Two pollination methods to produce your own seeds and perpetuate your cannabis species
Growing can be a great way to save money if you use cannabis regularly. This is especially useful if you have the ability to produce your own cannabis seeds. Once you understand the process of pollination, it is not difficult to make a cycle work. Of course, you're going to have to find the right seed for your liking, but after that you'll be fine. So, without further ado, here's how to harvest your own seeds.
Pollination of female plants
Usually when you are planting cannabis you want to keep the male and female plants away from each other. This is to prevent unwanted pollination. However, in this case, pollination is necessary in order to produce your desired seeds in order to store them to perpetuate the species.
Obviously, there are pros and cons when pollinating the female marijuana plant. The main negative is that pollination of a female plant affects the quality of the bud and the overall taste.
Method A: pollination of the whole plant
There are several ways to pollinate the female plant. The easiest way is to just move your male plant in the same room as your female plant. When they are together, the male must undergo a few shakes in order to diffuse the pollen in the air, and to pollinate the female.
After a few days, you can then return the female plant to an ideal growing environment, in order to produce seeds. The only problem with this method is that you are essentially mortgaging the right buds to get many seeds, since you are pollinating the entire female plant, she is fertile and depleted for the reproductive process.
But you'll get a ton of seeds, which is in a sense, fair. But if you're just trying to get a few seeds and grow some nice buds, then you're probably going to want to try the second method.
Method B: Pollination of individual branches
The second method is to pollinate certain branches of the female plant, as opposed to the whole plant. This way you will get a lot less seeds, but it's the perfect way to grow good buds and some seeds.
In this method, you are going to have to prepare both the male and female plants to reproduce. For the male plant, pluck out some of the sturdiest flowers and place them in a paper bag. Typically, paper bags work best because they are longer and can snag well on the female branch as well. Male clippings should be about four to six inches long.
For the female plant, prune the lower leaves of the desired branch that you would like to pollinate. The female branch must also have pretty flowers.
Now, place the paper bag with all the male plant cuts on the female branch, and tie the bag around the branch. This can be done with tape, string or fasteners. Now, shake the bag several times and wait a few hours for the fertilization process to work.
To make sure you don't pollinate any unwanted branches, make sure there is no draft in the room. Turn off all fans, close the window to make sure that the pollen does not spread to the branches you want to get good buds with.
The actual seed harvest
Once the pollination process is complete, you can expect to see ripe seeds between four and six weeks later. To make sure the seeds are ripe, take one and squeeze it. If it breaks, the seeds will need more time to ripen. You can also see if a seed is good based on its color and patterns.
Ripe seeds are usually dark brown. Additionally, many seeds tend to show streaks when ripe, which is another telltale sign that they are ready to harvest. Not all strains have striped seeds, however, so be sure to use the right indicators.
But if all is true, then you are free to start rooting all the seeds that the plant has been able to create.
Conclusion
Harvesting your own seeds, although it is quite long, is not as difficult as you might think. Although there are other methods to extract pollen from the male plantthese two methods are the easiest for beginner growers.
If you are just looking to acquire as many seeds as possible, go ahead and pollinate the whole plant. If you're looking in between, meaning you want to keep a moist bud and a few seeds, use the paper bag pollination method. Either way, this is how you will harvest your own cannabis seeds.
