In over my head - OG Panama Red

[Bsinger]

Incase you wanted more info on identification and classification, here's an interesting podcast I found recently on the subject (great podcast overall too).

https://www.kisorganics.com/pages/cannabis-cultivation-and-science-podcast-episode-44

Thanks for this. I've been reading so much about genetics and phenotypes and if this is a true PR, it truly sucks that I am the one doing this. hahaha

It's been an amazing experience though and I laugh as I have no patience and I sit with plants almost 13ish weeks old with 1 not even really 'sexed' yet. I cannot sex plants and these guys are so slllooooow. I have white widow seedlings showing preflower at 3-4 weeks.

I have learned that I like photos and I love landraces. I've never grown an auto or a fem seed and I'm not sure if I ever will.

The plot thickens though as I sit with 2 'confirmed' males (the rest got culled) and this smaller maybe female maybe panama red scraggly thing still waiting to be sexed. I am hopeful.

If I have 1 female and 2 males, I am going to take her and clone as many babies as I can and just let her grow. Take the pollen off of the males although one is 'amazonian' and double the size of the other male and leaf structure skinnier than the other one. Both are healthy and decent. Should I take pollen from both or just the really strong one? One is tall and lanky and the other is more structured.

I would assume if I am looking for a shorter strain, I would breed the second male as it has a shorter height so would pass that on?

Then I want to use the pollen that I froze from the 2 boys and seed out a few clones?

Thanks for all your help whether it's panama red or 'maybe' panama red. Either way, the seeds are super old and the strain seems very sativa in nature and it's been a lot of fun.

 

[CodyPomeray]

So, if you wish to actually preserve the genetics, on your next batch of seeds, do not "select" what you think is best only. You need to include 3-5 females and an equal or larger amount of males. While some are prettier than others and resonate with us more than others, we do not know the entire gene pool in each plant. Through selecting such small amounts to breed farther, we reduce the amount of potential to find later in time.

Ideally you do a semi open pollination of 5 males on 3 females min. That would give you a large enough selection of genes to preserve, and a full seeding will be in order on the females. Would love to help, dm me if you need any info or ask here.

 

[Bsinger]

So, if you wish to actually preserve the genetics, on your next batch of seeds, do not "select" what you think is best only. You need to include 3-5 females and an equal or larger amount of males. While some are prettier than others and resonate with us more than others, we do not know the entire gene pool in each plant. Through selecting such small amounts to breed farther, we reduce the amount of potential to find later in time.

Ideally you do a semi open pollination of 5 males on 3 females min. That would give you a large enough selection of genes to preserve, and a full seeding will be in order on the females. Would love to help, dm me if you need any info or ask here.

Thank you for this I actually scuffed another 5 of the old seeds and then bathed in hydrogen peroxide and floated in water for 24 hours. They went into dirt tonight and are in the flowering tent on 12/12.

I can just take the pollen from these 2 males and freeze it correct and clone the mother and put clones in 12/12 flowering tent? Grow to find a few more males and females.

I was doing some research on influencing sex of plants and was reading that lower temps and higher humidity with more light can influence more of female than male. Do you agree with this? Is sex determined from seed or can it be influenced? I read mixed information on it.

While I know it's an old wives tale, the 5 that I am trying to germinated all sank within 24 hours which I hope means that they will in fact germinate. I sit now with 75 of the seeds left.

Another question is the last 'maybe' female is shorter, nodes are way closer and the plant is bushier than the 2 males who are taller with more spaced apart nodes? Is size and shape of plant indicative of sex?

I am hopeful as it is the last one to show sex although I am not seeing balls so, I'm a happy unit.

So, germinate the 5 (hopefully) Last time, I tried 12 and got 7 which isn't that bad. (I don't think)

If mixed sex do an open pollination instead of using pollen from these 2?

Thanks for all your help.

 

[gorilla ganja]

Males in most strains tend to be taller and wider node space. So they can grow above and drop pollen onto the females.

 

[Bsinger]

Males in most strains tend to be taller and wider node space. So they can grow above and drop pollen onto the females.

Thank you for your answer. I thought so. The males are always prettier looking as well.

Here is a pic of one of the males. Both are about 4 feet tall or so. You can really see the sex on both so I'm hoping the last one is female.

These two have really shown their sex in the last 5-6 days or so.

 

[Bsinger]

This is the plant that I'm hoping is female around 13 weeks or so. In flowering tent with tropicana cookies in flower week 3.

 

[CodyPomeray]

When freezing pollen, always be sure to take the pollen from the freezer and go directly into the fridge, otherwise condensation will build and destroy it for later use. Yes, you can save the pollen you will collect, or use it in the moment, either way works. And what you are doing is totally fine, there are zero issues.

I just mentioned what I did for terms of actual preservation. If you want to make 2k seeds of this to get out there for folks to explore and preserve, then you need to do your best to get all the genes possible represented. The more the merrier. It is not so much about selection right now, but preservation of recessives that could be useful.

 

[Somatek]

Ideally you do a semi open pollination of 5 males on 3 females min. That would give you a large enough selection of genes to preserve, and a full seeding will be in order on the females. Would love to help, dm me if you need any info or ask here.

Where/how did you come up with these numbers? For veggies there's lots of readily available info on separation distances and min population sizes to maintain a seed line through open pollination but haven't found similar for pot. I'd assume it'd be like tomatoes where you'd want 20-50 minimun to prevent bottlenecking

 

[CodyPomeray]

Where/how did you come up with these numbers? For veggies there's lots of readily available info on separation distances and min population sizes to maintain a seed line through open pollination but haven't found similar for pot. I'd assume it'd be like tomatoes where you'd want 20-50 minimun to prevent bottlenecking

This is quite litterally making them up, but it is a for instance situation. Ideally I think its been mentioned in multiple places 1-2k of each gender is preferred but that is ideally.

I try to just say to use a higher amount of males on the initial run, as most folks do not like keeping many males around. So its best to "get it done with" at once on a larger "open" pollination. So she has 75 seeds left, ideally you grow them all cull the very very weak ones with no hope and breed the remainder out with very minimal selection.

Thats alot of work for someone just getting into breeding, so to simplify that, saying shoot for 5-7 males and a few choice females is easier. Now again, the more the merrier, but folks generally resonate and like a few plants then kill the rest, just wanted to show the other side.

Edit* Generally speaking I aim to get around 12-20 males and 10 good females if I wanted to do a "preservation" . and this is all with quotes because we cant do that much without serious space.

 

[Bsinger]

This is quite litterally making them up, but it is a for instance situation. Ideally I think its been mentioned in multiple places 1-2k of each gender is preferred but that is ideally.

I try to just say to use a higher amount of males on the initial run, as most folks do not like keeping many males around. So its best to "get it done with" at once on a larger "open" pollination. So she has 75 seeds left, ideally you grow them all cull the very very weak ones with no hope and breed the remainder out with very minimal selection.

Thats alot of work for someone just getting into breeding, so to simplify that, saying shoot for 5-7 males and a few choice females is easier. Now again, the more the merrier, but folks generally resonate and like a few plants then kill the rest, just wanted to show the other side.

Edit* Generally speaking I aim to get around 12-20 males and 10 good females if I wanted to do a "preservation" . and this is all with quotes because we cant do that much without serious space.

This makes total sense to me. Would it be a good idea to 'share' the old seeds around to people, get seeds and go that route? Who do you trust?

 

[Bsinger]

The 2 males are pushing 5 feet tall now and look like this. I am hopeful that the last one not showing sex is going to be the female. I thought I saw white hairs today. Still being hopeful past 13 weeks from seed. sigh

Is it possible for a male plant to be that far behind 2 other males? These males have been sexed for about a week or so.

 

[Bsinger]

First sign of a pistil I think?

I smiled when I went downstairs to check on the 5 that I planted the night before last and 1 has already started to poke through.

 

[gorilla ganja]

The 2 males are pushing 5 feet tall now and look like this. I am hopeful that the last one not showing sex is going to be the female. I thought I saw white hairs today. Still being hopeful past 13 weeks from seed. sigh

Is it possible for a male plant to be that far behind 2 other males? These males have been sexed for about a week or so.

Why keep the big males around? If you want to get pollen just root a clone and throw it into flower when they are small.

It is possible for a male to be behind other males in flowering. But males tend to show first and flower first before females.
So the longer it goes before showing sex usually means female in my experience.

The plants are looking good.

Peace GG

 

[Bsinger]

Why keep the big males around? If you want to get pollen just root a clone and throw it into flower when they are small.

It is possible for a male to be behind other males in flowering. But males tend to show first and flower first before females.
So the longer it goes before showing sex usually means female in my experience.

The plants are looking good.

Peace GG

Thanks for your reply.

Shouldn't I take pollen off of these two before culling them? Or as you say, is it best just to take clones off of them now and cull? I could use the tent. hahaha

 

[gorilla ganja]

I would take several clones off each. Just to make sure some live. You can plant several in a solo cup. Make sure to mark them to keep track. When they root in a week or so, throw them into flower. You will get plenty of pollen off them still. You do not need much of a plant to produce enough pollen for thousands of seeds.
If you're unsure of your cloning skills, keep the large plant around till the clones root.

Just a thought, you don't need pollen off a 5 ft male or two, it's overkill.

Peace GG

 

[Somatek]

This is quite litterally making them up, but it is a for instance situation. Ideally I think its been mentioned in multiple places 1-2k of each gender is preferred but that is ideally.

That seems like it's going from one extreme to another. Considering there's only 20 chromosomes in the cannabis genome, I can't imagine needing thousands of plants to maintain the hardy-weinberg equilibrium.

I try to just say to use a higher amount of males on the initial run, as most folks do not like keeping many males around. So its best to "get it done with" at once on a larger "open" pollination. So she has 75 seeds left, ideally you grow them all cull the very very weak ones with no hope and breed the remainder out with very minimal selection.

This would be logical and how an open pollination is typically done. As many seeds are grown from the select gene pool, any off type's are rogued out and no other selection pressure is applied to maintain as much of the gene pool as possible. Once you start deciding to use a small portion of the crop it's no longer an accurate representation of the gene pool, more your version of what was in there which may or may not be better based on how good your selections were.

Thats alot of work for someone just getting into breeding, so to simplify that, saying shoot for 5-7 males and a few choice females is easier. Now again, the more the merrier, but folks generally resonate and like a few plants then kill the rest, just wanted to show the other side.

This feels a bit contradictory to me, if the seeds are special and worth putting all this effort into preserving, having the experience/knowledge to do that seems like a quintessential first step. Especially as the biggest part of breeding is making good selections, not ones driven by emotional attachments or ideas but through known, observed traits being selected for. If you want to be serious about breeding you should be making all selections post harvest when the quality, yield and potency can be evaluated to remove that subjective nature.

In this case specifically if the OP has a license for over 200 plants and 75 seeds left and is convinced the project is worth it then designing an actual program including open pollination and line breeding based on post selection harvest makes the most sense as they have the numbers to make it work.

 

[Somatek]

This makes total sense to me. Would it be a good idea to 'share' the old seeds around to people, get seeds and go that route? Who do you trust?

This is the opposite of what you'd want to do if you want to preserve the seed line. Ideally you'd grow them all out at once, but realistically I assume you'd have to break them into a couple batches. From there you'd eliminate any that show negative traits, leaving as many as possible. Depending on whether you're seeding whole plants or individual branches you'd evaluate the flower or make hash to compare the quality, potency of the plants. After that you could start making selective crosses or choose to only keep the seeds from the best plants, generally seeds from sub par plants aren't kept so they don't drag the quality down.

Seeds from the open pollination would be good to share, especially with people known to give quality grow reports and who grow larger batches of seeds at once. That lets you see what's in the seeds you've created and helps determine which lines to continue with. I forgot to mention you should really keep all the seeds separate if you want to breed, so you have the option of picking seeds from specific plants for pheno hunting and trying to improve the line.

 

[Bsinger]

Clearing out the tents to make room for the 'girl' who showed being female tonight. Wahoo.....The 70 seeds are going in the dirt in stages.

You guys have been amazing. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

I am hopeful with the 'maybe' panama red female who decided to show me her sex almost at 14 weeks from seed. I have had her in 12/12 forever and have plants that are showing sex at 3-4 weeks.

In the last year, this has been the only time I had a shot of a really nice peaty scotch.

Time to take over the world. Let's bring it back. I have 70 plants left and culled the 2 males but took 4 clones off of each and they are in my aquarium filter.

Anyone want to help me now. I have NO idea if it's a true panama red but whatever it is, I think it's a good thing and nothing wrong with asking for help. BTW- 17 clones are female when I Went to check the babies at my friends house

 

[hellfire]

I don't know if it has been mentioned yet but feeding flowering nutrients can sometimes cause plants to show sex that are stubborn. Great project and nice looking leaves on those plants. That last pic is a female pistil. Looking forward to seeing the seed production.

In my experience sexing landraces doesn't always follow what we normally think of in cannabis. I have had short males, tall lanky females, plants with lots of growth around nodes making it hard to sex, females taller than males in the same line etc.

Happy growing

 

[Bsinger]

I don't know if it has been mentioned yet but feeding flowering nutrients can sometimes cause plants to show sex that are stubborn. Great project and nice looking leaves on those plants. That last pic is a female pistil. Looking forward to seeing the seed production.

In my experience sexing landraces doesn't always follow what we normally think of in cannabis. I have had short males, tall lanky females, plants with lots of growth around nodes making it hard to sex, females taller than males in the same line etc.

Happy growing

I feed aquarium water always, budjuice and honey water weekly. I also grow in ocean forest from the gate.

Do I need more?