Shooting blanks

Not exactly breeding but figured this would be the best place to ask. I'm making an attempt to create some fem seeds. "Attempt" because so far it's not working out as planned.

I used Tiresias Mist on a branch of one of my plants. After a few skeptic weeks of spraying, it got balls pretty fast.


Happy with the results so far at that point and the first major balls cracking open I removed the branch. The branch itself is nearly 20", thick too, a little hard to keep alive, but alive it is. I cut some parts of some of the main fans like I would do with a clone, placed it in a bottle of water with a small airstone in it (attached to airpump of course), into a small closet with 2x 12watt fluo lamps on the same 12/12 schedule.

After a few days, I checked the glasses I put below it and the first large ball dropped off, also tapped the branch and another one came off. Since I expected many more would follow, I took a peek inside:


After all the herma horror stories and fables I figured I didn't expect the actual pollination to be an obstacle.

However, so far I tried, with a day or two in between:
- Brushing the pollen from the pics above with a small brush. On 3 different buds, each from a different plant and strain.
- Put a zip around the hermed branch, shook it, put the zip on a female flower, shook it (on one of the same buds as above)
- Grabbed what seemed to be the remainder of male balls/flowers that popped without visible pollen and rubbed it against a female flower (same bud yet again)

No signs of successful pollination, pistils still sparkly white. Except on the hermed branch itself, it seems to have selfed... Wondering if the female flower parts on the branch captured much of the little amount of pollen it produced (which is why I tried the third 'method' above).

The branch has a small side branch with still one decent sized ball on it. There are a few more smaller ones that still seem to develop further, but if that larger one doesn't work... so that's pretty much my last hope. I'd be happy with a dozen of seeds already, but do want to pollinate before the flowers turn into buds...

Larger one:

Smaller one that still seems alive an healthy:


Any suggestions that would include allowing me to use the pollen 'this' round? (just had 4 weeks 12/12, no clones, would really like this to succeed cause the pollen donator is quite a beauty).

Desperate times require desperate measures...

Looking for something to grab a single banana I found a small dentist mirror. Grabbed a banana (yellow-ish tip seemed ripe), put it on the mini mirror, pinched it, and a tiny bit of pollen came out. Went to the flower closet, and used the mirror as a brush (gently). Repeated the process for two more buds.

The three buds (different strains) I tried it on, now have a couple of hairs that turned light-brown over a little less than 24 hours. Looks good Going to try some more in a few hours.

Kolossus:


Skywalker Kush:


The last one seems most obvious. I checked these buds carefully before pollinating them yesterday and they were all white. Can I get my hopes up or am I wishful thinking...? I.o.w. can someone confirm that's what successful pollination looks like?

It was from only 1 single banana (not ball). The third bud has only about 2 or 3 brown-ish hairs now (pic to vague). That's the Chocolate Fondue I want to succeed the most...

The pollen is from (another) Skywalker Kush. So... hopefully got some lesbian inbreeding going on too.

Congrats bro. I would say, especially in the pic of skywalker, that u were successful! I just went and collected some more pods, and have noticed that the female flowers on my CS treated plant all look identical to the browning pistils in your pics!

Lets hope that someone else can learn something from our threads!

And now the worst part of it all: WAITING.........

Good job man. I went with STS because I had read about people getting more pollen and the process being faster because the STS complex is more available to the plant than the metallic silver in the CS.

Thanks for the replies guys. I'm going to try STS some day. Still got half a bottle of TM, going to use that first and learn from the mistakes I made the first attempt. I was to hasty with removing the branch, should have sprayed a few days longer, dry the bananas, i.o.w. more patience

Got some more today:





Got a few balls on the branch, and a few bananas drying, but just going to wait now, keep those for next cycle.

You might be taking those sacks too early, they turn from green to yellow when theyre ready. The reversed sacks also seem to take a little longer than regular male sacks to mature

Yeah I've had too little patience pretty much every step of the way, it does look like they need longer, however, the bananas I used are primarily those that fell off already. I think if I would have cut the branch off later they would have ripened faster/better on the branch. I let a few open up entirely but didn't catch any pollen below it so I started opening them up manually before the bananas open. They had 34 days 12/12 already so didn't want to wait any longer. I got a few weeks between this cycle and the next so I hope to actually use the seeds, if any, next cycle.

Galvatron said:

The reversed sacks also seem to take a little longer than regular male sacks to mature

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Ok, that could partly explain why it seems to take longer than expected. Thanks.

my last run I had one shooting blanks and my timing was off, the flowers were too far along by the time the treated plant started popin balls. this time I put the treated plant in a full 3 weeks before the momma. where I am at now: Treated plant sprayed for 10 days and has been in 12/12 for 1 week. I am waiting 2 more weeks before putting momma in. it seemed like it took 6 weeks for my balls to drop last time, should be on week 6 when momma reaches week 3 so I am hoping for the best.

I've read that it takes longer to get viable pollen with CS than with STS.

sts???? I herd sts9 is playing a show locally here soon but that's probably not what you mean

MrEDuck said:

I've read that it takes longer to get viable pollen with CS than with STS.

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STS9 is also awesome. STS is an abbreviation for silver thiosulfate which is a silver complex that is more readily absorbed by the plant and more effective at blocking ethylene uptake than metallic silver as in colloidal silver. STS is prepared by mixing silver nitrate (be careful not to get this on your skin, it will leave brown spots on exposure to light, be double careful not to get it in your eyes for the same reason except the spot is chemically bound to your cornea) and sodium thiosulfate. Both are used in photography and are readily available.

tusseltussel said:

my last run I had one shooting blanks and my timing was off, the flowers were too far along by the time the treated plant started popin balls. this time I put the treated plant in a full 3 weeks before the momma. where I am at now: Treated plant sprayed for 10 days and has been in 12/12 for 1 week. I am waiting 2 more weeks before putting momma in. it seemed like it took 6 weeks for my balls to drop last time, should be on week 6 when momma reaches week 3 so I am hoping for the best.

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That seems to be the way to go. I can't put one of my plants (the one to be treated) into flowering sooner so I'm going to build a separate small closet for TM-treatment of plants/clones.

I'm using tiresias mist and the male flowers have been opening, but I'm not getting any pollen from them. Is that common from using it?

I don't know if it's common but it happened to me, and noticed I'm not the only one. Can you give some more details? Pics? I managed to retrieve a bit off pollen by opening bananas manually, which worked much better with a dried banana. It seems that if it's not ripe/mature enough it's a bit pasty rather than dusty. Others just really seemed empty. I think that was mostly because I separated the branch too soon but even the bigger balls had virtually nothing in it. Still not sure if the little I got from it even worked and if there are any seeds hidden deep in my buds, still a week or two till harvest.

Rather than repost, here's a link to the pics https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/719296-tiresias-mist-how-long-til.html The nuts actually started appearing beginning of Sept, the pic is from the 7th

I got one shooting blanks right now..... Balls started to open 5 days ago with no signs of pollination

Yup, nothing but flower petals, but I'm rubbing them on some females in case there is a trace. Hehe kind of feels like dry humping in the back seat at a drive in!

obijohn said:

Yup, nothing but flower petals, but I'm rubbing them on some females in case there is a trace. Hehe kind of feels like dry humping in the back seat at a drive in!

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I tried that too, seemed to be successful because the pistils withered but in hindsight that might just be because I rubbed them too hard. Haven't harvested those buds yet so dunno if there are seeds inside yet.