OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
Those sacs look ready to pop real soon so it's time to make a move or not depending on whether you want your whole crop seeded and lose a lot of yield and potency.
Flowering a hermie
- Thread starter TreeFiddy350
- Start date
TreeFiddy350
Well-Known Member
Do you think it’s possible to cut off the parts where sacs are and leave like 1 or 2 sacs? Or do you think I’m fucked
TreeFiddy350
Well-Known Member
What would you do? I want to get a couple seeds. Not really want to fuck everything up. The 4x4 tent I don’t really care if it seeds, but the rest I do not want to seed. The other plants in the other tentThose sacs look ready to pop real soon so it's time to make a move or not depending on whether you want your whole crop seeded and lose a lot of yield and potency.
Hydro4life
Well-Known Member
Yes ive heard of the silver nitrate using a coin! To be honest, i think its just easier breeding regular seedsIt supposedly works but I've never got around to trying it with the CS I make. It makes a few 'nanner type pods that have to be picked off then dried to get the pollen tho I'm a little vague about that.
STS is the way to go and fairly simple if you can get the chemicals needed which are sodium thiosulfate and silver nitrate in crystal form. De-chlorination tablets are supposed to be sodium thiosulfate but I'm not sure if they are pure or have other ingredients in them. Can be made by boiling elemental sulfur with sodium hydroxide in water then filter to collect the resulting precipitate. I got both of those.
The silver nitrate and the other are easily found on Amazon.com but neither on Amazon.ca so I'll need to make that too. You just wrap a silver coin with aluminum wire and lower it gingerly into hot concentrated nitric acid so it doesn't boil over or splatter all over the place. I have everything but the Al wire. Hard to find.
Once you have the two precursor chemicals you combine them in the right proportions and voila! Silver thiosulphate aka STS and spray a branch once or twice and lots of male flowers form. At that point I would cut off the branch and stick it in the bedroom closet in a glass of water. Hang a couple of 2700K CFLs over the branch on 12/12 and let the pollen fall onto a sheet of tinfoil or parchment paper for collection. Use that to pollinate other plants and even the donor to get fem seed. By then the donor will be near harvest so you'd have to pollinate clones from it later.
I really drop the ball on keeping to a schedule so STS would be better for me. Took me 2 years to stick to the schedule and get rid of my mite problem. I spent over an hour going through the plants last night with a fine-toothed comb and found not a one. Added a 2nd 400W and need to repot them today once my guts settle down. Out of tobacco again so have to shred some leaf or quit smoking cold turkey! Leaf is moistening now and will be ready to shred in an hour or so.
alot of good growers i know dont use feminised seeds..... they claim regular seeds can yield slightly more? Saying that, i usually grow fems but last run had 1 regular chemdawg seed. Was hoping it would be a male so i could make some seeds but turned out to be female. I got just under 18 ozs of dank bud off her with 2 months veg in dwc and flowered under a 600w hps. So not bad for a single plant indoors!! Maybe their is some truth to regulars yielding slightly more???
Hydro4life
Well-Known Member
If you want a few seeds only, i would recommend carefully removing him far away from the ladies and getting a jar, very carefully put some pollen out of one of those balls into the jar. Close the lid. Go have a shower, change your clothes, get a paint brush and very cautiously wipe a bit of pollen on a few buds on one of the branches (wont need much) make sure you dont have your oscilating fan on for a while. That 1 branch should seed and the rest of the plant/s will bud. Thats what i would do if i wanted a few seeds!
TreeFiddy350
Well-Known Member
Update: here’s the plan.
I’m going to take the plant out, put a trash bag over the plant. (While wearing a trash bag as a shirt and pants/ shorts. The 55gal ones) as well as trimming gloves.
Drive to a park or something and carefully pick off the sacs and put them in a jar. Once the jar is full of them, I’m going to shake the jar up so the sacs can bust open. I will then wipe down the jar with Clorox wipes and maybe bleach? Idk.
Now.... after I take off the pollen sacs, and it is sac free, could/ should I put it back into flower?
Once I figure out the answer above, I will throw away the trash bags somewhere away from their home location. What do you think about my elaborate plan? Lol
I’m going to take the plant out, put a trash bag over the plant. (While wearing a trash bag as a shirt and pants/ shorts. The 55gal ones) as well as trimming gloves.
Drive to a park or something and carefully pick off the sacs and put them in a jar. Once the jar is full of them, I’m going to shake the jar up so the sacs can bust open. I will then wipe down the jar with Clorox wipes and maybe bleach? Idk.
Now.... after I take off the pollen sacs, and it is sac free, could/ should I put it back into flower?
Once I figure out the answer above, I will throw away the trash bags somewhere away from their home location. What do you think about my elaborate plan? Lol
TreeFiddy350
Well-Known Member
Just saw your post. Yeah I had a similar idea Hahahaha should I keep the plant? Put it back in the tent?
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
That's way too elaborate. I mentioned how I do it on the last page.
Just select a nice branch or more with male flowers and do the above. Toss the rest of the plant in the compost. I'll rig up a cardboard box with foil on the bottom for the pollen and dead flowers to fall onto then clean the pollen well, ( I have a 180 micron screen for making dry sift that I run the pollen thru to clean it out but careful work with tweezers can do the trick). You don't want any moist plant material in the pollen or it will inactivate it after a while. Put the clean pollen in a vial or small jar that seals well and it should be good for 3 months or so. If dried with a desiccant and well sealed in the fridge it should last for a year or more.
A small paint brush can be used to pollinate some buds on a lower branch of other plants. This is where your garbage bags will come in handy. Take the girl to be dusted out of the grow room, put a garbage bag over her leaving out just the branch(s) you want to make some seeds on. Around 3 weeks into flower is good. I just use a Q-Tip that I've fluffed the end up a bit with a pin. Dip it into the pollen and give it a bit of a tap before taking it out of the vial to knock off the excess. Then just hold the tip of it just above the top of a bud to be dusted and tap it again. No fans going!
Do all the buds you want and put a twist tie on that branch to keep track of it. Leave the plant there with the bag on overnight then use a spray bottle to wet everything down really good including that branch. Get the outside of the pot good and wet too so all the loose pollen is deactivated. Spritz the floor all around the area too. If you have other pollen strains you can repeat the process on different branches. I once did 5 dustings on one girl like that. Different coloured twist ties and notes to keep track of who's who too.
You should easily get 20-50 seeds of a few buds on a branch and that won't affect your yield or potency. If the seeds aren't busting out of their pods by the time the plant is ready to crop just crop the plant leaving that branch on it to ripen the seeds. At that point it doesn't need really strong light so could be finished up under any smaller light like some CFLs or if you are wanting to veg plants it'll get them ripe if it's under veg lights with 18 hour days as well. Might even reveg like that and you can grow it all over again if you want.
Easy-peasy!
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
I've been making regular seeds for almost 20 years now and only started using fem seeds twice. Now it's time to start making my own fem seeds then when I share to people that just want to grow some bud and don't get into breeding they get a girl from every seed.Yes ive heard of the silver nitrate using a coin! To be honest, i think its just easier breeding regular seeds
Most of the plants I have going now are from fem seed or were gifted cuttings that I grew out and I don't have a male to get pollen from so it's resex some plants to get pollen or keep mother plants for cuttings and I already have 6 strains going with plants for another dozen in the next 6 months. The four plant I have going from regular seeds all have recently shown sex and they are all girls too!
When you cross two strains grown from regular seeds the plants grown from those seeds, (F1), exhibit what is called 'Hybrid vigor' and they do grow faster and yield better than their clones will. F1 seeds also vary a lot as some will be more like the mom and some more like the dad with about half a mix of both. This is where selecting for the traits you want really begins to make F2 seeds. While vegging rub the stem between your clean thumb and finger them smell them. You'll get different odors from different strains and even different plants from the same strain will vary in smell. Then you look at how the plant grows. Big and bushy is not always the best. If selected for size and yield alone you will actually end up degrading the plant's good qualities. Sometimes that iffy plant has characteristics like a killer buzz but lower yields so if crossed properly can transfer those qualities to a plant that has great yields and a stank you love but the buzz ain't so great. Talented breeders grow 100s or even 1000s of plants to select the few that will get them the ideal strain they are looking for.
I'm no pro but getting into the finer aspects of breeding and in a few years may have some nice stable strains I can be proud of.
too larry
Well-Known Member
OP, if you really want to make a few seeds with this hermie, you need to get it out of the tent, and then let it dump it's pollen. Only paint one or two buds on each of your other plants. That will make 15-20 seeds per.
But this is not the hermie you want to breed with. You will most likely be going through this every grow.
But this is not the hermie you want to breed with. You will most likely be going through this every grow.
Aussieaceae
Well-Known Member
What kind of space are the plants in? If it's a 4x4 or so, 3 plants in their third week of flower should still quite easily fill the space.
Imvho, i'd avoid making seed with hermaphrodite pollen. It is for sure a recessive trait most times. I've unfortunately experienced this myself first hand.
If it's seed you're after, i'd bite the bullet, shell out for some good regular seeds, and do a little open pollination. Would be better imo, to pollinate a whole pack or more at a time. Rather than choosing / selecting 2 parents.
Once you've harvested the seeds, then it's all go from there, and you can be as selective as you want.
Heaps of hermies come from bagseed, because the seeds have usually come from a self pollinated plant for example.
Keeping hermies nearly always means more hermies.
Personally i'd be getting rid of the hermie. After all you have 3 girls, not much of a loss at all...
Imvho, i'd avoid making seed with hermaphrodite pollen. It is for sure a recessive trait most times. I've unfortunately experienced this myself first hand.
If it's seed you're after, i'd bite the bullet, shell out for some good regular seeds, and do a little open pollination. Would be better imo, to pollinate a whole pack or more at a time. Rather than choosing / selecting 2 parents.
Once you've harvested the seeds, then it's all go from there, and you can be as selective as you want.
Heaps of hermies come from bagseed, because the seeds have usually come from a self pollinated plant for example.
Keeping hermies nearly always means more hermies.
Personally i'd be getting rid of the hermie. After all you have 3 girls, not much of a loss at all...
TreeFiddy350
Well-Known Member
I appreciate everybody’s input and help! I’m going to trash it
macsnax
Well-Known Member
Amazon has the necessary chemicals, I keep hearing about people getting out on a watch list for ordering sodium nitrate, but we're not using a bunch of this stuff. A pound of it will last a lifetime for what we're doing.It supposedly works but I've never got around to trying it with the CS I make. It makes a few 'nanner type pods that have to be picked off then dried to get the pollen tho I'm a little vague about that.
STS is the way to go and fairly simple if you can get the chemicals needed which are sodium thiosulfate and silver nitrate in crystal form. De-chlorination tablets are supposed to be sodium thiosulfate but I'm not sure if they are pure or have other ingredients in them. Can be made by boiling elemental sulfur with sodium hydroxide in water then filter to collect the resulting precipitate. I got both of those.
The silver nitrate and the other are easily found on Amazon.com but neither on Amazon.ca so I'll need to make that too. You just wrap a silver coin with aluminum wire and lower it gingerly into hot concentrated nitric acid so it doesn't boil over or splatter all over the place. I have everything but the Al wire. Hard to find.
Once you have the two precursor chemicals you combine them in the right proportions and voila! Silver thiosulphate aka STS and spray a branch once or twice and lots of male flowers form. At that point I would cut off the branch and stick it in the bedroom closet in a glass of water. Hang a couple of 2700K CFLs over the branch on 12/12 and let the pollen fall onto a sheet of tinfoil or parchment paper for collection. Use that to pollinate other plants and even the donor to get fem seed. By then the donor will be near harvest so you'd have to pollinate clones from it later.
I really drop the ball on keeping to a schedule so STS would be better for me. Took me 2 years to stick to the schedule and get rid of my mite problem. I spent over an hour going through the plants last night with a fine-toothed comb and found not a one. Added a 2nd 400W and need to repot them today once my guts settle down. Out of tobacco again so have to shred some leaf or quit smoking cold turkey! Leaf is moistening now and will be ready to shred in an hour or so.
macsnax
Well-Known Member
It's a little too hermed out buddy, best to just get rid of it.
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
You don't need sodium nitrate but silver nitrate and 10g is around $50. It's the stuff that goes black when exposed to light and is used for black and white film.
PREPARATION OF SILVER THIOSULFATE (STS) SOLUTION
Silver Thiosulfate (STS) is commonly used to block the action of ethylene in plant cell cultures.
Ethylene is a hormone that is present in the gaseous state. Ethylene increases during senescence and ripening, and has been shown to increase in plant cell cultures due to wounding or the presence of auxins. Silver nitrate may be used alone to block the action of ethylene but it is not transported as well as STS thus is seldom used alone.
Prepare a 0.1 M Sodium Thiosulfate (STS) stock solution by dissolving 1.58 g of Sodium Thiosulfate (Product No. S 620) into 100 ml of water.
Prepare a 0.1 M Silver Nitrate stock solution by dissolving 1.7 g of Silver Nitrate (Product No. S 169) into 100 ml of water. Store the stock solution in the dark until needed to prepare the STS.
The STS solution is prepared with a molar ratio between silver and thiosulfate of 1:4, respectively. Nearly all of the silver present in the solution is in the form of [Ag (S2O3)2] 3-, the active complex for ethylene effect inhibition.
Prepare a 0.02 M STS by slowly pouring 20 ml of 0.1M silver nitrate stock solution into 80 ml of 0.1 M sodium thiosulfate stock solution. The STS can be stored in the refrigerator for up to a month. However, preparation of the STS just prior to use is recommended.
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Then there's this one that uses different ratios of the precursor chemicals.
Preparation of STS:
First, a stock solution is made. It consists of two parts (A and B) that are initially mixed separately, then blended together. Part A is ALWAYS mixed into part B while stirring rapidly. Use distilled water; tap water may cause precipitates to form.
Wear gloves while mixing and using these chemicals, and mix and use in a properly ventilated area. A mask will prevent the breathing of any dust, which is caustic. STS is colorless and odorless, and poses minimal health risks if used as described here. (See material safety data sheet links below). Note that silver nitrate and STS can cause brown stains upon drying, so spray over newspaper and avoid spilling.
Part A: .5 gram silver nitrate stirred into 500ml distilled water
Part B: 2.5 grams sodium thiosulfate (anhydrous) stirred into 500ml distilled water
The silver nitrate dissolves within 15 seconds. The sodium thiosulfate takes 30-45 seconds to dissolve.
The silver nitrate solution (A) is then mixed into the sodium thiosulfate solution (B) while stirring rapidly. The resulting blend is stock silver thiosulfate solution (STS).
This stock solution is then diluted at a ratio of 1:9 to make a working solution. For example, 100ml of stock STS is added to 900ml of distilled water. This is then sprayed on select female plants.
Both the stock STS and the working solution should be refrigerated after use, as well as the powdered chemicals, to avoid activity loss. Excess working solution can be safely poured down the drain after use (with ample running water) with negligible environmental impact. It's pretty cheap.
Each liter of stock STS will make ten 1-liter batches of working solution of STS. With the minimum amount of base chemicals ordered from Photographer's Formulary (see link below), this means that each 1-liter bottle of working solution STS costs less than 9 cents, and can treat 15-20 mid-sized plants. That's 200 1-liter batches of STS for $18. Note that the distilled water costs far more than the chemicals.
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Preparation: Sodium thiosulfate can be prepared by heating sulfur with either aqueous sodium sulfite solution or aqueous sodium hydroxide solution.
6 NaOH + 4 S ? Na2S2O3 + 2 Na2S + 3 H2O
Physical properties : Sodium thiosulfate is a white crystalline solid which is odorless and highly water soluble. It has a density of 1.667 g/mL and a melting point of 48.3°C.
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I looked up the molecular wts and noted them here. Now I need to calculate the amounts of each part to use so after the reaction is over none of the original parts is left over. Not a big deal but haven't got around to it yet. Very soon tho.
Mol wts.
Ag = 107.87
Na = 22.99
S = 32.06
O = 15.99
N = 14.00
H = 1.00
Mol wt. of Na2S2O3 = (22.99 x 2) + (32.06 x 2) + (15.99 x3) = 55.98 + 64.12 + 47.97 = 168.07g
Mol wt. of NaOH = (22.99 + 15.99 + 1) = 39.98g
Mol wt. of HNO3 = [1 + 14 + (15.99 x 3)] = 62.97g
macsnax
Well-Known Member
Lol thanks man. I totally meant silver nitrate. I think sodium was in my head when thinking of how people worry about ordering this stuff.... Oh if you're getting all ready to do this, I might suggest a digital scale that goes into the hundredths. It was stressed upon me a few times when getting inductions. A digi scale for reloading is what I was told to buy. I'll go through my notes, if I find anything else you might find useful I'll dm it over to ya. I'm not too far giving this a go myself. We'll have to compare results too, helps us learn faster, lol.
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
I think you're thinking about ammonium nitrate. The fertilizer they make bombs out of. Also used in mining and feeding plants.
I have 2 scales that do 0.00 and an analytical balance that does 0.0000. A 1964 Mettler.
I got one of the 0.00 ones about 6 months ago then a couple weeks ago a friend had a garage sale and I got another one for $2. The first one maxes out at 111g but the cheapo one goes to 500g. Have one from Radio Shack that does 0.0 but 650g. I'm a Libra so got the scale thing covered.
This stuff is barely chemistry and I have a diploma in that so it's pretty much covered too. If you're in the states you can get both chemicals on Amazon easy enough and then it's a simple task to mix the right proportions and spray.
That's the Mettler and a couple old scales I gave away. Look real close at the numbers on the Mettler. I have a 2nd one for parts but could be made to work too. I need to adjust the zero on it with the tiny washers it uses for counterbalance weights under the top. I'll get some pics when I open it up.
macsnax
Well-Known Member
Yeah I got my wires crossed on the my words a couple posts back. I mess with a bit of chems, but I'm no chemist, lol. No joke I've heard a few people talk about getting put on a list for ordering STS chems, I don't really think it's worth worrying about though, IMO. And that old scale you have looks cool as hell. I love old stuff like that. 420 lol, ya that scale is pretty cool man.
guitarguy10
Well-Known Member
If there's some assholes peeking on your grow during dark period there are some other balls then the ones on your plant(s) that need to be 'plucked'.
TreeFiddy350
Well-Known Member
I hear you there