Quote:
Originally Posted by Lou Cypher  Yes Sir, you're absolutely right, I would have never thought about spending 3G's on a system to improve the % of few cannabis plants to become females.
But we are talking about growing 700 plants (7 grows) all from seeds (that I'm in process of creating right now) to get a stable strain going, and that, can not be done with clones. penguin, All grows that I cultivate for my supply of meds are from clones.
But when I put down 100 plants from seed and I need the most in female %'s to establish a mother, yes it will worth it's money.
I'm not a young man, I'll like to see my strain in my life time,  and if that little machine can help me speed up things a bit more, yup I do not mind to spend this amount of $$$ to do it.
Not for the average home grower though. |
Keep in mind that ethylene promotes senescence, so you wouldn't want to use it throughout the entire grow.
I would also say that it is not a good practice to use it in your breeding program. Your breeding population should be grown in "typical" environmental conditions, and constant high ethylene levels are definitely not typical. Ethylene exposure will affect phenotype, and the selection process; you will be selecting for tolerance to or dependence upon exogenous ethylene.
The other thing that concerns me with ethylene-treated plants is the possible tendency for apparent females to start producing male flowers when you stop providing ethylene. Personally, I have always selected for strongly dioecious plants and my screening process is designed to identify and cull any plants that show any tendency to monoecy at all. IMO, it would be really good for the gene pool if all breeders did that. The recent trend to "feminized" seed and the growing prevalence of random breeding with "hermaphrodites" is a serious threat to dioecy in drug varieties of
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One thing that ethylene treatment might be good for is selecting strongly dioecious males, for breeding purposes.
penguin