thinking of replenishing my own seed supply...

[Humanrob]

I've come to respect Mephisto strains, but their current business model does not work for me. I'm getting low on their seeds, and thinking I might as well produce some seeds on my own. My space is limited, I can't actually isolate plants to continue specific strains, and I kind of like variety... so...

Here's what I'm thinking of doing doing in a corner of the kitchen this winter:

I'm tossing around the idea of popping three strains and growing them in small pots under 12 hours of light. I would spray CS on small sections of all three plants, so they would each produce some pollen. It would be a total "rainbow skittles" mix, since they would all be cross-pollenating and genetically untraceable, but all come from solid parental lines.

The hope/intention would be that the vast majority of the seeds produced by the orgy would produce healthy productive potent plants, even though no specific pheno would be replicable. The person I grow for is not picky, as long as it's strong and tasty she doesn't really even notice what strain it is.

I've never produced pollen with CS before, I've only "pollen chucked" using pollen from male photos. Since I don't have the setup for controlled breeding, I'm hoping for handfuls of decent seeds from tested high quality parents, and I'll accept mystery genetics and a lack of reproducibility as long as the end product smokes well.

Anyone try semi-random auto pollination? How'd it go? Any suggestions? Any part of this a really bad idea???

 

[spliffendz]

So basically plant bukakke? You my man are sick

 

[Humanrob]

So basically plant bukakke? You my man are sick

well, I suppose that is one way to look at it

or you can call it superfecundation

 

[Zogs]

I like to break out the CS a few times a year myself when I find good genetics I want to keep around. I'm not a big fan of the willy nilly approach you have though. In my opinion just do 1 CS at a time, x's pollinate some genetics that you think would make sense as a good cross and grow them out. If you hit on something you're going to know wtf it actually is and do some reversals of actual good plants. Nobody wants random garbage that may or may not grow well.

Right now I'm working on strawberry nugget X's. It's a great strain but I'd like to open it up a bit more from it's small dense bush type characteristics but keep that same terp profile. What I'm trying to say is have a goal in mind and work towards it when chucking.

 

[MATTYMATT726]

I like to break out the CS a few times a year myself when I find good genetics I want to keep around. I'm not a big fan of the willy nilly approach you have though. In my opinion just do 1 CS at a time, x's pollinate some genetics that you think would make sense as a good cross and grow them out. If you hit on something you're going to know wtf it actually is and do some reversals of actual good plants. Nobody wants random garbage that may or may not grow well.

Right now I'm working on strawberry nugget X's. It's a great strain but I'd like to open it up a bit more from it's small dense bush type characteristics but keep that same terp profile. What I'm trying to say is have a goal in mind and work towards it when chucking.

Strawberry Nuggs x Gold Glue would be nice.

 

[Humanrob]

I like to break out the CS a few times a year myself when I find good genetics I want to keep around. I'm not a big fan of the willy nilly approach you have though. In my opinion just do 1 CS at a time, x's pollinate some genetics that you think would make sense as a good cross and grow them out. If you hit on something you're going to know wtf it actually is and do some reversals of actual good plants. Nobody wants random garbage that may or may not grow well.

Right now I'm working on strawberry nugget X's. It's a great strain but I'd like to open it up a bit more from it's small dense bush type characteristics but keep that same terp profile. What I'm trying to say is have a goal in mind and work towards it when chucking.

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I used to grow indoors and out, I was pretty much growing all year round. My indoor set up is in a garage and is expensive and labor intensive to climate control. I grew six autos outdoors this summer, and have enough meds to last a year (a little over two lbs.), so I won't need to grow for production indoors this winter. Which is why I was thinking about doing this in the kitchen, in a minimalistic setup.

All I need at this point is six healthy plants from six solid seeds per year, not a whole lot. But you have reminded me of something I learned a few years back when I did some crosses -- that great parents can sometimes create really mediocre offspring. That said, if I made 50 or 100 seeds, I would have no need to do this again for years, and it's not my intention to backcross or chase phenos. But I suppose doing it this method might not guarantee that if I popped 10 seeds in the spring and put the 6 strongest outside, that they'd produce quality meds.

The three strains I was going to cross were my three best producers outdoors in terms of mold resistance, weight, and frostiness -- Double Grape, Walter White, and Cosmic Queen. The WW I grew this summer came in at just under 12 ounces. Autos outdoors planted in the ground can sometimes really take off.

So maybe I just choose one as the pollen donor? Would that limit the percentage of inevitable mediocre results that are mixed in? Or would it just make tracking the good ones a little easier?

 

[Zogs]

Strawberry Nuggs x Gold Glue would be nice.

I don't have all the ingredients for that. I'm working it with a purple lemonade. Hopefully the cross will lead to a purple pheno with a nice open structure with the super sugar coating from SN.

So maybe I just choose one as the pollen donor? Would that limit the percentage of inevitable mediocre results that are mixed in? Or would it just make tracking the good ones a little easier?

I kind of think of your purposed situation like this. Say you take white fluffy bunny strain and cross it with chubby monkey to create White fluffy monkey and it turns out it sucks. You can simply discard a few hundred seeds and not worry about it. But if you WillyNilly it with a bunch of others and only 1 cross is good , you'll never be able to separate out white fluffy monkey and grow out the good ones. Then your stuck throwing out 1000's of seeds.

 

[Zogs]

I forgot to mention when you just do one reversal you can self pollinate the donor to preserve the original genetics. All 3 of those strains you mentioned is something I would definitely want to keep around. You never know when a breeder is going to go under for what ever reason. Look at Dinafem right now, their future is certainly unclear. I'm glad I have most of there auto genetics saved incase they don't come back.

 

[Humanrob]

I kind of think of your purposed situation like this. Say you take white fluffy bunny strain and cross it with chubby monkey to create White fluffy monkey and it turns out it sucks. You can simply discard a few hundred seeds and not worry about it. But if you WillyNilly it with a bunch of others and only 1 cross is good , you'll never be able to separate out white fluffy monkey and grow out the good ones. Then your stuck throwing out 1000's of seeds.

Thanks, that makes sense.

I forgot to mention when you just do one reversal you can self pollinate the donor to preserve the original genetics. All 3 of those strains you mentioned is something I would definitely want to keep around.

For a minute I tried to figure out if I could separate three plants in different rooms in the house and self-pollenate each of them, but I'm pretty sure that once the dust is flying as I went from one to the other even just to water, I'd be cross pollenating them. So probably just having one create pollen is the safest bet. After some more thought, I've decided for this first run to just do two plants, Cosmic Queen and Walter White, since in both of those cases I'm down to my last seed. We'll see what happens.

 

[Dendrophilly]

maybe you'd like what autoflower portal is doing.

Autoflower Portal – Autoflowering Cannabis

autoflower-portal.net

I got some of their breeders packs they were releasing monthly and they included some mephisto crosses in regular so you can make your own seeds relatively easily, though the natural process.

Cheff anna has a nice regular seed mephisto cross availible as well.

Chef Anna White Label

The premiere autoflower seed boutique. Exclusive and limited edition strains dropping monthly.

www.chefannawhitelabel.com

 

[wil2279]

I forgot to mention when you just do one reversal you can self pollinate the donor to preserve the original genetics. All 3 of those strains you mentioned is something I would definitely want to keep around. You never know when a breeder is going to go under for what ever reason. Look at Dinafem right now, their future is certainly unclear. I'm glad I have most of there auto genetics saved incase they don't come back.

Whats going on with dinafem now? I heard they were raided but wasn't sure on the details...

 

[wil2279]

For the OP.... I haven't made my own seeds before but I definitely think its a better idea to just have 1 pollen donor. If you did a double grape, Walter white, and a cosmic queen. And then just used the cosmic queen as the pollen donor. You will end up with more cosmic queen... and then crosses with DG &WW. If one or both of your crosses don't work out... just keep the CQ seeds and move on to another project.

 

[Humanrob]

For the OP.... I haven't made my own seeds before but I definitely think its a better idea to just have 1 pollen donor. If you did a double grape, Walter white, and a cosmic queen. And then just used the cosmic queen as the pollen donor. You will end up with more cosmic queen... and then crosses with DG &WW. If one or both of your crosses don't work out... just keep the CQ seeds and move on to another project.

That's what I'm leaning towards now, but I was thinking of having the Walter White be the pollen donor. Have you grown both strains before?

 

[wil2279]

That's what I'm leaning towards now, but I was thinking of having the Walter White be the pollen donor. Have you grown both strains before?

No I haven't. I am currently waiting for a house to be built as I'm currently without a grow space. but I do have a lot of strains I want to make seeds using. I'm not really planning on crosses... I am planning more on just trying to preserve existing strains I have.

 

[MATTYMATT726]

That's what I'm leaning towards now, but I was thinking of having the Walter White be the pollen donor. Have you grown both strains before?

I'd go Walter. It's Krome's "The White". It's super frosty and coated in trichs. I'd want to pass that on.

 

[Humanrob]

I've taken the thoughts suggested here another step, curious what y'all think about it;

I have Walter White, and I have Grapey Walter (Walter White x Grape Crinkle), so I thought about pollinating the WW and letting the GW be the secondary to receive some pollen. The idea is that I would not be introducing as many genetic variables, and the Grapey Walter "back crossed" (if I'm using that term correctly?) with Walter White might therefore have a higher percentage of desirable offspring?

So I guess the question is: Would crossing strains with shared heritage be more likely to produce a higher percentage of quality seeds than crossing two strains with little or no genetic overlap? Or in the end would the ratio of good to bad outcomes be the same (just within a narrower range of genetic characteristics because of the more limited gene pool)?

If this idea reflects the way things actually work with breeding, then I can also do it with Double Grape (Sour Stomper x Grape Crinkle) and Sour Stomper, producing pollen with the Double Grape. I could even throw a Grapey Walter in there and double up on the Grape Crinkle side of things.

Am I onto something or off target?

 

[Zogs]

So I'm into my second year of doing reversals and pollen chucking and here is my rational behind the choices I make. For me the whole point of this was to save $$ and not have to constantly buy seeds all the time. So my #1 priority for the last year has been to pick my favorite strains and reverse them. I do however try to pick some plants at the same time that I would think would make an interesting cross. And really I don't care all that much about them, as I mentioned my goal is to preserve my fav genetics. I'm not going to be selling any of my seeds so I'm not too worried right now about making some super exciting cross. Maybe that will change a few years from now when I have secured a nice collection of genetics.

So I guess to answer your original question as to what plant to spray, my advice would be to pick your favorite one first that you want to keep around. So if double grape is your favorite out of the 2 I would start with that one. If it's the case you only have 1 seed left of another strain that you want to keep I would start there. The crosses are just a fun bonus.

So looking back on your original post it seems that that you were low on seeds didn't want to have to worry about mephisto drops. So I think we have pretty similar goals and figured maybe my rational would make sense for you and get you focused on what's important.

 

[Blazin Budz]

I've never done any breeding but the thought of breeding autos intrigues me for a couple of reasons. One, because the top Genetics are so hard to actually get. Second because I don't have to worry about light leaks or a specific time cycle with Autos. I only have one dedicated grow room so i don't want pollen chucked around in there.

I was fortunate enough to grab some packs from RocBud, Nightowl and Mephisto on their drops these last couple of weeks. Im thinking I will grow a couple of seeds from each pack and see what I like the most. I will then grow one of those plants in my garage since light leaks won't hurt it and spray it with CS. I'll then take that pollen and pollenate some branches of all the other strains on my next round as well as backcross it with itself.

That way ill know all my crosses and be able to label them. Like I said, I've never bred before but my thinking is fire auto genetics x fire auto genetics = fire auto genetics most of the time, no?

 

[Humanrob]

I've never done any breeding but the thought of breeding autos intrigues me for a couple of reasons. One, because the top Genetics are so hard to actually get. Second because I don't have to worry about light leaks or a specific time cycle with Autos. I only have one dedicated grow room so i don't want pollen chucked around in there.

I was fortunate enough to grab some packs from RocBud, Nightowl and Mephisto on their drops these last couple of weeks. Im thinking I will grow a couple of seeds from each pack and see what I like the most. I will then grow one of those plants in my garage since light leaks won't hurt it and spray it with CS. I'll then take that pollen and pollenate some branches of all the other strains on my next round as well as backcross it with itself.

Sounds like you've got a good seed bank going.

So far I've only grown autos outdoors, but I have started them in the early spring in my garage before putting them out. One thing I've noticed is that both inside and out, they are very affected by temps, and can almost stop growing altogether if it's too cool. Not sure how climate controlled your garage is, but keep that in mind.

We keep our house at 66º in the winter, and I'm wondering how long my 'out in the open' (tent-less) seed grows are going to take because of that. Under the lights I imagine it'll get into the low 70's, but I only intend to have the lights on for 12 hours a day.

Like I said, I've never bred before but my thinking is fire auto genetics x fire auto genetics = fire auto genetics most of the time, no?

I've only made a few F1 crosses, and I was following the same line of logic as you are, but the bottom line is that the best we can hope for is "most of the time". That can mean that two excellent strains can create predominantly poor outcomes, or more likely just a range of outcomes that include duds. I'm growing with limited space and doing fewer grows every year (this year I'm down to one outdoor), so I don't have space for a lot of experimenting. I can get by with 4 plants and therefore will grow 6 hoping at least 4 are strong finishers. With only having room for 50% overs, I need to have way more reliable positive outcomes than bad ones.

I've read about "hybrid vigor", and it makes sense like with mutts, sometimes two strong inbred lines will make an even stronger progeny. But biological life also survives because of adaptation, and adaptation works because there is a constant element of mutation in reproduction. Which is all to say that it's a challenge to get consistent results, it actually goes against the impetus of nature.

 

[Humanrob]

While I'm trying not to follow the news every 15 minutes waiting for election results... I'm thinking maybe I'll turn this into a little grow thread.

I started a Walter White which reportedly takes about 70-80 days to finish, and then about five days later started the Grapey Walter (Walter White x Grape Crinkle, secondary pollen recipient) since it only takes 65-75 days.

I'm only using 2 gallon fabric pots, hoping to keep the plants smaller. At first I was using a COB light, but switched to an HPS to bring the temps up to 76º+/-. These are being grown in the open on a table in a corner of a room in our house, it's kind of odd to get used to, after having spent years growing photos and worrying about light leaks. I've read that a true ruderalis cannabis plant is completely unaffected by light inconsistencies, and some people swear that all "autos" are not impacted by irregular light. However, these hybrids have a lot of photo period genes mixed in. I'm not convinced there won't be hermies. So I guess that's a big part of this experiment.

The WW got stuck in its shell, to the point where the GW (started 5 days later) was showing the first real leaves and the WW couldn't open. I very carefully assisted it, and now it's starting to open, but it's lack of vigor has me concerned. Of course, this is the almost ridiculous roll of the dice I'm taking trying to produce pollen -- not from the hand picked best of the bunch -- but from the very last seed of the strain that I had. So... as a backup I'm popping a Double Grape (Sour Stomper x Grape Crinkle) which share Grape Crinkle lineage with the Grapey Walter, so if the WW turns out to be not worth breeding I'll shift the pollen production over to that one.

This will be around a three month project, hopefully I'll get some decent seeds from it. I know from a true breeding POV it's totally half-assed, but this is the "hobby" part of growing, so I'll try to keep it fun. My wife really likes having pot plants growing amongst her houseplants, so if nothing else they'll be expensive indoor annuals. Now the only thing left to worry about is the cats walking on the little sprouts or eating them...