Before starting, you must remember to put a label on your plant or clone. Putting labels on your plants helps you avoid losing track of your plants, especially on massive production. Here are the procedures on how you can breed new cannabis strains:
1. Select The Male & Female Plants That You Like
Whatever method you’re going to use, it is essential to choose the two plants you want to be your parent plants. You must select the best parent plants that suit the attributes that you want to optimize for.
2. Isolate The Females From The Males
After choosing your parent plants, separate the females from the males. Isolation can be done at the start of the flowering stage of the male plants. Do not forget to separate them once the pre-flowers of males appear. Be careful on transferring the plants, and don’t let any pollens from the males fall on the females.
3. Collect Some Pollens From The Male Plants
Make sure that the pollen sacs are already developed before collecting the pollen from the male plant. Pro tip: You can place a Ziplock bag at the stem and shake it gently to get the pollens inside the bag.
4. Start Pollination Of The Female Plants
Once the white pistils appear on the female plants, they are ready to be pollinated. You will see some buds that are forming in this phase. Then, separate the female plant. Get the pollens that you collected and put them over the stem with many buds that are forming. Make sure to secure it at the base. Try to shake the bag thoroughly to make the pollens stick to the buds. Leave it for one to two hours, and shake the bag again. After two hours, you can now remove the bag.
5. Take Care Of The Pollinated Female Plants
Give nutrients like nitrogen to the pollinated female plants. Usually, the seeds start to appear a few weeks after pollination. Vegetative nutrients will form the roots adequately. You can read more about this in our post “How to know what nutrients are lacking in a cannabis plant?”.
6. Plant Your Seeds
Now, it is the time for the germination of your seeds. Observe how they grow and keep records to keep track of the traits of your plants.