I got a couple males that are 8 days into flower and the balls are very noticeable. I am just wondering how long I should wait to cut some of the sacks off for storage and what is the best method for storing them. Also what is the optimum time to pollinate a lucky lady?
Well no answers sadly so I went for it myself.. I'm not sure if this is actually when you are supposed to harvest, but what I did was isolate the male in a cabinet with 92 watts of cfl and let him go naturally in 12/12.. This is what he looked like towards the middle of flower.. A closer view of the top.. notice the one that looks like it has opened up? Once they get to that point it is really easy to pull them off with tweezers.. Heck move it too fast and it can fall off.. I wasn't sure what to do so I just collected them as they matured.. Then stored them in the fridge in a dark container w/ a piece of paper towel.. At least until I can get some rice to throw in there to draw away moisture.. Got a good batch of pollen though.. Also should have a few good 3-d regular seeds that I now won't have to purchase for awhile.. Next mix will be 3-d with my jack the ripper as long as that one turns out to be female..
clip the ball of pollen from the plant. put the balls on a piece of cloth to dry. once dried, store them in a mason jar in the freezer. when ready, open em up and sprinkle! optimum time to pollinate a female is when shes about 4 weeks into flower. that way once pollinated, it can make seeds in the already formed buds.
in the pics above, some of the pollen sacs appear to have already dispenses their pollen, so they were definitely ripe ive got some great male pics somewhere on the hard drive, or maybe in one of my journals even, i dont remember. i find it easier to harvest the pollen than to harvest the pollen sacs, as youre assured to get mature pollen. if you search through some posts in a thread started by ricard0, youll find an awesome tutorial with pics on a method that seems to work great i usually pollinate around 3wks into flower on the ladies, its just a slight delay on what nature would do in most cases...but I like to assure a full 4-5 weeks for the seeds to mature and properly harden before the female is completed its life cycle. I also have never grown a plant that was done in less than 56 days, so thats why I pick three weeks in