Breeding in tents!

[Backwoods_Genetics]

Has anyone here done breeding in a tent with multiple tents in the same room and know how to keep contamination down? Would passive intake with carbon filters work or do I need to do hepa filters or something along those lines. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
-Big Ed

 

[Creeperpark]

I don't see how you can use more than one tent using different strains. Pollen can squeeze out of the tents and contaminate the other tents. You need closed areas without any cross winds.

 

[comfy markoth]

You HAVE TO keep males isolated.... otherwise, expect seeds.

 

[Creeperpark]

Each tent will need to be sealed to keep cross-pollen contamination to a minimum. That being said, you will need individual ventilation for each tent. If you don't have proper ventilation in a sealed tent you will have problems.
If your grow tent setup is sealed, this means that the level of CO2 in the room gradually decreases, limiting your plants' growth. Ventilation brings in fresh air and fresh CO2 from outside and removes the old air from your grow room, boosting growth and yields.
Its going to be hard as hell if you plan on open pollination in each tent

 

[Creeperpark]

If you are talking about only a few seeds for yourself. You can isolate your males and harvest small amounts of pollen with a tiny paintbrush. Its easy to pollinate one branch at a time with a tiny brush. Using different pollens in tiny amounts you can keep pollen separated easier. I once had a room with five flowering males. I took pollen from each donor and pollinated one bud on each plant with each pollen. In the end, I had 5 different seeds strains on one plant branch.

 

[revegeta666]

Has anyone here done breeding in a tent with multiple tents in the same room and know how to keep contamination down? Would passive intake with carbon filters work or do I need to do hepa filters or something along those lines. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
-Big Ed

If you have different males in the same room you will get cross-pollination, unless you have HEPA filters in each tent. Even then, when you open the tents to water the plants, pollen will come out.

I personally wait til the sacks look like they are 2-3 days from opening. If I have different strain males, I will put one in my office, another one in the garage, and so on. Without any ventilation. All doors closed. You can just take one male branch and leave it in a glass of water to minimize risk of pollen flying around.

I will bring the female that needs pollinating into that room and pollinate her next to the male. Wait for 2-3 days, and spray the female with water, thoroughly, to kill any unwanted pollen, before bringing her back into her tent.

Pollinating different buds of the same female with different males is going to bring some cross pollination, for sure. Pollen flies everywhere even if you can't see it. It's a mess and if you're serious about what you're doing you will have different clones of the same plant to get pollinated separately. Fully shower them from top to bottom before putting them back together in the tent.

if i want to do some pollinating with my outdoor plants, I will turn on the indoor room even if just for one little clone. Otherwise you can't be sure the pollen is yours and not your neighbour's. Even taking all possible precautions you can never be 100% sure there won't be cross pollination.

Staggering the different pollinations and doing them one at a time seems like the optimal way to do things.

 

[*GROWHIGH*]

there is no real way to stop cross contamination with different live free flowing males in such a contained area, even if the room is large, stored pollen is 1 way to go..much more accurate and easier to or control, or to be 100% sure the only real way is to use 1 strain of males at a time imo

 

[VerdantGreen]

It is possible but you basically only want to be using 1variety's pollen sources at a time (i often mix pollen from more than 1 male) and doing 1 breeding project at a time. I leave a month between pollinations so as it is impossible to cross contaminate.... i also only ever use ver small amounts of pollen and hand pollinate . i find the odd seed in my sensi plants that run alongside but that doesn't really matter.
VG

 

[Backwoods_Genetics]

If you have different males in the same room you will get cross-pollination, unless you have HEPA filters in each tent. Even then, when you open the tents to water the plants, pollen will come out.

I personally wait til the sacks look like they are 2-3 days from opening. If I have different strain males, I will put one in my office, another one in the garage, and so on. Without any ventilation. All doors closed. You can just take one male branch and leave it in a glass of water to minimize risk of pollen flying around.

I will bring the female that needs pollinating into that room and pollinate her next to the male. Wait for 2-3 days, and spray the female with water, thoroughly, to kill any unwanted pollen, before bringing her back into her tent.

Pollinating different buds of the same female with different males is going to bring some cross pollination, for sure. Pollen flies everywhere even if you can't see it. It's a mess and if you're serious about what you're doing you will have different clones of the same plant to get pollinated separately. Fully shower them from top to bottom before putting them back together in the tent.

if i want to do some pollinating with my outdoor plants, I will turn on the indoor room even if just for one little clone. Otherwise you can't be sure the pollen is yours and not your neighbour's. Even taking all possible precautions you can never be 100% sure there won't be cross pollination.

Staggering the different pollinations and doing them one at a time seems like the optimal way to do things.

Yeah I only plan on using one male at a time. And flowering I. My 2x4, pack it with different fem clones a couple ICF#1 male clones let them go the distance. I’m just worried about the autos in my veg tent more than anything. I should have worded this differently. I only have 1 tent that I want to breed in, and really don’t wNt my autos pollinated with reg pollen.
Thanks
-Big Ed

 

[revegeta666]

Yeah I only plan on using one male at a time. And flowering I. My 2x4, pack it with different fem clones a couple ICF#1 male clones let them go the distance. I’m just worried about the autos in my veg tent more than anything. I should have worded this differently. I only have 1 tent that I want to breed in, and really don’t wNt my autos pollinated with reg pollen.
Thanks
-Big Ed

In that case I would keep the male in another room, next to a window or something. They don't need to be happy to produce pollen and by day 20 you should have collected more than enough. Also I wouldn't keep the whole male, just a branch that I would cut when the balls are about to open.

Otherwise you will get some pollination in your autos I'm quite sure.

 

[Backwoods_Genetics]

In that case I would keep the male in another room, next to a window or something. They don't need to be happy to produce pollen and by day 20 you should have collected more than enough. Also I wouldn't keep the whole male, just a branch that I would cut when the balls are about to open.

Otherwise you will get some pollination in your autos I'm quite sure.

That’s sort of what I done last year 1 male to about 7-8 fems

 

[g0dzilla]

Male Isolation Chamber

Hey guys, here's a little tutorial on how to grow your males right next to your females.It's a box that isolates the male and filters all the air that moves through the box so that no pollen escapes.I built my first one of these about 4 years ago and posted it at OG.This will be the third box...

www.icmag.com

 

[Dr.Mantis]

I gave this a shot recently, here’s what I did.

1. Planted my regular seeds, selected all the females and saved the male with the stinkiest stem rub.
2. Took a cloned of the male while still in veg.
3. Once it rooted everything was flipped to flower.
4. Males flower much quicker, once sufficiently into flower they don’t need a good light schedule.
5. The ready male was moved from the moms to a window sill.
6. As the pollen sacs mature, but before they actually open, they were plucked and placed in a vial. The vial was put in a larger jar over desiccant and sealed for 2 days. At this time the pollen should separate easily from the flower bits, and can be stored in the freezer for longer term storage. Once I had enough pollen, I tossed the male.

For pollination:

1. Branch on mom with good light exposure was chosen.
2. Plant was removed from tent, and pollen was dabbed on a fine paint brush (you don’t need much!).
3. Brush was carefully dabbed on the pistils of the selected branch.
4. Pollinated branch was cover with a paper sandwich bag and labeled.
5. Plant was misted down with RO to grab any stray pollen.
6. 36-72 hours later the bag is removed, the pistils should be brown if pollination worked.
7. Wait for your seeds!

Besides taking the ladies out of the tent, I didn’t really take any special procedures besides making sure the air in the room was relatively still. Worked very well for me, and no unintended side pollinations. My recommendation would be to only work with one pollen source per run, to keep your sanity in tact.

I’m actually running my first f1s right now from the describes procedure:

Thousand Oaks F5 x Tony Greens Maruf Black

 

[Hiddenjems]

I’ve had males in rooms with other tents. All I did was run negative pressure in that tent with a carbon filter filtering all air removed from that tent.

Pollen is huge, you don’t need hepa to stop it. Furnace filters filter out pollen.

 

[troutman]

You can use one male to pollinate females of the same or different strains.
But if you use two or more males from different strains there's no way to
be 100% certain who the daddy is. lol

 

[Backwoods_Genetics]

Male Isolation Chamber

Hey guys, here's a little tutorial on how to grow your males right next to your females.It's a box that isolates the male and filters all the air that moves through the box so that no pollen escapes.I built my first one of these about 4 years ago and posted it at OG.This will be the third box...

www.icmag.com

Thanks for this

 

[g0dzilla]

Thanks for this

You would have to dig in the crates to find that thread but I'll never forget it, I thought that was a badass idea from jlp.

Good luck

 

[troutman]

Another thing, lets say you have 2 grow tents even in different rooms I would avoid
opening both of them on the same day. Even with the best filtration, it doesn't take
much pollen on yourself to contaminate another tent.

So deal with each tent on odd days to avoid cross pollination.

 

[StickyBandit]

I’ve had males in rooms with other tents. All I did was run negative pressure in that tent with a carbon filter filtering all air removed from that tent.

Pollen is huge, you don’t need hepa to stop it. Furnace filters filter out pollen.

^^ I just purchased another extractor and filter to fit inside the tent I plan to use for raising males and gathering pollen. It will be in the same room as the females but have vacuum inside so it will be filtered and expelled outside. If a little air finds it's way back inside I don't think it will be enough to worry about.
I found that pollen can last a long time, even after spraying water. It must get into the fans and other nooks and crannies. That's why I now have the Big South Pump ladies pollenated by LostTribe's Peak C99 boys. I'm actually looking forward to growing those babies though
Next seed run will be the Corinto from TLT

 

[Hiddenjems]

Another thing, lets say you have 2 grow tents even in different rooms I would avoid
opening both of them on the same day. Even with the best filtration, it doesn't take
much pollen on yourself to contaminate another tent.

So deal with each tent on odd days to avoid cross pollination.

That’s the only real issue. Human error.

I guess doing it like this does make it way more likely to have an “accident “ but if done right shouldn’t be a problem.