Seeds is where it all starts, that tiny bean that grows to the sky and provides us medicine. Cannabis produces both male and female plants that mate to make seeds. One has male pollen and the other is a female flower and they are usually separated as we only utilize the female (sensimellia) for consumption.
Most seeds are made through a controlled sexing where a mature male branch is used to sprinkle pollen over females. The seeds produced this way are homogeneous in maturity and size, it takes between 4-6 weeks for seeds to mature in a flower. Also, controlled pollination is a way one plant can produce several varieties or a plant can mostly produce flowers and only have one branch seeded. There are many ways to make seeds in a controlled environment.
It is different in nature where males and females are mixed together and the wind spreads the pollen. In all my years of growing cannabis one thing that I wanted to try was creating seeds through an open pollination. This is simply allowing a male cannabis plant to mature among a population of females and pollinate them. The big drawback to this is that ALL of the flowers have seeds and they are all of different size and maturity because the plant matures at different rates depending on plant site, sunlight and variety. This last summer, I decided that it was time to fulfill my goal and learn about how seeds are naturally made.
I used Green Bodhi’s Sour OG x Illusion OG and I selected a male from four other guys to be the pollen donor on 4 distinct female varieties. The stud I selected was the most like the Illusion OG, dark green with nice open structure and bountiful male flowers with a deep woodsy stem rub- he was also the last to flower. I call this plant “SOIL OG” and the genetic make up is like this: Green Bodhi Sour OG (Rez Sour D IBL x HA OG) x Tiger Trees Illusion OG (Multnomah Coma x ChemD x Sour D) so a lot of OG crosses. Soil OG was mated to four ladies: Sweet Rosalie, Soil OG, Einstein’s Pipe and Gorilla Glue 4.
The female cultivars were all from seed also and a couple were familiar to me and a couple were new; my old Sweet Rosalie that had one seed last summer, Soil OG from Green Bodhi, Einstein’s Pipe from Second Generation Genetics, and the coveted Gorilla Glue 4.
The genetic tree of these females is 1. Sweet Rosalie: (Sweet Black Rose x Lemon Alien Dawg) 2. Soil OG:( Sour OG x Illusion OG) 3. Einstein’s Pipe: (Gogi Raz x Blueberry) 4. GG4: (Sour Dubb x Chem Sis X Chocolate Diesel). This has created a unique set of cultivars that have fun names! This was using the male Soil OG.
They are 1. Zoo Lights (Soil OG x Sweet Rosalie) 2. Soil OG F2 (Soil OG x Soil OG) 3. Blue Razzberry (Soil OG x Einstein’s Pipe) 4. Oakbrook OG (Soil OG x GG4). And there are many, many seeds.
Some things I have learned from this endeavor and other reflections. When doing an open pollination, make sure your neighbors are not growing because the pollen spreads far and wide on the wind. (Farmer Tom sent me a text). Prepare to have a lot of seeds and mostly seed, not usable products from your harvest. The plant will change its energy to making seed instead of flower so the yield is already reduced, but the plus is a plethora of seeds. Lots of differences in seedstock made this way, which isn’t very homogeneous or ensures maturity or quality. All of these seeds need to be tested for germination rates, and then product quality which will take quite a bit more time. Overall a fun project, but not one that I will undertake in the foreseeable future
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