Maple Leaf Indica - Breeding for Seeds

Been out of the game for a while. Life got in the way. I've got some meds on reserve and have some time to try my hand at breeding. I wanted a potent pure indica so I bought some of this strain and some Afghani #1. Once the plants show sex. I'll seperate any females and clone them while I flower the chosen male.

No nutrients yet. The soil I planted them in has organic nutrients and micro organisms already mixed in. They should be good for a couple weeks. I'll probably start giving them mild nutes in weeks 3 and 4. The runt has finally started to grow. I don't know why it took so long. Could be the dry air. Could also be genetics. If it doesn't start catching up to the others or at least grow at the same pace, I'll chalk it up to genetics and pitch it as an undesirable pheno. Sorry for the poor photo quality. I'll probably get a new camera in a couple weeks.

I started them on a light feeding. They aren't taking up too much nutrients at the moment so I don't have to feed them often. The runt finally showed up and has started to grow its first set of leaves. The other three are growing at fairly rapid pace. I would imagine at the rate they are going, I should see signs of sex in 3-4 weeks. I'm hoping one of them is a male. I need to collect its pollen in order to breed this strain.

Not much change in their environment or feeding. These plants are growing rapidly and they look fantastic. 5/5 seeds germinated. I let one dry out during germination and it died. I had to pop another seed to fill the tent. Fingers crossed I get at least 1 male and/or female out of the group that I can use as breeding stock. I'll use any additional females for growing meds and any additional males for a stockpile of pollen.

They are starting to grow fast as hell. Looks like I have two phenos that have presented themselves. One is short with tight node spacing while the other is tall with long branches. Both are displaying big fat indica leaves with a beautiful dark green color. No health issues or deficiencies. I plan on taking clones of each plant this week while I wait for the parent plants to display maturity. Once I know the sex. I'll toss the clones of the phenos I don't want.

I have a total of 3 females and 1 male plant. I'm keeping the two females that look the best and have the plant structure I desire the most. I'm not too fond of the way the male looks but I'm trying not to be too picky as I have limited space and couldn't grow enough seeds to express a wider variety of traits in this strain to select from. So, I am just going with what I have. The plan is to flower the 3 parent plants as soon as I see the roots in the dixie cups I cut from the two desired females. The 4 clones will be transplanted into 3 gal fabric pots once they have started to root and let them mature in the clone tent while the others are being pollinated in the larger tent tent. Once the seeds are harvested I will move the clones into the larger tent once I have thoroughly washed the pollen out of the large tent. I don't expect to get all of it. I know pollen is difficult to get rid of so I should expect some of the buds I get from the clones to be seedy. I'm okay with that since I turn most of my crop into tincture, butter, and hash anyway.

So... It turns out that the plant I thought was a male is in fact a female. In light of of this new developement, I have decided to just put these three females into flower and germinate 2 more seeds in hopes that one of them will be a male. I placed my clones in the mini tent so that they can mature over the next 10 weeks with the new sprouts I just germinated. The plan is to gtow out the clones and sprouts and then start another round of flowering immediately after this. So far 5 out 10 seeds have been female. One of these bastards in the pack will hopefully be a male.

I cut clones of my two favorite phenos out of the three that I flipped to flower. The clones were cut before the flip (about 2 weeks ago) and all 4 clones have rooted and I'm keeping 3 of the healthiest. I also germinated 2 more seeds in hopes that one of them is male. If thes two should turn out to be female also, then I am just going to use Coloidal Silver to force one of the females yo produce pollen sacks. The largest female in the center of the tent is starting to grow out of control amd I still have 2 weeks left before the theoretical "stretch" period is over. Starting to run out of space. I was a little unprepared for how this is growing. I've done a little LST to try and spread the canopy a bit. Hopefully she slows down in growth by the end of the week.

Well.. Just started week 3 and I think they have stopped stretching. I was sweating it for a minute because I was running out of room. Gonna have to buy some low profile LEDs to finish out flower. There is only about 10 inches left in the tent and my current LED setup is up against one of the plants. I don't want to bleach the buds when they come in.

I think the stretch is over. Indica my ass. This one pheno that towers above the rest is unmanageable. I don't like this pheno and didn't clone it. The other two plants are perfect and have clones sitting in my veg/clone tent. The clones are starting to grow rapidly which concerns me. I have 5 to 6 weeks till harvest and can't move them until then. The may outgrow this tent before I can harvest the others. I might get away with having them sit under a light in my closet gor a week or two if need be but I would rather not do that as it exposes them to the threat of picking up pests. Oh well. We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

The tall one is showing signs of nute difficiency. I checked the soil ph and it's about 6.8 so it's not a ph issue. I have been feeding about a 1/3 of the recommended dose and it doesn't seem to be enough. I bumped it up yo half dose to see if the plant bounces back. The others are looking okay for now but are also showing signs of leaves turning light green. I increased the dose of nutrients on them as well. The clines have outgrown the little tent I bought. For now, they will have to camp outside the tent for the next 3 weeks. Hopefully by then, the seedlings I planted will show sex and hopefully one is a male.

Well, the buds are starting to put on weight. The tall sick looking plant was suffering from nute deficiency. This is the first time using Emerald Harvest and I have not been feeding the recommended dose because I don't know how concentrated the solution is. Now I know. With Emerald Harvest products, use the full recommended dose! That being said, I bumped up the feeding to a full dose and the plant seems to have stopped cannibalizing itself. The other two plants look fine and the clones are as well. The clones have reached the size I would usually flower at. The problem is, I have 3 more weeks to go in the flower tent and no room to put them. I may have to clone the clones.

Oh boy! Looks like the two seeds I germinated just might be male. I'm not 100% on this but my fingers are crossed. The are very healthy and stout plants so I'm really hoping these are my boys. I'm at my limit with grow space. The clones are ready to flip to flower but I have to wait until their mothers are done. Hopefully in another 3 yo 4 weeks.

Week 7 of flower and these girls still have clear trichomes. Looks like they're gonna be another 3 weeks or so. They are starting to fill out though. Nice and frosty too. The buds on the tall one are starting to lean. Might have to prop them up over the next week if they fatten up.

Finished one week of flush. The girls are friaty and the trichs are all milky. One more week of flush and then I'll harvest. I have a male and female selected for breeding. Once I harvest these 3 girls I put the two breeders in the flower tent.

The female is a clone from the previous grow and the male is from seed. Just flipped them to flower a week ago. They both look happy and are growing strong.

Drying and curing. Will update when finished

2nd week of flower. Both male and female plants are developing flowers. I am still giving them veg nutes while they stretch. I have added 2 ml/gal of KoolBloom to aid in the development of flowers while in stretch. I seem to have discovered the issue as to why the last plants turned yellow early in flower. I had stopped giving them grow nutes too soon and the plants starved. Maintaining the veg nutes thus far has proven to keep the plants very healthy and happy as the transition to full flower continues. They should be done with stretch in about a week, once they stop growing I will cut out the nitrogen rich nutes and switch to full flowering nutes.

The male exploded with flowers. The plant is touching the top of the tent. The females pistols have turned from white to brown. I think she is thoroughly pollenated so I'll be removing the male next week and harvesting the remaining pollen.

Got a little distracted with work. My girl is very laden with seeds. It may not look it, but each of these colas is packed with fertilized buds that are dense with newly formed seeds. The branches are getting heavy and the plant is starting to lean. She is drinking a ton of water daily and getting very frosty. This plant will make some nice tincture and butter after I have separated the seeds.

Nothing new to report. Just playing the waiting game while these seeds mature. I yanked the male from the tent two weeks ago and stopped fertilizing the plant. Hopefully no new seeds will be fertilized from here on out. I sprayed the plant and sides of the tent with a little water to help kill any pollen left in the tent. I collected any remaining pollen on the male and stored some of the pollen in the freezer.

Not a whole lot going here. Just waiting for the plant to finish its life cycle. Some seeds are starting to turn brown and developing tiger stripes. She still has 2 to 3 more weeks to go before I harvest. I plan on drying for a week or two and then remove the seeds. The leftover material will be made into dry sift for tincture and butter.

Finally done. Hundreds of seeds, a few grams of kief and some shake left over for tincture. Great experience overall. I learned some new techniques for growing and breeding. Very satisfied with this strain. Looking forward to narrowing the pheno expression of tgis strain in my future grows.