Tutorial DIY STS Mixing/Using Guide for Feminized Pollen/Seeds R.C.Clarke Method as Base

[TychoMonolyth]

Just to bring it together.

I had regular Honduran seeds and started a dozen in February. Once they were sexed, I ditched the males and started using 4 as mothers and pulled about 100 clones from them. As you can imagine, there was tons of branching on them with hardly any leaves and looked so bad by July 1st from all the abuse, I was going to compost them but decided to put them in the ground anyway. God damn if they're not my best plants this year.

I reversed one and got a lot of fem pollen out of her and I'll have loads of fem seeds from the other girls as well. They started stretching start of July so that was a nice surprise.

This is the pollen factory. 7ft tall and 6 ft wide. Even with 6 foot long side branching, no trellis/netting, and strong winds last couple week, there's no breakage. So she's a strong girl for sure.

I snipped a couple shorter branches and got this pollen from them. (3:1 oven dried flower to pollen)

The 3 others are 5 feet tall, 4 feet wide and loaded with seeds.

 

[Freakazoid44]

Now that I have pollen pods developing throughout the areas I have sprayed, should I stop spraying, or will continuing to spray help the pollen development?

 

[brickweeder]

Now that I have pollen pods developing throughout the areas I have sprayed, should I stop spraying, or will continuing to spray help the pollen development?

stop spraying sts if you see male flower development, let them pods develop. If you keep spraying, they may not open.

 

[TychoMonolyth]

stop spraying sts if you see male flower development, let them pods develop. If you keep spraying, they may not open.

Exactly. You will end up with empty pods.
Been there, done that.

 

[VerdantGreen]

Great thread, thanks guys.. ive reversed a few plants.. but found the transition from CS to STS more tricky than i expected.
One question, do you have to keep the STS sprayed plant in the dark until all of the solution has dried/evaporated ?... or is it ok to put back under the light ?


usually i don't put wet plants under the lights, ... but these drops of STS at the nodes take a long time to dry lol.


VG

 

[Cvh]

^I sprayed my plants with lights on, it did no harm. Don't know really.
Maybe D.C. had done some experiments.

What was tricky for you? I find it to be real easy.

 

[VerdantGreen]

thanks.



I think it is possibly because the plants that i try to reverse are rather reluctant to do so - like the pre-98 bubba. I thought that with STS it would reverse more easily than CS... but it was still rather reluctant. Chem D the same... i got male flowers but no pollen. Next time (having read it in this thread) that happens i will try grinding the flowers.



VG

 

[Freakazoid44]

stop spraying sts if you see male flower development, let them pods develop. If you keep spraying, they may not open.

Good to know. I've been continuing spraying. This is a pretty vital piece I was in the dark on, so thank you!

 

[Cvh]

thanks.



I think it is possibly because the plants that i try to reverse are rather reluctant to do so - like the pre-98 bubba. I thought that with STS it would reverse more easily than CS... but it was still rather reluctant. Chem D the same... i got male flowers but no pollen. Next time (having read it in this thread) that happens i will try grinding the flowers.



VG

Having no pollen might also sometimes be an indicator of over spraying.

 

[LostTribe]

thanks.



I think it is possibly because the plants that i try to reverse are rather reluctant to do so - like the pre-98 bubba. I thought that with STS it would reverse more easily than CS... but it was still rather reluctant. Chem D the same... i got male flowers but no pollen. Next time (having read it in this thread) that happens i will try grinding the flowers.



VG

Are you treating the entire plant? Start 5 days before with a full spray down of 1:9 ratio make sure you wet the stems not just the leaves, everything. I suggest spraying away from lighting and let the plant dry naturally may help keep from the burning spots on leaves etc. If you believe a specific strain may be hard to reverse I'd try to do a whole plant and collect the pollen rather than trying a partial plant and open pollination. Some extra time for the pollen sacks to open may also help hence collecting vs open. Spray 5 days before flip on a decent veg plant, day of flip and 5 days into flip that ought to do it.

 

[Freakazoid44]

Okay, next newb question:

Are these flowers opening, and should pollen be falling out? Or will that happen if/when they more fully open?

I kept spraying for a while, as mentioned, so if these flowers are "empty," should I expect the rest to be, or is there a chance that the later developers will have pollen? It's been about a week since I stopped spraying, I sprayed 5 days before flip, on flip to 12/12, and then every five days, about four more times.





Here are a couple other pictures of the male flowers....

 

[brickweeder]

Okay, next newb question:

Are these flowers opening, and should pollen be falling out? Or will that happen if/when they more fully open?

They are not ready yet...they are too green. When the pods are puffy, soft, and yellow, they are ready (pollen is ripe and ready to drop). Soft and yellow are the key indicators, with the yellow indicating ripeness and increased viability. If they reach that state but don't open, pick them off, dry them, and crush them in a sieve over a container. Then use that to pollinate your fems. You are almost there.

 

[Freakazoid44]

They are not ready yet...they are too green. When the pods are puffy, soft, and yellow, they are ready (pollen is ripe and ready to drop). Soft and yellow are the key indicators, with the yellow indicating ripeness and increased viability. If they reach that state but don't open, pick them off, dry them, and crush them in a sieve over a container. Then use that to pollinate your fems. You are almost there.

Thanks! I can't tell you how helpful it is for you guys to fill in the gaps with your experience like this. The Internet is a wonderful thing.

I wasn't going to do anything to those flowers, but I was alarmed as it looked like some of the pods were opening with nothing in them. I was also alarmed that this seemed to be happening with me just spraying a week ago. We'll see what it looks like in another 1, 2, or 3 weeks. Hopefully this will be a success story. I'm already prepping the next subject for feminizing (C99). That one just popped from seed about 5 days ago.

 

[Cvh]

^^Completely stop spraying now and have patience.

 

[Freakazoid44]

^^Completely stop spraying now and have patience.

I did stop once someone told me that you don't just keep spraying, endlessly.

And I'm not impatient as much as I was worried that I might have ruined the process with the extra spraying before I knew better. I'm feeling very chill about it, now that I'm not stumbling around, blind.

 

[brickweeder]

I did stop once someone told me that you don't just keep spraying, endlessly.

And I'm not impatient as much as I was worried that I might have ruined the process with the extra spraying before I knew better. I'm feeling very chill about it, now that I'm not stumbling around, blind.

I wouldn't worry about not getting pollen. U r on your way. You can harvest the pollen sacs daily as they ripen over a period of 1-2 weeks or more, and if the early ones dont have pollen, the later ones probably will.

 

[Cloneman]

I'm thinking of doing an open pollination in a small tent, some selfing some crosses. When I made seeds years ago I started the male a week after the females.
Whats the best timing with the reversed female and the females to be pollinated?

Thanks in advance

 

[brickweeder]

...Whats the best timing with the reversed female and the females to be pollinated?

Thanks in advance

I like to shoot for 3 weeks from flip to start harvesting reversed pollen and pollinating the females. i do at least 2 pollination rounds separated by a week or so. The reversal often takes a bit longer than I want, so I sometimes have to extend the flowering period to accommodate seed maturation. Longer flowering varieties obviously give you more leeway.

 

[TychoMonolyth]

Just thought I'd pass on my methods of collecting pollen.

You can do this with regular pollen, or your new female pollen.

1. Go to an art supply or craft store and get a silk screen printing frame. I think they're 100 microns.
https://wallacks.com/products/speedball-printing-screens?variant=31536070470

2. Lay the frame face down on a mirror.

3. Select a few branches with pollen sacs, cut them off and tap them on the screen. You can gently rub the pollen sacs, but you shouldn't need to. Just tap tap tap for 3-4 minutes while turning the branch. Next branch.

Don't let the branches dry out beforehand or you'll get plant matter in your pollen. If you do get a bit, it's super easy to see and you can pick it out easily.

4. Lift the frame off the mirror and use a business or credit card to scrape and bring all the pollen together, and spread it out on a dinner plate. Let it dry in a cupboard or closet for a day or two. It won't take long.

5. Smile at your bounty.

6. Put about 3 table spoons of white flower in an oven safe dish or plate and spread it out evenly. Turn your oven on and set the temperature to 200. Put the dish/plate in it and let it dry out your flour for 15 minutes. Don't burn or brown the flower, just dry it out more.

7. Pollen is *very powerful, so don't get freaked out by this next part. With your pollen in one pile on your dinner plate, put 4 identical piles of flower on the plate next to the pollen. So the ratio is 1 part pollen to 4 parts flower. Take a couple cards and bring them together. Gently lift and drop over and over until it's well mixed. Your pollen will still be very powerful.

That's it. Now you have lots of pollen for next year.

You can package it in microcentrifuge tubes with a few grains of rice to make sure it stays dry.

Freeze it in an air tight container for long term storage.


Instead of a mirror, I have used the same tub I use to collect dry sift. They cost about $12-$14 at home depot.
https://www.homedepot.ca/product/shelves-llc-large-mixing-tub/1001098728

 

[TychoMonolyth]

How many seeds can you get from one plant?

30k / 390 grams