Bob's search for the real White Widow with Dutch Passion's regular genetics

[Bob's Auto's]

Tent is looking fabulous there!
More Widows than a Pacific Ocean Cruise Ship!

I'd wait a little before deciding on whether they are male or female.
A lot of that looks like just undifferentiated stuff, little leaves, etc., that often pop up at the nodes.
Even if you have a male, it will take at least a few days to a week before the pollen sacks actually open and shed.
Please don't cull anyone too fast!

Don't you worry about that
I'll only do away with the clone if it's a male for sure

 

[tobe]

Nice one @Bob's Auto's now the interesting part will start. I cross my fingers for you to find the real deal WW Keeper

 

[Bob's Auto's]

Hey Growers & Blowers


Both my parent tent and my clone tent were overdue for a clipping. In both tents the plants had stretched against the lights...
So something had to happen

Before

After!
As you can see I have loads of nice shoots to make clones out off. But I'm not going to do that. I don't have the space to run these at the moment.

I was done with clipping, vacuuming and pulling leaves in just under one hour, but then the result is quite remarkable.

The clone tent looked way more work then I could handle today and I'm even contemplating in topping some plants as I don't need much end product to make a selection. I did raise the light with a good 5-clicks on each rachet so the tops wouldn't be touching the light anymore.
Tomorrow I'll be doing the clones. Some will get clipped while others will be supercropped. Or I might do a combination of both. The result should be that I can reach the soil again to water all parts equally.


Regards,

Bob

 

[Bob's Auto's]

Hey Growers & Blowers

As you can see the clones have gone cuckoo for light in their stretch...OMG! Never expected such small plants to shoot skywards!!

Viewed from another angle Made a snip here and there...

And this is after I went to town with the scissors and also did a small defol to open up the canopy.

The bag above will first go in the microwave until dry and crisp, then I'll burn it and it's contents in the outside stove. Otherwise I have to use extra wood to turn it into ashes.

Defoliated some more...And found some of the 'male' persuasion...Snipped these on the base of the plant and removed the tag. I'm sure (it's statistics baby) more male's will turn up and as these show up, they will get a one way ticket to the stove.

These three are 100% male.
E4, I2 & E2

Well, that's it for today folks. Hope you enjoyed this read and remember, if you have something to add to this thread or would like to ask a question...Shoot away


Regards,


Bob

 

[Bob's Auto's]

Hey Growers & Blowers

Today was watering day for the clones. Gave 'm 5L water with 25ml PK 5-8 added to it.
Also checked out the damage from my trimming session yesterday, and while I cut quite the amount of material I feel I did the right thing.
Also I found another male in the group. What do you think?

Not convinced? Maybe this picture will convince you...This is a bit lower on the plant.

And now focused on the flowers near the stem... That's definitely a male

This gent went the way of the Dodo...I cut his trunk near the soil and put him in a box...E4 has been added to the list of males, which stands at 4 now.

Oh, I also found a small plant that had died. So I need to run two or three plants again, but I do have an idea for these.
Next run I'll be running clones from the males that will get their feminizing spray to show off their femininity. I'll also take a clone or three from the failed plants in this run. One clone of each will get treated with the males into the flower tent and the other clone(s) will go into small pots to sex, but without being treated with the Ethephon. If they are female they can stay, if they are male they must go.
This way I should be able to know the sex ánd have a sample to test out from each and everyone.


Regards,

Bob

 

[tobe]

Hey @Bob's Auto's
Do I understand it right , you reverse the males to female?
I smoke the male flowers for the tests as the first smoke of the day. I think I am oldskool

 

[Bob's Auto's]

Hey @Bob's Auto's
Do I understand it right , you reverse the males to female?
I smoke the male flowers for the tests as the first smoke of the day. I think I am oldskool

Yup, using Ethephon will do the same thing to a male as using STS or CS to make a female male.
Ethephon is a precursor to Ethylene, which tells the plants to start making female flowers. You can even use it on females as they will produce quite some more flowers because of it. But that's an entire other story.

BUT...You should be careful in the dosage as to much will kill of your plants.
I've been experimenting with 400-450ppm of Ethephon in the past. Check my Breeding thread if you want to know more. Actually a mate of mine who works in a lab made the solution as in small quantities you need very accurate scales (0.0001gr) to measure. Better to make it in larger quantities and throw away the remainder of the product you're not using.

I was looking online, but I can't seem to find it on AliExpress no more. I have about 50ml in 10ml bottles, so this will keep me going for a while.
This is what the bottle looks like

0,709gr Ethephon /999,291gr water should give you a 400ppm solution. I'm sure you can do the calculation for higher of lower dosages from this.
pH the water first to about 4.5pH with sulfuric acid as the lower the pH the longer the precursor stays in it's original form. You give it as a foliar spray and dowse the plants. The recommendation is to only treat the nodes where the flowers will emerge from, but I've sprayed the plants as a whole.
Keep the solution cool & dark and you'll be able to use it for two to three weeks, after that the ppm will start to drop drastically.

If you checked the posts where I did the experiment the plants will go in a sort of hibernation, probably because of the relative large amount of Ethylene in it's system, but if you keep the humidity, light and temp in check they'll come through. After a week the plants will start to grow again, Before this happens you'll need to dose again (approx every 5 days). Rince and repeat until you see the first female flowers, then continue for a couple of weeks after. Your plants will stay small as they stop stretching, but should end up with only female flowers. If you do see male flowers, pick them by hand so they don't pollinate the female flowers.

The reason I'm going for this approach is because smoking a male won't give you any indication of terpenes and amount of cannabinoids. Giving the males a week before you switch the lights to 12/12 Ethephon at a lower dosage (200-250ppm) will introduce the Ethylene into the system before the changes that occurs when switching the light to 12/12. After that one should give a weekly dose of the ethephon at full strength.
Keep in mind that your plants will stop everything they are doing. So if you don't keep humidity high, lights low and lower the extraction fan the plants will start to wilt...

It's a risky step, but when you're working the numbers to select for a good male my believe is this is the way to go. Unless of course you have access to a lab that can measure the terpenes and cannabinoids of each male, which is way to costly for my wallet.

Oh and before I get the PGR pollice on my tale...Ethephon will completely change into Ethylene in about two weeks and only very small amounts will stay inside the plant material. Ethylene itself is completely harmless and is used to ripen bananas and other tropice fruit during their travel from the tropics to the endconsumer for years.