Outdoor Seed Crops

[OldGuy]

,
Hows it going my friends. Ive been keeping a low profile lately, so I haven't been on the forums for a long time. The green house is up and running great. In fact we are picking Cukes and squash out of it now and I should have ripe Tomatoes in about 30 more days.
I have a question. I bought some of the Purple JEM seeds back when it first was available. The plants from the seed i bought were pretty good. But Im having trouble with seed. The seed crop I grew had very few viable seed and a large Male to female ratio.. I did get some plants to grow. They stayed tiny. Like one little bud on a stick tiny. I did get a few to grow a little bigger and let those seed out as well. again not very viable seed. Out of 50 seeds I got 7 to germinate. 5 were male and 2 are female. 1 female is going to be very small and the other bigger, but still small. Im letting these go to seed as well because Im out of seed. The bud off of all the seed crops were of very low quality. I know that bud left to seed will be of a lower quality, but this was very sad. Whats the deal with these Auto seeds... are they reverting back to the Ruderalis? I was hoping I wouldn't have to buy more seed.

 

[Mr Piggy]

sounds like you harvested the seeds way to early and maybe didn't feed the plant enough? When you're making seeds it's important to let the plant go until the seeds are done, not when the weed is best. I've had great success making hundreds of viable auto seeds with very few aborts/fails. Next time you go to make seeds let the plant go until mature ripe seeds start shoving their way out of the buds and make sure to keep her well fed with proper nutrition! She is a pregnant lady after all.

Best of luck on your next seed run! :smokebuds:

p.s., she's not reverting, jems are fairly well locked down.

 

[Akaman]

You must continue to feed with some nitrogen during the flowering to ripen seeds. For example NPK 5-20-20
If you need quality stuff to medicate, then just let your seeds be full ripen, then cut and dry whole plant and then use kitchen metal screen mesh to remove seeds and branches from herb. Then you may make whatever extract (concrete, oleoresin or kief).

 

[Matthanna]

It is necessary to provide good and accurate amount of resources that the plant needs and after providing the resources, the care must be taken on a regular basis.
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http://www.lacoteimmo.com/

 

[alley_walker]

I have thousands of short_stuff auto #1 seeds from different plants. I recently gave a crap load of seeds to an old grower friend of mine. He's like 74 years old. (Recently started smoking again) He's been growing since 1974 or something. ( A break in between) OK follow close one on this. Like you, I have had a horrible time germinating my seed harvests. Now it's going to get hard to understand. 1 week ago, I soaked 9 seeds. 1 week ago my friend did 12 of them. Both stocks were known for a less than 20-40% germinating rate. ( I have since made more seeds and are much better.. BUT LISTEN) I had to stash my seeds out in the extreme cold. Long story but they were meant for pick up. They were never picked up. They froze under a piece of steel out in the open in very cold temps. 15 deg F. I went back to get them. 4 bags labeled, first drop, tiger stripe, picked and green seeds.. Each bag had frost on the inside ( not much) indicating that the seeds themselves had moisture in them or the bag did. But, I gave the most of them away to my old friend. Of his 12, 12 popped and of my 9, 8 popped. Like you, i have done 50 seeds at a time with this batch and got like 7 or 8.. But now the same seeds are at what 95%..

Take what you want out of this story... You can't make this shit up..

 

[yodabuds]

Alley heard of this before on this board?!?! Don't know what the deal is... I was having a horrible time germing my Russian dragons, so one forgot who said you could put seeds in freezer for a few days than try again? Huh ? Guess they had similar success... Anyone know how or why this may be?
Yoda

 

[alley_walker]

Alley heard of this before on this board?!?! Don't know what the deal is... I was having a horrible time germing my Russian dragons, so one forgot who said you could put seeds in freezer for a few days than try again? Huh ? Guess they had similar success... Anyone know how or why this may be?
Yoda

No, I may remember reading something similar.... Shoot I dunno. But to answer your question, perhaps it has something to do with the natural order of things. Before spring comez a freezing?

 

[Skunky Smurf]

freezing helps crack the "shell"
some will scuff tougher thicker walled shells on some sand paper or a match box to score the outerlayer alittle to make a weaker spot
and from frozen the expansion and contraction and moisture exchange as it thaws upon water added and germination begins
to visualize it is just like seeing an untreated deck or wood crack from the weather

 

[Skunky Smurf]

seeds can continue to mature as they "age"
and alot of times real fresh seeds will have a real thick outerlayer still and it is very moist so it is much easier to drown the seeds during soaking and germination
over time that wall shrinks as it protects and dehydrates to protect the zygote inside from damage so older dryer seeds are easier to pop or crack through the shell than newer ones
and freezing also accelerates the drying of the shell and as mentioned cracks it as the moisture in seeds expands and moisture from shell is less than like a stick if it is dry and old it snaps if it is freshly cut it bends because it is not void of moisture