Breeding for beginners

[Mohadib]

Is it going to ruin my crop with 1000s of seeds? if its a couple of seeds per quarter of flower on random plants , Im ok with that amount. Once its like 20 seeds per 1/4 that is brutal and I want to avoid. I really don't want to spray my plants with water as I don't want to risk getting PM from high humidity spikes. I went through PM for over a year and am finally free and in week 4 of bloom. Fingers crossed. And Im pollinating small selected lower flowers so impossible to do the bag method on them as its not whole branches Im doing.

I'm pretty sure you won't cause your grow to be overly seeded this way.
I don't delute the pollen I use and never had any problems when I pollinated single branches. Especially when it's lower branches that are not directly hit by the airflow from my fans.
A single unintended seed here and there is to be expected, but nothing that ruins your whole grow.

As for spraying plants in flower: If you provide sufficent airflow, mold shouldn't be an issue. But you don't really have to anyway if you don't overdo it with the pollen.


Good luck!

 

[FrozenFire]

While it's not near as fancy as using a painter's brush, I have an easy method for selectively pollinating buds. All I do Is rub some resin coated buds with my fingertips, touch finger tips to some pollen on a piece of wax paper, rub targeted buds with the fan off, then I go clean my fingers with isopropyl alchohol to get the resin off. I pollinated two buds on 2 plants last time I made seeds and I only found a minuscule amount of unintended seeds. Here's one of my crosses called hulks dream. It's a cross of hulk smash and blue dream.

 

[onestraw]

FrozenFire, thanks for the great tip, and those are some fine looking buds!


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]PaulieWaulie I've heard around the way alkaline water works wonders on PM. Might kill 2 birds with one stone. Have you tried that already? Some climates may not work but it's done in el dorado and the dam and reports that it works. Check Soma's website he has a machine that pulls water from the air. I've heard just baking soda and water do the trick although i haven't tried it myself.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]peace and love
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[MJPassion]

Yeah... PaulieWaulie...


If you're concerned with PM spray your gals with either a high or low pH solution.
Using such will eliminate the ability for the PM spores to germinate.


You could also use a solution mixed with trichoderma. This will colonize the plant surfaces and any PM spores will be consumed by the trichoderma. (least this is how I understand the way it works)

 

[PaulieWaulie]

While it's not near as fancy as using a painter's brush, I have an easy method for selectively pollinating buds. All I do Is rub some resin coated buds with my fingertips, touch finger tips to some pollen on a piece of wax paper, rub targeted buds with the fan off, then I go clean my fingers with isopropyl alchohol to get the resin off. I pollinated two buds on 2 plants last time I made seeds and I only found a minuscule amount of unintended seeds. Here's one of my crosses called hulks dream. It's a cross of hulk smash and blue dream.

View Image

View Image

Maybe I will try that, I used the brush today which worked ok, but I had my led flashlight on and then you can see every particle in the air, and I noticed when the bristles are on the bud and move around they flick pollen a bit every now and then. Not sure if that makes sense but when the brush has resistance against the bud, and then it doesn't it will fling a bit, throwing a few pollen particles into the air. With fingers I don't think this will happen. I have latex gloves so will give your method a try. then just have a bowl of water to dunk the gloves to neutralize the pollen.

6 plants took me an hour to do today LOL. and I thought I was going to get through 30 of em.

 

[zif]

I was going to post the fingertip method but FF beat me to it. It works well - even without a resin ‘carrier’ in my case.

Your fingertips have just enough texture to capture and move pollen, but not enough to keep it from sticking to the pistils. You’ll never see the little puffs of pollen that are making you cringe with the paintbrush, either!

 

[Der_elbogin]

Anyone know how long until the calyxes turn red/shrivel after pollination? I pollinated some girls 6 days ago but all hairs still look white. Little worried as these girls were dumped on with pollen.

Does it take awhile for hairs to show they've been pollinated? Thanks.

 

[Fuel]

Generally the pistils fade out and dry within three days.

 

[shaman_fin]

pyyhittii

 

[shaman_fin]

ei sais poltella ja yrittää kirjottaa järkeviä

 

[shaman_fin]

turha

 

[raCURE]

I don’t plan on ever breeding but for knowledge sake this was a fascinating and well written read!

Props to OP!

 

[White Beard]

This was the first thread I read all the way through when I signed up, never stopped to say thanks (dazzled by the riches). Thank you, it’s terrific! About to read it again....

 

[GET MO]

I got a question, what is it called when a plant is bred to its aunt? I made a cross. Out of those seeds I kept a female, and a male, and used the male to pollinate the original mother of both. Then out of the resulting seeds I crossed to the sister of the father from the first cross.

 

[Nico Farmer]

I got a question, what is it called when a plant is bred to its aunt? I made a cross. Out of those seeds I kept a female, and a male, and used the male to pollinate the original mother of both. Then out of the resulting seeds I crossed to the sister of the father from the first cross.

Kind of backcross.

 

[GET MO]

Kind of backcross.

Cool thats what I thought, is their a name for that bx? I meant to hit the original mother again for a bx2 but hit the daughter of the the mother with the bx1 that daughters brother back crossed to the momma. Basically her nephew.

 

[Oregonism]

The seeds coming out of the 2nd backcross of sorts = F3

 

[BobChronic6505]

So by taking a strain to F2, am I unlocking the hidden genetics contained within?

Can I get the parent plant from the children? Like for example, say I have a pack of seeds with one super rare parent and one basic parent. F1 will be a 50/50 of rare parent x basic parent.

But F2 could give me 25/50/25 of rare parent/both/basic parent. Is this correct? And by taking a strain to F2, can I now isolate the rare parent? Ir even the basic parent if I wanted this? Are all F2s all made from recessive traits?

So what happens when you go to F3? Do you get the uniformity shown in the F1?

 

[djonkoman]

So by taking a strain to F2, am I unlocking the hidden genetics contained within?

Can I get the parent plant from the children? Like for example, say I have a pack of seeds with one super rare parent and one basic parent. F1 will be a 50/50 of rare parent x basic parent.

technically yes, practically no. because:

But F2 could give me 25/50/25 of rare parent/both/basic parent. Is this correct?

that 25/50/25 is about individual genes.
so let's say there is only 1 gene different between your 2 parents. then you do indeed get such a split with 25 being like one parent.
but, if there are 3 genes different, you'd get 0.25*0.25*0.25=0.015625= only 1,5% of the offspring is exactly like that one parent.
and ofcourse in any real, practical situation you're dealing with much more than just 3 genes difference between parents, so theoretically it would be possible to find a plant exactly like one of either parents in the f2, but you'd probably have to look through millions (if not more) plants to find it.

And by taking a strain to F2, can I now isolate the rare parent? Ir even the basic parent if I wanted this? Are all F2s all made from recessive traits?

So what happens when you go to F3? Do you get the uniformity shown in the F1?

f2 (or another form of inbreeding, like selfing) just causes recessive genes to become visible, but not every f2 plant will have only the recessive versions. like take that 25/50/25 split: for 1 gene which has a dominant and recessive allele, 25% of the f2 will be double recessive and so they will show the trait associated wirth this recessive gene. another 50% will be carriers that don't show the associated trait. and the last 25% will be double dominant and don't have the recessive gene at all.

f3 will still show variation, but less then f2. also dependent on how you made the f3 (a single female plant pollinated by a single male will show less variation then if you'd use multiple plants to make the f3 for example). and since you mention f1, f1 is also not always uniform.
f1 being uniform only aplies when both parents of the f1 were mostly homozygous, if not f1 will also show variation.

another thing to consider is that it's not all about recessive genes. many relevant traits are for example quantitative traits, determined by multiple genes. for those traits whether the indvidual genes are recessive/dominant/whatever does not matter that much, you can't really see it easily anyways, but you can still get new, superior combinations in a cross (also without any recessiveness being involved).

 

[BobChronic6505]

technically yes, practically no. because:

that 25/50/25 is about individual genes.
so let's say there is only 1 gene different between your 2 parents. then you do indeed get such a split with 25 being like one parent.
but, if there are 3 genes different, you'd get 0.25*0.25*0.25=0.015625= only 1,5% of the offspring is exactly like that one parent.
and ofcourse in any real, practical situation you're dealing with much more than just 3 genes difference between parents, so theoretically it would be possible to find a plant exactly like one of either parents in the f2, but you'd probably have to look through millions (if not more) plants to find it.


f2 (or another form of inbreeding, like selfing) just causes recessive genes to become visible, but not every f2 plant will have only the recessive versions. like take that 25/50/25 split: for 1 gene which has a dominant and recessive allele, 25% of the f2 will be double recessive and so they will show the trait associated wirth this recessive gene. another 50% will be carriers that don't show the associated trait. and the last 25% will be double dominant and don't have the recessive gene at all.

f3 will still show variation, but less then f2. also dependent on how you made the f3 (a single female plant pollinated by a single male will show less variation then if you'd use multiple plants to make the f3 for example). and since you mention f1, f1 is also not always uniform.
f1 being uniform only aplies when both parents of the f1 were mostly homozygous, if not f1 will also show variation.

another thing to consider is that it's not all about recessive genes. many relevant traits are for example quantitative traits, determined by multiple genes. for those traits whether the indvidual genes are recessive/dominant/whatever does not matter that much, you can't really see it easily anyways, but you can still get new, superior combinations in a cross (also without any recessiveness being involved).

Thanks man I appreciate your response and the knowledge