Selecting males?

[Weeddoctor]

I want to breed my own seeds the first time. What about selecting males? What criteria do you use?

I heard the first flowering males should be dismissed, cause they will bring out lots of hermies. Is that true?

Should I just look for the growing shape or do you smoke the males to test them?

 

[LittleAmsterdam]

That's a trait I look for in my males and females. Never had any problems with herms.

 

[canna woop!]

find males that represent the phenotypes you wish to see carried on. you will know which males are superior based on their aroma and even their feel. Nice males will be sticky and have strong yet pleasant aroma's

 

[growhi]

as others have said pick your males on smell (rubbing the stem ) the structure of the plant if you want height , or thick and stocky for example !! and bye this you can sort of get a indication of the traits that will be passed on !! esp if you are selecting from a hybrid short stocky males more indica traits !! taller and thinner , more sativa traits !!

resin on the male is a excellent sign of a good male too !

but really its all just a educated guess untile you test the seeds made from the male

 

[Granger2]

You can select based on several traits as stated above. I read awhile back that some males can be selected for potency by using a lens to look at the cotyledon leaves. Some will have something like trichomes. Good luck. -granger

 

[Weeddoctor]

Thanx a lot for your comments! I dunno where I read about the early males, it was on any board in the web. But I found this idea also confusing. Commen sense said to me, early flowers are exactly what I should search for!

Of cause I wanted to select my males by growing form and shape, Indica/Sativa traits, would pick out the strongest healthiest and so on, but, what is so difficult to estimate is the potency, the THC-building, the smell and so on.

Never smoked a male.

Guess this will be my first time. A Chronic male gets his first little pre balls.

 

[kayakush22]

I generally do it off strains I like. I also like to look at the size of the rootball as well after I. pull it.

 

[LittleAmsterdam]

I clone all my plants to keep them going for awhile including the males. Some clone super easy and other don't at all. Only the strong vigorous ones stay around. Males and Females.

 

[LittleAmsterdam]

I read somewhere that germinating and vegging your plants in the Fall sun would help promote males.

I'm testing that now with some seeds I got purposely looking for a male. So far 3 have pre-flowered male. I've topped them and topped again. Next time I'll take cuts for clones, future moms and pollen batches.

 

[FunTimesIndeed]

Stank, structure, and overall plant vigor, just like everyone else said.

If you can save cuttings from different males and keep them going after tasting their offspring, then you'll know for sure what males are your favorite and will be best armed for the next generation's father selection--provided you are pollinating individual branches on one lady with different males or taking cuttings from one mom.

 

[stihgnobevoli]

whichever male gets the biggest fastest.

 

[NEW ENGLAND]

Besides the other factors mentioned,I look for which has the most formed clusters
of male flowers.

 

[c-ray]

what strain(s) are you planning to work with?

if you are planning to make an outcross the best thing you can do is use an IBL male, because the variation will be lessened, and thus your results will be much more predictable..

personally I like to grow the potential parents a few times before making pollinations, because it is not always easy to dial a strain in the first time around so the aromas might not be at full potential in the males..

I like funtimesindeed's suggestion.. if you take multiple cuts of your chosen females then you can pollinate each one with a separate male, grow out the progeny and then decide which male(s) were to your liking.. much better way to go about things since we are aiming for the best combinations, not necessarily the best smelling, looking etc male.. same thing can be done by pollinating separate branches but that is a little trickier, involves some techniques for best results..

 

[Weeddoctor]

Thank you for all your comments! I think I've found a very early flowering male. I just watered my plants just to find one of my Chronic males to preflower like nuts. I haven't grown males before, I killed them when I found they're males ;-)
Is this normal to find preflowers like on this pics?




On this pics you see the whole plant and on the last you catch a peek in my growroom. My mothers and fathers so far. In the backline is AK47, second line is Chronic and the line in the front is White Russian. In the middle are two more plants form Barneys seed. This two are one feminised LSD and one feminised Acapulco Gold. The difference in size and shape is explained by different age and different top cuttings, just for experiment and compare purposes.



Just checked my calendar. The plants grew exactly on the day 6 weeks and the LSD and AG five weeks. LSD and AG were much earlier topped than the other plants. I want to keep them small, cause I grew clones. They are right now getting roots. In a couple of days they will move into soil and it gets more and more difficult for me to handle so much plants, due to my limited space.

 

[c-ray]

looks like they need some sulfate

 

[Weeddoctor]

looks like they need some sulfate

They need a lots of. I keep them hungry. I don't want them to get to big. I grow them on lightmix soil and they just got a very little bit fertilizer exactly one time, with EC 0,7.

When I would fertilize them, they would grow like mad.

 

[Weeddoctor]

I've found again the thread about tossing the early males:

http://www.420magazine.com/forums/seeds-clones-strains/74299-subcools-breeding-better-cannabis.html

"The earliest males to show sex get tossed, no ifs ands or buts. Dominant males are useless for drug (misuse of this rule has caused more hermaphrodite strains than the world deserves) Cannabis."

and furthermore:

"The first mistake people make in selecting a male is by choosing the most vigorous. Remember those complexities I mentioned earlier? Well, the recessive drug traits we seek are stashed away in non-vigorous males. Think about the plant in the wild, the natural progression of Cannabis is back to Hemp. The drugs strains we have today are a direct result of human intervention. Robert Clark says it better “In the wild, the early males always win the breeding contest. Without proper selection, these early males cause "acclimatization" of the variety, and a decrease in drug quality. This is the "dominant" state of Cannabis. If it were otherwise, why would we need breeders? All you would have to do is let the plants do their own thing and they would become more potent over time, but they don't."

So what about this early males story? Does anybody know something more about that? Is it true, that the early flowering males bring out more hermies?
And that the "drug strains" we're searching for are more likely hidden in the non-vigorous - not to say weaker - males?

 

[hurdy gurdy man]

1. Get a copy of Marijuana Botany by RC Clarke

2. The easiest thing you can do to avoid problems is to not engage in inbreeding (unless you are backcrossing). That said, mix two strains that were from potent stash. Simply crossing heavily seeded bagseed (usually a sativa) with a heavy indica will oftentimes produce a very good result.

3. Have fun testing your results. You'll be amazed!

 

[30years]

hi,
with the advent of lab testing for potency selecting males is not as tough as before. if we record the germination date and test the growing male we can extrapolate data that tells us pretty accurately what the plant will test out to as an adult. i use it on my females and males.
you always have to test out the progeny but knowing that a male is high medium or low potency sure shortens the sifting process. males seem to top out at about 15% thc regardless of type.
best,
30y

 

[hurdy gurdy man]

Hi 30years:

Can you explain what is meant when you say '15% thc'? That is to ask; what is being tested that is 15% thc?