Does anyone here make their own feminised seeds?

Is there a way instigate female flowers on a male plant?

So by tricking the female to throw out nanners, selfpolinating itself wouldn't the offspring be hermaphrodic, now that the mom is technically hermi, and she passes her gentetics to the seeds. Is there a way to trigger the seeds to be female and not the plant to hermi?

Itsme

This might help explain the advantages of female pollen,or more precisely S1s....

I can take any female plant and make it produce male flowers, and I can take any male plant and make it produce female flowers. This is only possible because each sex contains the genes for both types of floral development. Only the triggers are different.


Now I understand his position, but I hope he will change his mind once he understands how female:female breedings and selfing actually allow breeders to make faster gains than traditional male:female breedings.


That is certainly not to say that this is how commercial cannabis breeding is being done, or that the feminized seeds you can buy today from a multitude of seed sellers are made properly. However, there is also no denying that the use of "reversing" selected female plants of value (based on their chemical profiles and contents, or yield, or floral structure and character) to obtain pollen containing all of those characteristics, is the fastest and most accurate way of selecting pollen donors. Much more accurate than trying to select males, since males do not express any of these characteristics. I say if she is good enough to be used as a seed mother, she is good enough to be used as a pollen donor.


I challenge any of you that have never grown feminized seeds to take your best clone and self it. This is how you determine how true-breeding the plant is- immediately in the S1 you will be able to determine how heterozygous the original clone really is. Right away you see which traits are heritable and reliable in the original clone, and you also expose all the hidden potential buried in the background, you can tell right away if there are hidden negative traits in the line (intersex, genetic weaknesses, etc) Your progeny also become %50 more uniform and true breeding in every self generation. Which means when you actually go ahead and make a hybrd cross from the now true-breeding line, the hybrid progeny will be much more uniform.


I say don't knock it until you try it - how anyone can say all female seeds are bad without ever having grown any, is kind of ridiculous.


Don't rely on someone else's selection if you don't trust a given seed bank to make good parental selections - do the experiment yourself, at home, with your best clone and learn about how traits are inherited from your own valuable stock. I think all that have never done this, nor ever grown "feminized" seeds will be quite shocked and surprised by the quality of the results.


I will happily buy 100 selfs from anyone holding verified elite S1 stock!

itsmehigh said:

Is that not GMO?

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No, actually it is not

GMO (genetically modified organisms) are called that because their genes are manipulated on a genetic level which can only be done in a labratory with specialized knowledge and equipment.

itsmehigh said:

seems hypocritical to be in an up roar over GMO products then turn around and do the same in your basement

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Someone screwing around in their basment breeding seeds from plants is called 'Selective Breeding' and does not result in GMO's

itsmehigh said:

I for one don't believe in messing with the creators creations

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By that logic I would assume you only eat what you can hunt or gather in your local area seeing as most livestock, wheat, corn, most vegetables and fruit et al have been selectively bred over many generations (thousands of years in many cases) ... that is messing with the flying spaghetti monsters' creation

Wow fantastic thanks for the lesson.

Not here to argue, old dog new tricks. Breeding is a whole other discipline, a life time of tinkering. Looking back over my 30 years of cultivating I almost wish I took more of that path. But being in BC there was always a plethora of clones to choose from, no need to mess about.

I try my best to eat/shop fresh, local, and organic. Yes, I eat game from sustenance hunting. I am very conscious of what goes into my body. Obviously I'm no saint, but I try my best. In this day and age it's a real challenge to find real food. Being diabetic is even more of a challenge, sugar is in everything.

I see GMO in two lights, improving genetics, crossing = good, manipulatiing of genes to spray more poison on them and be resistant, = Bad.

Genetic modification has been going on for centuries, crossing and back crossing with pollen over and over. Trial and error in the garden. It's the laboratory created food that scares me.

Someone screwing around in their basement is called a pollen chucker in my book...lol

Maybe I'll spend he next 30 years phenohunting for the holy grail.....

Itsme.

itsmehigh said:

Someone screwing around in their basement is called a pollen chucker in my book...lol

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Funny since a VAST majority of all cannabis since the early 90s on was created this way or elite phenos discovered this way.............. Given its illigality for 70+ years this was how it was mostly done.

It wasnt until more recently that proper techniques were implemented. Proper breeders were a minority(DJ Short, Chimera, etc)and still are given the boom of pollen chuckers(F1 breeders) since the first US state went legal.

Stiickygreen said:

Makes ya wonder if some of these folks even grow weed at all.

Yes. I've made my own fems. Did the STS method a few times on some cultivars I did from seed and kept around for a few years. Since then I've returned to some of those selections...gifting beans to friends to test as well as testing a few myself. In fact, I have a few of my own selections going outside along with some Cannarado fems. Everything is looking very nice and is just tossing buds out at this point.

On one of my attempts I hit a Stardawg clone with the STS and tossed another Stardawg and some other cuts in the mix to make a few crosses. Amazingly....every thing in the mix crossed up well....all but the Stardawg itself. While the other plants offered a few dozen seeds each....the Stardawg I put in there had absolutely no S-1's/seeds whatsover. Anyone know why this may have happened?

After 30+ years of popping regs and getting tired of growing/tossing a high number of males....about all I grow now are fems. Contrary to what the folks who never grow them but always criticize them say...I've seen no major herms. Certainly no more than I've seen on reg seeds. The key is (IMO)....only STS'ing plants that are super stable and have been ran/tested in multiple situations. Even then...um...like the regs....yes...shit does happen on occasion.

best of luck to all of you who actually have a garden...LOL.

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Bravo, sir!

I'm super excited to start selfing and crossing. My end game is a grafted clone mother with several different varieties sustaining regular production while selectively selfing and crossing otherwise(mostly) useless lower branches from the flower room.

I've enough formal education in horticulture to engineer some true breeding strains with traits I find desirable. Mostly, I just don't want to have to buy seeds more than once.

Thanks for contributing : )

I see selfing as a way of preserving a special cultivar and a place in time. I wish I'd known about the technique 25+ years ago. In my small circle in the late 80's early 90's I assure you there were clones held for long periods of time by select individuals that were lost along the way. What I wouldn't give to have a select few of those strains to play with and share now!

FWIW....I make the seeds I make for my own use. (self-ish seeds...LOL) Nothing I make gets crossed again or mom'd again/etc. I make the copy and then grow the seeds out/smoke or make hash with the bud. If I find any errant seeds in the finished budz I don't reuse them.

And seriously...while I understand the hesitation of some to play....in all reality, with all of the poly-poly-poly-poly-poly hybrid crosses of crosses of crosses out there today...many of which are comprised of very popular clone-only strains....some of which are known to be from hermie/fem stock....it's kinda moot and highly ridiculous to claim that there's anything wrong with growing "fems".

But everyone gonna see it differently and that is what makes this game interesting. Do what ya like and like what ya do. If it works..it works.

Stiickygreen said:

I see selfing as a way of preserving a special cultivar and a place in time. I wish I'd known about the technique 25+ years ago. In my small circle in the late 80's early 90's I assure you there were clones held for long periods of time by select individuals that were lost along the way. What I wouldn't give to have a select few of those strains to play with and share now!

FWIW....I make the seeds I make for my own use. (self-ish seeds...LOL) Nothing I make gets crossed again or mom'd again/etc. I make the copy and then grow the seeds out/smoke or make hash with the bud. If I find any errant seeds in the finished budz I don't reuse them.

And seriously...while I understand the hesitation of some to play....in all reality, with all of the poly-poly-poly-poly-poly hybrid crosses of crosses of crosses out there today...many of which are comprised of very popular clone-only strains....some of which are known to be from hermie/fem stock....it's kinda moot and highly ridiculous to claim that there's anything wrong with growing "fems".

But everyone gonna see it differently and that is what makes this game interesting. Do what ya like and like what ya do. If it works..it works.

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very good and level headed approach to seed stock...
I agree about the lost strains too...would be nice to have some back

i always wondered why some of my s1's wer different from the mother that created them...
i usually buy reg seeds in packs of 10,, i plant them all and usually get 2-3 males, the rest females,, i keep the best of each and cross, plant and cross again w/ the same pollen untill cubed.. i usually end up w/ stable seeds that are good for making S1's off then.. the thing is,,, lets say it was hmo's blue dream, i plant 10, cube, the resulting plant i get is good but very few ever look n smell like the picture and write up that got me buying those seeds..you would need to plant hundreds of seeds in hopes of finding 1 female that is the picture perfect,, and finding the perfect male to cross is,, well never gonna happen...
so most of my stable seed strains ans S1's are good but none replicate the write up and picture plant i paid for... even true breeding seeds i buy are never really uniform untill i cube them...
i now only make S1's of my favorite females,,, as back crossing to stabilize takes time and room i no longer have...
then again ive made some great strains using feminized pollen from one strain and crossing it w/ other good females

when I do get a good male usually a skunk male....I keep some pollen in a baggie in the fridge...from it...for future use.

I feel like everyone should be selfing right now. As commercial marijuana takes greater and greater hold, the gmo stuff will start to get involved and begin to comtaminate the seed stock, as seen with so many other. Maybe I'm the paranoid type but I feel like it's not far off, if it hasn't already begun in earnest.

seeds are an inevitable part of growing....and if you want to continue on into at least your future....you'd had better save them when and while you can..
once gone they are gone.

I'm really quite shocked there's not more discussion about this. I get that a lot of these sites get ad revenue from seed sites, but really there's no need to buy seeds of a particular variety more than once, which makes the silly price tag for them much more palatable.

I think the prevailing/ongoing myths about hermies and a general continued spread of misinformation is what keeps many folks from trying....enjoying...and then experimenting further with fems/S-1's.

What I always kinda chuckled at when I saw these folks going on and on was that I remember well that the first exposure many people had to "Bubba Kush" (as well as Banana and Oger's Kush) was via S-1 seeds sold on Heaven's Stairway in the early 2000's. In fact, I bought a pack of Bubba then and there. $100 for 10 seeds. They sold out fast and from then on.....there were Kush clones and Kush crosses everywhere you looked. Coincidence? Could someone you know who knocks "fems" and calls them garbage be growing some Bubba K in their garden? Could it be a prodigy/offspring of one of those old S-1's? Garbage you say? (that was for the snicker factor)

I found the whole STS experience to be fun and rewarding. It sure wasn't hard to do. If you have access to "clone-only's" it can be, as I said, a great way to preserve that special plant you love for years to come.

Otherwise...shat gonna happen someway/somehow and you will look back and only have tales to tell! Mark my words. Yup. Been there, done that.

Stiickygreen said:

What I always kinda chuckled at when I saw these folks going on and on was that I remember well that the first exposure many people had to "Bubba Kush" (as well as Banana and Oger's Kush) was via S-1 seeds sold on Heaven's Stairway in the early 2000's. In fact, I bought a pack of Bubba then and there. $100 for 10 seeds. They sold out fast and from then on.....there were Kush clones and Kush crosses everywhere you looked. Coincidence? Could someone you know who knocks "fems" and calls them garbage be growing some Bubba K in their garden? Could it be a prodigy/offspring of one of those old S-1's? Garbage you say? (that was for the snicker factor)

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Nailed it!

Every Kush on the market today came from those early y2k S1 packs sold by Classic Clone Company on Cbay (HS).

damn near all of em dman

when did feminizing seeds start? was it w coildal silver or the rhodilization method?? around what year?? i grew in the early 90's then took a break till i bought my own home and started growing again in 2000...i dont remember hearing or seeing anything about feminized seeds back then?? so in what year did feminizing become really known to work and be true??? just wondering...

TheChemist77 said:

when did feminizing seeds start? was it w coildal silver or the rhodilization method?? around what year?? i grew in the early 90's then took a break till i bought my own home and started growing again in 2000...i dont remember hearing or seeing anything about feminized seeds back then?? so in what year did feminizing become really known to work and be true??? just wondering...

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Soma started experimenting with late showing nanners in the late 90's. STS came into play in early 2000's, CS a few years after that. STS is still the preferred, and by far, most reliable method for reversal.

STS has been used in horticulture for several decades.

It's a shame that more people don't approach our plant from a horticulture perspective, it would weed out so much misinformation and myth associated to growing healthy, productive specimens.

I remember seeing early versions late 70 early 80's
and then fem seeds around 10 years after that....