The more experienced you get at growing cannabis, the further you want to push the boundaries of what is possible. So now you want to create your own batch of female seeds. It’s a craft that requires time and finesse, but definitely is not impossible. Keep reading now if you’re ready to learn how to make your own feminized cannabis seeds!
If you’re at all interested in cannabis genetics and how to breed your own herb, then learning how to make your own feminized cannabis seeds is essential knowledge. Some growers will reach a point where growing great buds isn’t enough. The next logical step in the plight of cannabis cultivation is to start breeding. Yes, that means making your own strains!
Actually, this method can also be used when you have found a genotype or phenotype that you love. You can breed another round of feminized seeds and have a whole cannabis garden full of your favourite strain. For whichever reason you choose to make your own feminized cannabis seeds, it is a fun process. And of course, you can learn a little bit about cannabis anatomy on the way!
What are feminized cannabis seeds?
Usually, when you buy a regular bag of seeds, there is a 50/50 chance that each seed is female. The reason this is important is, of course, because the female cannabis plant is the one that flowers and produces the fragrant buds that we love to smoke. Male plants, on the other hand, only produce pollen. If this pollen interacts with the flowers on the female plants, then more seeds are created. This is why male plants are generally identified very early on and taken away from the female plants.
For growers who aren’t particularly interested in breeding, in which case no male plants are necessary, feminized seeds are the most fruitful choice. Feminized seeds mean that 99.9% will turn out to be females, so it is almost guaranteed success.
So, why would you want to make your own? Well, maybe there is a strain that you have come to really love, and you have two female plants but no male plant. Or, perhaps it’s simply because you want to keep the bloodline of that strain as pure as possible!
At the end of the day, even within a single bag of seeds there can be quite a bit of variance in phenotype. So this technique allows you to interbreed your favourite strains until you are left with an almost pure batch of feminized seeds of your favourite strain!
How to make your own feminized seeds
There are two approaches to making your own feminized seeds, namely rodelization and the other, colloidal silver. Of the two, rodelization is a little bit easier, although you aren’t always guaranteed results. Most of the challenges involved with using colloidal silver as the method of feminization are with making the colloidal silver itself, and so if it can be obtained by purchase, then it makes the whole process less time consuming.
They both work using the same principle, that when a female plant is put under certain stresses or pressures, it will produce pollen. With that pollen, you can fertilize another female plant. Because all the parts came from females, it logically follows that your seeds should be all female seeds.
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1. How to make feminized seeds through rodelization
The process of rodelization to create feminized cannabis seeds essentially means leaving your female cannabis plant in its flowering stage way past the harvesting point. This is a way of inducing stress on the female plant, and when she starts noticing that things aren’t quite right, she might react by creating pollen.
The downside of this process is that not all strains are created equal, and some plants might not react at all to their extra-long flowering periods. In fact, the only thing that might happen is that you ruined a perfectly good plant.
If you successfully manage to get one of your female plants to create pollen, remove it from your flower room right away so it doesn’t disturb any other plants.
The way you harvest the pollen is by collecting it into an envelope by scraping it off with a piece of paper. You can then use a brush to lather it onto one of your female plants (possibly in the future). Pollen can be stored in your freezer.
If you happen to know from experience that a certain genotype always reacts that way under this particular circumstance, then you can guarantee yourself success every time. However, if you are experimenting for the first time, then you risk losing a whole lot of great buds and never getting any pollen in return.
That’s the kind of thing that might make you reconsider choosing this option. One of the most important benefits of choosing rodelization over colloidal silver is that it is natural, and doesn’t require you to bring in any chemical material from outside.
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2. How to make feminized seeds using colloidal silver
If you purchase colloidal silver (albeit very expensive) from a pharmacy or from a wholesale producer (if you are growing commercially), then the process of creating feminized seeds can be very easy indeed. You want to be using colloidal silver that has an extremely high concentration.
Once you have your colloidal silver solution, you need to select one of your female plants and begin spraying it every day after it begins flowering. For some reason we aren’t familiar with yet, spraying colloidal silver on cannabis forces a female plant to produce pollen.
Within two weeks, the plant you have chosen should be producing pollen. It will vary depending on the strain and its environment. Once it starts producing pollen, take it away from all of your other female plants to avoid cross-pollination.
You can do with it the exact same thing you would have done with rodelization by collecting the pollen and storing it. Whether you choose to use it on a future female plant or one you currently have, you can lather it on with a brush.
The drawback that you face with using colloidial silver is it that it is only safe for ingestion at very small concentrations. In fact, at high concentrations it can be detrimental to health and even poisonous. For this reason, any part of the cannabis plant that makes contact with your colloidal silver solution can’t be used. That means none of those buds can be salvaged. You can’t make edibles, tincture or topicals with it. It will be unsafe for any future use.
Some growers choose to spray certain locations (very carefully) to avoid having to throw the whole plant away later. If you choose to do this, you must be extremely cautious about where you spray the solution, being careful not to make contact with other parts of the plant.
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Pollinating another female plant
Once you have the pollen from a female plant, you’re just about ready to pollenate another female plant from your garden to create a batch of feminized seeds. This is a delicate process, so be careful when it’s time to pollinate.
The pollination stage should start about 2-3 weeks into flowering. With a small paint brush, begin to lather the pollen you have collected onto the buds and branches that you would like to pollinate. As we mentioned, you leave some buds for other uses or you can pollinate the entire plant.
Now, it can take up to 6 weeks for the seeds to fully develop. It can be a challenge trying to keep the plants alive for this long into flowering, but it’s important for the development of viable seeds.
So, you have feminized cannabis seeds! That means that very soon, you could be growing a whole bunch of female plants. But perhaps you don’t want to grow them right away. If you are going to store your seeds, make sure you do it correctly so that you don’t waste a batch of perfect good, home-made feminized seeds.
It’s important to know that a lot of plants can be ruined in this process, whether by cross pollination or a loss because of failure to produce pollen.
In fact, breeding seeds in general can be seen as something of an art form, and breeding feminized seeds is not less so. Don’t be too disappointed if the first attempt is unsuccessful. You’ll always learn how to do it better the next time!
Why would colloidal silver on the plant make it dangerous to use? The reason for colloidal silver to exist in the first place was for human consumption for health benefits.
Yes I agree
Why would the silver coloids if small enough? Cause any problems?