Which Strain to cross with.?

If i am crossing a strain, which pollen would i polinate with to achieve the best strain.?
Example: I have a very purple growing strain with very dense nugz & then i have a very good pheno of Endless Sky. Can someone tell me if i would use the purple pollen to fertilize the endless sky to achieve the best result or should it be the other way around??
This is the first time that ive tried crossing and i think i may be on to a very good strain..

That is up to you. Really depends on what phenotype you are trying to capture. Do you have males already picked out? You will need to keep cuttings to create some stability by backcrossing. Sounds like a good project if you have the room!

If you are interested in keeping the purple strain and making a cross with those traits then you would use the endless sky male. It will be much easier this way than crossing the purple male to a non purple female and expecting to obtain color the first cross. The male normally lends itself to plant vigor, structure and with some potentcy. As cacamal pointed out you will need to keep the original male and female so that you can more easily backcross to obtain stability quicker.
The first thing to do really is decide what you are looking for with your cross. Are you looking for this flower? or are you more interested in plant structure without regards to which flower type you produce. Once you pick out what you are looking for in your plant then it becomes easier for you to decide which males and females to use. This is going to take time and the more different your two strains are which you combine the more time and the seeds you are going to have to grow out in the future to obtain what you were originally looking for.
Best of Luck and the best thing to remember is that even most of your failures breeding will good to smoke.

I don't have a male so I was gonna herm a female of whatever strain that would benefit me.
The purple has the characteristics that I want to incorporate into the endless sky. Both are strong phenos.

I just cut down the male in flower and bushwack it on the female. I call this plant intercourse.

So would I use in your opInion a male that had a characteristic that made the female better? Does making a purple male to fertilize the female endless sky make sence? Or does someone have a better idea?

canefan had it right there for you, use the endless to flower your purp.
I use a strong male sativa and cross that with a female.
I had a Headband male and a chocolope female.
I liked the sativa high of the Headband and the flavor of the Chocolope so I crossed them knowing that the high would still be there but the flavor would be a little less than what it was before.

Then my next question is what wound be a good time schedule to put my lights on to herm them?

I want to know what you found desireable about the ES

If you seriously want to make the cross then don't start your strain with a hermie female, you are just asking for problems that don't need to be addressed. On the otherhand if you are just wanting to chunck some pollen for shits and giggles with the hope of fem seeds for a one time cross have fun. Breeding is a big undertaking if you want to make your own true strain with so many factors to consider and putting a hermie in the mix really makes it that much harder and time consuming. The last thing you want is to findout you missed some nanners on that pretty female and now have a room full seedy plants.
Just my two cents and not wanting you to spend months and months growing plants only to be disappointed. Spend the money and buy regular seeds of the strain you want the male from and then start. I promise you that you will be happier sooner and with fewer problems.
Happy Growing

eyeball696 said:

I don't have a male so I was gonna herm a female of whatever strain that would benefit me.
The purple has the characteristics that I want to incorporate into the endless sky. Both are strong phenos.

Click to expand...

Intentionally turning a female hermie is far from the best way to get male pollen. Just like other traits that will be passed on, so will the hermie trait.

Unless someone is dead sure about which plant will be best at passing on desired traits the only way to be sure you pass on the desired traits is to make every cross possible. I cannot remember which strain it was but I remember reading where Nevil started with 1000 plants to pick the best 25 plants to them make every possible cross of males and females of each phenotype so he could find the very best. I have read of others starting with 600 plants, 500 plants, 400 plants, 300 plants, 200 plants so they could find the very best plants and then from their final group of plants they also made every possible cross of each male and each female of each phenotype.

This is why I am not a fan of home breeding. There are already more than enough mutts out there in the world for people to create even more. Especially when people come up with ideas like turning a female plant hermie to get pollen.

Sure, anyone can chuck some pollen and get something that will get them high, but the odds against someone working on the scale of a home grower making a cross that is truly unique and special are astronomical.

boneheadbob said:

I want to know what you found desireable about the ES

Click to expand...

I love the flowering time, yield and oh yea I forgot the HIGH IS AWESOME it's a pain for the first time grower I mean first time ES grower. It's all I grow next to the purple

yeah... you'll get more of the mother's traits than the father's in any cross' females, but if you're looking to isolate a trait, back cross your offspring to each other and you'll get a wide variety of traits for both original parents mixed up, then, you could get both a purple mother and father for a finer tuned strain. if you REALLY wanted to best possible, you should even pick your most purple males and test breed them all to cuttings of whatever female you selected as the closest to what you're after. it's a lot of work, but that's the difference between a good strain & a great one.