The Cannabis Breeder's Bible (11 page)

Is this a male or female cannabis plant? It is too early to tell because this plant is still in the vegetative stage of growth and has not produced any calyxes.

Males can produce pollen without need for a 12/12 flowering photoperiod—they can also drop pollen under the 24/0 or 18/6 vegetative photoperiods—but under the 12/12 photoperiod males tend to produce
more
flowers and thus
more
pollen. Males will continue to drop pollen throughout the flowering phase
(for more flowering information see
CGB,
pp. 103-111)
.

Indoor males can easily be moved away from the female plants. Indoor window light is enough to keep the males producing pollen. Even when kept in a dark closet, males can continue to produce pollen and flowers for at least a few days.

Males that are left in the breeding room will only pollinate everything around them. If you want your males to do this, fine, but this is not selective breeding. If you want to engage in selective breeding, you need to move and segregate your males from the females.

Outdoor male segregation can be a hard task. The best way to control pollen outdoors is to take cuttings from the males in the early stages of calyx development and then cull the male doners shortly after you do this. Root and flower the cuttings in a separate grow area. Flower the males by putting the male clones under 12/12 light exposure one week after rooting and you will have controllable males from which you can extract pollen. Basic fluorescent lighting of the cool white type between 30W and 60W should suffice. Window light can also be adequate.

This very short Ruderalis Hybrid - Lowryder, from The Joint Doctor,
www.highbred.net
, is fully flowered at less than 12 inches. This male was selected for pollen production. As you can see even a short little plant like this one can produce quite a lot of pollen to work with.

Some growers like to ‘bag’ the male flowers. This involves tying a small paper or plastic bag envelope around the male flowers and allowing the pollen to drop into the bag. This works, but has two problems. The first problem is that the male flowers do not receive any light and so produce far less pollen, if any at all. The second problem is that the bag needs to let some air in to allow the flowers to grow properly. This means a small hole has to be cut in the side of the bag. Although pollen may not flow from the hole, this certainly is not a secure way to ensure that selective breeding takes place, rather than wild, random pollination.

The best way to collect male pollen is to use small black film canisters and a small pair or tweezers. Be sure to label the canister to correspond with the male that you are taking the pollen from. Hold the canister under the male flower and gently tap the flower with the tweezers. The male flower should drop pollen into the canister. If it does not, wait a day and try again. Keep doing this until the male releases its pollen. All it should take is a little tap of the tweezers. If you tap too hard the male flower may fall off.

If you are afraid that you will miss out on the pollen dropping overnight then simply get a white piece of paper and place this around the plant’s base on top of the pot. You can rip the sheet of paper halfway down the middle so that it slides easily around the stem. Remove the fan leaves and any other large leaves from the male or else they will catch the falling pollen instead of the paper. Come back the next day and some of the pollen will be caught on the paper. Gently remove the sheet of paper and curve it slightly. Empty the pollen into a black film canister. Make sure not to use fans in the grow room or else pollen with be blown around. Even extractor fans cause the pollen to spread. It is also important to prevent moisture and light from coming into direct contact with the pollen after collection. Store the pollen using the methods described in chapter 2.

Male flowers open at different times so it may take a few days of pollen collection for you to end up with a workable amount from one male plant.

The application of pollen to the females is easy, but must be done with care and with timing in mind. You should try to pollinate your females at least four weeks before the end of harvest. Pollinating females any later than this can result in nonviable seeds around harvest time. Sometimes it can even take six weeks for the female to create viable seeds.

Only the flowering areas of the females that receive pollen will produce seeds. It is very easy to keep a number of colas sinsemilla by not applying pollen directly to them. The best way to apply pollen is to use a cotton swab or a small paintbrush. Dip the swab or paintbrush and lightly brush the pollen onto the selected areas of the female. Make sure to label the female with the corresponding male pollen that she has received. Using a small piece of tape can help remind you which branches have been pollinated.

For heavier pollination you may wish to remove your female from the grow room to avoid inadvertent pollen contamination of other females. When you have finished brushing pollen from the film canister onto the female simply blow the excess pollen away from the leaves before returning the female to the grow room
⁵
. You might also choose to let your plant rest for a day before returning her to the grow room.

Female pistils that have received pollen tend to change color although this is not always the case.The best way to mark pollinated areas is, again, by using tape and labels.

Pollen can easily be removed from the females by washing them down with water. This renders the pollen nonviable. Simply dip the pollinated female flowering areas in water or spray them down with water. This may damage some of the trichomes but it will prevent the bud from producing seeds.

Pollinated female flowers should be given adequate amounts of light to produce seeds. If a pollinated bud area does not receive adequate amounts of light then the seeds may be rendered nonviable, so you need to make sure that pollinated areas receive light. You may have to tie back certain branches in order to ensure that they do.

It is very important to maintain the 12/12 photoperiod with females that have received pollen. If you revert to vegetative growth or disrupt the 12/12 photoperiod it can have an adverse effect on the production of seeds. Also the plant may produce hermaphrodites because of photoperiod related stress and you will only end up with selfed seeds and standard seeds that are indistinguishable from one another. A suspect hermie can render an entire breeding period void and the breeder will have to start that term over again.

It is also worth keeping in mind that even in optimal environmental conditions some sinsemilla branches from certain strains can produce hermaphrodites. Although there may be only one male flower per cola of bud, if the pollen is viable then that branch may produce some seeds. Avoid using these seeds in any breeding program. The pollen may also spread to other branches. This means that there may be a chance that some hermaphrodite pollen has contaminated another branch on the same plant or has traveled to a neighboring plant. Sinsemilla branches are best avoided in breeding environments. If you are going to pollinate your plant try and pollinate the whole plant. The other way to prevent this minor percentage of hermaphrodite seeds is to simply keep a close eye on your females for any signs of male flowers and clip them away as quickly as possible.

2 weeks, 4 weeks and 6 weeks flowering out of a total 8 week flowering time. Pollination is best done before the last picture as it may be too late to produce viable seeds before harvest.

CANNABIS POLYGAMY

As a breeder you may be asking yourself the question: Is cannabis polygamous?

Polygamous:

1.
Practicing polygamy; of, pertaining to, or involving polygamy. Having more than one mate of the opposite sex.

2.
Bearing male, female, and hermaphrodite flowers on the same or on different plants. Flowers that contain seeds made from different male parents.

Cannabis
is
polygamous and it is more than capable of producing several types of hybrids on one plant. Take for example Northern Lights. If you applied Haze pollen to one branch, Skunk pollen to another, and Blueberry to another, then you would end up with NL x Haze, NL x Skunk and NL x Blueberry offspring. You must, however, ensure that each branch is labeled correctly or else you will end up mixing the seeds and growing out an unknown progeny. Any wind movement in the grow room may also send pollen from one branch to another. Always allow your pollinated females to rest for a few days in a quiet and calm room if possible.

Dutch Passion use a seed counting machine to sort and pack all of their seeds.

REMOVING SEEDS FROM THE BUD

The single best way to remove seeds from the bud is to harvest, manicure and cure your bud as normal (see CGB, pp. 195-206). It is far easier to remove seeds from cured bud than it is to remove them from wet flowers. When the bud is dry you can easily tap the seeds from it. You may also find that seeds have already come loose and are in the bottom of the canning jar. Seeds also tend to mature during this process. Even though the plant has been harvested, the seeds many continue to develop during curing.

Make sure to label your canning jars so that you know what the seeds are. If you are having trouble removing seeds from the bud then you may wish to screen the bud. Screening (see
CGB,
pp. 242-45) for seeds has two advantages.

1. You do not destroy the bud as you would if you used your fingers to get at the seeds.

2. It is gentler on the seeds.