Environment for males

[whythefnot]

I've googled around quite a bit and I haven't found any explicit information on the topic so here goes...

I'm attempting to collect some pollen from a Tres OG male that's about 2 months old. This is not my first time making seeds but it is my first time flowering a male indoors. A friend donated a tiny tent he had lying around, something like 18x30x36 -- the perfect size for flowering a single male. I had some extra CFLs and mounting brackets lying around so I threw it all together to put a little environment together, then flipped the lights to 12/12 about a week ago.

In my basement I have a 5x5 tent @ 4weeks flower right now, plus a 2x4x4 veg tent that's packed to the gills with this dude's sisters and sister wives. I'd much prefer not to indiscriminately pollinate my flower tent, so I stuck this little dude in one of my spare bedrooms, which means it's running a little hotter.

I have an old carbon filter that still has enough life left in it for this tent, but I don't have any extra ventilation fans lying around and I'm not sure that heavy venting is what I really want considering my ladies downstairs.

Right now I have the top vent port open on the tent to allow the heat to escape, which keeps the temperatures under 85. This seems ok but the humidity is skyrocketing inside and I'm a little concerned what effect this will have on the plant and its pollen.


Are males any hardier than females? Has anyone noticed any clear differences in the environment preferred by males than that preferred by females?

I'm not opposed to buying some equipment but I don't want to break the bank over this one plant and his pollen, and I don't want to spend aimlessly. If I make any purchases I want to know that I'll get all the desired results, which may include moving the tent back into the basement.

Is it worth it to just buy a HEPA and inline fan? Are there cheaper makeshift solutions to keeping pollen where it belongs? This is the only male I have ATM but I'll probably be flowering out more males in the future as they come to me.

Admins, feel free to move this post if you think this is the wrong board.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Bud_Man10]

In my experience, 'most' males are hardy as all get out, a lot less fussing than the girls. I 'often' just let them flower out in a window...

Peace
BM

 

[WelderDan]

I agree with Bud Man. Males tend to be hardy, and handle stress better than females IMO.

I like to put males in a separate room, like a closet to "contain them" so to speak. You can minimize pollen flying about by cutting back most of his flowers and put some paper under it to catch the pollen when it drops. One male flower has thousands of pollen grains.

 

[whythefnot]

Great, sounds like I'm on the right path already. Thanks, guys!

 

[~star~crash~]

i also agree... my experience has shown me that males need very little care...i've always kept them on the perimeter,or the periphery of a grow till they are needed

 

[MJPassion]

You dont need to grow him out too much either.

Get him rockin on that 12/12 sched then when he's about to dump his load cut a few well flowered branches & place in a glass of water, for a few days, over a plate to collect pollen.

Unless you plan on keeping that boy around there's not much need for the extra expense of setting up another room.

 

[Bud_Man10]

You dont need to grow him out too much either.

Get him rockin on that 12/12 sched then when he's about to dump his load cut a few well flowered branches & place in a glass of water, for a few days, over a plate to collect pollen.

Unless you plan on keeping that boy around there's not much need for the extra expense of setting up another room.

Yup, good advice right there MJ! Did that just recently with a Burmese male, 5 branches gave me all the jizz I needed...and more.

Peace
BM

 

[Betterhaff]

Male plants can be very productive in the pollen department. I can’t remember the numbers they produce in regards to actual pollen grains per plant but it’s huge. Remember, they are a wind pollinated species.

Depending on your goals/needs I wouldn’t worry about a separate tent as mentioned. Just pull him from the flower room when buds start forming and put him in a separate room that gets some light. I like and use the tek as MJP mentioned, take a few branches when about to drop pollen and place in water over a collection plate.

 

[Bud Green]

I'm no expert with indoor grows.. been a long time since I had big lights...
But it seems to me, keeping your male indoors could cause problems with that pollen getting all over and pollinating girls who you want to keep as virgins...

A male plant does not need to get large to create plenty of pollen..

for my outdoor gardening, I move my boys about 300 feet away, downwind of my girls..
I keep the boys well pruned, no taller than 2 or 3 feet..
After I collect pollen from them, I water them down 'til they're soggy and destroy them..

Even if you live in the city, you could probably hide a small, short male, outdoors in your yard, and not have to worry about stray pollen flying around indoors anywhere near your girls....

 

[whythefnot]

I'm no expert with indoor grows.. been a long time since I had big lights...
But it seems to me, keeping your male indoors could cause problems with that pollen getting all over and pollinating girls who you want to keep as virgins...

A male plant does not need to get large to create plenty of pollen..

for my outdoor gardening, I move my boys about 300 feet away, downwind of my girls..
I keep the boys well pruned, no taller than 2 or 3 feet..
After I collect pollen from them, I water them down 'til they're soggy and destroy them..

Even if you live in the city, you could probably hide a small, short male, outdoors in your yard, and not have to worry about stray pollen flying around indoors anywhere near your girls....

That's really not a bad idea. I've done the guerilla thing here in these mountains. I'm mostly out in the woods but my neighbors have yard crews that come around pretty regularly, and I rent so there's always the possibility of my landlord or rental manager showing up (they have to give me advanced notice before they can come in the house, which they have never had to do). I'm up against a patch of woods but so are plenty of other people in the neighborhood, and the sun doesn't permeate to the ground anywhere, not that it would need to for a male, I guess.

I'm definitely concerned about pollinating my ladies downstairs but he is in an upstairs bedroom inside a sealable tent (the kind with a clear plastic observation window) so once he gets close I plan to cut back to just 1 cfl and seal him all the way up until he busts. I always keep my basement door closed and it's weather sealed, plus I can close the door to the bedroom and close the A/C vent to limit the amount of stray pollen I get.

My harvests are roughly 1/4 for my personal smoke, 1/4 for my close friends, and the other half gets sold to friends and acquaintances for a good price so a few seeds shouldn't be a deal breaker. But I would prefer to limit seed production to specific branches by hand pollinating.

Thanks everyone.

 

[Miraculous Meds]

Search male isolation chamber. Essentially what ur doing. Just be careful contaminating ur girls from pollen on ur clothes or yourself. But a negative pressure room going thru a air filter seems to do the trick to control pollen pollution. If i recall correctly those guys just used a cheap fan exhausting thru a standard house hvac filter. I used a separate closet in an adjacent building, exhausting thru a carbon filter n never had a problem.

 

[ecsd]

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=46076

Jlps male iso chamber thread

 

[whythefnot]

That is ingenious. I don't think I have room in my flower tent for anything like that but hot damn somebody's been using their noggin. Nice tip on the filtration, I didn't think that was nearly fine enough to catch pollen. I can borrow that much of this template for my dude.