Male selection: which would you choose and why?

[tropicanna]

So I've got these three males which are a cross of Johnny Blaze and Chemdawg D. Here are some pictures of them side by side for the purpose of comparison. This will be my first time attempting to produce seeds and as you can see i'm getting ready to collect pollen.I wanted to get some input regarding peoples criteria when selecting males for pollination. It is obvious that I'm limited on choices, then again they all exhibit very different characteristics. They were germinated at the same time, grown in the same medium, fertilized in a similar fashion but placed in different positions within the garden,not sure how much influence that could've had. I labeled them from left to right as A,B and C. To start off they are all fragrant. I happened to place label them in order of increasing height. As you can see A is short, has shorter nodal spacing and more fully developed shoot meristems. B follows A in height but has longer inter nodal spacing and its shoot meristems didn't develop fully. Finally C is the tallest one, with the largest leaves, but with that vigor came a long internodal spacing and the shoot meristems aren't quite as developed either.
So, with all that said I would like to hear from people with experience regarding what to do.

 

[Big-Narstie]

Interesting I'm waiting on reply too

 

[waveguide]

as a "forum reader" i've seen a lot more posts lately intimating that male and female inheritance differ. i lack the experience to discern much myself and am unsure whether it's some new technique for keeping nescients feeling inferior and desirous of "expert discretisation".

usually i use all the genetic resources available to me, even poor performing females, because i "believe in diversity" or some hippy calculus kinda shit, so all the guys get some pistils.

the only criteria i use for determining how many pistils each gets that you haven't mentioned (pending they all smell/feel/taste? as nice) is checking trichs on the top leaves with a scope.. again i understand that this does not necessarily correlate with the dankest/stoniest but it's what i like to do for fun. i've had some real lousy plants that produced sparkliest progenitors down the road, not common advice i know.

 

[RustyShcklfrd]

I would definitely try to take pollen from all three and spot pollinate if you just are wanting to do one mom, if not I'd just pollinate three clones, one to each male. I know it's not what your looking for, but you do only have 3 males, so. With just three, the best bet is to just make seeds with all of them and start growing them out. Heck, if you aren't planning on keeping the male for future work,I'd just open pollinate with all three, because at that point it wouldn't matter. Good luck!

 

[Shadimar]

When the flowers being to open, try to get just one nanner or if not then the whole flower under a microscope to check for trichome coverage.

My vote is the one with the most resin on the stamens.

 

[bigtacofarmer]

I choose the ones that taste the best with the best high. Hopefully a few that match my needs. Not sure what else to choose for except for quality off offspring. But that's the point to choosing the right ones to begin with.

 

[Slurm]

what female strains are you using to pollinate? A would be good for a lanky sativa, I like the structure of it most & would pick that myself.

B & C would be males I personally toss, just because I like plants with short gaps & topping it to create a bushy even canopy, all personal preference on what you want in a plant though & how you grow I'd say

 

[Slurm]

what female strains are you using to pollinate? A would be good for a lanky sativa, I like the structure of it most & would pick that myself.

B & C would be males I personally toss, just because I like plants with short gaps & topping it to create a bushy even canopy, all personal preference on what you want in a plant though & how you grow I'd say

EDIT: A looks like its not producing a bunch of balls though, how far into flowering are they? B has a solid production from pictures, id judge yourself cause pictures aren't the real deal ! sorry I'm high just an add on & cant edit posts (or just don't know how)

 

[Miraculous Meds]

So I've got these three males which are a cross of Johnny Blaze and Chemdawg D. Here are some pictures of them side by side for the purpose of comparison. This will be my first time attempting to produce seeds and as you can see i'm getting ready to collect pollen.I wanted to get some input regarding peoples criteria when selecting males for pollination. It is obvious that I'm limited on choices, then again they all exhibit very different characteristics. They were germinated at the same time, grown in the same medium, fertilized in a similar fashion but placed in different positions within the garden,not sure how much influence that could've had. I labeled them from left to right as A,B and C. To start off they are all fragrant. I happened to place label them in order of increasing height. As you can see A is short, has shorter nodal spacing and more fully developed shoot meristems. B follows A in height but has longer inter nodal spacing and its shoot meristems didn't develop fully. Finally C is the tallest one, with the largest leaves, but with that vigor came a long internodal spacing and the shoot meristems aren't quite as developed either.
So, with all that said I would like to hear from people with experience regarding what to do.

Theres so many ways to go with this. u can select for whatever u want. whether the visible trichs are important for u wanting the potential most potent, or aroma is important, etc...

Ive read just a little bit about male selection. the real answer is to test out the seeds made from different males n select based on how the offspring perform. but, otherwise ur just guessing on what u can see physically showing itself now.

I utilize a few notes from dj shorts writings such as, stay away from the earliest flowering males, to reduce the chance of autos n hermies. stay away from the fastest, tallest, stretchy ones. select for good vigor, n hollow stems vs pith filled.

But with 3 males, to keep it real basic, select the one that smells the best, or grows the closest physically structure wise, to the female ur looking to emulate the good traits of.

Theres a couple other good male threads that ive read in this forum as well that are worth checking out for some ideas. I think they are in the breeders sub forum though.

 

[bigtacofarmer]

My nose always leads me toward a perfumy note my taste buds don't care for. Every time I've smoked a selection of males there has been clear winners in both taste and high. (Luckily usually same plants)

 

[BagAppeal]

Or.. you could use two of the males most different and you will have a larger pheno variety to choose with when making your f2s,,but I agree odor as well as the structure you are looking for is an indication of which one to choose. It comes down to what you want to use it for as well, so there are a lot of personal choices to make..
or if you want to test the result, cross one female to all males separately.. grow out the offspring and select your keeper male..
Good luck!

All the best

BagAppeal

 

[Chunkypigs]

I just had to make that decision recently for the second BX of my OGKB 2.0 Girl Scout Cookies, I'm calling the strain ScoutBreath.

I had 4 males that were quite similar from the first backcross of the OGKB 2.0 and it's brother CookieBoi and in the absence of testing I decided to use all 4 mixed.
it seems like the best chance to preserve the genetics to me.
I only grew out 12 beans from the first backcross so the gene pool was small to begin with.

I would like to do a larger selection at some point and look for a male that resembles the father more.
CookieBoi grows squat and indica dominate but his flowers are really large compared to most of the males I've flowered fully.

 

[wkoots]

I like short plants and tight internodes indoors, if you use all 3 males don't mix the pollen.Fertilize three separate buds or clones while it gives you more stuff to deal with your going to get the best male regardless.My male selection goes (in what ever order) trics on seedlings when first sprouted above ground.smell,short bushy structure and dense lush growth,dense flower structure and trics on flowers also leaf type if I know that plants charcteristics as in looks like mothers leaf type. I wish icmag had spell check for dumb asses like me

 

[tropicanna]

Hey Meds where did you get D.J.'s writings from? The reason I am working with this cross is because I couldn't find Johnny Blaze seeds, so I decided to go with the next best thing.This was one of a few crosses available from beanhorder @ hemp depot.I decided to go with it because I had plenty of early harvest chemdawg in portland and I really liked both the flavor and effects. I met D.J. at HTCC in Seattle back in 2013 and had a quick chat with him. I asked him for a suggestion on a variety that would be suited for the tropical climate where I live that would be along the lines of blueberry strains and he told me to look up gypsy nirvana and try to get Johnny Blaze due to the sativa leaning blueberry lineage crossed with Neville's haze. Little did he know that the remaining Johnny Blaze seeds had been sold out back in 2012. Male C was the fastest/tallest stretchy one and actually had less hollowed meristem than A which is the shorter/bushier with shorter internodal spacing and happens to have the most amount of pollen sac clusters, so I guess I can scratch that one.Male B has a weird structure to it, it is about the same height as A but a bit longer internodal spacing but the shoot stems were not fully developed by the time I pulled the out of the garden. I think that gives me a good starting point to attempt some inbreeding, I've got 6 females of the same variety coming up and 30 cuttings of one female who's in day 40 of flower. I also have 2 highland oxacan females which I might try to cross with. I also have this mozambiquen poison which takes forever to flower and I might cross A with too.

 

[Betterhaff]

If it were me I would use all three males to individually pollinate your females (selective branches or separate clones). This way it’s like an open pollination but you have the lines separated. That’s just me though.

3 males is a small sample so trying to whittle it down further is really a crap shoot unless they are just bad plants, ie lack of vigor, growing issues. If you have to you can collect and save pollen.

If you are just looking to make seeds and preserve the most genetics an open pollination works too (mixing pollen from all 3) but if one or more of the males is a dud seeds from those are going to be in the mix.

 

[Miraculous Meds]

yeah, the jb with the sat leaning bb dad, would have been a awesome choice for ur tropical location.

its in the breeders lab. here u go. https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=42050

 

[waveguide]

My nose always leads me toward a perfumy note my taste buds don't care for. Every time I've smoked a selection of males there has been clear winners in both taste and high. (Luckily usually same plants)

if OP hasn't picked up on it.. even if it's not flowering, you can take some new leaves near the top (most trichs) dry them out and smoke them.. ignore the chlorophyll and a bit harsh but i often find a bowl or two will feel about like a hit of bud.

if they are flowering already, people usually smoke the flowers (i'm real cautious about smoking pollen though.. get the feeling it's not the best for lungs).

 

[therevverend]

I would use A and C chuck B. Label carefully keep the pollen seperate. A would be better indoors as well as good outdoors. I would use C for big large yielding fast growing outdoor as well as try it indoors.

 

[therevverend]

When I select males I always start with the most vigorous fastest growing, biggest. Then I look for short stocky bushy female-like characteristics. Of course aroma is very important.
I toss the hempy, no smell, non-bushy rope making material.

 

[Scrappy-doo]

Hell yeah if youre making f2s I'd use all 3 males on your keeper female then once you grow out and smoke the females you will have a better idea of what traits you want to find in an f2 male.