Yo, what’s good? It’s Dan, and today we’re talking about how to make feminized cannabis seeds like a boss. I mean, why mess around with male plants when you can get all females, all the time? Let’s dive in and see how to create your own feminized cannabis.
Why Feminize?
Feminized seeds are super efficient for indoor and outdoor growing. You don’t need to waste space, time, and resources on plants that you’re just gonna throw out later on. Outside, where the plants can consume a lot of time and resources in upkeep before flowering, feminized plants are also a great way to reduce guerrilla crop pollination.
Making Feminized Seeds
The general idea behind feminization is to force female plants to produce pollen, which is then used to pollinate other female plants. This produces feminized seeds with no risk of further pollination.
There are two methods to achieve this. First up, the colloidal silver method.
Technique 1: Colloidal Silver
Colloidal Silver is a distilled water-based solution in which microscopic particles of silver are suspended. The particles never settle out and can’t be removed by normal filtering. Colloidal silver is available commercially, or you can make your own if you want to totally geek out.
The strength needs to be at least 15ppm, preferably 30ppm. Less than 15ppm produces male sacs with little viable pollen.
To begin with, select a plant that has the characteristics you want to preserve. Feminizing clones is the usual practice as the growth, flowering, and resin characteristics from the mother are already known. There is no need for any vegetation time once a clone is well-rooted.
Spray the plants to be feminized with colloidal silver every day, and three times a day if possible. Do this for two weeks, then leave the plants to grow as normal. When sexing begins, male pollen sacs will develop instead of female calyxes and pistils. Male plants mature much faster than females, and viable pollen can be expected within 3–4 weeks once the plant has been sexed.
Don’t smoke it!
Once the plants have been sprayed with colloidal silver and the pollen is collected, they are write-offs—86 them and don’t smoke them. Be safe and bin them.
Technique 2: Rodelization
The second method is Rodelization, which involves letting the plant go beyond its desirable maturation stage by a number of weeks. The plant then produces male pollen sacs in an effort to self-pollinate. This creates female-only seeds, although as with colloidal silver, an occasional male may appear.
Harvesting Pollen and Pollination
There are a number of harvesting methods employed to catch pollen:
Cover the top of the pot with plastic or card to catch pollen as it falls.
Fix a clear plastic bag around the whole plant.
An experienced eye will remove each flower pod prior to it bursting completely open.
Pollinating a female is the easy bit. Depending on how many seeds you want to make, there are a couple of methods that can be used:
Using a brush or even a cotton bud, dip into your pollen collection and gently apply to the chosen flower. Dip into your pollen stash a few times as you dust.
For lots of seeds, put pollen in a bag and put over a whole branch or a whole plant, shake well, and leave for twenty-four hours.
Growing Feminized Plants
Treat feminized seeds as you would any other seed from germination to veg, and veg through flower. Observation is where it’s at now; you want the best plants for your garden.
Plants bred using feminization are homozygous. Homozygosity will increase the dominant or recessive traits of the parent in the progeny, so features you don’t want and do want can be amplified. Just as with standard male to female crossings, a number of plants will need to be grown, and the best selected for mother plants and future breeding.
Fembots Rule!
With a bit of aforethought, it is possible to set up an efficient feminization breeding program—and have female seeds from your favorite phenos on hand all the time. You never know, you might discover the next big thing!
Making Your Own Colloidal Silver
The easiest way to make your own colloidal silver is to buy a colloidal silver generator. Or, make your own. What you will need:
A power adapter—9-12 volts is ideal.
Electrical wire—one length for positive and one length for negative.
Distilled water.
Pure silver—coins are ideal.
Small alligator or crocodile clips to hold the silver.
A PPM meter.
How To Make It:
Make sure the adapter is set at 9–12 volts.
Strip each end of the wires using scissors or wire strippers.
Securely connect the alligator clips to one end of each wire.
Fix the wires to the positive (red) and negative (black) terminals on the unplugged adapter or onto the battery.
Put a piece of silver in the jaws of each clip. Don’t touch them together.
Fill a glass jar or glass beaker ¾ full with distilled water. 500ml will easily do two plants.
Suspend each silver/alligator clip combo in the water on opposite sides of the glass.
Plug in and turn on the adapter. If you are using a battery, the process began the moment the electrodes were submersed in the water.
After 20 minutes, remove the electrodes and test with the PPM meter. 15ppm (0.5) and over is the goal. The solution should become a pale gold color.
When finished, clean the black silver oxide off the silver electrodes and put the kit into storage until next time.
So, that’s it for today’s lesson on making feminized cannabis seeds like a boss. Go forth and get growing!