When should I start spraying the target female with CS?
In the past it has been recommended that you start spraying two weeks before going into 12/12 flowering, and continue spraying until you start seeing pollen develop. This is still the recommended way. However, we now know that it isn't necessary to spray so early. I applied colloidal silver to a female that had been flowering for over 4 weeks, and I only sprayed for 10 days, but still ended up with a plant full of pollen. However you wouldn't want to leave it much later than that.
The main thing that's important is that you know the plant is a female, so if you're not sure your plant is a female then YES you can actually wait until you see pistils to confirm that before starting to apply CS.
How long do I spray for?
At least one grower from this thread has reported success with just 5 days of spraying, and I've had success from just 10 days, but generally about 2 weeks should be enough. Obviously factors such as the strength of the colloid, how much you spray, and how frequently you spray all play a part. You can if you like keep spraying until you start seeing pollen bananas starting to show, but it generally takes a few weeks before you see them - be patient. It will also vary depending on how many times a day you spray them, as well as the strength of your silver colloid.
It also goes without saying that once you've sprayed a plant with colloidal silver (or silver theosulphate, or gibberellic acid, etc) the plant becomes a write-off in terms of smoking it. It can be used to create feminised pollen, as well as seeds (it can still be pollinated - see next question), but you should not smoke any of it. Even a thorough wash with a hose won't help, because the silver microparticles are absorbed into the plant via the foliar feeding.
/// bla bla bla.. - tyle srebra nikomu nie zaszkodziło : jeść tego nie maco: ale przy paleniu się wiele nie wchłonie ///
It's not uncommon for the feminised pollen bananas to remain closed - if that's the case simply cut them off and manually open them. You can then simply brush them against the pistils of the target female (manual pollenation).
cut:
Self-pollenation: Creating feminised seeds using nothing but one single female plant
By creating feminised pollen on a female plant you can actually then use that pollen to pollenate itself (it naturally will to some extent, but manual extraction & pollenation would yield a better coverage). I'd allow the female to flower for a couple weeks (until some viable pistils have formed) before starting to apply CS so that you've got some decent buds as targets to apply the pollen to.
This also happens in nature (for example when a plant is stressed or very old ie. rhodelization), where a female throws off some banana pods and some of it pollenates itself - it's something of a species survival mechanism I guess.
However, you will NOT get many seeds this way (you may not even get any without manual pollenation), and sex between TWO parties is the norm in life, so personally I'd always try to use a second (or more) female(s) to target with the feminised pollen, and only use self-pollenation if i didn't really have any other choice.
But maybe the selfed seeds would grow out even more clone-like? I'm not sure, i've always used a 2nd female.
Using a second female that is an identical clone of the CS'd plant would result in the same seeds as if it were selfed, but you'd probably get more seeds from it seeing as isn't under the duress of CS.
// patrz: temat o hodowli heterozyjnej : po jaki grzyb robić linie S do S4 czy dalej //
What are the things that can cause it to fail?
Colloidal silver is so easy to make, and use, and it allows us to FORCE even the hardiest of strains into submission, so the entire system is very simple, and very effective if you follow the basics ... but if you DON'T, you can get it all wrong. If you've made or used colloidal silver yet failed to reverse a plant, there's a good chance you've simply overlooked one simple element of the procedure ...
The main problems caused when making colloidal silver are:
- not using pure (distilled) water
- not using pure (999/.9999) silver
- not giving electrolysis enough time (resulting in a weak solution)
The main problems caused by the spraying of CS onto the plants are:
- not spraying with a strong-enough solution
- not spraying thoroughly enough (we want to drench the whole plant)
- not spraying regularly enough (we want to spray at least once a day)
- not spraying for long enough (some hardy strains may need over 2-3 weeks spraying)