It will intermix and result in "who knows what", but that doesn't mean you won't get some good pheno's out of the deal!
Thanks for the reply. I came across those pollination bags I posted on Neikodog’s thread and because I get bored/ like to try new things, I was considering playing around with one. Thought was to create a hodgepodge pollen party with 3 phenos of Eagle Bill and 1-2 phenos of Jack Herer all in the same pot/ bag. I haven’t ever intentionally turned a female male or made seeds, and really don’t know too much about it beyond the basic process... so if it’s an exercise in futility or a stupid effort to do what I’m thinking, please lmk. I’m not married to the idea if it’s a bad one
Have fun!Thanks for the reply. I came across those pollination bags I posted on Neikodog’s thread and because I get bored/ like to try new things, I was considering playing around with one. Thought was to create a hodgepodge pollen party with 3 phenos of Eagle Bill and 1-2 phenos of Jack Herer all in the same pot/ bag. I haven’t ever intentionally turned a female male or made seeds, and really don’t know too much about it beyond the basic process... so if it’s an exercise in futility or a stupid effort to do what I’m thinking, please lmk. I’m not married to the idea if it’s a bad one
But seems fun to have some Frankenstein seeds that could have a super shiny needle buried somewhere in the haystack.
Thanks for the awesome reply! This information does help me connect the dots. I’ll get to work on the selfing my best female. That makes a lot of sense to me now.Well, no way to really tell, so I'd do both!
Here are some things I'd consider:
First, there's is a difference between preserving a strain and "working" a strain.
Preserving the strain implies that you basically want "copies" of the plant as-is while working the strain implies you want to try to improve on certain traits/characteristics and are willing to lose, or at least risk losing, some of the current traits to get there.
If you want to preserve the strain, I'd probably consider making S-1's (selfed seeds) by cloning my best female, reversing one of the clones, and crossing it with itself. The seeds will be all feminized and be pretty darn close to a clone of the mom in seed form with ALL genetics coming from the mom.
If you wanted to produce regular (non-feminized) seeds, I'd cross my best male with best female (with traits most representative of that strain) and run a couple/few generations to hopefully find another female representative of the strain, then back-cross it with the original male, run another generation or two to find another good representative female, then back-cross it again with the original male. That should lock-in the original traits pretty well, assuming you were good at doing your selective breeding along the way.
If you wanted to "work" the strain, I'd definitely do both. As a general rule, the more generations you breed out, the more drift you get from the original pheno since traits in the "gene soup" that were once recessive start becoming dominant, so you never really can tell what you'll get. When you back-cross, you start locking-in traits from either the parent lineage, or a trait that's showing up in the new generation as opposed to risking some new trait you haven't even seen before coming out.
I hope that helps!
Not really. Clones should have the same genetics as the donor plant.
Agreed! In breeding, you usually want to avoid hermies like the plague; and that includes using reversed females, although, as you point out, it's fine to reverse females to get some seeds.Mr Kip- what an informative post! Thank you
One point about reversing females to make pollen: I do this often with STS (colloidal silver too burdensome) and this is good for seed producing, however if one wants to create a new stable strain, it is worth using regular seeds to get a true male. I have been involved with breeding programs that have used both true males and reversed males and we have found that using proper males results in much more stable predictable crosses.
With males, you want to look for those stocky stems that can support heavy buds and rubbing the stems give you an idea of terps. You also want to avoid males that drop pollen early but go for a male that drops lots of pollen. You also want a male that is resistant to mold & disease and, probably most importantly, select a male with traits that compliment the female you're breeding with.
to be able to harvest a few thousand seeds is a real advantage when u found a strain u love and want to avoid buying more seeds (or getting them to somewhere where they r not legally available for e.g)
As per Mr Kip - a good growing structure. Most of the traits we are looking for in terms of thc/cbd a & b are going to come from the mother anyways but a stocky male plus hollowish stems are a good indicator of a decent breeder. In addition to what Mr Kip mentioned about early pollen producers, I always use the pollen produced towards the end of pollen production as I have seen that desired growth traits from the father are more readily passed on this way.
The "real" breeders will plant dozens of males to select from. Us home breeders typically don't have the luxury of all that space to waste on males that will end up being culled, so we may only have a couple/few to choose from.
Especially when they're feminized seeds, which, IMHO, is the real reason to reverse a female for pollen. But, to create a new, stabilized strain, I'd select a male.
