Male Selection

happylittle · Apr 19, 2015

I'm asking farmers to help me identify the traits to be looking for in males for my Sativa dom. breeding projects.
this issues is quite hard to find good info on as few people grow males to term and some breeders can be tight-lipped.
Im looking to breed toward that mind warping effect, without losing the potent smack of todays hybrids.
Currently Im working my line called Titanium Jack. Here is the genetic info ((Jack herer x skunk#1) x tahoe og)
Ill be starting a thread on Titanium Jacks progress soon but this is bigger than just that 1 line of genetics cause great Sativa doms are getting harder to find.

So back to the question at hand.

What do you look for in thoose males?

zeke · Apr 19, 2015

Tsk, tsk...Progeny test homie. Any other method will not tell you for certain what you want to know. You are gonna have to smoke every single plant to figure it out. Then you've only subjectively concluded the results. You'll want an objective test group to assist you. Science brah...a resinous male with big flowers is just a greasy dude with large sex organs(like myself). You want to find a male that produces a certain type of female progeny......the only way to find that out is to test the progeny, no?

happylittle · Apr 19, 2015

Thats where im at for the moment. having to grow out each generation.
However, I do know that certain traits that a plant will exibit can help you cull down the population early and steer you in the right direction.
Some of the ones people look for in breeding are height, time till onset of flowers, branching pattern, smell, shape of leaf.
anyway there are lots other things that we look for. Im specifically looking for what people are looking for when breeding toward the sativa side of genetics.
thanks
-J

SeaF0ur · Apr 19, 2015

wow... ok... I'll bite.

1. Intent.
what are you looking for to add to your female? need to tighten nodes? wanna stretch an indica leaning hybrid? looking to quicken up a late bloomer with a quick to flower strain? looking for a specific aroma or flavor? what the hell are you doing?
this is a subjective portion that you must decide... what traits do you want in your intended cross?

2. Traits.
what I look at is:
Resin production... the quickness, the amount and location.
Aroma... many good males have a distinct smell.
Quickness to flower... subjective trait based off my intent.
Internode spacing... subjective based off intent, but generally shorter is better.
Structure... subjective. the plants general structure, is it leaning to sativa or indica?

Resistance to hermaphrodism - see #3
Vigor and fitness - see #3

3. Stress testing.

methods used include:
heat and cold, overwatering, underwatering, rootbinding, rootball pruning, topping or supercropping in flower.

In stress testing you're looking to weed out males that are likely to produce intersex traits or poor vigor... the basic idea is to present the worst possible conditions and look for hairs that pop, how easily, how quickly and how many. Then consider the plants quickness to recover throughout those tests to gauge its general vigor.

A mouse is not an "elephant" solely because it has characteristics that are common to known elephants: a tail, gray skin, larger ears and four legs... there is also an artistic aspect to the science...

happylittle · Apr 19, 2015

Now this is what im looking for!
Anything specific people look for when trying to pull sativa traits out of sativa dom genetics.

Shegrows · Apr 19, 2015

I think like someone mentioned it all depends on what your trying to add to the strain USING the male. In my opinion males are AS IMPORTANT as the females selection wise:) I don't breed a male unless he's going to be adding something amazing to the strain altogether. Like for instance I have a pineapple x og I've been crossing for a few years. Right now I'm still just stabilizing the strain. So I pick the strongest, biggest, fastest, strongest smelling, best node spacing, best branch structure, ect... Just the strongest/best of the bunch. Then like someone mentioned I mess with them. And see which ones easily turn hermi. Then after all that I choose females. I let the females go a bit. Bc some traits don't show right away... There's an art to it for sure. And even after just four short years I've learned a lot, and have an ocean to learn.

happylittle · Apr 19, 2015

More of that info im looking for.

thank you shegrows and SeaFOur.

I totally agree with both of you in that it yotally depends on what your breeding for.

I would like to know specifically about breeding a hybrid toward the sativa side.
I have my strong males in fact they have been stress tested im just looking at them trying to find certain traits which are standard satibsativa male traits.
anyone out there know what kind of expressions to look for when leaning a hybrid back to the sativa side?
thanks in advance, cause as ya'll put it the Males are just as important.
its 50/50 on where the DNA comes from after all.

happylittle · Apr 26, 2015

So here are two males im using to see what they bring to the mix. This is my Titanium Jack. The tall sativa structured one is the quickest and wanting to flower already. The shorter one is for the smell/stucture. Well see what they both bring to the table. Here they are,they are not the best lookers but ive been stressing them to make sure they are stable. Any recomendations?
-J

Canalchemist · Apr 28, 2015

You are essentially rolling the dice. The Siblings of a Polyhybrid will be all over the map, you can't just take this plant and chuck pollen on that plant and expect this and that to come from it. You have drift caused by the environment over generations, you will have loss of vigor, but one thing you will have is lots of different phenos to choose from.

happylittle · Apr 28, 2015

Im on the f4 selection phase with this line. was already Seeing less variation on the last round. Its a great line already even if it just goes its own way ill still be happy :)
-J

happylittle · Apr 28, 2015

Also im not positive these are my keepers im in the selection phase atm. Want to make sure the males will bring more of what i want to the table.

Shegrows · Apr 30, 2015

I would pick the bigger, farther spaced out male. He appears more "stativa" Dom. I have a strain going on its 4th year and while the first year there were quiet a lot of phenos, it's almost totally one pretty similar pheno now.

happylittle · Apr 30, 2015

Thats what im thinking. He definently has more of the sativa aperanace.

happylittle · Apr 30, 2015

However the shorter one smells so strong of citrus, turpentine and pinesol. Well run them both and see how the babies are.

Canalchemist · May 1, 2015

Males seem to add to the volume of smell rather than to the type of smell

happylittle · May 2, 2015

@Canalchemist. so if they add to the volume of smell, would that mean a possibility of more terps from males that have more smell?

happylittle · May 2, 2015

@Snowleaf very interestin thought there. Im going to have to ponder on that one. I have a friend who 99 percent of the time selects the early male for breeding and hes been running the same line for 30 years with it being very potent and having no known natural herm tendencies. I however do see your logic.

happy b · May 2, 2015

Most of the things i do are already mentioned but heres a couple of things that i dont see mentioned...Vigor.i only select the most vigorous males from plants growing in veg.if it doesnt have extreme vigor then its culled.any males that throw pollon while still in veg are scrapped (some people actually use these thinking it counts as a fast finisher.not so,its classed as semi auto flowering).yeild.a high yeilding male is always a good trait to have i a male,especially if it has a few other traits your looking for too.
c4 pretty much covered the basics.he knows his stuff on selection,take his advice,its solid.

happylittle · May 2, 2015

@Snowleaf the reason im asking for advice is because i love to learn as much as i possibly can, especially about things i love in life.
Now the reason i dont ask my friend is because he just blindly crosses the earliest plants. His reasoning for this is to speed flower time, and thats about all he understands. the strain he been growing is a landrace afghan.

knowledge is power my friends:)
-J

happylittle · May 2, 2015

Wowee wow wow. This thread is getting very interesting.
Thank you @Snowleaf for all the great info.
we definently dont talk about males most of the time so it makes finding a bunch of info in one place hard, but were getting it done right for thoose that have a passion to learn and grow like most of us here do.
so a BIG BIG BIG THANK YOU for all that are helping compile this info.

Much Love
-J

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