How do you choose you breeding males?

[JacFlasche]

Personally I can't say that I have any logistics other than general stature and odor. And it seems that a male that smells great one day, may not smell at all the next.

This is one area of my breeding program that could really use some additional insight.

 

[Dr.Suess]

I'm assuming that a stem rub, branch structure & flower formations are the desirable qualities to look for without access to lab analysis

Be nice to hear how the breeders do it

 

[flamstaa]

I'm interested too.

I've been making femenised seeds the last year but have been given a bunch of regular F1s with some really exciting lineage I want to keep going in regular form.

I read an article by one breeder who said some male produce trichs. It also said that males that produced a ton of pollen also went on to produce high yielding females.

Can't remember where I saw the article

 

[CosmicCharlie]

Flower formation, growth structure, stem rub, trichome production, amount of stretch

Perhaps if it is an early flowerer or fast flowerer.

Some people reverse the males and smoke them, some people smoke the males.

Lab testing a plus if available...

 

[D3pthCharg3]

dammmmmnn Charlie, so obvious...I've never thought of reversing the males to smoke em...clever

 

[sadpanda]

invest $300 then you can do home Thin Layer Chromatography, so then you can really get a picture of what cannabinoids you're working with - the unique profile of each plant. Obviously it's not the be-all and end-all and doesn't tell you everything you want to know about a plant but it's a really awesome tool to add to any pheno-hunting toolkit! (i had to learn it for my friend battling cancer so she knows which of her plants have high CBD, it's fantastic for that)

for example here's a double-run i did with 5 different high-THC strains, with sample #1 showing extra high THCV & CBC and #5 showing extra high CBG. None of them show any CBD (hey these are recreational strains), which would've appeared as a bright orange dot above the red THC dot. Gotta love how THC is red: Stop! Don't go there!

 

[Team Sift]

I pick on how he grows, vigour, smell and stature first.
As I have no lab access I use the old school method of
Growing them out.
Takes a lot of time and space but is really
The best way.

 

[englishrick]

I wonder if you can send like 50 individual samples to a lab somewhere and get back a nice sheet with a brake down of everything,,, along with the classic ways listed above, I think that's the best ya going to get

 

[sadpanda]

I have no lab access

me either, but Thin Layer Chromatography can easily be done at home... its essentially just capillary action using a solvent, pretty simple

 

[englishrick]

Can't samples be posted to a lab that will do all the testing for a price

 

[sadpanda]

yes, and if you want to determine %'s you should get a lab to do that, home TLC isn't quite accurate enough for that (despite what the commercial kits try to tell you!) - TLC is really a qualitative test not quantitative, although because you can accurately compare all the dots in the one sample you can fairly accurately determine THC:CBD ratio. It also works out a lot cheaper to do tests yourself

 

[Dr.Suess]

Thanks for the great information on this thread

 

[neongreen]

The only true way to know if you have a good stud is to grow out seeds fathered by that male. Everything else is just guesswork.

 

[igrowone]

might this becoming a lost art?
from the breeder talk i see, it's mostly about reversing females because the traits are much easier to identify and select
not condoning the practice, but that's feel i get from what i've read

 

[BAKED_BEANZ]

testing only way to go , you can have 100 males your never going to know who,s holding the goodies .

i,d like to actually test , several males from the same strain and see the comparisons between them .

i also bought this thc test kit when i have time to play , again should be very interesting

 

[Dr.Suess]

Reversing the male and smoking it seems a brilliant idea,cheers

 

[Superscript1]

Taste the big leaf .... chew pieces up there all going to taste a bit diff ...

 

[Team Sift]

It's all about how they blend together.
Some traits are dominant an some recessive.
A lab test can tell you certain things like cannabinoid ratio's
Which can help but you still need to grow the progeny out
To actually see what's what.

 

[bigbadbiddy]

Reversing the male and smoking it seems a brilliant idea,cheers

Has been done, I think there is even a thread by SamSkunkman here on IC that isn't even very old. Can probably find it by scrolling 1 or 2 pages back ...

The end result was that it was inconclusive if I remember correctly.


In the end it is true, you only know by breeding out the progeny.

 

[englishrick]

I think the best way at the min is to send them to a dedicated lab and get data sheets,,,

do we know of anywhere that does this?

Obviously the classic ways are necessary too,,,(stem rubbing, pollen drop weight ins,,leaf identification,,colour of stems,,holo stems, ,,,1:1 mating evaluation,,etc)


One thing I do sometimes, when looking at females in veg is to prick stems with a very thin and sharp needle,,if it forms a little round red scab I tend to put it in a spot I can view it better during flowering as I find they have strong smells when they bleed like that,,,