POLLINATING A SINGLE BRANCH
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Now that we have our pollen collected, we can pollinate females that are ready. You’ll need:
- Paper bags
- Tags
- Brushes
- Pollen
- Stapler
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When you have a chosen female, remove her from the flowering space into a different room to administer the pollen (pic 16).
Choose a branch from the mid to lower section of your female that will receive light through the canopy (pic 17). Choosing a branch that is not tangled with others and has free range of motion will make this process easier.
Make sure the branch you choose and the buds you plan to pollinate will fit inside of your paper bag (pic 18 ).
Affix your tag to the chosen branch just below the last bud you can fit into your bag (pic 19). This will help you at harvest time to know how much of the branch to cut to separate from your sensi bud.
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With all fans and air circulators turned off, you can begin the pollination process.
When using a freshly clean brush, the pollen will have a tendency to fall from the tip. Gently tap your brush into one of the targeted buds to get some resin on your brush BEFORE you collect the first bit of pollen onto the brush. That little bit of stickiness from the resin will make sure the pollen doesn’t fall from the brush.
We only need the tip of the brush to have pollen, this keeps the pollen within our control and is plenty to achieve our goal. Try to load your brush against the wall of the container first (pic 20). When you load the brush from the pollen pile, try to get just enough, no need to dive into the middle of the pollen (pic 21).
With your brush, slowly and gently poke your female flowers with the first few brush movements (pic22) this ensures the pollen payload isn’t flicked into the air by brushing it. Once you’ve done a few pokings around the bud, you can gently brush the pollen to “color –in” the bud.
A little goes a long way, so you really do not need more than 2-3 brush tips of pollen for each bud site. Don’t think you need tons of pollen because excess can cause accidental pollination if it goes airborne.
With the pollen fully dusted, the paper bag can be placed over the branch (pic 23). The corner of the bag is then folded over and stapled (pic 24). With the branch bagged, all you need to do is secure the bag, this will depend on your particular method of support (pic 25).
Make sure that the paper bag you choose does not have a wax coating on the inside. This coating can inhibit air exchange and cause problems.
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With your female branches dusted and bagged (pic 26), you can return her to the flowering space (pic 27). The bag should remain on the branch for 5-7 days. After about a week, you can remove the bags and find a branch that is fully pollinated (pic 28 ).
If you are worried about stray pollen after the bag is removed, you can take the female out of the flower space, remove the bag, and lightly mist the branch with water to deactivate any stray pollen.
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We will allow the females to finish their flower cycle and harvest as usual. During chop, I cut the seeded branches at the tag and hang them separately (pic 29). You can use different pollen on the same plant (different branches) to achieve multiple crosses using the same female.
Picture 29 shows 7 different crosses from one tent. When the branches have dried, you can shuck the seeds and allow them to dry/cure (pic 30). Each branch (depending on size and strain) can yield between 150-300 seeds, giving you a nice seed drop of your own creation.
