intend to sample, I'm just curious about this possibility.

:eyesmoke:
 
Quickset

Quickset

Well-Known Member
It makes sense that males and females are maturing simultaneously and would be bumping nasties within 2-3 weeks time. So the general consensus seems to be approx 3 weeks from beginning of flowering stage or from when seeing pistils for first time (I saw pistils 4 days into 12/12 but may have been there sooner?). fdd2blk says pollenate between second to third week of flower.
 
C

C_Pac

Well-Known Member
I pollinate when they look about like those plants in the pics. I'm not a botanist or anything, but I think that if you wait a while for more pistil sites to develop, you'll get more seeds at harvest, which might or might not be a good thing.

I usually only pollinate one bud from the lowest branch on the plant and generally get around 25-30 seeds. I can usually tell that fertilization took because the pistils that get pollen turn brown after a few days. In my experience the reduced light from being toward the bottom does not cause any problems.

Remember to do it in a different room from other flowering plants and make sure you don't have a fan directly on the new mommy-- pollen is made to travel in the air.

In regards to your other question, I was just reading another thread in which someone claimed that there is some thc present in the trichomes on the undersides of the leaves as early as a few days into flowering. Personally, I wouldn't bother even to try it out.
 
Quickset

Quickset

Well-Known Member
C_Pac said:
I pollinate when they look about like those plants in the pics. I'm not a botanist or anything, but I think that if you wait a while for more pistil sites to develop, you'll get more seeds at harvest, which might or might not be a good thing.

I usually only pollinate one bud from the lowest branch on the plant and generally get around 25-30 seeds. I can usually tell that fertilization took because the pistils that get pollen turn brown after a few days. In my experience the reduced light from being toward the bottom does not cause any problems.

Remember to do it in a different room from other flowering plants and make sure you don't have a fan directly on the new mommy-- pollen is made to travel in the air.

In regards to your other question, I was just reading another thread in which someone claimed that there is some thc present in the trichomes on the undersides of the leaves as early as a few days into flowering. Personally, I wouldn't bother even to try it out.
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Thanks for your insight C_Pac and for answering my remaining questions! I wasn't going to wait a full three weeks because those pistils are looking horny at this point in time and even more so today. It was reassuring to hear of the timeing used by you in your seed prodution method. I took some pollen out of the ice box and I'm letting it sit overnight in preparation for pollenating my females tomorrow. I'm following your practice and applying to some lower buds, shooting for producing 30 to 50 seeds which may be overkill. I hope the pollen is viable.

This is my 3rd and best grow so far. The plants are healthier than those of my previous grows and it amazes me to see how many buds are growing on each of my 2 plants. I'm excited to take step this first attemp at seed production. I blew it in my first and second cloning attempts learning though of the valuable lesson of heat application for new clones. Hopefully I'll be successful the first go round here in seed production.

Do you find that 25-50 seeds is adequate for your future grow needs? Being a novice I also have to ask if there's any concern with inbreeding with future grows from the seeds produced?

Thanks for the assist! :bigjoint:
 
C

C_Pac

Well-Known Member
25 seeds or so is fine for my needs. I keep a few strains going and I don't want to have to keep a lot of different mothers for clones. The thing is you can make new seeds any time. You're about to see how easy it is...

Ideally what you'd do is pollinate one small lower branch on all of your females, and just keep the seeds from the one that turns out closest to the traits you're looking for. Selecting for genetics on the mommy's side of the family is easy. Selecting on the daddy's side isn't so easy since we're looking for female traits at the end of the day.

Like I said, I'm no botanist; not a breeder or a plant geneticist either. Right now I'm into a project of trying to develop a strain from an awesome bagseed sativa I found a while ago. Really fantastic plant. So I pollinated with a sturdy early male from a known strain, and each generation I'm re-back-crossing the best male (as far as I can tell) with the original mother. I'm two generations in now. Fun project. No troubles yet. If that's not inbreeding, I don't know what is. At first I was worried about inbreeding, but one man's 'inbreeding' seems to be another man's 'back-crossing'. Just never tolerate, never pollinate hermies.

I've never frozen pollen before, but I've read a number of times that that's the solution for long-term storage. You should be fine.
 
Quickset

Quickset

Well-Known Member
Done! I pollenated several buds on 1 of 2 plants only before reading your reply. Will do so for other plant. Thanks for the lesson. :blsmoke:

Separate seed labeling in order! :mrgreen:
 
Quickset

Quickset

Well-Known Member
Update again. Some more pics. I looked closer and saw evidence of seed growth with some seeds approaching full grown size in appearance. It's amazing just how fast seeds will develop.
:weed:

At first glance the flush of new growth looked like developing hermapods. (a new word?) The developing seeds resemble the male plant's seed pods. Last pic is a shot of a male WW plant in flower for comparison (I gathered some pollen from him).
 

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Boneman

Boneman

Well-Known Member
Good job :hump: Did your pollen stay on the sites you pollenated or did it spread to any other sites?
 
M4A1

M4A1

Well-Known Member
Good job. Last pollination I did I only got a few seeds from(actually still on the plant LOL). I was testing to see how long the pollin would last at room temp in just a glass jar. It's a couple of months old now. I would say .1% of what I pollinated actually took. I pollinated the whole plant and maybe got 20 seeds total. Thats good to know that your froozen stuff did so good after 8 months. I do have some left in the freezer that I will be using very soon(like 2 weeks).
 
Quickset

Quickset

Well-Known Member
Boneman said:
Good job Did your pollen stay on the sites you pollenated or did it spread to any other sites?
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Thanks Boneman. I isolated the plant and then a branch and pollenated with a brush. I think I may have had a little spread but not sure at this point in time.


M4A1 said:
Good job. Last pollination I did I only got a few seeds from(actually still on the plant LOL). I was testing to see how long the pollin would last at room temp in just a glass jar. It's a couple of months old now. I would say .1% of what I pollinated actually took. I pollinated the whole plant and maybe got 20 seeds total. Thats good to know that your froozen stuff did so good after 8 months. I do have some left in the freezer that I will be using very soon(like 2 weeks).
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Thanks M4A1. I collected pollen over a period of 5-7 days and put it into individual folds of paper which I labeled & dated and placed in silica beads as individual packets to dry it out. Later these were put into an air tight jar and put into the freezer with some new silica beads. When I was ready to pollenate the females I just took out one packet and left it out for 24 hrs at room temperature before using. Read of this method for pollen storage somewhere on RIU.

Here's one link that got me started.

https://www.rollitup.org/do-yourself/6911-collecting-male-pollen.html


Picture is of my grow at 28 days into flowering. Lots of unfertilized buds!
 

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Quickset

Quickset

Well-Known Member
I successfully pollinated some of my current girls with White Widow pollen that's almost 2 years old now.

I crossed Mr. WW with Greenhouse Cheese (2nd time with this strain), lowryder #2 (autoflower), Barney's Sweet Tooth, and finally with Arjan Haze #3.

Unfortunately I'm now doing battle with spider mites so I hope I make it to the finish line with all these strains, seed and smoke wise.

Here's some pics of the pregnant girls.
 

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SmokeyMcChokey

SmokeyMcChokey

Well-Known Member
right on man. good thread and im glad to hear your makin them thangs do the nasty again. This actually ansered both of my questions about breeding.
so in retrospect do you hae any regrets about pollinating the lower branches that dont recieve much light?
 
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