PhoenixFlower said:

I got ten regular seeds to work with. I intend to pot four of them. How do I do this? How many seeds should I try to plant?

And I don't want to just 'destroy' the males, I'd like to maybe use the pollen to produce more seeds for a future grow. Can someone give me some advice or suggestions for how to do this effectively, please? How do I make the most of my seeds without just destroying the boys?

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In my opinion ... The best way to get the most mileage out of your seeds is by growing a few moms and then taking clones from them. You mentioned starting 4 seeds. Theoretically, they should be somewhat close to 50/50 female to male. The problem is when using such a small sample size. You could get all 4 female, all 4 male ... or more likely ... something in between those extremes.

Saving males and pollen is another subject all together. You can't keep the males with the females. So that automatically means either cull them or move them to a new location. If it were me, I'd stick with clones for your first few runs and then maybe look into breeding once you gain a little bit of experience.

I have a feeling this is one of your first grows?...I would not worry about breeding or keeping males at this point brother. Selecting a "proper" male to breed is not done easy, and like Grampa said..it requires different rooms ,spaces, then collecting the pollen, then applying the pollen at just the right time...theres a reason why "breeders" charge so much for their seeds...and yes I mean that breeders are a dime a dozen nowadays.

My advice bro, grow them healthy, dispose of males...number each female...clone each female TWICE in case one clone doesn't root...

At the end of the grow,choose your favorite plant...for it's vigor, smell, trichomes..etc....grow that clone as a mother plant...


and then? you will have identical ALL female plants for round 2....they will grow similar...they will look the same..etc...because they ARE the same

Another vote here for cloning as a way to get the most out of your seeds. Males are for breeding projects, and that's a whole other thing. I don't know if this is the "right" approach, but I'll tell you what I've done in your situation. I'd pop all 10. Here are the odds for the possible outcomes:



I can't be bothered to give space and effort to males, so I'd test them all using a service like Farmer Freeman. Cull the males as soon as you can. Toward the end of veg, clone all the females. Like @K.KrazyMyc said, twice to be safe. Label everything well. Flower the first round of females and choose your favorite based on how it smokes. Turn the corresponding clone into a mother plant, and you can have years of that smoke from one pack.

When you're ready to start breeding, "The Cannabis Breeder's Bible" by Greg Green is an excellent resource.

Making the most out of 10 regular seeds to me means growing all 10 under same parameters and select my fav males and females that way.