You’ve seen the ads from seed banks for feminized seeds, but how do they guarantee that the seeds produce females? The answer is that female pollen is produced and it seeds a female plant–all the offspring are female. To produce female pollen we need a little help from  an agent that you can either buy OTC or make easily & MUCH more cheaply.  Colloidal Silver to the rescue.

I’m not going to comment much on other uses for the stuff. Mainstream western medicine gives it a thumbs up for use as an anti-septic & burn spray as well as anti-fungal for other botanical applications, There are some that would use it as nasal spray for warding off colds & flu. All I’m going to say is to be cognizant of what you put in your body. That being said, Lets look at the application at hand–feminizing seeds.

Lets say you’ve sprouted some seeds and you have either weeded out the obvious males or have bought feminized seeds from a vendor & want more but for “free” or your time growing them–not at $7 each or more. Keep an eye on the young girls to see juuuuust when they start to produce the starter white hairs. What we need to do is to do a “spot stress” at one or two areas of the new female white hairs to make it produce a  pollen sac loaded with female pollen. That localized pollen gets all over the rest of the untreated plant and you have all female seeds.  Or you can harvest the pollen to use on an untreated female. If you do this with a female autoflower you get more of the same.

Let’s assume we do it Plan A , which is to buy colloidal silver from  lets say Amazon for $23 for an 8oz bottle. You simply load up a small black pump sprayer and spray a flower junction 2x’s a day for a couple of weeks or a little longer and that branch area will throw a pollen sack. $23 for a cup (8oz) is one of the better deals. Sprouts has it for $7.99 for a 1 oz bottle… that’s a bit steep.

Plan B–spend about $25 and make your own colloidal silver generator and make as much colloidal silver as you need for the cost of distilled water ($5 for 3 gallons near me –$1.67/gal) This is going to be some cool Bill Nye the science guy shit…

Materials Needed for the Colloidal Silver Generator

• Old glass jar with a lid liter capacity or close to it.
• One foot of .999 fine jewelers grade silver such as bezel strip or wire- I found 5 feet of it for $8.99 (28gauge wire) 1ft of stout bezel was $12
• small aquarium pump–$5 on amazon
• 6v 1/2 amp dc adapter–also $5 on amazon
• 2 alligator clips
• some 5 minute epoxy or jb weld, shoo good, caulk, permatex.
• Distilled water. Make sure it is steam distilled & not RO water.
• Aquarium air tubing
• 2.1mm female wire lead
• Dark glass storage bottle

Tool access: soldering iron, wire cutters, drill motor & bits.

The Concept

The jar will have 2 strands of silver immersed in distilled water. Above the jar lid the silver strands will pass through insulated holes and be attached to electrical connectors. The 6v power supply will send a current across the silver wires causing them to slowly leech silver flakes off from electrolysis. The aquarium air pump adds turbidity and air into the water increasing the yield by 8x what it would be without it. You’ll have commercial grade colloidal silver for maybe 16 cents worth of stuff for an 8oz bottle–not $23.

Prepare the silver electrodes

In this instance I cut 1 foot of .999 silver bezel into 2 6″ strips and soldered them to some nickle strips–you can use primary copper wire as well. Make a loop at the top and later on these will pass through the small 1″ length of aquarium tubing used as insulators. Stouter silver bezel strips will last longer than thin wire. This $12 worth will make many gallons of colloidal silver.

Prepare the jar lid

Drill 4  3/16″ holes in the lid in a + pattern . 2 holes opposite each other for the silver electrodes , one for the aquarium tubing for the bubbler and one for ventilation. Cut a 2″ piece of the tubing from your supply. Cut that into 2 one inch pieces and insert the bits of tubing insulation 1/2 way through the holes and glue them in place. As an option you could buy fancy wire grommets but if you buy an 8′ length package of aquarium tubing you have plenty to spare.

Prepare the wire lead for electrical connection

This is a generic 2.1mm female lead normally used for things like CCTV cameras. Strip the red & black wires a bit and solder the ends to 2 alligator clips. Wrap the clips in electrical tape to insulate  the bodies of the clips so they wont short out if they accidentally touch each other or the metal lid.

Finish the jar

Insert the silver strips into the small bits of aquarium tubing and make the looped nickel connector ends sit flush with the tubing insulator standoffs for support and stability. Pass the air tubing down about 5-6 inches through one of the remaining holes. Note:- if needed, bend the silver strips so they have zero chance of touching each other when submerged.

Get yourself a gallon jug of STEAM DISTILLED water at the grocery store. Water purified by reverse osmosis still has small quantities of other minerals we may not want. Fill the jar most of the way leaving a 2″ gap or more below the lid. Screw on the lid, attach the aquarium hose to the pump. Attach the wire lead to the loops with the alligator clips and plug in the AC adapter. let it “cook” for about 12 hours and you’ll have home made colloidal silver for pennies per batch. After 12 hours I had 29ppm which is real close to commercial made 30ppm stuff. The solution is light sensitive so best practice is to make it in a dark area and store the solution in amber glass or black plastic bottles.

Update 3/13/23– after 3 weeks of spraying we can see the pollen sacs forming on this otherwise female plant.

Update 4/29/23 After 6 weeks of pollination the plant has been harvested and about 250 seeds were harvested. They should be fem photo period Amnesia Haze.

Update 10/18/23

I sprouted an AF feminized seed in early July and just harvested it today. 12 oz (3/4 lb) wet weight.at harvest. I predict 5 oz dried and cuted