Turning one Female branch to Male for pollen

[Aksarben]

I have some Autoflower growing and have a Heavy Weight Seed (HWS) High Density Auto that I experimented on to see about making "female" pollen for making up more feminized seeds. I work in the lab at a local winery and I made up a 2 part concoction that when blended together, "A" = "B" I end up with Silver Thio Sulfate or STS for short. I sprayed one arm of this plant, near the bottom, with this STS cut with RO water at least 2 times daily at the nodes and where it looked like female flowers were beginning to form. Kept it up for several days. I have posted a picture here to get input if I was succcessful in transforming a female to male. I realize if I pollinate another High Density Auto that it should still be High Density Auto, but because I used pollen that does not have the normal DNA from a male, all the seeds produced from such a plant should be feminized.

If I use this pollen on some Jack Herer Auto I just started up, will they also have feminized seeds? I realize it will be a cross of Jack Herer Auto (Seedsman) X HWS High Density Auto. I have one Jack Herer Auto (Seedsman) that is a little older than the others that just started and I could do the same to it when it gets big enough, and then use that pollen to fertilize the female Jack Herer plants to have true feminized Jack Herer Auto seeds.

I believe from the pictures that I was successful at turning a single stem from Female to Male for pollen.

 

[SmokeRich211]

I can't believe that, great work!

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Congratulations, you created a hermy…..

 

[Rosebud]

And you will not get feminized seeds. So not so impressed with you making plants hermaphrodite. Just don't share your seeds please, it can ruin crops.

 

[Aksarben]

Well, according to this link: and quite a few others. Using STS (which most prefer) or Colloidal Silver can make feminized seeds. I believe this is how it is done commercially.
Do a search of Youtube.com for "Cannabis Feminized seeds" and you get plenty of hits.
This link from Royal Queen Seeds talks about making feminized seeds. https://www.royalqueenseeds.com/blog-how-to-make-feminized-cannabis-seeds-like-the-pros-n1117

So, yes, I do believe I can make feminized seeds like this at home. It is one of a few ways to achieve this.

 

[Aksarben]

This is actually just one branch of the plant, which i cloned for this. The rest of the plant is doing great for making female buds and has nice colas, considering it has blown off my outside stand on my porch a coupe of times.. LOL Wife actually wants me to perfect this so she can sell the seeds. Novelty hemp seeds of course. "wink - wink"
This is the plant the branch I cloned came from:

 

[KamIntigE]

Photo was taken 501 Alpha ... Blue radio is an interesting one ... The Cobra Branch can drill a hole into any surface and spray water into it.

 

[QBCrocket]

Interesting Vid Aksarben , that has confirmed what I had been told years ago , hermie polland used to pollinate another female will give you feminised seeds , have asked the question on HP before with no reply -Hermie is a dirty word around here I have noticed - I would never go down that road as I believe clones are the best way to grow but fair play to you for making it work , be interesting to hear if your next gen seeds turn out feminised , pity you cant smoke that plant though , hope its worth it.

 

[Aksarben]

pity you cant smoke that plant though , hope its worth it.

Just one more thing @QBCrocket You can clone any cannabis, it's easy as pie, but an Autoflower has it's DNA set to only grow for so long, so you end up with smaller and smaller plants if you clone a clone, etc. from an Autoflower. But, it is a great way to put roots to a side branch for the this purpose, which I did(cloned). It's a small branch, but separated from the rest of the plant and resides inside the house. The rest of the plant is outside, so should be quite good.

Once you understand Marijuana, to me, it is one of the easiest plants to grow.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Of course they will be female, but that is not really how RESPONSIBLE breeders make fem seeds. Yes, hermy is a dirly word around here, as it should be everywhere. Hermies are a blight on cannabis and are generally created when people think all they need to do to make "fem" seeds is to treat them with chemicals.

 

[Aksarben]

Of course they will be female, but that is not really how RESPONSIBLE breeders make fem seeds. Yes, hermy is a dirly word around here, as it should be everywhere. Hermies are a blight on cannabis and are generally created when people think all they need to do to make "fem" seeds is to treat them with chemicals.

I don't have 18,000 posts, and being "newbie" on the scene I may not be taken very serious, but I tell you all this, Chemical means is the main way that RESPONSIBLE breeder make feminized seeds. If you stress a plant or go weeks past normal harvest date, you can end up with seed from Rodelization and "that" can cause hermies.
From a link I'll post below: "Without any doubt, one of the most commonly used methods for both producers and seed banks. This is a solution made of distilled water, silver nitrate and sodium thiosulphate " which is what I use, called STS or Silver Thiosulfate.. short life span so you have to make up fresh batches from A + B for it to even work right.

The link is right here from my above quote. https://www.alchimiaweb.com/blogen/make-feminised-cannabis-seeds-ok/

Another link to further your reading is here: https://greenpointseeds.com/how-to-make-feminized-seeds/
Using Colloidal silver or STS is really the actual way seed breeders are making their feminized seeds. Males have XY where females have XX chromosomes. The STS inhibits the formation/creation of a hormone ethylene, which can transform a female to male, BUT with only the DNA and chromosomes of the female being used, no XY (male) genetic chromosomes will develop.

By providing links, I utilize the learning and experience of those in this "sphere" that have years more experience then myself.

 

[Aksarben]

One more thing.... In Ed Rosenthal's book "Marijuana Grower's Handbook" on pages 421 to 425 making feminized seeds is discussed, including an insert from founder of DUTCH PASSION SEED COMPANY, (Netherlands) Henk Van Dalen who uses chemicals to suppress the Ethylene production to make Feminized seeds. Ed Rosenthal even talks about making and using STS to create feminized seeds on page 425. Virtually all commercial seed producers use this method to create the feminized seeds they sell you. I merely am able to do it at home due to my lab experience and about anyone with care and following direction of the recipe/formula, has access to do the same.

 

[Aksarben]

If anyone can provide links to something other than STS and colloidal silver that commercial breeders are using I would be most interested. But as I know it, this is a reliable method of using STS to induce "female" XX pollen on an otherwise female plant, AND it has the benefit of containing the DNA of the Female, so offspring are quite likely to be just like the "mother" plant. Only way to get 100% exact is cloning, which is not a feasibility with growing autoflowers, but is with photoperiod plants. There is some ways that may be possible even with Autoflower and that is tissue culture, but I have to research it a lot more. Also I was reading that they have done tissue culture and combined it with certain proceedures to produce plants with more chromosomes that what they had originally, making them a larger plant.. diploid and polyploid plants. Some wheats are diploid, and I Triticale (wheat x Rye cross) are hybrids and some are hexaploid, some are even octaploid meaning multiple extra sets of chromosomes. So there is some research done in cannabis to create polyploid plants.

 

[QBCrocket]

Of course they will be female, but that is not really how RESPONSIBLE breeders make fem seeds. Yes, hermy is a dirly word around here, as it should be everywhere. Hermies are a blight on cannabis and are generally created when people think all they need to do to make "fem" seeds is to treat them with chemicals.

Hi HG Me being old school think the whole feminised seed thing is not for me , I like the anticipation of finding out if the seeds are female or male and the highs and lows that go along with it, to me its all apart of the addiction , I don't think fishing would be as fun if you caught fish every cast , But this is the new commercial world of pot , I don't know how they make auto flowers but to me that's only so you have to keep buying seeds , its all playing god , genetically modifying for profit the way of the world in all crops not just cannabis , But on the flip side all this experimentation has also brought about the wonderful strains we now have to choose from and turning one branch like that is really quite amazing .

 

[Aksarben]

I don't know how they make auto flowers

[FONT=Book Antiqua][SIZE=5]@QBCrocket[/SIZE][/FONT] it is really quite simple how they make Autoflower strains. There are 3 basic varieties of Cannabis. Cannabis sativa L. there is C. indica, C. sativa, and a more northern variety called C. ruderalis It is in the breeding and crossing of these strains that we have so many of the different varieties, like GSC, Grape Ape, and others, and... if they want to make a smaller, quick to mature from seed to harvest, they cross stable strains with C. ruderalis. Cannabis ruderalis is not a very big plant, and is not a photoperiod, but when combined, and you add in it's genetics to some strains, and especially if those strains were part of an original crossings (that had ruderalis in the mix, then you are going to get a plant that from the time of germination has a short life span, sometimes only 9 weeks before harvest. The Autoflower seed sprouts, and grows and within a few weeks irregardless of length of daylight, it will start flowering. From there it matures rather quickly as the C. ruderalis trait that allows Cannabis to grow to maturing in shorter growing seasons of the north. Many times it has a variety of traits of the C. sativa or C. indica but never gets very large, but allows one to grow several crops in one season, and sometimes you can use this to your advantage in allowing the multiple stains available in the "Autoflower" varieties. I have growing Norther Lights, Jack Herer, Amnesia, Zkittlez, all in Autoflower strains. The Zkittlez grew and are already harvested. Coming online are the Purple Kush, Amnesia, and Northern Lights Auto. Still to grow after they get close to their end of life, are the Jack Herer and GDP x Pinkberry. Probably the last we will grow here in SW Michigan for the year.

BTW, I was reading in Rosenthal's book that some varieties that do quite well growing outdoors, don't react well to the indoor lights and growing and stress out and can produce hermies from that. If one does have a true hermaphrodite, you should eliminate it. Only use stable strains for creating feminized seeds and pay attention to those that grow and how they are doing.

More info on Cannabis here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_strains
There you will see a picture "graph" that shows the 3 I have mentioned and how they compare to each other in size.

 

[QBCrocket]

cheers AB , you can teach an old dog new tricks

 

[JGVermont1965]

I've always been taught that colloidal silver was the way to produce "feminized" seeds but I leave that sort of thing up to the real breeders.
Hermaphrodites are horrible creatures in the growing world, no matter how they are made, but technically I would have to say that you've arrived at exactly what you were shooting for but the proof will be in the next generations, will it be stable?
Will it have hermaphroditic tendencies, will it just throw a male flower out in the middle of budding and pollinate your entire crop ?
Those are just a couple of the things you need to know before you should even start THINKING about putting those beans on the market, there are enough fly by night companies out there tossing untested, inferior genetics around, make sure you're not in it for the money but for love of the plant, if you can't do that you're going to be just another hack stealing from fellow growers.
Good luck

 

[Aksarben]

I agree @JGVermont1965 one must test these seeds thoroughly to make sure that what you are offering is righteous. We were thinking of local sales, strictly in Michigan. I believe this is just the first "baby" step toward feminized seeds. One must grow and test several to make sure that the plant is stable and does not have a tendency to throw hermaphrodites. But, even in nature, some of these crosses and hybrids can have the abilty to turn from one stress or another regardless of chemical manipulation. It is the plants "need to survive" by letting it create seeds. If it did not get pollinated this year, that plant may produce enough pollen to make a few seeds in home that perhaps next year things will be better and it's gene pool will be kept alive.... Immortality.

Leaving a plant too long after it has reached harvest maturity is also an issues in creating hermies, as I was reading that simply overly late harvest will produce some female "pollen" as a last ditch effort on the plant for reproduction.

 

[Aksarben]

A little additional biology for all....
"Feminized seeds are the result of a process that reverses the sex of a female plant, that is, she is forced to produce male flowers. This way, and once into flowering, the female chosen will start to develop what we know as male flowers (stamens and anthers), which, just like male plants, will release the pollen that will pollinate the female plants. What is then the difference between a male plant and a reverted female plant?

The sex of cannabis plants is determined in the same way as ours, through the so-called sex chromosomes or genosomes. Male plants have a couple of different sex chromosomes called “XY” or heterogametic, while female plants have two chromosomes called “XX” or homogametic. When crossing a male (XY) with a female (XX), we will obtain around half of the plants of each type in their offspring. In other words, when a breeder uses a male and a female plant, the seeds produced by them will be approximately 50% males and 50% females.

After this explanation, many of you will have already figured out that if we cross two female plants (reversing the sex of one of them to force it to produce pollen), the result will be seeds that will produce female plants, as there are only female sex chromosomes in the equation. If crossing XY with XX produced 50% of each class (male and female), crossing XX with XX will produce plants that only exhibit chromosomes XX, that is to say, female plants. No matter how many times we “transform” a female plant into a male plant, we won´t be changing their genetic composition, which will still be female or XX. This way, the pollen produced by this plant will pass down female sex chromosomes exclusively." copy/pasted and shared with you all from here: https://www.alchimiaweb.com/blogen/make-feminised-cannabis-seeds-ok/

 

[Aksarben]

A bit more information... STS will not create hermies, nor will it prevent them. Stressing any Cannabis flower at the time of flowering can induce hermaphrodites, and I suspect that what we all are seeing in recent issues with this are new growers, stressing out their plants, probably more on indoor growing than on outdoor growing. Article that talks about what I just said, here: -> https://steemit.com/cannabis/@thecl...abis-pollen-featuring-the-gorgeous-early-dane