Cloning Feminized Autos and Reversing the Sex on the Clones with STS for Pollen

[Ringodoggie]

I stored my STS in the cupboard, nothing special. It worked fine after a month or 2 like that. Now, I have it in the fridge. When I bought mine the C. Silver and Thiosulfate was already mixed. I simple mixed it with distilled water and used it.

Also, just FYI, I treated mine every 4 days. I used an eye dropper to place drops right onto the flowering nodes the first 2 weeks. I did it this way because they were fresh clones and I didn't want to interfere with the new clones taking in water from misting the leaves. After 2 weeks when the dome came off the clones and they were developing roots, I started spraying the clones with the STS. So, the first 4 treatments were drops and the last 3 were sprays. 7 treatments total over 24 days.

 

[Douglas.Curtis]

Great job Ringo Thank you so much for sharing your process and results.

 

[Ringodoggie]

Just an update.....

The clones are not showing any signs of reverting back to female but I want to wait as long as I can and see if it happens.

Fucking pollen is EVERYWHERE... LOL I have new cut clones under domes and I noticed the clear plastic domes are fucking covered with pollen. LOL Damn... I wanted pollen. I fucking got it. LOL

I just planted 4 new seeds. All auto/fems. I plan to pollinate all of them with this White Widow pollen. I hope to seed only select branches and not the entire plants.

With that in mind, I put the reversed clones outside. We'll see what they do out there. I'll continue to collect from them as long as they produce. I am practicing different methods of collecting it and storing it. Curious to see if they eventually revert back to female.

I think I am OK with removing the pollen source because I see what I hope are plenty of seed sites on the mother plant. A couple shiny green spots actually look like green seeds.

How long does it take for the seeds to mature? Last time I found my first brown seed 21 days after I saw first pollen. And 39 days before I harvested the plant and found a zillion nice mature seeds inside.

Right now we are at 19 days after I first saw pollen and about 14 days after pollen was plentiful and I was 'dusting' the mother.

Seems to be taking a little longer this time. Still keeping my fingers crossed.

Couple pics of what I hope are seed sites. As you can see, she never recovered from that leaf necrosis. I hope it wasn't something genetic that she'll pass down to the seeds. Is that even possible?

Again, thanks for the support.

 

[Douglas.Curtis]

To be more clear, the plant needs to be actively producing new flowers for you to see the new growth shifting back to female. Finished forming male flowers will remain male.

 

[chilliwilli]

I would let the seeds mature as long as possible. Somewhere here i picked up that the seeds are longer viable the longer they mature on the motherplant.

 

[Ringodoggie]

I have a few larger envelopes of pollen in the freezer and thought I would make a handful of 'single use' packs. Just enough to pollinate a couple buds on a plant.

I have been collecting daily in a 1 gallon zip lok baggie. I can cover most of the clone. seal the bag and shake a ton of pollen off the plant.

Then, I sift the pollen pretty fine onto [parchment, alum foil wax paper] none work great. A mirror is next.

I used a few grains of rice in each tube with a tiny spoonful of pollen. Thankfully, I still had my coke spoon from the 80's. LOL Then, the 4 tubes went into a bag with some desiccant. I might put the baggie in a jar.

 

[Douglas.Curtis]

It is important to thoroughly dry the pollen if your goal is long term storage. Rice, heated for a few hours at 170F and cooled in a sealed container, makes a better finishing desiccant than silica can.

 

[Ringodoggie]

I have it stored in 4 or 5 different ways so I can see which is best for me. One is a Ball jar with a tissue instead of a lid. Held down with the jar ring. I shake it and turn it occasionally. One is frozen but I am afraid I didn't dry it enough before freezing it. One is in centrifugal tubes with rice (albeit, I didn't heat it. Next one I'll heat).

I also took a few pics this morning. It looks like the clones may be reverting back to female. Some are still sprouting pollen sacs but others have started producing what look like seed pods.

Here are some pics of the clones that have what look seed pods.

 

[Ringodoggie]

Hey gang, I have a question about pollinating.

I have all this pollen from the White Widow Fem Auto

I just planted 7 different strains of Fem Auto's and I plan to pollinate all 7 strains with this White Widow pollen.

WHEN do I pollinate?

I figure that seeds take 5 or 6 weeks to mature from pollination and since most autos mature around 10 weeks, I would pollinate at about week 4.

Or, do I pollinate as soon as flowers appear?

And, for how long? One time or every day? Once a week?

Thanks

 

[bibi40]

Hey gang, I have a question about pollinating.

I have all this pollen from the White Widow Fem Auto

I just planted 7 different strains of Fem Auto's and I plan to pollinate all 7 strains with this White Widow pollen.

WHEN do I pollinate?

I figure that seeds take 5 or 6 weeks to mature from pollination and since most autos mature around 10 weeks, I would pollinate at about week 4.

Or, do I pollinate as soon as flowers appear?

And, for how long? One time or every day? Once a week?

Thanks

if you plan is to get the max of mature seeds , i think at the beginning of flower formation is good ( after preflowering ) , ou can handbrush budsites each 2 days , seeing the red hairs help to target where , 10-14 days long will assure a lot of viable seeds .
that' s how i do but curious about other's inputs .

 

[DandAbc]

I think best timing would be after the first non preflower pistils turns dark? All the other pistils are good to go except the few used as indicators. If it's not pollen from a freezer I'd use it asap.

Also strongly advise cutting your pollen with cooked/dried/toasted flour or whatever non-gluten thing.

 

[Douglas.Curtis]

Also strongly advise cutting your pollen with cooked/dried/toasted flour or whatever non-gluten thing.

I used to do this, and now I wait till I'm about to use the pollen before diluting it with toasted flour. Saves a ton of space, does not lock you in to any particular dilution rate or material which allows you to change your mind/methods without issue.

 

[Ringodoggie]

OK, the jury is in on the clones reverting back to female. I pulled a nice, mature seed off of one of the clones today. I'll get some pics later but you can see nice green female looking seed pods coming out of the yellow male flowers and sprouting seeds. No fresh white hairs but I keep looking.

Also, I went to collect pollen today and the bag has almost no yellow at all. Just old male flowers falling off.

I wonder if there will be a difference between the seeds from the clones and the seeds from the mother.

 

[Ringodoggie]

Well, it looks like 6 weeks is going to be the sweet spot. Today is 5 weeks and things look nice and plump all around.

I pulled 10 seeds and most of them were mature but a few were still green or white on one side. Some beautiful tiger stripes on some. I will wait one more week and then I will sample a couple buds, dry them, and see what's inside.

Here are a couple pics.

The last pic is the 7 strains that are going to get hit with this White Widow pollen I collected from this girl. They are almost 2 weeks from sprout. I figure I'll pollinate from onset to about week 5. That should leave about 6 weeks for seeds to mature. At that point, the plant will bee in week 11. Reminder that all this is Feminized Autos.

Thanks

 

[DandAbc]

Very nice!

 

[Ringodoggie]

Here are a couple of updated shots of the clones. It's hard to see in the pics but there are definitely green seeds present. New leaf growth is starting at the bottom of some plants. Some areas are still heavy male but these definitely seem to be reverting back.

I'll keep them alive as long as I can and see what happens. It has been just over 10 weeks since I took these clones and just over 6 weeks since the last STS treatment.

 

[Ringodoggie]

I clipped a small bud from the main cola yesterday and let it fast dry overnight in front of a small fan to determine if it's ready for harvest or not. I broke it up today and it looks like the seeds are ready. There are a few that were not fully mature but I think that's probably unavoidable.

My projected harvest date of 6 weeks is 2 days away so I may go ahead and take her tonight.

Couple pics.

 

[Ringodoggie]

Well, a happy ending here. I chopped her that night. I did face one issue after harvest.

I like to never ever ever dry my pot to less than 55% and there was no way for me to collect the seeds like that. I went to almost cracker dry and cleaned her out on my giant screen. Got some awesome hash but the pot was fine and dry. I took the opportunity to buy a cone shaker and a couple hundred cones. In short..... cones suck. LOL But, that's and entire another thread.

So, although I got about 3 ounces of pot from her, the pot was not as strong as it was when I grew this same White Widow before. I assume the pot was not as frosty because it seeded. ASSUME.

Anyway, the awesome news is that I hand sorted and counted out 1000 awesome nice mature seeds. 10 packs of 100.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

 

[Ringodoggie]

I also decided it's time to take the original clones. They are looking pretty raged out there and they have, pretty much stopped producing pollen and developed a few very mature seeds.

I wonder if there will be a difference between these seeds and the seeds from the mother plant?

 

[Ringodoggie]

Well, I guess the voyage continues. I have all the White Widow pollen that I gathered and now it's time to pollinate something.

I have 7 different strains I plan to hit with this pollen. I have grown out 5 of these strains in the past year or so and they were all very nice. 2 strains are new to me. The White Widow that donated the pollen was awesome. Super white and true to her name and she was mature and ready to harvest in 55 days with a very nice yield.

All 7 strains are in the tent in week 5. Obviously, this is not the correct way to do this because as you can see in the pics, some plants have nice buds, ready for pollen while some others have not even shown sex yet. Oops. LOL

I started dusting this week. I plan to dust every other day for... I don't know how long. It depends on how long it takes for some of these plants to flower.

The Crystal Candy and the Trainwreck are doing awesome. Nice buds. Came early.

The Cookies and the Zapples just came out a few days ago. The Cookies look super wispy. The Haze, AK47 and NLights have not even shown yet.

The Zapples is tall and lanky this time. Last time I grew it out is was super short and stocky.

So, since I know just above zero about breeding, I am wondering if I should basically focus on the 2 Candy and Trainwreck plants and not so much on the others.

Do I really want to breed a plant that is tall and lanky? If I pollinate this tall, lanky plant with the pollen from the short fast White Widow, will the seeds produce plants that are tall and lanky? Or, will they take after the pollen donor and be short and fast? Or, some of each at random? I ASSUME some of each. Time will tell. Same with the plants that are 5 weeks in with no show of sex. How strongly will these undesirable traits be shown in the offspring?

I am using a medium size artist brush to spread the pollen. I dip it in the bag/jar of pollen and hold it over the bud and tap the brush. I can see a tiny snow storm of pollen falling on the buds. Then, after I hit all the buds I turn the fan on and clean my brush in the fan, distributing pollen throughout the tent.

I don't know what my schedule will be. It depends on how these other plants develop. Right now, I am dusting every other day. I may slow down to twice a week, depending on growth.

All fucking Greek to me. Just shotgunning my way through. Thanks for any input.