This is the article I read and thought it was great. I initially though that he was using a standard cup of water. But then, he mentions using an air stone. If I am not able to measure the PPM and end up with a solution that has a much higher PPM than 1000 do you think it will damage the plant?
So I have doing some research on making feminized seeds and I came across this bit of info. I will not be able to try this for a couple months since I don't grow indoors. Has anyone or someone they know ever attempted to make fem seeds using this method.
This is some info i found. Someone else wrote this stuff.
Thought it might be some useful info for anyone interested in trying to make those fem seeds.
Im using silver coins, but you can essentially use any form of silver including silver wire as long as its 999 or 9999 pure (i bought mine from my local Mint, but you easily get silver off ebay too.
Also, you dont
need to solder alligator clips on, the important thing is simply that the wires are touching the silver so the electric current can flow through them, but i think the alligator clips add a nice touch plus they make it easier to hold the silver, so if you've got some spare alligator clips and have a soldering iron then I recommend it!
have reported excellent success with this method, and it's no secret that colloidal silver has been used for a long time now to 'reverse' the sex of cannabis plants, although thanks to their help hopefully the process of making our own CS will no longer be shrouded in mystery!
What is Colloidal Silver?
Colloidal Silver is pure, metallic silver (the element), in particles of 15 atoms or fewer, each with a positive electric charge and attached to a molecule of a simple protein. These electrically charged particles of silver are extremely small, usually ranging from about 0.001 to about 0.01 microns in diameter, and are suspended in deionized water. The force of the electric charge is stronger than the force of gravity, so the silver particles remain suspended.
In a nutshell how is Colloidal Silver made?
You simply pass a small electric current through distilled water using a pure silver electrode (im using coins). That is essentially all there is to it. Contrary to popular belief, distilled water will conduct a small amount of electricity, allowing production of micro particulate colloidal silver.
What the hell does it have to do with cannabis?!?
We use Colloidal Silver (CS) for making
FEMINISED SEEDS, which I'm a big fan of after having nothing but great success from them since i started growing a few years ago
(The basic idea being you regularly spray CS on a female to force it to create bananas ie. pollen ... you then use that pollen to fertilize another female (or even itself, ie "selfing"), and the resulting seeds are feminised due to the pollen coming from a female instead of a male)
Also, there are some other substances that can be used to force male parts on female plants, including STS (silver theosulphate, which is silver nitrate + sodium theosulphate) and GA (giberillic acid), but CS is non-toxic, easy, safe and inexpensive to make at home, doesn't require a DEA request form, and isn't a controlled substance.
Csilver is available from your local chemist (in low parts-per-million though), and is drank for good health (the silver helps kill bacteria etc). But its PPM is too low for what we intend to use it for - feminised seeds! So we need to make our own with a higher PPM ... no problems, we simply allow the electrical current to flow through the silver for a longer duration
TO MAKE A COLLOIDAL SILVER GENERATOR ...
You will need: a 9V power adapter that outputs DC, two alligator clips, a soldering iron + solder. (If you dont have soldering iron you can simply wrap the wire around the alligator clip base in a coil and that will suffice, but youll get better contact if you solder it).
- Get a power adapter that has an output of 9V DC 600mA or thereabouts. Output must be DC, and 9V/600mA seems optimal from what I've read and been told
- Cut the end off and discard
- Split the main wire into its two smaller sub-wires (no need to pull them apart all the way though). Dont worry, we dont need to know which is positive/negative.
- Use wire-cutters to remove the plastic shielding/insulation to expose the actual metal wires, about 1 inch is enough
- Solder the wires onto alligator clips ($0.50ea from your local electronics store)
If you dont have alligator clips Haps suggested a good alternative - drill a hole into each coin and coil the wire around that instead.
TO MAKE COLLOIDAL SILVER ...
- Get some
distilled water. Do not use any other type of water due to impurities. At your supermarket you may find distilled water next to spring water, but it may also be in the ironing products isle as it is commonly used for steam irons.
- Attach each alligator clip to a chunk of PURE 999 or 9999 SILVER (i just got two 1oz coins from the local Mint, approx US$20ea, but 1/2oz coins wouldve been suffice - i didnt realise how big 1oz of silver was!)
- Make sure each coin is half-dunked in the water, but that the alligator clips themselves arent touching the water, then turn on your generator and leave it for about 7 hours. (goldking leaves his on "overnight" and thus probably gets an even higher PPM, but has had good results from it!)
The end result: the electrolysis causes microscopic silver particles to be suspended in the water (= colloidal silver aka CS). The rig basically looks like this when in use (the only thing in contact with the water is the silver, not the alligator clips or anything else):
It's also recommended you use an airpump with a clean (not used for anything else) airstone to help keep the water moving.
Also you don't want to leave the CS generator running TOO long or the silver particles in the water start getting too large - ~8 hours should be plenty.
USING COLLOIDAL SILVER TO MAKE FEMINISED SEEDS ...
Start spraying your target plant with CS just before you send it into 12/12 flowering, and keep spraying every few days. I won't go into details, but the CS causes the female to produce male flowers/pollen. Collect that pollen, and use it to pollenate another female (you
can pollenate the same female that you CS'd (aka "self'ing") and indeed you may have to if you have a clone-only strain, although that may lead to more hermaphroditic traits, but I wont go into details on that). Anyway, because you've pollenated a plant with pollen from a female, the pollen can only create female seeds.
There's obviously a lot more to it than that but hopefully this brief explanation will help people understand the basic jist of it
ps.
I don't recommend drinking home-made CS unless you've done your homework because the PPM may be too high, which is great for making feminised seeds (we need a higher PPM for that) but may have risks with human consumption - too much silver can cause argyria, a condition of blue or gray discoloration of the skin, so always buy it from your chemist if you intend to use it medicinally. Also if you do drink it medicinally it's recommended you also take additional probiotics (like Yakult), because the silver also kills a lot of the good bacteria inside you. So do your homework first!
don't know what the RULES are for misting the plants,but i soak the heck out of mine when i spray,every day, not just a lil damp mist,thats why if i had to pay $20+ for a lil bottle at the health store, i could never afford to use CS.
i touch my ingots together to look for a miniscule spark arch to see if every thing has positive contact and is working. the spark, if there will be very very faint, kinda like rubbing a cat on the wall, the sparks are hard to see
