Hello again DGC. I have been reading about using colloidal silver to cause a female to grow bananas and produce, Feminized Seeds. I was wondering if anyone has first hand experience with this and would be willing to share some knowledge? I’m also wondering if this could be used on Autos as well, and whether this is likely to damage genetics at all. I heard you can apply to only selected branches and also pollinate the same way to minimize damage to yields. Is that actually practical? Picture is my 5th week Ak47 auto just starting to flower.
Colloidal Silver for Feminized Seeds
by joes-grows | Sep 9, 2019 | Grower Questions | 8 comments
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I know a fellow dgc who reversed his northern light and got about 80 seeds. Saw you want to start at the hormonal transition from veg to flower. Photoperiod when you switch to 12/12, guessing after preflowers set in and the stretch starts you’ll want to start then. Reversed females give way less pollen so a branch might work but not sure it will provide you with enough seeds. Spraying every other day for 2 weeks. Doing it early enough for seeds to mature is key. There is some information that says it genetically changes the genes but very little has been studied on this aspect. Also s1 seeds don’t always produce plants like mom so you might get some better, some worse and some similar. I’ll try to get them to post so you can ask questions about their success.
I am very curious about this as well. Is colloidal silver the same as silver bisulphate? I have one plant in particular that I would love to expand on the genetics.
Silver thiosulfate is not the same as colloidal silver. Silver thiosulfate is more effective.
I’ve heard a few breeders recommend against using colloidal silver for fem production as its more likely to cause herms or other problems. Not sure if theres any truth to this or not, but its something I’ve heard from numerous breeders so I suspect there might be something to it.
Most fem seed breeders are using STS for reversing these days. I havent’ tried it myself, but I hear its not that hard to make, just have to be careful with storing it.
Also… I HIGHLY recommend learning to make seeds with a male and a female before messing around with making fem seeds. Get some hands on experience making seeds and make sure you fully understand the process before you start messing with chemicals and reversing plants.
Pollen is pollen whether from a reversed plant or male. As an autoflower grower I take a small clone as early as possible off as many plants that I grow as possible and reverse them with STS in order to preserve the genetics should that plant end up being a true winner. These clones rarely end up exceeding 8 inches when finished, but not only do I end up with stored pollen from them, but more likely than not the clone will also produce some feminized seeds of its own as the effects of the STS wane over time. These seeds from smaller cloned autos are not all super vigorous, many are weak or not fully formed or completely non-viable, but a good portion of them are just as good as the primo auto seeds I purchased to start with, and that works for me as a small home grower.
STS much easier than colloidal silver, about $30 on ebay will give the home horticulturist enough reagents to make STS for many years.
Make sure you have an accurate scale and only mix up a much smaller amount of STS than most formulas call for. I make exactly enough silver nitrate and sodium thiosulfite solutions as I will be mixing together at one time so that I will not have to store reagent solutions in addition to them in solid form. I store the mixed STS solution in a dark bottle in fridge. It will gradually lose potency over time but this is not a big deal because it is incredibly strong and effective to begin with. In fact, the slow degradation over time actually makes it more likely a small weak clone will survive the application as it is much harder on a barely rooted clone than if it were applied to a healthy non-stressed plant from seed or fully established photoperiod clone. No need to use a lot, just two light sprays about a week apart. My 6 month old solution still works fine. No need to overthink the complexity of this. Silver in one of many molecular forms blocks ethylene production at certain sites and causes production of male flowers, easy peasy to use this to our advantage.
I’ll dig up my notes and post a newbie primer on STS formulation and use here on DGC if I can find the time in the near future.
I’ve successfully reversed 2 branches on 1 plant using coloidial silver. You have to start spraying the same part of the plant 2 weeks before going into flower. It’s works and you can get it at the vitamin shop pretty cheap, but I’ve also heard STS is a lot easier and more fullproof.
I love this subject! I have been making fem seeds for years and the one thing I can tell you for sure is it is never a sure thing no matter what you use. I have used STS and CS and some strains are pretty resistant to both. I make my own CS ,STS and Markascannabis is right it is pretty cheap to make. But I have used store bought and had some success with it too. With autos it is a little more tricky but can be done ,timing is key and it helps to know the strain before you try and if sprayed too late or not enough you will wind up with pollen sacks in the buds making it very hard to extract the pollen. You want your sprayed plant to look as much as possible like a true male. With CS you want at least 30 ppm and you will want to spray twice a day for 2 weeks before flowering and keep spraying until you see pollen sacks forming. I usually spray until a few are turning pale yellow and then stop. You will want the female you are trying to get seeds from to be a few weeks into flower before hitting it with pollen so you get a good seed run out of her. STS there are a few articles online on how to make it but you will need to play with how often to spray and when to start. I have a run going right now of a strain I made that I used 3 clones 2 I sprayed with STS and 1 with CS and the STS i used the method online spraying every 5 days and I wound up with sacks in the buds the CS clone looks straight male and is dropping pollen like crazy, the others I have to try to pick out of the buds ( not fun) but hey whatever method you choose be prepared to mess up some plants because it will happen.
what ratio did you use the silver and sodium thiosulfate? I have found lots of mixed information about # grams of each to use and how often to spray and when to start spraying.