lack of pollen with STS

[Belivitez]

Me... But not very successful

 

[Kya Knight]

I made a mix using a half gram of silver nitrate and 2.5 grams of sodium thiosulfate and im using 1 to 2 working solution. So far so good

 

[pop22]

Spraying more than twice is likely the problem. STS puts a tremendous shock to the plants systems, your not only altering hormone production, your poisoning your plant! Reducing the ratio and no more than spraying twice in 7 days should be more than enough.

Also, save the pollen sacks, dry them and crush them, then sprinkle on the chosen mother(s). There is almost always some pollen in them.

I'm currently trying to make some feminized seeds, but I ran into an issue with my first 2 reversed plants

they're fully reversed, full of balls, no female flowers. however, the balls have trouble opening(some opened at the tip, but not fully, others fell of the plant unopened), and they don't contain any pollen.

I think this could be due to too high concentration and applying too frequently. I used a recipe that's floating around a lot of forums(adapted it a bit so I could make a smaller amount, and my sodium thiosulphate is pentahydrous instead of anhydrous, so I converted the amount from the recipe). however, instead of the 1:10 dilution in that recipe I switched to somewhere around 1:5 / 1:6 after first application, and I applied rather frequently, about once every 6-8 days, and those first reversed plants have had 5 applications total(one recently with lower concentration 2 weeks after the last before that, at the time I harvested those balls without pollen they had had 4 applications).

after searching around I did find a few comments of people dealing with similar issues, and read some comments saying it's due to too often/high dosage applications, and to stop applying immediatly upon seeing the first balls. however, most people seem to be using CS, and most comments I found about high/frequent dose and no pollen were with CS too.

so I'm, wondering if anyone with experience using STS can tell me if I'm thinking in the right direction, and lower/less frequent dose can solve my problems?

I already have some other clones going(of different plants) that I'm going to give a lower dose, the youngest have had their first application a few days ago, about 1:10 dilution(not very precise, just added water to the spray bottle containing the 1:5/1:6 dilution I had to make it roughly 1:10), and I plan on keeping 2 weeks between applications from now on.

also, could my already reversed plants start giving pollen later on if I don't do anymore applications on them?

(btw, I'm applying it using a pipette, putting droplets directly on the buds, used spray bottle the first applications, but with a pipette is easier and I use way less of my STS-solution)

 

[pop22]

It seems the consensus has changed and the ratio in the original formula is not strong enough for good production. So I'm altering my view on this. Myself, I now use a 1:6 ratio
However, you can easily male it too strong, this is a powerful chemical. and the stronger you make it the less you want to spray with it, no more than 2 applications or you'll damage the forming male cells.

And I'll repeat, drying and crushing the pollen sacks helps when results seem questionable

There's probably a reason most professional breeders still use Gibberillic Acid rather than STS or colloidal silver............ I'm thinking on trying Gb soon myself and see what results I get.

@Magic have you used Gb?

Too bad no one saw this thread! Your concentration is way too high! 10 to 1 is the minimum! Think about this fully diluted to 10 to 1, you have 1.5 grams of chemicals in 10 LITERS of water! your probably looking at about 10-20 parts per million! This is potent stuff, and you only need to spray once. within 2-3 weeks you'll have pollen sacks.

 

[Kya Knight]

This is from two sprays of strong solution, looks like i wont be needing another.

You can tell the spray is strong but its not killing the plant ao i figured i was doing it right. I may have rushed the second spray by a day or two because i did not wait 2 full weeks for the second spray.

 

[Magic]

It seems the consensus has changed and the ratio in the original formula is not strong enough for good production. So I'm altering my view on this. Myself, I now use a 1:6 ratio
However, you can easily male it too strong, this is a powerful chemical. and the stronger you make it the less you want to spray with it, no more than 2 applications or you'll damage the forming male cells.

And I'll repeat, drying and crushing the pollen sacks helps when results seem questionable

There's probably a reason most professional breeders still use Gibberillic Acid rather than STS or colloidal silver............ I'm thinking on trying Gb soon myself and see what results I get.

@Magic have you used Gb?

Nope only sts, after I heard a bigger auto seed company prides themselves on using it and being a fem only bank.

 

[Kya Knight]

Things seem to be moving along just fine. I thought i had time to spray again without messing things up so i did. My working sts solution looks like its keeping. I will probably use it again on another plant ive sprayed that hasnt flipped yet. [last pic]

 

[Kya Knight]

I made a branch of fem seeds with a couple nanners from my reversed branch. I havent handled the reversed bud to much. I'm going to let it keep going and try to pollenate another plant with her. It should finish flowering with the rest of the plant, without chucking too much pollen on its own; it hasnt done any damage the way it is now.

 

[Kya Knight]

I gave up with trying to reverse my other red libanon cross and just hit it the end of a branch with the fem pollen i had.