Having trouble finding a solid male pollen doner.

[bakelite]

I've been growing out a lot of regular beans. I'm looking for a male with that " pukey funk" smell as I like to call it. I've got three awesome plants Princess Haze, Sour Bubble and a mystery plant that I'm 90+ percent sure it's an OG Kush of some kind. any suggestions would be much appreciated.

 

[Tom Hill]

It's silly to look for males that is a rookie move. Use a male pollen mix. If I am saving a seedline I want it all in there not anybody's silly idea of what a good male is.

 

[GoatCheese]

I totally understand using just about all the non-hermie males/females you could find if we are talking about landrace/heirloom preservation projects like Tom’s work but not in every project ...but that’s just me.



Males are just like female plants, some are good some are not. If the line has good females in it then it should also have good males as well, you just have to have enough seed stock to go thru to find the useable plants.

Many modern polyhybrid lines seem to be filled with too many crappy plants – at least the stuff i have been growing - so i wouldn’t use just any males i could find. ...especially if you have small grow space to use like i do; i don’t have the time/ space to shift thru any old crap – i’d rather not do the cross at all than use “whatever”, males or females.

Of course i’d use as many males/females i could find but if 1 to 1 mating would be all i could do with the seeds available to me then that’s what i would do, and then find more usable plants in the offspring.

And i do try thou i am a cab/small tent grower..

If a modern line doesn’t have any plants – males or females - that are up to standard in the first 20-30 seeds you go thru then is it worth the trouble in the first place? Esp. with the prices alot of seeds cost ...i’m talking about modern polyhybrids, not landraces/heirlooms.

In recent years i have started binning the plants i think are sub-par before i even bloom them one time. If they don’t have enough resin glands on them in veg or proper aromas etc. , out they go.

 

[linde]

yup open pollination all the way with the exceptions of obvious defective plants.

 

[bakelite]

It's silly to look for males that is a rookie move. Use a male pollen mix. If I am saving a seedline I want it all in there not anybody's silly idea of what a good male is.

Tom, I'll take your advise and focus more on maintaining the seed line via pollen mixing from different males. I've heard the same regarding females by not focusing on just one for "the ultimate mom". Not doing so would create an evolutionary bottleneck as they say. I've read a bit, and I mean just a bit, about breeding on both online forums like on ICMag as well as Robert Clarks "Marijuana Botany". I find breeding of any sort of plant or animal interesting but I am especially fascinated with cannabis breeding in particular. I know that I have a lot to learn.

Thank you for taking the time to chime in Tom, that is much appreciated! I have admired your work for years am happy to get feedback from you regarding the subject!

-bakelite

 

[KidCharlemagne]

You can't know without making the seed and progeny testing. The proof is in the pudding.

 

[GoatCheese]

You can know quite alot about the male even before you grow any seeds.

You can stress test the plant for sex stability, thou recessive phenos from it may hermie even if the male stayed clean

You may know how it responds to LST or topping and how it behaves in bloom (stretch)

You can see the amount of resin glands on it to get an idea of the resin production

You can see the calyx-to-leaf ratio and the size of the flower clusters

You can smell part of the aroma profile

and you can smoke test them.

 

[chronosync]

I've been growing out a lot of regular beans. I'm looking for a male with that " pukey funk" smell as I like to call it. I've got three awesome plants Princess Haze, Sour Bubble and a mystery plant that I'm 90+ percent sure it's an OG Kush of some kind. any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Bangi Haze - I found one male and one female out of a pack of regs that smelled like you say - pukey funk - the female didn’t finish outside and i made seeds with the male, haven’t tested the seeds yet

 

[bakelite]

In my experience, It seems that the females that exhibit that characteristic funk early on tend to make good candidates for a keeper once they flower. It's interesting as the resin that the bud produced don't necessarily have that funk to them as they are usually fruity or spicy or whatever. I found it once in a male Apollo 11 which produced seeds that were excellent.

I remember reading something years ago that BOG had said about male selection. He didn't go into detail, but he did say that the smellier males tend to make the better fathers. Obviously there are numerous other characteristics to look for such as the amount and density of the male flower clusters, stature, disease resistance, resin production etc. but I have found that many plants with that funk when the main stem is rubbed in a young plant tend to produce good potent plants once they are allowed to fully express their genotype (I think I'm using that terminology correctly lol).

 

[Blacklight Botany]

Hey Bakelite,

I agree with Goat Cheese on this. Unless your trying to keep the gene pool open and dig through a ton of work, I would suggest picking a male that has resin development showing but more importantly one that has a strong aroma from the stem rub. Not all the aromas from the stem rub match up to what the flowers will smell like but it is a good indicator that the plant will produce stronger terpene profile than plants with less aroma from the stem rub.

 

[DoubleTripleOG]

Use the Sour Bubble male. That was an easy decision based on the vars you listed. Many, many great seedlines have been built off Sour Bubble.

 

[LostTribe]

It's silly to look for males that is a rookie move. Use a male pollen mix. If I am saving a seedline I want it all in there not anybody's silly idea of what a good male is.

All these kids ought to pull up a chair and listen when people like Tom speak. He knows his shit.

For instance, you kids all paid a ton for seeds. You ought to first consider backing up your precious purchases before you boof out and waste your P1 stock on some weak one off hybrid.

The art of breedings is not in making the next new hybrid it lies in keeping a line solid. Don't off half of your gene pool by "selecting" out males and culling the rest. I fully agree with Tom. Sam said something about landraces needing a couple thousand males and females to avoid genetic drift.

LT

 

[Smoke_A_Lot]

All these kids ought to pull up a chair and listen when people like Tom speak. He knows his shit.

For instance, you kids all paid a ton for seeds. You ought to first consider backing up your precious purchases before you boof out and waste your P1 stock on some weak one off hybrid.

The art of breedings is not in making the next new hybrid it lies in keeping a line solid. Don't off half of your gene pool by "selecting" out males and culling the rest. I fully agree with Tom. Sam said something about landraces needing a couple thousand males and females to avoid genetic drift.

LT

Interesting take @LostTribe.

What's so interesting about breeding is that it seems so simple in concept but in actuality there's A lot that goes into creating something good and something stable.

 

[Blacklight Botany]

I suggest checking out Lyster Dewey and his documents cultivating and breeding cannabis plants for the USDA before prohibition. Studies done on open pollination vs selection.

Open pollinating is preservation.
Selection, hybridization and stabilization are breeding.

We’re all presenting different ideas here to help everyone expand their perspectives and there’s no wrong answer.

You could always do an open pollination as well as save pollen from your favorite male and a clone of your favorite female and have both open pollination as well as selected (not in the same space of course).

 

[Maple_Flail]

are you ditching males before making seed with them to see if their offspring hold what you are looking for? Traits are both dominant and recessive and you won't always see the recessives...

gatta run the beans those boys make to make any kind of evaluation. and listen to Tom... use a mix of male pollen... and once you find what you are looking for you can work backwards to figure out which boy it was and then begin the real work of stabilizing it in some reasonable ratio. so you have a back up for your favorite clone.

but to answer with a suggestion, something BG Apollo based... my first thought is look in Bodhi's Lemon Apollo for the most fermented lemon males and hope that apollo's baby puke funk passes recessively..

 

[Blacklight Botany]

Use the Sour Bubble male. That was an easy decision based on the vars you listed. Many, many great seedlines have been built off Sour Bubble.

Double Triple OG is right on!

I would use that Sour Bubble male for what you’re looking for.

 

[troutman]

Use regular seeds if you want solid males.

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

Transform males to female and smoke them & lab analyse them if you want to see what they can contribute to a line. Takes a lot less time then making hybrids with males & your favorite female clones then growing them out to see what the males contributed. Or use both methods. I use both but transforming males to female is a game changer to find elite males to keep.

Male clones transformed to Female to judge male smoking quality

Has anyone done this? -SamS Fertile female flowers can be induced in male plants by ethephon (2-chloroethanephosphonic acid) and NIA 10637 (ethylhydrogen-l-propylphosphonate). Interestingly, stamens could be seen arising even from fruits. Stopping the application of growth regulators caused...

www.icmag.com

 

[Piff_cat]

always helps to start with clear goal and traits that seem to be linked to the desired type. are you looking to preserve the best/most diversity in the line or looking for an elite production clone?some of the traits i find useful when trying to find an elite clone is to create a "bottleneck of quality" traits that are coorelated would be hollow/square stems. early sessile trichomes on sugar leaves/stems. pungent stem rubs due to oxygenated terpene presence. early resin. high lignin productoin traits(thick rubbery petioles, reinforced underside of fan leaf veins, wide and deep yellow midrib, fast repair of broken petioles/nodes).

using these to pre screen interesting candidates followed by reversal smoke testing and then 1 to 1 matings tracked through pedigree can lead you on path to great stud lines. its also worth considering the effect of chemotype. a male without an active cbd synthase will provide higher percentage of potent keepers especially at the f2 stage. due to the fact that cbd and thc synthase will sort independently not having that cbd landmine floating around could help alot. this may be a factor contributing to haze males excellent outcross results as haze has 5 thc synthase but no active cbd synthase.

 

[Blacklight Botany]

Here’s what some common crops look like originally and what they look like today after selection and breeding.