new to growing for seed

Been growing for 20 years off and on but have never been interested in growing for seed till now. The situation is we have around 12 strains we run and have been alternating between each each month having to keep a mother and cutting our plant count down. So the question.... I've done a lot of reading and I'm still a little unsure about the number of times I need to self a strain in order to get a reliable seed as close to the original cut as possible. Do I just have to force a female to produce pollen then use the pollen on a clone of the same to produce seeds that are almost clones or do I use that pollen to fertilize the f1 then choose the most similar f1 to fertilize and make f2 and so on and so on till f7-8?

Sorry looked at the post and i should of been saying s1/s7-8

There's many ways you can do it since you're not really breeding but just producing feminized seeds.

1. You can reverse a clone coming directly from the mother and pollinate another clone that came directly from the mother.
2. You can reverse any generation of clone and pollinate a clone directly from the mother.
3. Or you can start your S1 and reverse its offspring to create your S2 and so on and so forth.

Doesn't really matter which way, your genetic pool is limited to that of the mother. So the progeny wont be that far from that of the mother.

One thing with seeds though, even if it comes from 1 plant, there is still a possibility of slight difference between plants as to how genes recombine.

Xs121 said:

There's many ways you can do it since you're not really breeding but just producing feminized seeds.

1. You can reverse a clone coming directly from the mother and pollinate another clone that came directly from the mother.
2. You can reverse any generation of clone and pollinate a clone directly from the mother.
3. Or you can start your S1 and reverse its offspring to create your S2 and so on and so forth.

Doesn't really matter which way, your genetic pool is limited to that of the mother. So the progeny wont be that far from that of the mother.

One thing with seeds though, even if it comes from 1 plant, there is still a possibility of slight difference between plants as to how genes recombine.

Click to expand...

Hi Xs121,

Using 2 clones -

Correct me if i'm wrong, the variation in offspring would be because of the genetic variety from the two clones?
Assuming there'd be 50% genes from mum and 50% genes from dad.

The pollen would have to be the major factor in the variation?

I haven't any experience with feminized seeds, any advice is appreciated.

Xs121 said:

There's many ways you can do it since you're not really breeding but just producing feminized seeds.

1. You can reverse a clone coming directly from the mother and pollinate another clone that came directly from the mother.
2. You can reverse any generation of clone and pollinate a clone directly from the mother.
3. Or you can start your S1 and reverse its offspring to create your S2 and so on and so forth.

Doesn't really matter which way, your genetic pool is limited to that of the mother. So the progeny wont be that far from that of the mother.

One thing with seeds though, even if it comes from 1 plant, there is still a possibility of slight difference between plants as to how genes recombine.

Click to expand...

I've been a pollen chucker for 20 years but want to get into making my own fem seeds with STS and stabilizing some crosses.

I thought that you only bred a plant with itself in certain circumstances once in a while to reinforce certain traits but most of the time you need to use your fem pollen on a different strain or at least if it was the same strain it should be a different plant grown from seed. For the same reasons you shouldn't make babies with your sister.

I have 4 hi-CBD plants from fem seed going now that I'd like to cross with some nice sativa dominant strains and other strains I have in my arsenal to get some CBD lines of those. I have the stuff to do a Beam's test to detect CBD tho it doesn't tell me how much just that it's there. The colour change is more pronounced with higher levels tho so gives me a clue as to which are keepers. I plan to have a few of the keepers analyzed at a lab.

I also want to be able to make more of the CBD ones crossed with themselves to keep this line going pure.

Aussieaceae said:

Hi Xs121,

Using 2 clones -

Correct me if i'm wrong, the variation in offspring would be because of the genetic variety from the two clones?
Assuming there'd be 50% genes from mum and 50% genes from dad.

The pollen would have to be the major factor in the variation?

I haven't any experience with feminized seeds, any advice is appreciated.

Click to expand...

2 clones from different plants(even if its the same strain) would obviously have genetic variation.
2 clones from the same plant less likely to have genetic variation but there's a remote possibility that there would be a very slight variation due to abiotic stress.

Having said that...

The making of seeds even from identical genome parents 'can' have genetic variance due to 'gene recombination'. There are hosts of genetic processes that is possible aside from Mendelian Principle. Example; an allele can be dominant in one seed and not in another seed. That's just one allele and there are thousands of alleles therefore the number of combinations is pretty much enormous....in short....not 2 seeds are exactly the same.

OldMedUser said:

I thought that you only bred a plant with itself in certain circumstances once in a while to reinforce certain traits but most of the time you need to use your fem pollen on a different strain or at least if it was the same strain it should be a different plant grown from seed. For the same reasons you shouldn't make babies with your sister.

Click to expand...

It really depend on your goal or goals.

You can self produce seeds with the aim to select and reinforced the trait you like, through the process of selection (as in breeding). Problem with 1 plant and selective breeding...you further limit your gene pool within an already limited gene pool. Selective breeding is best use with wider gene pool which means male and female breeding.

Yes it's always recommended to use your pollen to a
a) different clone
b) different plant (same strain from seed)

The aim here is to work with a bit of genetic room. With feminized seed production, you're not really concern of the limited gene pool, your goal is to produce female seeds similar to the mother.

On the other hand, if you want to breed (as to produce that trait you want) then its critical that you start with wider gene pool even ifs the same strain.

Xs121 said:

On the other hand, if you want to breed (as to produce that trait you want) then its critical that you start with wider gene pool even ifs the same strain.

Click to expand...

I get that. I understand the basic gene pool pool thing and have a bunch of bookmarks to detailed methods of selecting and breeding for traits. Have many F1s of the strains I've acquired through mostly sharing with forum buddies here and there.

Good to know it's cool to make fem pollen and use it on the same plant and others of it's ilk from seed. The regular ones I have going now will be the first to cross. It's Island Sweet Skunk x DJ Short's Blueberry. If I get a nice male I'll use that to make regular seeds first with the CBD girls and also make the fem seeds on the same CBD girl and the ISS ones. I once did 4 different pollinations on one female being very careful not to cross-contaminate.

The thing with these projects is it takes so damn long to grow through the various generations. I'm almost 65 so hope I can get some good stuff before my battery runs out.

I have over a dozen different strains to play with so no shortage of possible projects.

Thanks for the tips.

OldMedUser said:

I get that. I understand the basic gene pool pool thing and have a bunch of bookmarks to detailed methods of selecting and breeding for traits. Have many F1s of the strains I've acquired through mostly sharing with forum buddies here and there.

Good to know it's cool to make fem pollen and use it on the same plant and others of it's ilk from seed. The regular ones I have going now will be the first to cross. It's Island Sweet Skunk x DJ Short's Blueberry. If I get a nice male I'll use that to make regular seeds first with the CBD girls and also make the fem seeds on the same CBD girl and the ISS ones. I once did 4 different pollinations on one female being very careful not to cross-contaminate.

The thing with these projects is it takes so damn long to grow through the various generations. I'm almost 65 so hope I can get some good stuff before my battery runs out.

I have over a dozen different strains to play with so no shortage of possible projects.

Thanks for the tips. View attachment 4333020

Click to expand...

Get some regular seeds and find a male stud. I have pollen saved from the male in my profile pic. Theres nothing like the real thing the way nature intended. Dont settle for just any male though!

Countrybuddin said:

Get some regular seeds and find a male stud. I have pollen saved from the male in my profile pic. Theres nothing like the real thing the way nature intended. Dont settle for just any male though!

Click to expand...

That's the way I've been doing it for years. It's only recently I've had any fem seeds plus cuttings from a buddy and of course they're female only.

I like to sprout 10 seeds of a new strain at least so I can try to select the best of them for breeding or if just wanting to preserve the genetics sprout what I have and breed the best of what I get.

Managed to re-veg an AK47 that was from fem seeds I got from the same guy I get my cuttings. He grows mothers to take mass cuttings to supply growers not in the legal market. That AK is from Canuk Seeds and the calyxes go bright red but the colour disappears after curing. Nice smoke tho. I want to self a branch on that one and make more seeds with itself plus cross it with the CBD plants.

Lots of irons in the fire.

When you breed a mother or clone with itself you will not end up with the same plant you will end up with seeds that are known as S-1 seeds S meaning "selfed" and "1" meaning first gen. When these genes mix during the pollination process most times you will end up with an inferior inbred plant.

To make feminized seeds you flip one female plant with colloidal silver or other known chemicals and use that pollen to pollinate another female.