There are thousands of marijuana strains available today, but what if you want to just try something new? What if you want to create something on your own that's uniquely yours? Crossbreeding may be the perfect solution. With crossbreeding, you can take two flavors you enjoy and cultivate an entirely new marijuana strain. Doing this isn't difficult as long as you do it right.
Not all seeds are great for crossbreeding. Feminized seeds won't produce male plants, so they won't work. Autoflowering seeds may be feminized, so they won't work either. Regular seeds are best if you're looking for marijuana seeds for crossbreeding since they will grow both male and female plants. That is really the only restriction, though, so as long as you purchase regular seeds you can start crossbreeding.
As soon as you can tell if the plants are , go ahead and separate them. It is best to put barriers between them, as this prevents them from being pollinated on their own. If you have multiple strains and they are able to pollinate on their own, there's no real way to tell which strains created a cross, so if you create something you love, you may not be able to easily repeat it.
You will need to pollinate the female plants on their own. An easy way to do this is to gather the pollen from the male plants and sprinkle it over the top of the female plants. For more precision, though, you can use a small paintbrush or similar tool to brush the pollen onto the individual buds of the female plant. This will allow you to create different crossbreeds on the same plant, but you will want to make sure they're labeled carefully.
Don't forget to name your new crossbreed. Traditionally, the crossbreed's name is the female plus male name, so something like, "female plant x male plant crossbreed." This makes it easy to tell what you crossed together so the results can be repeated in the future. However, if you're not planning on repeating it or aren't going to sell it, you can use whatever name you prefer.
Once the female plant produces seeds, you can collect them from the plant. If you did multiple different crossbreeds on one plant, take care during this step to keep the different seeds separated. You likely will get quite a lot of seeds, so you won't want to use them all at once. Store seeds the same way you would , in a cool, dark place, to ensure they last as long as possible. Whenever you want to grow more plants from your crossbreed, you can use a few of the seeds and continue storing the rest.
Though there are plenty of marijuana strains available today, if you're looking for something new or unique, you may want to try creating your own. Take some time to choose the perfect seeds for crossbreeding so you can create a strain you'll enjoy. Use the steps here to make sure you're careful and that there isn't any contamination during the growing process and you'll end up with lots of seeds for your new, unique strain.