How Far Can Males Realistically Pollinate Females Outdoors?

[DuskrayTroubador]

Hello everyone,

I'd like to do a small outdoor breeding thing this year to produce a bunch of seeds.

The concern is that where I plan to have the males and females together is about 300 yards from where I plan to have a plot of all female plants that I DO NOT want to be pollinated.

Between these two plots are plenty of trees/foliage.

Do you think it's likely that those females 300 yards away will be pollinated?

I've read that cannabis pollen can travel up to 10 miles or more, but that seems like an unrealistic extreme (and the same source said the pollen loses most of its efficacy as it travels).

Does anyone have experience with males being somewhat close to females and the females not getting pollinated?

 

[sneezydog]

Yes. they will all get knocked up for sure. The wind directions will tell how many seeds... But if its blowing in the right direction it will get you really bad. and anyone else for miles. If i start running males looking for a good one everyone gets mad... .
Only way is catch the pollen and paint it on and kill the male but its still going to escape..
but if you can handle a few seeds and the wind direction is ok, and neighbors not gonna take you out then try it but youll probably get some seed.

 

[Douglas.Curtis]

You can significantly reduce pollen range by bringing the males indoor for the drop. And yeah, the pollen travels for miles. The more males you have the further it will go when 'the yellow cloud' hits an updraft.

Pick off all the 'striped' pods each day, these are the ones which are likely to open that day. When there are too many, cut the branch off and bring it inside. Put it in water and put foil, parchment or other methods to catch the pollen.

Collect pollen daily and dry properly. When stored in a freezer, you have instant access to viable pollen when your awesome female is ready for it. Done right it will last 10+ years.

 

[exploziv]

I read studies of up to 80 km was observed. I would think it depends on winds and local climate and trees and land layout, but some kilometers are easy for quite a small pollen grain cannabis has. It will travel a lot even with small wind gusts.. 300 yards is nothing for that pollen..

 

[troutman]

Most pollen don't go further than a few hundred meters under most conditions I bet.
It will help a lot if you can select the best male and only keep that one while destoying
the rest. Less male plants you keep the safer you'll be.

2 years ago, I grew 2 patches about 1/2km apart. I only kept the best male to breed
with in 1 patch. The seedless patch made only a few seeds per plant which was no
big deal. Most of those buds there were seedless.

But, 5km is the recommended minimum used to make pedigree seeds.

In Europe and Canada, a standard distance of 5 km is required for the highest classes of hemp seed.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/.../J237v08n02_03

 

[St. Phatty]

100 yards, even with a dense forest with lots of trees in the way ... not enough to stop pollen from a full size male.

Best thing is to have tiny males near the big girls, like Tattoo hooking up with that Turkish woman basketball player.

 

[exploziv]

Btw, everyone mentioned natural barriers as helping limit the pollen plants get, but the relative humidity and wind can make this go the extra distance. From what I remember dry and windy means much better spread. As humidity kills pollen.

 

[Koondense]

Identify the winning male early and collect his pollen with a bag, just before he starts dropping big amounts by himself. Drop the pollen manually on selected girls and pick a day with favorable wind direction so you minimise the chance of pollen getting on your sinsemilla patch.
Or just clone the male and keep him indoor, force flower him and get early pollen before the females even start proper flowering.

Best of luck.

Cheers

 

[Petrochemical]

8 miles jn some instances

 

[DuskrayTroubador]

100 yards, even with a dense forest with lots of trees in the way ... not enough to stop pollen from a full size male.

Best thing is to have tiny males near the big girls, like Tattoo hooking up with that Turkish woman basketball player.

Indeed, I was thinking along these lines.

I basically only have one strain of regular seeds.

My plan was to have one big hole dug, maybe 5 feet in diameter. I was going to put 3 or 4 regular seeds in the middle of that hole, and then put 5 or 6 more feminized seeds (of 5 or 6 different strains) around the outer part of that same hole, basically surrounding the regular, non-deminized seeds.

With so many plants in one hole, none of them will get too big. I'll leave one male in the middle, and he'll pollinate all the females around him, and hopefully his pollen won't be plentiful enough to go beyond the females around him and another 300 yards to where the other female plants are.

With none of the plants in the breeding area being big (remember, we're talking 6 or 7 plants together in a 5 foot diameter hole dug 1 ft deep), I only expect maybe 100 or 200 seeds per plant which, relatively speaking, isn't a huge haul. But I also hope the small plants (and small male plant in the middle, surrounded by females to pollinate only 2 feet away in every direction) will prevent the pollen from finding the other females 300 yards away.

Also, my area is very humid, which should help according to another poster.

 

[St. Phatty]

My seeds for this year came from 2 small Chem x Apollo 11 crosses that I put next to the 4 big plants, last year.

Guess it's time to Germinate !

 

[DuskrayTroubador]

I'm going to try my luck and hope for the best with keeping one very short male (I'll butcher it if I have to to keep it small) surrounded by several females a foot or two away.

The other spot isn't in the predominant wind directions (it is north/south of where the male will be as opposed to east/west).

 

[Nannymouse]

Used to live in a humid state, but was amazed at the pollen count for cannabis. The weather service listed pollen counts, breaking it down to which species. This was back in early 2000's, when that state was not legal for med or rec. I think that there was quite a lot of wild cannabis in the area, as well as clandestine.

 

[el mani]

I have been growing outdoors for thirty years, almost exclusively with regular seeds and have never had any problems with males.
Once I identify the gallant to use, I do a good apical pruning and remove most of the balls, leaving a branch or two. I put the branches in a paper bag and close it. When I want to pollinate, I cut the branch with the bag, I look for a lower branch that has some flowers and I put it in the bag, I close it and the next day I take it out, spray a little water and mark the branch with a piece of tape or rope.... When harvesting, I keep the branch with the tape and when it is dry I pass it through a sieve and a few hundred seeds usually come out, leaving the rest of the plant free.
Last year I had one less than three meters from the plants and it only fertilized what I wanted.

Another thing is that you want to produce seed on a larger scale. If you let the males produce a lot of pollen then when the wind blows it reaches kms. Another thing, outdoors males are usually much faster than females. Keep that in mind

salu2