How would one go about trying to feminize regular seeds, outdoors, that may be of a cultivar somewhat difficult to ascertain the sex of? It would probably be better to lay out hypothetical plan for your critiquing, so here goes:
Let’s say that one would start out with three to five seeds of Berry Freak F4 V2 seeds, and then begin to treat certain specific localized areas* on all of the plants with colloidal silver (hereinafter “CS”) approximately two to three weeks or so prior to the autumn equinox for the geographic grow area, assuming that this would be an appropriate time frame given that there’s no sharp cutoff for day and night outdoors like flipping a switch would be indoors. Then, continue carrying out the CS localized treatments throughout the time period up until the sex of the plant becomes determinable on the untreated portions of the plants. At any point when the sex of the plant becomes determinable, or likely determinable, on the untreated areas, any males could be removed to an area exclusive from the other plants for continued observance to assure that the sexing was proper, as well as pollen collection and storage from the untreated areas of the plants. One would assume the pollen would probably be OK from the entire plant if in fact it was a male, but to be safe at least separate the pollen from the treated and untreated areas.
As long as there are no indications that the plants are males, then they could be continued to be treated with CS until throughout the life cycle, and doing whatever possible to “assist” with pollination by mechanically transferring by brush, Q-Tip, etc., any reversed XX pollen from the reversed areas to the flowers on the same and/or other females (for selfing and crossing, given that’s what’s going to happen anyway if the conditions are extant). Then, simply allow the plants to peter out, much as if you were attempting to feminize by rodelization - which one would assume would only increase the odds of feminization anyway…more arrows in the quiver and all that.
It seems to me, generally speaking (assuming no blunders, no exceedingly unlucky total XY sex sample of plants at the start, etc.) that unless you let a male slip through, you could very well be successful in feminizing an inherently difficult to sex cultivar in a single season, outdoors. You could also potentially collect some male pollen, and minimally, with any screw ups, wind up with a bunch of regular seeds, or more likely seeds that heavily favored XX…again, depending on numerous factors.
I’m wondering, if this is in fact the way to go, what would be the best time to start the treatment with CS? Relative to the autumn equinox in my area, that is. Obviously, an indoor grow would make this much better/easier in numerous ways, be it for sharp and well defined photoperiod flipping, feminizing female clones, multiple grows per year starting whenever desired, etc., etc., but it’s the intent and desire here to do this wholly outdoors.
This may well be too late in the year, but let’s say that one had seeds already started (germinated mid June) in subtropical gulf south USA, well, I tend to think that it wouldn’t be too late to attempt to throw off a batch of seeds now. To me, the odds seem to favor (if one is lucky and doesn’t screw up) that they could wind up with a batch of feminized seed and some pollen for future use, or at least some more regular seeds (hopefully at least favoring XX) and a little pollen, too, if not.
This may be a fool’s errand. I honestly don’t know, which is of course obviously why I’m asking here and now. Go easy on me, as I’m obviously brand new at this and am hoping I’m even asking this correctly and in a way that’s understandable and not ignorant as hell. I’m gleaning info as I go to even be able to ask this.
*all of them treated similarly and at a localized extreme - to concentrate the spraying at the lower portions of the plants to reduce overspray and reduce erroneous indications of sex at portions near the purposely sprayed areas - spraying the lower areas would have the overspray drop downward toward the ground without overspraying / contaminating ‘unsprayed’ areas, and leaving upper areas of the plants less likely to accidental overspray or contamination, and thus more likely to be more accurately indicative for sexing later in the plant’s life cycle.