Kramer284759

I'm a believer

Cheers.

- K.

Sso

but if you influence it like that, 700 plants, how do you know, you wont end up with plants that only turn female under rather specific conditions?

wouldnt the best mother be one that turned female, no matter what?

if you are gonna sell seeds from them, wouldnt you want to have the conditions "normal", no extra influences.

although those extra influences, could be considered like the effect of an excellent summer.

but do you get better plants, through a "always perfect" life, or a life with some adversity?

just a thought.

Plucky Purcell

OhSoGrowSo
I've seen and used the co2 pucks, I have not had any luck finding ethylene pucks. maybe that will turn into a business venture for someone someday...

MoJo

Quite the interesting thread. Thank you Blue, and thank you all who added a little science to the discussion.

I know some people say you can not mix science and religion, but science is my religion, so there you go.

Now I am not currently growing, but I will sure keep some bananas and apples handy for when I do.

Have anyone tried to use fruits to hasten harves/ripening?

reach420

Allow me please to add to your data...

4 plants from quality, not-feminized seed. 2 bananas, refreshed when needed from sprout to flower.

Now 16 days into flower I have 3 confirmed females and 1 male. The male, sure enough, was the monster grower, towering twice as tall and thick as the females. Textbook.

So, I'm pretty happy...

Religion is the perfect description. I sat in the front pu (sp?) and my prayers were answered - still tough to maintain faith however that the bananas had anything to do with it. Can't prove it. I'll be using bananas next time though too, that's for sure.

Did anyone graph a tally from this thread?

__________________
"I think we're parked, man"

Everything I say (except "don't point at your plants") is not true and is for entertainment purposes only.

penguin

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 .

One thing that ethylene treatment might be good for is selecting strongly dioecious males, for breeding purposes.


penguin

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Plucky Purcell

Penguin, that's intriguing. Do you know if/where further reading on this is located? I'm interested in finding out more...

mattdreads

why not just 2 banana's? make a circle around the plant?

sillysister

I tried bananas twice this season. The first time was on my current indoor grow with newly purchased seeds. 2 out of 12 plants were male. previously I was getting at least 50% males. Now mind you, when I got those high male to female ratios I was also using seeds that I produced from plants that did not have optimum growing conditions. I had water problems. So I was thrilled to get the number of females I did with the new experiment on purchased seeds.

Second experiment: I germed 14 of the previously produced seeds (my bag seeds) and used bananas as instructed. I had the seedlings under domes and bananas in each so that the gas was trapped in there infusing all the seedlings. I have 6 females outta the bunch. This is pretty much the rate I was getting with these seeds pre-bananas. Not to mention that 2 of these bag seeds with the first experiment at least one hermied on me. The other is just starting to flower outdoors so the jury is still out on that one.

Conclusion: I think that bananas alone won't influence bad seeds. I was all set to jump on board because of my results with the new seeds (first experiment) but now I am not so sure the bananas can be given full credit for the results being that the same results were not duplicated with the second batch of seeds. I guess a better experiment would be a side by side one with the same seeds, same everything except for one set without bananas or apples. And I did wonder about the possibility of influencing an otherwise male plant to female and if that is what caused the hermy effect - like penguin is writing about. I also strongly feel that in breeding, one is better off not messing with Mother Nature but working within her limits. I am vehemently opposed to genetic modification in our food plants because I fear we will end up with crap and won't have the original genetics if we need to go back to square one. I also wonder if we aren't doing something similar when we manipulate mj with gas or other means. I am so not a scientist. These are just some rambling thoughts of a simple farmer this morning...

ss

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SS

seaman

My plants are 2 weeks old. When should I start putting bananas around them ?