Pollination is moving pollen onto the stigmas of a female flower. Fertilisation follows when the pollen tube reaches the ovule, and a seed develops inside the calyx over the following weeks. Cannabis is naturally wind-pollinated.
In practice
Breeders pollinate deliberately and selectively. A common approach is to brush pollen onto one or two lower branches of a female a few weeks into flower, then mist the room and plant to kill stray pollen. The rest of the plant gives seedless flower, and the pollinated branch matures seed. Each pollinated branch is labelled with the cross and the date.
Unplanned pollination is the grower's nightmare: one male or one herm can seed a room, lowering flower yield and quality as the plant puts energy into seed. It also gives seed with an unknown, often unstable, father.
Don't confuse with
- Fertilisation: the fusion after pollination; pollination can happen without fertilisation if the pollen is dead.
- Open pollination: letting a population pollinate freely, as a breeding method.
- Selfing: pollinating a plant with its own pollen.
The sticky, hair-like tip of the female pistil that catches pollen; each cannabis female flower has two, white when fresh and darkening with age.A female flower with a pistil but no functional stamens; in cannabis, a bract-wrapped ovary topped by two stigmas.Botanically, the sepals of a flower; in female cannabis a thin, reduced perianth on the ovary, though growers use the word for the resinous bract.In cannabis growing, a plant (usually female) that develops both pistillate and staminate flowers or anthers; botanists call it intersex or monoecious expression.Open-pollinated seed comes from a population left to cross freely among its own plants, without controlled pairs, which keeps a line's variation and type over generations.Selfing is pollinating a plant with its own pollen, in cannabis usually by reversing part of a female to make pollen; it is the most intense form of inbreeding.Pollen is the fine powder released by male flowers that carries the male gametes; when it lands on a female's stigmas it fertilises the ovules and produces seed.A cross is the offspring of mating two different plants, written female x male, as "A x B"; one cross starts a line but is not one.A seed run is a dedicated grow in which selected parents are crossed to produce a batch of seed, as opposed to growing for flower.
