Experimental Journal: Extreme Low-Power Feminized Pollen Production

TheFertilizer

TheFertilizer

Well-Known Member
So I had to shutter my indoor this summer due to the heat. I had an outdoor plant I wanted to sex, and I decided afterward that since I'm not doing anything else with the cloner for a bit, I may as well try to treat it with colloidal silver and see if I can get some feminized pollen.

The reason I shut down my indoor is due to heat and energy restrictions, so I could not use any lighting for this that would use much electricity or heat the place up. Even my 200 T5 might be too much. I decided to go for broke and use those household LED lights. Both are 9w, maybe less even, one is 5000k and the other 2700k. I'm curious to see if it can flower with such little light.

It's been growing pretty well, I finally saw pistils just yesterday and decided to start the cs treatment. I'm only giving it until mid September when clones of the outdoor plant will have to take over for my next indoor run. Hopefully starting to flower now will mean it's pollen sacs are opening up just about the same time rne outdoor plant starts flowering. I will have to preserve the pollen for only a few weeks, and should get some S1 seeds by the end of this run if all goes well.

So anyway the abbreviated details...

Lighting: 2x 9w led, 2700k and 5000k, 860 and 700 lumens respectively
Water: 5.7 pH and 400 ppm and bubbled
Nutrient: Flora Nova Bloom
Strain: Alaskan Thunderfuck
Days: 42

So well see what happens. The light level is very low. For perspective, in a 4x4 space, my 315 W CMH shows 6-8k foot candles at the canopy. These lights are barely above 3k, even right by the lights. Now the other side of this is its not a big plant, and we don't need much male flowers for pollen, so if it flowers at all I think it will be successful and so far it is flowering. This is where the real experiment lays, as I don't think anyone has grown pot with this low of a light level, least not sustained through the entire cycle. But most aren't growing for pollen, so who knows if this is viable. It's something to do while I wait I guess.

So what are the bets?

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If those residential LED bulbs are of the simple flat-plane type (diodes all on one level, pointing the same direction), you could significantly improve your lighting by removing the translucent(?) diffuser globes and pointing the bulbs at the plants instead of sideways (sort of the opposite orientation of what I recommend for CFLs which produce most light to their sides). And it wouldn't use any more electricity (or produce any more heat).
 
TorturedSoul said:
If those residential LED bulbs are of the simple flat-plane type (diodes all on one level, pointing the same direction), you could significantly improve your lighting by removing the translucent(?) diffuser globes and pointing the bulbs at the plants instead of sideways (sort of the opposite orientation of what I recommend for CFLs which produce most light to their sides). And it wouldn't use any more electricity (or produce any more heat).
Click to expand...

Thanks! Was wondering about that. Looks like the dremel will be making an appearance. Pointing them directly at three plant will have to be MacGyver'd though.
 
I have been meaning to try with STS, but still have a full bottle of CS I generated. It seems having false pollen sack formation is pretty recurrent with CS, maybe due to the fine line between how much ethylene it blocks.

My tds meter shows my CS to be about 30 ppm, but I have heard tds meters are not super accurate for this so no telling what it really is.


HoBrah808 said:
This should be interesting! I am just now dabbling with STS with the same goal in mind and am also using small clones in a low wattage setup, lots of parallels for sure.

Pomaika'i!
Click to expand...
 
I am having the same issue with STS, seems I went overboard on the applications. Only one of the four I sprayed has shown any pollen, the others are all loaded with empty sacs. Not surprisingly, the one with pollen was the only one with a few pistils mixed in. She probably resisted just enough... They are all still opening sacs, so hopefully a few late developing sacs on the others will have some viability.
 
HoBrah808 said:
I am having the same issue with STS, seems I went overboard on the applications. Only one of the four I sprayed has shown any pollen, the others are all loaded with empty sacs. Not surprisingly, the one with pollen was the only one with a few pistils mixed in. She probably resisted just enough... They are all still opening sacs, so hopefully a few late developing sacs on the others will have some viability.
Click to expand...
Well I guess now that I know the same happens for STS it makes me wonder if it has as much to do with the silver agent and not as much to do with specifically how much ethylene is blocked.

I have heard the most success from CS coming from those who treat only a few times or every other day or with low ppm solution. My plan is to spray every other day just on the flower sites, until I see pollen sacks forming and stopping then. I'm hoping that the production of ethylene in other parts of the plant will drive sexuality manifestation wheras the silver concentrated at flowering sites will stimulate male gamete and flower production.
 
I believe it's the ethylene blockage, brought on by the silver agent. I have not researched CS, but your research falls in line with the STS research I am seeing now. The early users were only spraying twice, once at flip and again two weeks later. That's it. It has morphed into many more applications over the years, maybe the "more is better" addage is in play here. Seems like we are on the same path, just using different vehicles to block the ethylene. @Icemud has had several ups and downs using both CS and STS, maybe he can add some firsthand experiences that will help us all get this dialed in properly.

I have had four clones in flower stage for two weeks with the idea I was going to pair them for breeding with the original clones I sprayed with STS. Since only one is taking (barely!), I am going to spray one cola of each the three remaining plants with STS (once a week, three applications total) and see what happens. It will probably be too late for any self pollinated seeds to develop, but I can always collect the pollen and it might shed some light on how often to spray them.
 
I think I may have been reading your posts in @Icemud 's journal.

The one time it has worked for me is when I used a small plant, sprayed the entire thing, and I saw pistillate flowers mixed in. The other time I sprayed a smaller clone, saw no pistillate flowers, and got no pollen. However even the first time, I never got copious amounts of pollen.

@electro gypsy was a member here who seemed to have lots of success with CS and he seemed to advocate micro treatment of maybe one or two sprays through the whole grow, and that the male plant should be kept vigorous and healthy.

I get the sense that the variations in success have to do with how diffuse the silver is within a plant, because with these ppm ratings, people are spraying/brushing to much larger or smaller plants and so one person's experience with 30 ppm cs spraying a huge plant might not mirror that of someone spraying a small clone.

My guess, which is basically building on what I think was your speculation, is that the ethylene must be blocked enough that the plant won't produce pistillate flowers, but also not so much that it cannot produce reproductive cells of any kind. So again my guess is that if you have a plant still able to produce viable pistillate flowers during silver application, then it will also be producing viable pollen if staminate flowers form.

I have been thinking about the genetics behind pistillate plants for a while and I believe the silver doesn't need to block ethylene entirely, but instead only needs to mimick an environmental change that takes advantage of cannabis' intersex biomechanisms. In fact I think as you suggested, total ethylene blocking is really only inhibiting the production of pollen. I believe that staminate flowers are the default form of cannabis flower primordia, and that there is a genetic pathway responsible for the biosynthesis of ethylene which causes the formation of pistillate flowers. This is loftily supported by varying ratios of pistillate:staminate flower clusters in intersex specimens in experiments done by K. Hirata with flower mutilation to induce intersex flower formation. I'm not gonna be getting into any botany journals with this theory, but I think it follows enough logic that we can test if it's sound on our own.

So basically my thought is... 100% ethylene biosynthesis = 100% pistillate:staminate flower ratio. 70% ethylene biosynthesis = 70/30 pistillate:staminate ratio, and so on. But as we near 0% ethylene biosynthesis, then the plant is not able to make other fundamental components for reproduction like the gametes that basically form the pollen; perhaps plants form entirely staminate flowers with levels of ethylene still above 0% and taking it down that far is overkill. We really should only need to block a partial amount of ethylene to elecit staminate flowers, while maintaining the pathways needed for healthy production of pollen.

Again though it comes back to how much silver has to be applied to reach those rates of biosynthesis. Especially since it seems to vary even by strain. In my opinion the people doing this need to devise a low-and-slow kind of schedule where we start weekly, with low concentrations, and wait until a certain point of development before we increase concentration and frequency until staminate flowers are seen forming. That way we can stop short of the silver preventing development of pollen, if that is indeed what's happening.

It would be interesting to see if a plant that had been "reversed" to say 99:1 staminate : pistillate flowers ratio could produce a viable seed with that single pistillate flower.
 
I am definitely going ahead with the idea of finding the balance of ethylene blockage that produces sacs but also allows pollen production. I will keep the STS formula the same for now. My next experiments will have to do with variances in spray schedule and number of applications.

Curious to get your take on when the applications should start. I have read everything from 7 days before flip to 7 days after flip. I am leaning toward starting at flip. The first batch I started 5 days before flip and I hit the surplus clones at 14 days after flip. Might just spray those once more, after 14 days.
 
Does anyone know how commercial growers produce fem seeds? My only experience is with stuff i got from ebay. I've been able to produce sacks on two separate occasions, but any other stuff I bought from then on has failed completely to work.
I'm now making my own CS and brushing all of the stems twice daily starting a week before the12/12 switch.
 
HoBrah808 said:
I am definitely going ahead with the idea of finding the balance of ethylene blockage that produces sacs but also allows pollen production. I will keep the STS formula the same for now. My next experiments will have to do with variances in spray schedule and number of applications.

Curious to get your take on when the applications should start. I have read everything from 7 days before flip to 7 days after flip. I am leaning toward starting at flip. The first batch I started 5 days before flip and I hit the surplus clones at 14 days after flip. Might just spray those once more, after 14 days.
Click to expand...
I think there's no real empirical data on when it's better to start, most of these are recommendation based on anecdotal experiences, but without knowing what controls there are, I'd say to impossible to know when is best. For my purposes, I had to wait to see pistillate flowers to know this plant was genetically female, so I had no choice to wait until after the flip to apply. If it works for me, there's no telling it is the required time, and if it doesn't work, it could be because of other variables. I'd say it's pretty much a crapshoot.

420d0wnund3r said:
Does anyone know how commercial growers produce fem seeds? My only experience is with stuff i got from ebay. I've been able to produce sacks on two separate occasions, but any other stuff I bought from then on has failed completely to work.
I'm now making my own CS and brushing all of the stems twice daily starting a week before the12/12 switch.
Click to expand...
STS is typically said to be what large seed producers use. Sorry I couldn't find a pictorial for you, but there are a lot of tutorials available on Google.

Found a way to getthe lights pointed at the plant...

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No pollen sacks yet

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Any signs of plant stress? Seems to be a pretty common side effect. I sprayed STS on one branch of each of my surplus clones and all the pistils turned brown about seven days later (they were already two weeks into flower). The pistils on the rest of the plant are snow white, so I figure it's working! No sacs from them yet either, hopefully soon.

On a side note, a second strain from my original four sprayed with STS has thrown pollen, so now batting .500!
 
HoBrah808 said:
Any signs of plant stress? Seems to be a pretty common side effect. I sprayed STS on one branch of each of my surplus clones and all the pistils turned brown about seven days later (they were already two weeks into flower). The pistils on the rest of the plant are snow white, so I figure it's working! No sacs from them yet either, hopefully soon.

On a side note, a second strain from my original four sprayed with STS has thrown pollen, so now batting .500!
Click to expand...
Yeah they don't seem to like it much, my leaves look almost burnt where the cs has been applied.

But still no sacks seem to be forming yet. Perhaps I waited too long to start spraying.
 
Cool. I will be watching along with the others. I plan to do similar stuff with my Headband this winter. I will be doing it all in soil but most will cross over. Normally I only grow the males under low light, I have thought about just using 2 clones under a small light and spray one.
I have did it once with only one plant. It worked fine but I did notice one thing. Working with feminized genetics I have found it is even more important to give the male at least a 2 week head start. True males throw pollen early and often. I have found that reversed females take a while longer to produce enough pollen to make enough seeds. It could just be the strains I have worked with. Some strains will self easier then others just like cloning.
 
Thought I would update:
One branch of each of my clone "testers" were treated 3 times with STS over a two week period, starting two weeks into flowering. Well, they are showing sacs, two weeks after I stopped spraying. They are relatively small (compared to my first batch that I sprayed heavily) but are nicely developed. I expect them to start opening in the next few days. The rest of each plant is maturing normally, as a female with buds/colas. Definitely going to be too late to get seed from self-fertilization, but really I just hope there is pollen. I will update again once the sacs open.
 

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