I want to make fem seeds. Could use some specific input.

I am looking for ways to take up more of my time in the grow room without expanding too much and Ive decided to start another small tent to make my own feminized seeds of my favorite strains so I can start everything from seed.
I plan to pop a seed or two, grow em out a bit, and take a few clones and flip the original plant to sex. Throw out any males and clones that came from them and finish any females to see/document pheno. Take 1 clone to 12/12 as soon as im sure of sex to force herm with colloidial silver. Filp a 2nd plant on staggered schedule so I can use the first to pollinate the 2nd.

think I have a pretty good understanding of the overall process but have a few questions im hoping to get some info on.
-The biggest question I have is about phenotype variation in the femmed seeds. If I clone a female plant and herm one clone to pollinate the other will it isolate that specific pheno, make it a higher probability to get that one, a complete crap shoot of what it does, or have no effect on range of possibilities the original seed had?
-Is a staggered flip a realistic way to do this? Im having some trouble getting specific timelines. It looks I start spraying it as soon as I flip I should have pollen in about 6 weeks? So I could veg the other plant until the sacs start showing and then put it in with the other one on 12/12 to get pollinated correct?
-It sounds like there might be different results when starting from fem or regular seeds. Does this work as well if I do it with clones that came from a fem seed?

Concerned about timeline being accurate because ill only have a corner or a closet to dedicate to this so I want to make sure I can contain the plant that gets pollinated through maturity.

I don't let pollination occur naturally. It's messy, and the pollen can blow around in the tent and get lodged, possibly floating around long after the fact and pollenating plants you don't want to go to seed later on down the road. So, as soon as you put your pollen candidate into 12/12, spray with CS every day (at least once, or more). At about week 3-4, put a veg plant into 12/12.

As soon as it looks like the pollen sacks are about to open, take the plant out, put it onto a large sheet of bristol board or paper, and drape a garbage bag over the entire plant (loosely, it still needs some air from underneath). Put this plant in a dark place, away from the tent.

After a few days, check for pollen on the paper, and see if when you manipulate the pollen sacks, if they break open easily. If so, pull the plant out, and very carefully empty the sacks onto the paper. Throw away the plant after you're done. Do this work far away from your flower tent.

Scrape up all the pollen into a pile, then mix it with baking flour in a 2/3 flour, 1/3 pollen ratio. Put this pollen into a container (I use black, 35mm film canisters), and store it in a cool place, or freezer.

Once the remaining flowering plant has enough potential bud sites (many sites with pistils), take a small artist's paintbrush, dip it into the pollen, and touch every pistil where you want that site to produce seed. You can pollinate part of, or the entire plant. The parts of the plant you do not pollinate will turn out no different than a flowering female plant that hasn't been pollinated at all.

Put the pollinated plant back in flower, and flower it as normal, and put your pollen mixture back into your cold storage.

There is no difference whether you start with fem or regular seed, other than the fact that you must ensure that your pollen candidate is indeed female. If the pollen candidate is male, the result will be that you'll get regular seeds.

To get as consistent as you can to the original genetics, grow out a seed until you ensure it's female, clone it, and use one clone as the pollen plant, and another clone from that same original plant as the seed plant.

Great info as always @spek9
Greatly appreciated. Sounds like I am on the right track here.

I plan on using either a small 2x4 or 4x4 for this project and was just going to take it out back and hose the whole thing down between batches. This will be my 4th tent and only used for this purpose, but I will definitely take a hard look at this after your suggestion.
I have the options of either using a corner of the basement where everything else is or using a closet upstairs that is away from everything. I am now leaning more towards the closet. Wasnt sure if pollination spread was over exaggerated like alot of stuff is, but it sounds like it is not.

fragileassassin said:

I plan on using either a small 2x4 or 4x4 for this project and was just going to take it out back and hose the whole thing down between batches. This will be my 4th tent and only used for this purpose.
I have the options of either using a corner of the basement where everything else is or using a closet upstairs that is away from everything. I am now leaning more towards the closet. Wasnt sure if pollination spread was over exaggerated like alot of stuff is, but it sounds like it is not.

Click to expand...

I'd go with the closet, if it's free. That just adds separation.

With the typical vacuum created by ventilation in the tents, it draws all available air from outside the tent. Pollen is extremely light, and floats around easily... it's built to. The further the pollen is away from the flower tents, the safer you are.

If you use a tent specific for pollen making and pollination, you're much better off than most. It's what I do, keep all seed and pollen plants in a dedicated flower tent. When the pollen plants are about to open, I remove those plants and put them in a separate cabinet until I collect the pollen, to prevent any cross-pollination of the plants that are growing seeds. Not completely necessary, just an extra safety step.

Washing the tent down after a pollen run is a good idea, again, to prevent unwanted cross pollination (I often have a few strains going simultaneously in a pollen run).

fragileassassin said:

Wasnt sure if pollination spread was over exaggerated like alot of stuff is, but it sounds like it is not.

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It does float around very easily, and can easily pollinate other flowering plants readily, but only if care isn't applied. Some exaggerate about it, but don't take it lightly.

One reason I mix my pollen with flour, is because the flour binds to the pollen, and significantly reduces its ability to float around while applying it with a paintbrush. Also makes it stick better, so if one did only have a single flower tent, there's less risk of the pollen blowing around off of the pollinated plants onto the ones you don't want pollinated. Much less risk of accidental pollination.

The closet is around 5x6 I wanna say, should be the perfect space for this project. I had considered stapling plastic sheeting around the tent if I used the basement corner to keep it in it's own little bubble, but I think I'm just going to go for the closet.

Thank you again! This is exactly the clarification I was looking for and I cannot wait to get this project going.

fragileassassin said:

The closet is around 5x6 I wanna say, should be the perfect space for this project. I had considered stapling plastic sheeting around the tent if I used the basement corner to keep it in it's own little bubble, but I think I'm just going to go for the closet.

Thank you again! This is exactly the clarification I was looking for and I cannot wait to get this project going.

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The whole breeding thing is exciting to me. Also note that when you're creating pollen plants, you don't need excessive light. You can grow your pollen plants in a main flower tent with a high intensity light, and when the sacks begin to take shape, you can move them to the pollen tent that has a much lower intensity light. I used to run pollen plants under six CFLs a long time ago, and it worked just fine.

Just wanted to mention that for a situation where you can't get adequate cooling ventilation inside of your closet for your pollen tent. Of course, once you've pollinated a plant for seeds, you'd want that inside of a main flower tent that does have more adequate flower-type lighting.

Yes! All of the reading and research ive been doing over the last week or so has me so excited.
I picked up a pack of this Sunshine Kush from the bodhi drop a few days ago. It was a limited release and I already know that is a strain that I am NOT going to let run out if I can help it lmao.
I really like my T5s that are in my veg tent. I have an extra 2ft 4 bulb and was just going to pick up another 8 bulb 4 footer and run it with 4x 3000k and 4x 5500k bulbs. I already have the extra bulbs and can pick up a nice one local for $60-80. Being in CO has some perks.
Todays been the first good day since surgery so im probably about a week out from being able to start my setup. Just going to throw some of my extra parts together in a tent im getting from a friend for building his system and run a couple dwc boxes. Nothing too complex. I rely on my furnace for air exchange into my grow basement (whole basement is dedicated grow room), I run it on fan mode when the heat doesnt run and it does a good job keeping the whole house fairly fresh so im hoping with some T5s I wont have to do much for environmental control.

fragileassassin said:

I am looking for ways to take up more of my time in the grow room without expanding too much and Ive decided to start another small tent to make my own feminized seeds of my favorite strains so I can start everything from seed.
I plan to pop a seed or two, grow em out a bit, and take a few clones and flip the original plant to sex. Throw out any males and clones that came from them and finish any females to see/document pheno. Take 1 clone to 12/12 as soon as im sure of sex to force herm with colloidial silver. Filp a 2nd plant on staggered schedule so I can use the first to pollinate the 2nd.

think I have a pretty good understanding of the overall process but have a few questions im hoping to get some info on.
-The biggest question I have is about phenotype variation in the femmed seeds. If I clone a female plant and herm one clone to pollinate the other will it isolate that specific pheno, make it a higher probability to get that one, a complete crap shoot of what it does, or have no effect on range of possibilities the original seed had?
-Is a staggered flip a realistic way to do this? Im having some trouble getting specific timelines. It looks I start spraying it as soon as I flip I should have pollen in about 6 weeks? So I could veg the other plant until the sacs start showing and then put it in with the other one on 12/12 to get pollinated correct?
-It sounds like there might be different results when starting from fem or regular seeds. Does this work as well if I do it with clones that came from a fem seed?

Concerned about timeline being accurate because ill only have a corner or a closet to dedicate to this so I want to make sure I can contain the plant that gets pollinated through maturity.

Click to expand...

I have the same question about the phenotype variation. If I have a Plushberry from r

fragileassassin said:

I am looking for ways to take up more of my time in the grow room without expanding too much and Ive decided to start another small tent to make my own feminized seeds of my favorite strains so I can start everything from seed.
I plan to pop a seed or two, grow em out a bit, and take a few clones and flip the original plant to sex. Throw out any males and clones that came from them and finish any females to see/document pheno. Take 1 clone to 12/12 as soon as im sure of sex to force herm with colloidial silver. Filp a 2nd plant on staggered schedule so I can use the first to pollinate the 2nd.

think I have a pretty good understanding of the overall process but have a few questions im hoping to get some info on.
-The biggest question I have is about phenotype variation in the femmed seeds. If I clone a female plant and herm one clone to pollinate the other will it isolate that specific pheno, make it a higher probability to get that one, a complete crap shoot of what it does, or have no effect on range of possibilities the original seed had?
-Is a staggered flip a realistic way to do this? Im having some trouble getting specific timelines. It looks I start spraying it as soon as I flip I should have pollen in about 6 weeks? So I could veg the other plant until the sacs start showing and then put it in with the other one on 12/12 to get pollinated correct?
-It sounds like there might be different results when starting from fem or regular seeds. Does this work as well if I do it with clones that came from a fem seed?

Concerned about timeline being accurate because ill only have a corner or a closet to dedicate to this so I want to make sure I can contain the plant that gets pollinated through maturity.

Click to expand...

I have the same question about phenotypes. If I have a Plushberry green pheno and I use collodial silver to pollinate itself, what are the possibilities of the phenotypes? Will it be green genetics still, or could the pink still come out?