# Sterile seed - advice needed



## leafminer (Sep 26, 2008)

I've had a big disaster this year.
I bought some Aurora (Afghan indica) and at the same time grew some Mexican sativa. One of the male sativas turned out to be very potent, better than some females I've sampled. Very smelly. It eventually turned hermie.
Anyway, I pollinated the Aurora females with my high potency sativa male and produced quite a lot of seed.
The seed looks great - large, dark, just what I hoped for. But it seems to be completely infertile! I have tried soaking, oh I dunno, maybe 100 seeds so far. None have germinated. Not one. 
*** is going on with this? Has the Dutch supplier of the Aurora given me some kind of seed that produces plants that won't reproduce? The sativa produces fertile seed with another sativa.


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## zipflip (Sep 26, 2008)

i honestly couldnt tell ya myself, sorry... but ur back on the top again


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## leafminer (Sep 26, 2008)

Thanks ..
I had a bad experience with the seed supplier. The first 10 failed to germinate or took ages, and the seedlings just sat there for weeks - never grew any bigger - then died off.
They sent me 10 more. Six germinated, I lost three to soil pests, grew three but since I was after my own 50-50 aurora/oaxaca strain, I sacrificed most of the bud to make seed. So now I have hundreds of my new strain of seed, but it is totally useless! 
I had two seeds left and just now tried to germinate them with no luck at all, which makes me think the supplier sent me old seed because I have two year old oaxaca seed that I can still get to germinate.
Having said all that, the aurora is a really nice smoke. The oaxaca by contrast makes me paranoid and I see purple clouds round car rear lights (legacy of all the acid I suppose)


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## King Bud (Sep 26, 2008)

> One of the male sativas turned out to be very potent, better than some females I've sampled. Very smelly. It eventually turned hermie.


:huh:
Male turned hermie? Typo maybe?


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## zipflip (Sep 27, 2008)

that makes me wonder...  if a female can later on turn hermie thus acquirin male aspects as well as maintainin female..   how come the male cant turn female later on. lol  i dont know if its a stupid ? or not but i'm sure there's some scientific explanation why.


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## Hick (Sep 27, 2008)

leafminer said:
			
		

> I've had a big disaster this year.
> I bought some Aurora (Afghan indica) and at the same time grew some Mexican sativa. One of the male sativas turned out to be very potent, better than some females I've sampled. Very smelly. It eventually turned hermie.
> Anyway, I pollinated the Aurora females with my high potency sativa male and produced quite a lot of seed.
> The seed looks great - large, dark, just what I hoped for. But it seems to be completely infertile! I have tried soaking, oh I dunno, maybe 100 seeds so far. None have germinated. Not one.
> *** is going on with this? Has the Dutch supplier of the Aurora given me some kind of seed that produces plants that won't reproduce? The sativa produces fertile seed with another sativa.


  tha's a stumper for me leaf'.. :confused2:   .. I've made a few seeds, and never recall seeds that ripened/matured have a "0" germ' rate..


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## leafminer (Sep 27, 2008)

King Bud said:
			
		

> :huh:
> Male turned hermie? Typo maybe?



Surprised me too. There were 5 oaxaca plants about 1m tall (this is a pure sativa) and I took a good sniff of each one.  This was some local bag seed I kept from half a lid of really strong stuff.
I found one particular plant that had a very strong skunky smell, like cheese.

When they were about 2m tall they began to flower and to my disgust they were all male, no question of it.

The other 4 males didn't have the smell so I ripped them out and flung them in the trash. I was curious about the smelly one so I cured some and tried it; it knocked me flat. Stronger than many females I tried.

So, my next thought was, if I had such a strong male I would cross it with my pure indicas, the Aurora, and make a new strain that might be a real winner.
A while later the skunky male sativa was in full flower with pollen flying everywhere so I pollinated my Auroras with it. Sure enough seeds began to form pretty damn quick. I thought, great, next crop I'll plant these, select the best and begin to refine my own strain. I even began dreaming up names for it.

Meanwhile I found female flowers on the plant and saw that it had turned hermie. I got some seeds from it, too.

I tried to germinate the seeds from the hermie male but they wouldn't germinate. This surprised me but I wasn't too bothered because who wants hermie seed anyway? So I waited for my new seed strain. 
When the new strain was mature I took the seed, let it dry for about three weeks, put it in a sealed bottle in the fridge for a couple of weeks, and then tried germinating it. I have tried and tried but it seems useless... opening a seed, it looks like any other normal seed. Just doesn't work.
Now, maybe I shouldn't blame the Aurora considering that the hermie Oaxaca seed didn't work either. Maybe I have just discovered something: that seed from a male hermie is sterile?


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## Hick (Sep 28, 2008)

> Now, maybe I shouldn't blame the Aurora considering that the hermie Oaxaca seed didn't work either. Maybe I have just discovered something: that seed from a male hermie is sterile?


....THAT isn't 'un'common among hermies.. BUT.. it should have reflected in the "seed making".. IMO. as in "no seeds" rather than producing sterile seeds.. :confused2:


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## papabeach1 (Sep 28, 2008)

if those seeds dont spout,  then its no good.

live with that.... you do not want to work too hard over little seeds that will not spout,  try soak it for a week, if it hasnt spout,  its just a shell of the seed itself..


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## New_2_Chronic (Sep 28, 2008)

IM still confused here.....you sampled the MALE and it knocked you on yo ***? did you smoke the seedpods? Males dont produce buds.

Your judging your weed by how they smell in VEG????? Now im even more confused.... Males tend to be more smelly than females, so if you threw the ones that didnt smell away those were probably females....



> Maybe I have just discovered something: that seed from a male hermie is sterile?



A Male Hermie?:doh: 


this whole thread is confusing? is it just a typo?


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## leafminer (Sep 28, 2008)

New_2_Chronic said:
			
		

> IM still confused here.....you sampled the MALE and it knocked you on yo ***? did you smoke the seedpods? Males dont produce buds.
> 
> Your judging your weed by how they smell in VEG????? Now im even more confused.... Males tend to be more smelly than females, so if you threw the ones that didnt smell away those were probably females....
> 
> ...



==================================================
All the Oaxaca plants were male, as I could easily see from the 'balls' - the early male flowers. But only one had that incredible smell so I discarded the others and kept that one out of curiosity. Because it smelt so strong I cured some of the top leaves and early flowers and smoked it. And it was pretty good! In fact I kept cropping it until my Auroras were ready.
Later, I could see female parts growing on the same plant, and these did produce seeds. I'm guessing it was such a good smoke because of its hermie nature. So I got fooled . . . 
The really annoying thing is that all the Auroras were female because I'd wanted to get some pure Aurora seed as well.
I made some clones but soil pests got them, I now have only two Auroras left and I am regenerating them under a 150W HPS lamp. They seem to be doing ok but slow . . . . if they regenerate well I'll begin cloning using coco.


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## New_2_Chronic (Sep 28, 2008)

I dont think males copntain any THC.....so I dont know how you got loaded smaoking the leaves and flowers of the male........

Just so you know the plant was never Male....it was always Hermie.... The male preflowers just showed before the female...


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## Mr.Wakenbake (Sep 28, 2008)

There can be plants of confused sex on both sides of the spectrum. Males can turn hermie and shoot female pistils and females can sprout nuts.
I have had one male which produced male flowers on one of it's twin heads, and on the other head or branch be 100% female. weird i know, but it's the truth.

Now. Here is an explanation of why your seeds could be sterile. From what i read on breeding a female which produces a male flower or two (hermies) will produce pollen that should be potent and fertile. So thus you get female seeds( although with hermie tendancies) not necessarily 100% female seeds rather. 

Males that spit out female flowers and self pollinate tend to produce sterile seed, or predominately male plants from the seed that is produced. 

Now.. if you took pollen from the male plant and transplanted it to another female in the room that is un related which is what sounds like happened, you should of gotten fertile seeds that should pop. 

Honestly the problem here looks like either your germination method or the media that you choose to grow them in. Germination of seeds isn't just a slam shut case, some strains can take days to pop and sometimes a week or more. Thai seeds are notorious for taking up to 3 weeks to pop...:holysheep:

I think overall you have gotten impatient with your seeds and began thinking something was wrong before there actually was something wrong. I would love to hear how you germed them so i can see where else if anywhere you went wrong before you blame the seeds. 9 times out of 10 it's the grower and not the seeds/plant and i would like to rule that possibility out ...AND MALES DO IN FACT PRODUCE THC... normally it's not in huge amounts and makes harvesting them pointless. But in certain cases the males are extremely potent and resiny and will in fact get you very HIGH/STONED. 

Both MALES and FEMALES  can reverse sex and become a hermaphordite.  A plant doesn't have to be female first to be a hermie as a male can reverse as well, or show opposite sexes on different branches ect. ect.



Anyways hope this info helps.


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## leafminer (Sep 28, 2008)

Thanks for your useful post Mr W.... 
Germination: I usually just soak the seeds in water in a small jar, actually an old supermarket herb jar. At body temperature (I put the jar on top of my satellite receiver). For two days, that's usually been enough. When they pop I use a wet tissue to pick them out and place them into a 4" pot of coco fiber.
I let these problem seeds lie around in the water for a week and they failed to pop; instead I could see some kind of fungus on them.
Think it's worth trying another way?


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## Mr.Wakenbake (Sep 28, 2008)

This may be a stupid question, but u should always make sure you dry the seeds out well before you begin to plant or try to germinate. Some growers sun dry them from what i understand. Green seeds right off the plant  are hard to sprout from what i understand. Anyways... try taking some seeds out and letting em dry in a window sill... let em do that for a few days and then try the paper towel method with no soaking or plant directly in moist soil. 

just a shot in the dark though about em being dry seed or not.


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## Hick (Sep 29, 2008)

Mr.Wakenbake said:
			
		

> This may be a stupid question, but u should always make sure you dry the seeds out well before you begin to plant or try to germinate. Some growers sun dry them from what i understand. Green seeds right off the plant  are hard to sprout from what i understand. Anyways... try taking some seeds out and letting em dry in a window sill... let em do that for a few days and then try the paper towel method with no soaking or plant directly in moist soil.
> 
> just a shot in the dark though about em being dry seed or not.


GREAT point waken'.  I've always heard 30 days of drying, to improve the germination rate.


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## trillions of atoms (Sep 29, 2008)

^agreed.....


change the water everyday that the seeds sit in,this will help. once they pop- plant in the medium your growing in or even rapid rooters.


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## bombbudpuffa (Sep 29, 2008)

> Males can turn hermie and shoot female pistils


I had 2 White Rhino males start sprouting hairs all over the place about 3 weeks after the pods showed. Weird but it happens.


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