finding that hidden stallion...

[Papa-Woodie]

I was talking with my friend from work the other day and he asked me if i wanted some seeds from back home. Then today he shows me this picture of a massive bag of seeds that will be finding its way to me. He says the only thing he knows about the seeds is its a random mix of outdoor grown jamacain.

I've grown for about a year in a perpetual dwc and now I'm doing a perpetual organic grow with a max limit of 25. I feel very overwhelmed with trying to find that hidden male to try my hand at breeding.

I have a 2x4x5 4lamp t5 veg tent and a 5x5x8 Ledx4 flower tent with strawberry banana and granddaddy purple.

Any pointers for a passionate grower looking to start his own strain?

 

[bestothebest]

Dont throw out any that seem unappealing in early flower. The smells and other characteristics can change dramatically throughout the process.

 

[bigbadbiddy]

You will probably have to flower them out as well eventually.

I didn't plan to do so and simply culled them in late veg. I did the stem rub, looked at their development, vigor, node spacing, etc. etc. and looked at how developed their preflowers were etc.

When I culled the remainder, I already knew I didn't choose well because some of the root balls emitted insane smells/odors and these were probably better males than the one I kept in the end ...

So yeah, I now plan to make a "male round" once in a while where I flower out all the males and choose one. It is probably necessary to flower them out to find all these smells and odors as well as having definitive answers to their expression in flower in terms of speed of developing pollen sacks and also how fast/soon they release their pollen etc. etc. as well as looking at the cluster formation itself as well as (and I believe this is an important characteristic, particular when looking for hashplant types) looking for males that produce noticeable resin around their flower clusters.

So I can at least confirm that selecting a male from pre-flower/mature vegetative stage is not conclusive, no matter the stem rub and observation up to that point.

 

[MJPassion]

Mixed grow seeds could be very appealing to grow out just for the variation in final product. Breeding with such could prove a bit more tricky due to the variation, but fun non the less.

The tip I like best is to pick & choose for one trait at a time.

I prefer using multiple males, in order to keep the line a bit more open, but not w mixed seed.