Applying Silver Nitrate & Sodium Thiosulfate Mixture for Fem Pollen

fridayfishfry

fridayfishfry

Well-Known Member
This is the mixture I plan to use (first time - feedback welcome)
0.1 grams Silver Nitrate + 100ml H2O
0.5 grams Sodium Thiosulfate + 100ml H2O
+ 500ml H2O
Glass Jar

For female pollen sacks- Fem Seeds (do not ingest these chemicals- wear nitrile(?) gloves when applying)

My question is this..
Will it melt/ react with plastic
How to apply it ? - I don't want to spay the stuff because it'll get everywhere

Sponge?
Paintbrush?
Papertowel?

Should I just pick a plant or two and apply it (and not smoke that whole plant - will it spread beyond the application site?) The plan is to make an F1(?) by crossing two strains

Again, all nice comments welcome
 
Just pick a branch or whole and and spray daily until pollen shows.

Its better to use a whole small plant or clone and discard after. Don't smoke it.

It doesn't matter if you use cs or sts. Don't smoke the plant after.

There is a thread on here somewhere where people were having good results with making a spray with crushed aspirin.

After you get pollen use a paint brush to paint the pollen.
 
NaturalFarmer said:
Colloidal silver generator on ebay for like $25. Mine came with 2 extra .999% silver wires as well as an ac adapter and mini spray bottle .
Click to expand...
I bought 5 foot of silver jeweler wire for 10 bucks on Amazon. I made the generator with an old cell charger.

They key to good cs spray is smaller silver particles. The lower the voltage the smaller the silver particle. An air stone helps.
 
fridayfishfry said:
This is the mixture I plan to use (first time - feedback welcome)
0.1 grams Silver Nitrate + 100ml H2O
0.5 grams Sodium Thiosulfate + 100ml H2O
+ 500ml H2O
Glass Jar
Click to expand...

This is the 3rd silver thiosulfate recipe I've seen.

I made up a formula with amounts similiar to others, but I wanted to test if there was really a need to add concentrates together when you're only going to dilute it later.

Mine didn't work. Didn't turn yellow, and grew flowers as easily as the unsprayed parts.

Anyone know specifically why those chemicals would need to be mixed in more concentrated form?
 
I use the same formula that you list except in larger amounts. I got the formula from a different site.

0.5 grams Silver Nitrate + 500ml H2O
2.5 grams sodium thiosulfate (anhydrous) + 500 ml H2O
Mix those and then mix together to form solution
Then 1 part solution to 9 parts water.

I got 1/4 lb of sodium thiosulfate on Amazon for $5.99 and 25 grams of silver nitrate for $28. That will last a long time but I think I'll start mixing smaller batches since I end up dumping what I don't use.
I like this formula over the collodial silver method because you don't have to spray everyday. One application and then 12/12.

You really need to spray this on until it's dripping off. I let it dry and spray a second time. Put in 12/12 and wait.
Be careful with the silver nitrate as it will stain. Especially make sure you don't get it on a white counter top unless you want purple stains.
Just put some newspaper down and spray over that.

I would spray the whole plant. What I do is grow a rooted clone out for a couple weeks and use that. Harvest the pollen and toss the rest of the plant.
Here is a picture of one that's had it's sex reversed using this method showing male pollen sacks after a couple weeks. It was really small but you only need a little pollen because it goes a long way.

silvermakesmale.jpg
 
That's a beauty for sure. Once you've seen those pods open up and make pollen in person, you can't mistake them for flower parts.

I just found yet another STS formula, on a scientific website. I'm only presenting it, because none of the other formulas I saw have mentioned the "transformation".

Now I admit, what I saw might just have been silver going out of solution, sort of like artificial oversaturated colloidal silver.

But I got nothing like this with diluted formula, and it also did not work to force my plants to male.

The old timers might perhaps help me out with what's up with the sudden color change. Is it necessary?

They called this formula, "Silver Thiosulfate – Plant Tissue Culture Protocol", and said it was "the active complex for ethylene effect inhibition". I liked their formula more because it was based on molar concentrations. 1:1. You've got a sodium that bonds more strongly to nitrate than the silver does, so the silver gets shafted. At least, that's my interpretation. But, the whole silver combining with stuff thing is highly unstable.

In the end, this molar based formula was only a TINY bit different from the others, aside for not telling you to dilute it 9:1 when you use it.

But their formula also made TONS of final liquid, like the other formulas, and worse, they advised to mix the 2 parts just before use.

They said if you wanted to mix the parts and keep it in the fridge, a month was the max it was good for So all of these formulas are not intended for someone using it on only a few plants.

I scaled down their formula as far as a .01g accuracy scale might allow, and still ended up with 400ml of the undiluted stuff.

But here's the interesting part (at least to me). Their formula was the most concentrated one, just before you mixed the 2 parts. More grams of stuff, less water. That got me to believing, maybe this reaction actually does need the 2 parts to be somewhat concentrated when mixed.

So I stirred the nitrate mix as slowly as I could into the thiosulfate. Seemed the same to me, nothing happened. But at the last moment, when there were only a few drops left of the silver, the mixture suddenly transformed into a golden brown.

All at once! You could even see the density streaks from stirring.

And the result was like a well made colloidal silver, almost the same weird yellow color.

Surprisingly, some of the silver nitrate that touched the beaker before making it into the thiosulfate, instantly turned black. Silver precipitate, like you get in your colloidal silver bottle when it gets too old or too hot.

I'm going to spray my plants tonight, if the formula seems to be working, I'll post it here. Because, it makes a smaller amount and seems to be chemically more accurate.
 
Follow up: Found this experiment using the 2 chemicals.

Test procedure
  • One puts a spatula-tipful of sodium thiosulfate in the test tube and dissolves this with approx. 1 ml of water.
  • Now one adds 2-3 drops of silver nitrate. A white sediment is precipitated which immediatly sinks and leaves behind a clear solution. The color of the sediment yellows and then quickly becomes black.
Disposal
The residues are to be disposed of as silver-containing waste.
Elucidation
At first poorly soluble silver thiosulfate is precipitated, this then reacts quickly with water to form black silver sulfide and sulphuric acid.

S2O32- + 2 Ag+ --> Ag2S2O3

Ag2S2O3 + H2O --> AgS + H2SO4

So theory: The original formula everyone sees is 0.2g silver to 1g thiosulfate. This is quite far from having adequate silver (0.27g/1).

The "adjusted" formula I saw was the correct ratio. And so was the "scientific" formula I found.

But when there's enough silver to saturate the reaction, there's also the possibility of it turning yellow and black at the end as it does in the experiment above.

Still there's no real answer here on why my first try failed on 4 plants. I think I'd rather have the stinky silver mix for the next try, at least somethings different.
 
I would be interested to see the results of other formulations for reversing sex. For now I'm going to continue with the method I'm currently using because it has been working for me. One thing I have noticed with various degrees is that the male pods form and then you get clusters of female flowers and the plant continues to grow as a female. It's harder to collect the pollen when this happens. The benefit from this is that the plant can potentially pollinate itself eliminating the need to pollinate a female plant. I have a plant I'm reversing sex on right now that is doing this. Part of the plant is male and part is female. I should be able to let it pollinate itself and have feminized seed of that strain. I'm going to let it grow and see if it will produce viable seeds. I'm fairly confident that it will produce feminized seeds. I just don't know how the plants will grow when in flower and if they will show hermaphroditic traits.

To the OP. I am not trying to hijack your thread. I just thought that this information was related to the questions you asked and could provide you with information and examples of the effects of using
Silver Nitrate & Sodium Thiosulfate to reverse the sex of a cannabis plant.


This plant was sprayed with the formulation I use. The male pods started showing before the pistils. Excuse the sorry state the leaves are in. I put this plant in Happy Frog soil instead of the usual coco I am accustomed to. Happy Frog although a good grow medium according to the soil growers I know is too hot for freshly rooted clones of some strains. This one is proof of that since all I did was transplant to the soil I took out of the bag. I cloned in coco soaked in 1/3rd strength nutes and it looked great. Two weeks later the leaves are curling and showing signs of nute burn after transplanting to soil. I've fed it only distilled water that was ph'd to 6.5. Next time I'm using a mix of 50% frog - 40% coco - 10% perlite for clones I'm reversing sex on. I grow in coco but for things like this it's easier to put in a soil based medium where I don't have to fuss with mixing nutrients because they are in a nutrient rich soil already.
image.jpg

image.jpg
 
Last edited:
xtsho said:
. The benefit from this is that the plant can potentially pollinate itself eliminating the need to pollinate a female plant.
Click to expand...

I've reversed a few autoflowers, and they do just what you said. You pretty much always get at least a couple of seeds, if you wait long enough. With a Lowryder, I blew across my pollen branch towards the flowers. I'd already gathered the pollen that came that day, and didn't see any pollen blowing along.

I got 50 seeds off that lowryder, hidden in the well formed buds.

By the way, the colloidal silver does indeed get old as people say, and plastic does indeed hasten that. You'll see a grey/black residue fall to the bottom. That's the silver. And I can vouch for it not working after that happens.

Also, it's said in some of the discussion groups that silver wire will last a very long time for making colloidal silver.

I didn't find that at all, and I used very controlled voltages. I have an engineering supply. I tried the recommended 30V, 9V, and even 1V.

They all make colloidal silver. The current flowing is the difference.

The real goal seems to be to keep the current around 10-20mA. Higher current means more black fuzz (wasted silver). But lower current takes longer, so I'm not sure which erodes the silver faster.
 
Daniel Lawton said:
I've reversed a few autoflowers, and they do just what you said. You pretty much always get at least a couple of seeds, if you wait long enough. With a Lowryder, I blew across my pollen branch towards the flowers. I'd already gathered the pollen that came that day, and didn't see any pollen blowing along.

I got 50 seeds off that lowryder, hidden in the well formed buds.

By the way, the colloidal silver does indeed get old as people say, and plastic does indeed hasten that. You'll see a grey/black residue fall to the bottom. That's the silver. And I can vouch for it not working after that happens.

Also, it's said in some of the discussion groups that silver wire will last a very long time for making colloidal silver.

I didn't find that at all, and I used very controlled voltages. I have an engineering supply. I tried the recommended 30V, 9V, and even 1V.

They all make colloidal silver. The current flowing is the difference.

The real goal seems to be to keep the current around 10-20mA. Higher current means more black fuzz (wasted silver). But lower current takes longer, so I'm not sure which erodes the silver faster.
Click to expand...
 
Do u think after u spray silver theosulfate if a week later u spray it with water will the drops coming off the plant reverse a plant say that's right beside it if the drops went on it
 
I don't have enough experience to answer that authoritatively. But I'd say, that stuff is really unstable! After a week, I'd be surprised it it wasn't just an invisible film of silver particles on the leaves, no more danger to your plants than runoff from an old photograph (which used silver too).

Especially with all that light shining on it! Silver compounds break apart in light. That's why we have porn from the 1800s!

However, I have had experience with weak or damaged silver thiosulfate, which might answer that question. I made a batch, sprayed some plants, then stuck it in the fridge. I used it a week or two later. It was clearly degraded. I could see grey silver residue at the bottom of the bottle.

I thought that spraying with that degraded silver thiosulfate twice (a week apart) hadn't reversed the plants I used it on. Certainly when the stuff was fresh, it reversed the plant at amazing speed. Maybe 3 weeks to FULLY turn a branch into a carnival of pollen pods, with flower pistils nowhere to be seen.

On the branches sprayed with the weakened stuff, I saw absolutely no sign of reversal, even up to the point that it was almost time to harvest the buds.

But then at the very end of the grow, the branch I sprayed with the weakened stuff did indeed make pollen. It was too late to use that pollen on that plant itself, but I still got lucky and that very branch made 50 seeds on it's own. Half were malformed (because there wasn't enough time left to grow?), but half are high quality clone seeds and I've already grown 3 of them into very nice plants.

I'd say, maybe yes to your question. Especially since the silver thiosulfate will almost surely remain intact as a few parts per million. It's difficult to remove a few parts per million of anything.

But more important is that keeping the plant around too long would reverse some anyway. So if you did get some residue on there which will reverse it, you might not see it at all unless you wait well past the bud harvest time.

Out of curiosity, why do you care? More seeds, especially guaranteed female seeds, is worth more than the few buds you might weaken.

Are you trying to make more pollen using runoff, or afraid to hurt the buds on the other plants?

My experience is that buds that grew huge amounts of seeds are almost as good to smoke, after you remove the seeds, as they would have been if you hadn't made seeds.

Certainly I can't tell the difference.
 
Daniel Lawton said:
I don't have enough experience to answer that authoritatively. But I'd say, that stuff is really unstable! After a week, I'd be surprised it it wasn't just an invisible film of silver particles on the leaves, no more danger to your plants than runoff from an old photograph (which used silver too).

Especially with all that light shining on it! Silver compounds break apart in light. That's why we have porn from the 1800s!

However, I have had experience with weak or damaged silver thiosulfate, which might answer that question. I made a batch, sprayed some plants, then stuck it in the fridge. I used it a week or two later. It was clearly degraded. I could see grey silver residue at the bottom of the bottle.

I thought that spraying with that degraded silver thiosulfate twice (a week apart) hadn't reversed the plants I used it on. Certainly when the stuff was fresh, it reversed the plant at amazing speed. Maybe 3 weeks to FULLY turn a branch into a carnival of pollen pods, with flower pistils nowhere to be seen.

On the branches sprayed with the weakened stuff, I saw absolutely no sign of reversal, even up to the point that it was almost time to harvest the buds.

But then at the very end of the grow, the branch I sprayed with the weakened stuff did indeed make pollen. It was too late to use that pollen on that plant itself, but I still got lucky and that very branch made 50 seeds on it's own. Half were malformed (because there wasn't enough time left to grow?), but half are high quality clone seeds and I've already grown 3 of them into very nice plants.

I'd say, maybe yes to your question. Especially since the silver thiosulfate will almost surely remain intact as a few parts per million. It's difficult to remove a few parts per million of anything.

But more important is that keeping the plant around too long would reverse some anyway. So if you did get some residue on there which will reverse it, you might not see it at all unless you wait well past the bud harvest time.

Out of curiosity, why do you care? More seeds, especially guaranteed female seeds, is worth more than the few buds you might weaken.

Are you trying to make more pollen using runoff, or afraid to hurt the buds on the other plants?

My experience is that buds that grew huge amounts of seeds are almost as good to smoke, after you remove the seeds, as they would have been if you hadn't made seeds.

Certainly I can't tell the difference.
Click to expand...
Thanks for input
 
My silver theosulfate solutioN was also a 1:4 ratio unlike the 1:9
Daniel Lawton said:
I don't have enough experience to answer that authoritatively. But I'd say, that stuff is really unstable! After a week, I'd be surprised it it wasn't just an invisible film of silver particles on the leaves, no more danger to your plants than runoff from an old photograph (which used silver too).

Especially with all that light shining on it! Silver compounds break apart in light. That's why we have porn from the 1800s!

However, I have had experience with weak or damaged silver thiosulfate, which might answer that question. I made a batch, sprayed some plants, then stuck it in the fridge. I used it a week or two later. It was clearly degraded. I could see grey silver residue at the bottom of the bottle.

I thought that spraying with that degraded silver thiosulfate twice (a week apart) hadn't reversed the plants I used it on. Certainly when the stuff was fresh, it reversed the plant at amazing speed. Maybe 3 weeks to FULLY turn a branch into a carnival of pollen pods, with flower pistils nowhere to be seen.

On the branches sprayed with the weakened stuff, I saw absolutely no sign of reversal, even up to the point that it was almost time to harvest the buds.

But then at the very end of the grow, the branch I sprayed with the weakened stuff did indeed make pollen. It was too late to use that pollen on that plant itself, but I still got lucky and that very branch made 50 seeds on it's own. Half were malformed (because there wasn't enough time left to grow?), but half are high quality clone seeds and I've already grown 3 of them into very nice plants.

I'd say, maybe yes to your question. Especially since the silver thiosulfate will almost surely remain intact as a few parts per million. It's difficult to remove a few parts per million of anything.

But more important is that keeping the plant around too long would reverse some anyway. So if you did get some residue on there which will reverse it, you might not see it at all unless you wait well past the bud harvest time.

Out of curiosity, why do you care? More seeds, especially guaranteed female seeds, is worth more than the few buds you might weaken.

Are you trying to make more pollen using runoff, or afraid to hurt the buds on the other plants?

My experience is that buds that grew huge amounts of seeds are almost as good to smoke, after you remove the seeds, as they would have been if you hadn't made seeds.

Certainly I can't tell the difference.
Click to expand...
 
Tdawgy said:
My silver theosulfate solutioN was also a 1:4 ratio unlike the 1:9
Click to expand...
And no I was asking cause the female plant I was pollenating had male sacs on one lower branch and it's a strain many ppl in o grow and it never hermied I was worrying if it's a strain that hermits easily from stress . But never heard that cut doing that so it has to be from the run off of the silver
 
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