Casual seed grow -- environment impact on quality...?

[Olderfart]

That sounds like a great idea. I think if I had a larger pool of plants to choose from I might have the confidence to choose pollen worth saving and spreading... but I'm in a less optimal situation. In some cases, I'm down to my last seed of a strain and I'm making a last ditch effort at continuing the lineage. It puts an unreasonable amount of pressure on that one seed -- if it's a strong pheno, then I'm in luck, if it's not... well then that's what I get. Which is one reason I'm doing this in my house. I had grown for years in my detached garage, but it's expensive and labor intensive to climate control the space, so I wouldn't go there for a roll of the dice row like this. I'm keeping this low key, low effort, and low expectations.

At the moment, I'm working with Mephisto seeds, with the way things are going I have no idea if I'll ever be able to replace specific strains. I'm starting with one pollen donor to self pollinate, and one or two others for crosses with shared lineage. Probably more information than anyone wants, but... I started with a Walter White and the second was a Grapey Walter (Walter White x Grape Crinkle). Then the Walter White died. So I popped a Double Grape (Sour Stomper x Grape Crinkle) and a Sour Stomper. The Double Grape is the one I want to self pollinate, so that will be the starting point, and the others share some genes so hopefully the more limited cast of characters will create a narrower range of results.

I've read that to "do this right" I should have started the pollen donor weeks before the other recipients, but since I'm not using any of this for smoking, the plants can go full amber for all I care, they can live as long as they need to (or as long as I can keep them alive) in order to let the seeds mature. So that's where it's at. We'll see if anything comes of it.

So, one reversed Double Grape which should produce some self seeds, and potentially a couple of crosses from the double grape pollen. Sounds worth doing.

If I had more than one Cosmic Queen seed, I would have done seeds with that strain, but decided not to try the self pollen option. I just ordered some Mephisto seeds from a Canadian seedbank, and if that goes according to plans, I may make some Mephisto seeds next winter. Likely too late for me this time around, but if a few of the plants I have going now crash, and the Mephisto seeds get here early, I may try anyway.

Good luck with your project, keep us posted on how you make out.

 

[Humanrob]

So, one reversed Double Grape which should produce some self seeds, and potentially a couple of crosses from the double grape pollen. Sounds worth doing.

If I had more than one Cosmic Queen seed, I would have done seeds with that strain, but decided not to try the self pollen option. I just ordered some Mephisto seeds from a Canadian seedbank, and if that goes according to plans, I may make some Mephisto seeds next winter. Likely too late for me this time around, but if a few of the plants I have going now crash, and the Mephisto seeds get here early, I may try anyway.

Good luck with your project, keep us posted on how you make out.

Thanks!

I have one Cosmic Queen left also, that one has done VERY well outdoors, and my next pollen run could be based on that one... if this one goes well. I haven't found any seedbanks with Mephisto seeds that sell to the US, so I ended out blowing my annual seed budget on Dutch Passion strains. I haven't tried them yet, that'll be next summer.

 

[Olderfart]

I would not attempt to 'stunt' them, but that said, I don't think I've ever grown a plant from seed (photo or auto) that I did not top. The habit started with outdoor grows, to keep them a little shorter and because I had lost that beautiful single large central cola to worms and/or mold a few times, and had better luck having a half dozen smaller main colas than one big one. I plan to top these once, just to limit their stretch, do you think that would be a problem?

I have topped virtually every plant I have grown, and not one of them seemed to suffer. I assume that not all strains would like being topped, but none that I have dealt with seemed to care a bit. I seriously doubt that a healthy Mephisto seedling would suffer.

I top a bit differently than some growers do. I top above the 3rd or fourth node, but I do so as soon as the growth above it is large enough to sever the main stem above the node. The size of the growth above the node when I top is tiny - I do not wait for significant growth above the node before topping. Letting full leaves develop before cutting them off is a waste of time and plant energy, plus I think it is more stress on the plant.

Good luck with it.

 

[Arthur]

That sounds like a great experiment, I'm glad you did it and shared the results. I've grown photos indoors and out, and up until now had only started autos indoors, and then grew them exclusively outdoors. This odd little experiment is my first indoor auto grow, if you can call it that.

What I have noticed with autos is that they are very impacted by temperature, and of course have little time to recover. I found that cold nighttime temps outdoors could really stunt them. I wonder if that was part of what caused your outdoor seeds not to fully develop?

My outdoor girls (autos) never start life outside. They spend about 3 weeks indoor before getting the boot. High temps and low rH makes outdoor starts difficult at best.

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

Agreed regarding the mother, I was talking about a dedicated stud plant being used only for pollen. It will be isolated from the main grow to avoid stray pollen getting at the other plants. My mother will get better treatment than the stud because she will be in the growdrobe.

It seems that I misunderstood that my grow setup will be different than the op’s plan to produce seeds from the reversed plants. I can’t even blame my confusion on being stoned.

Pollen can travel 3 miles and pollinate a plant! It will take dilligence and strong Isolating practices to keep pollen away from your girls in another part of the house. Think of your HAVC as a subway for pollen, change clothes and shower after working with pollen. Even better is do not have girls in flower at the same time as the pollen is ripe.

 

[Olderfart]

Pollen can travel 3 miles and pollinate a plant! It will take dilligence and strong Isolating practices to keep pollen away from your girls in another part of the house. Think of your HAVC as a subway for pollen, change clothes and shower after working with pollen. Even better is do not have girls in flower at the same time as the pollen is ripe.

Thanks for the head's up. I will be as careful as I can be, but if I end up with the odd seed in unintended mothers, I am not too fussed. The room that the stud will be in will be kept under negative pressure from the rest of the house, and once I have some pollen, he will be going into a garbage bag. I will move the mother into the room where the pollen was collected in order to fertilize it. I will also do as you suggest re. clothes and shower.

Is there a certain way to know when pollen is ripe?

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

Thanks for the head's up. I will be as careful as I can be, but if I end up with the odd seed in unintended mothers, I am not too fussed. The room that the stud will be in will be kept under negative pressure from the rest of the house, and once I have some pollen, he will be going into a garbage bag. I will move the mother into the room where the pollen was collected in order to fertilize it. I will also do as you suggest re. clothes and shower.

Is there a certain way to know when pollen is ripe?

Yes, When the male flowers open, The ripe pollen will release from from the flower without effort. To harvest dry some wheat flour in the oven so it is completely dry and put a teaspoon of it in a plastic bag. Keep this as dry as you can maybe use a desiccant pack. Any moisture will ruin the pollen. Then when your pollen flowers are ready open the plastic bag and put the male flowers still attached to the plant in the bag ever so carefully and just tap them gently and move to the next flowers. You can harvest pollen from the same flowers over several days. Store the pollen in the freezer. Then when you want to pollinate a plant use a make-up brush to pick some up out of your bag and "Dust" it on the flowers you want to pollinate. Do this ever so gently with all fans off if not polinating the whole plant.

 

[Olderfart]

Yes, When the male flowers open, The ripe pollen will release from from the flower without effort. To harvest dry some wheat flour in the oven so it is completely dry and put a teaspoon of it in a plastic bag. Keep this as dry as you can maybe use a desiccant pack. Any moisture will ruin the pollen. Then when your pollen flowers are ready open the plastic bag and put the male flowers still attached to the plant in the bag ever so carefully and just tap them gently and move to the next flowers. You can harvest pollen from the same flowers over several days. Store the pollen in the freezer. Then when you want to pollinate a plant use a make-up brush to pick some up out of your bag and "Dust" it on the flowers you want to pollinate. Do this ever so gently with all fans off if not polinating the whole plant.

Excellent advice @Mañ'O'Green, much appreciated. My plan at this point is to pollinate just a branch or two of the mother, and leave the rest of the plant for some vapable bud. But we all know about plans... So far, I have a seedling coming along nicely for the stud plant, and I have extra seeds to get the mother growing in due course, so all should be good.

 

[Humanrob]

An update, for what it's worth... the Walter White died. That seed was from one of the first Mephisto seed packs I ever got, maybe 3+ years ago. The first one didn't pop, the second grew outdoors to 11.8 ounces of frosty wonderfulness, and this third one popped with difficulty (struggled to get out of it's shell), grew about two inches, and then withered and died. That's all the WW seeds I had. I suspect my mixed results in germinating them was because I got them from a seed bank, and I imagine that they were either old or improperly stored or both. If Mephisto ever runs those again I'd love to get some fresh ones, they are amazing when they take off.

So that changed my focus for this seed run. At that point I still had a healthy Grapey Walter started (planned pollen recipient from the WW), and next on my list of seeds I want to propagate was Double Grape (which nicely shares Grape Crinkle with Grapey Walter). So I popped one of those, and a Sour Stomper (the other parent of Double Grape). So that's the new lineup; Double Grape makes pollen, and in addition to self-pollination, Grapey Walter and Sour Stomper get some.

What I've discovered so far about this grow experiment in the open, is that cool nights and only 12 hours of strong warm light make for slow development. These sprouts look like they are half their age. But they are alive and seem relatively healthy, and I've got nowhere to go, so it'll just wait 'em out. I think this might be the first time I'm growing from the start under an MH bulb. I'm usually a COB grower, but I needed the "heat lamp" effect to bring the canopy up to the mid-to-high 70's while the lights are on, so an old school bulb was the way to go.

 

[HemiSync]

@Humanrob
Have you considered taking a branch off your plant that you want to pollinate and treating it like a clone to keep it alive, then reversing it. Collect the pollen from the clone and dust the original how you want.