Introduction to Making Feminized Cannabis Seeds with Pollenetix™; A Silver Thiosulfate Solution

Holy Grail Chemistry

Hello to everyone reading this! I’d like to start off by introducing myself. My name is Joey Cannoli. I am a traditional market craft cultivator and breeder. I have just recently started Holy Grail Chemistry — a company dedicated to pushing cannabis breeder education, products, and consultation. For years, I’ve been creating and releasing strains out of the Lake Tahoe Basin in Northern California under the brand name The Cannoli Boys Cannabis & Genetics. I have put some bangers out there, like Tahoe Fog, Adirondack Apple, and Squaw Candy. My focus has always been chasing the highest quality craft cannabis and genetics. I started growing in 2003 in Central New York. I grew up smoking and growing strains like sour diesel, chem, silver pearl, UK Cheese, and an assortment of hazes and coughs that circulated our little corner of the world.

I’m stoked to announce the start of Holy Grail Chemistry—a company specializing in products and consultation revolving around the world of cannabis breeding. I am also wicked pumped to announce we are now collaborating with Skunk Magazine to showcase breeder and grower education!

Why Holy Grail Chemistry? For years, cultivators, hash makers, and smokers have been on the quest to find The Holy Grail of strains! Something that checks all the boxes, a strain that is a showstopper and a jaw-dropper. Legendary strains have an everlasting impact on the cannabis community and help define the legacies of those who have given them back to the game and industry.

We are running a “Sex Reversal Photo Challenge.” Winners will receive a featured picture of their reversal plant in Skunk Magazine and a 1-year Supply of Pollenetix™. The new product we just dropped is Silver Thiosulfate Solution, which is used to make feminized cannabis seeds at home or in your commercial location. Pollenetix™ is our flagship. It is an activated ‘spray-n-play’ formula designed, sourced, and made in the USA. We have a second-to-none set of Guidelines that outlines the seed-making timeline from start to finish. We offer online video consultation to get our eyes into your room, to help diagnose any issues you might have, for overall guidance, and/or to assist in preventative measures.

My company’s goal is to serve as a well-rounded hub of rich information readily available for craft and commercial cultivators alike. In the upcoming articles, I plan to teach you readers how to make your own feminized cannabis seeds. This process involves reversing the sex of a female cannabis plant. This treated plant will produce pollen sacks instead of buds. We then collect the feminized pollen with the intent to pollinate that plant or another female cannabis plant. With the expectation of making all-female cannabis seeds. Pollenetix™ is an STS foliar spray designed to induce the formation of male organs on your female cannabis plants.

There are many reasons why a cannabis breeder will cross strains. Medically speaking, we are able to narrow the hallway of the hybrids we intend to make by using two females that are “tried & true” veteran strains. In some cases, breeders back cross or interbreed strains to magnify certain traits.

For example, if a medical patient or caregiver has a strain to help treat their or their patients’ pain, illness, and/or diseases that they do not want to lose. They are able to use Pollenetix™ to create feminized cannabis pollen. With this pollen, they are able to pollinate that plant, or a clone of that plant, to make feminized seeds. Allowing them to never lose that strain by making 99% female seeds. Personally speaking, I create strains to treat pain and anxiety. I have three herniated discs in my neck and one in my lower back. This injury is from a massive car accident in 2017. I also lift weights and am a big mountain skier, scuba diver, hockey player, and golfer. I am very grateful and blessed to combat that injury with the correct cannabis genetics, allowing me to properly treat my pain and, of course, by staying in motion. Also, I maintain a healthy organic diet rich in nutrition.

On the flip side, the advanced craft or commercial grower will utilize this solution to create many new strains for many different purposes. Lots of legendary strains have been made by utilizing feminized cannabis breeding techniques and silver thiosulfate solutions, which we intend to educate everyone on throughout the upcoming series of articles posted here at Skunk Magazine.

Creating your own strains showcases and highlights your talents and your selections of this plant. How we view this plant and how it affects everyone is and always will be subjective and unique, like a fingerprint of that specific person. What we make and share with others is the building blocks of any solid community. Pushing grower and breeder education is important to me personally because I want to always better and further the plant and the cannabis community.

Let’s dive into the nitty gritty right away. To start this, you’ll need Pollenetix™ or STS by Holy Grail Chemistry for the best results. Pollenetix™ is a silver thiosulfate solution that is not harsh on your plants. The most notable advantage of using Pollenetix™, or a Silver Thiosulfate Solution (STS) over Colloidal Silver (CS), is the consistency over CS. And the lack of heavy damage caused by CS. Pollenetix™ is STS, Silver Thiosulfate Solution. This product is activated and something I like to call “spray-n-play.” Our STS is not activated. This allows the product to sit on the shelf longer, allowing the customer to add the last ingredient right before usage, giving them the freshest product.

You will need at minimum one strain, and under my recommendation and per HGC’s Guidelines, 2-4 plants of the strain you intend to reverse. This is to mitigate the risk of your sex reversal producing empty pollen sacks without pollen. HGC’s STS requires dilution to make it ‘plant safe.’ Follow the instructions given to you in the provided literature. Our 8oz bottle comes with 2oz of “AB Solution.” You will need to add 6oz / 180ml of clean, untainted distilled water to activate the formula.

Reversing the sex of a cannabis plant is about blocking ethylene production within the plant as it grows during the vegetative and flowering stages. We have found that a scheduled dosage provides the highest chances for successful results. The reversal plant or STS plant will need 1-2 weeks to spray during flower before you can flip the plants you intend to pollinate. The reversal plant or STS plant can never be consumed once treated with STS or Pollenetix™.

Timing this correctly is crucial. A minimum of one week is needed to give your STS plants enough time to properly reverse. We will collect the pollen from the STS plants. To then apply it to our intended female cannabis plants. Day 21 to Day 35 is considered prime time to chuck some pollen around your rooms! It is common for professional breeders to use tools like paintbrushes and Q-tips to perform techniques like controlled pollination.

We will continue to dive deeper into this timeline and rabbit hole in the next article, but that is the general concept. We will discuss the key points of a successful reversal and the principles of a well-coordinated and well-planned-out cannabis sex reversal. We will give away lots of Pro-Tips of the trade for free! And walk with everyone, step by step, down this exciting path! We will also take Q&As on our website to help with the step-by-step. We are incredibly grateful to Skunk Magazine for giving us this opportunity to share what we have learned throughout our journey with amazing plant back to the community.

Follow online: http://www.holygrailchemistry.com 

Follow on social media: @holygrail.chemistry

Photo credit: Sophie L. Moore