♂ Seclusion Box

[Cradle of Mirth]

Since this is more about a box than pollen/pollination, putting it in diy.

You have to prep your clear container first so its as breathable as can be and wont allow the pollen micron size pass. If you are cheap, glue paper over cutouts and then poke cotton in with a pencil. Before placing this over your plant, you can also take a bottle and cut the top off, and slip it upside down over the plant down to a node you know it will get the most nanners, and fill in the gap around the stock and bottleneck with cotton lightly. Helps control dispersion a bit. but is not a required step.

The trick is then to make a foam cutout (the flexy plastic kind) with a hole in the center and a single slice from the outside to center to slip around a given plant, then slip the seclusion box with a hole a little smaller than the size of the foam in its base, and make do like in the pics.

You put it on the plant after visual male traits, but first pruning the plant down and topping it to help contain it. Put it in the seclusion box. and just be mindful of nodes outside of the box that could make nanners.

 

[Cradle of Mirth]

thought i'd share a we'bit more
These from 2022 i'm about to cycle through, they are my favorite seclusion boxes because the height of these jugs, more forgiving for extra growth inside them.



I put 3-4 long skewers through tight holes near the bottleneck, then stab into the soil for support as i'm securing the male. I use a trick with string/floss that unravels itself as it's slid inside, makes it easy but can be done by hand.
I need to modify these though, they need another coffee filter window or two on the faces cause my new spot is more humid. Keeping the 2 inch access holes stuffed up with cotton.

I don't 12/12 them in the same flowering spot b/c space, but out in a shed- I could have them in flowering room with females no problem at all with the coffee filters i use, and foam seals at bottom etc. I've shaken one really good with a particle counter nearby and got nada, and intentionally grow a female I don't intend to seed with them in their spot as an indicator plant each run and get no seed. I harvest the pollen in a cheapo poly-plastic tent in there.

I mainly use these boxes because with so many males together, they can drop pollen on eachother or the air currents can carry it- or ocd dictates overkill?

If I'm putting a reversed plant in there, it's after sts regimen

 

[rkymtnman]

very cool!

what's the deal with the rice hulls/husks in the earlier pics? is that just top dressing? what does it do?

 

[Cradle of Mirth]

I don't use hulls anymore except as an amendment in the soil, that was when i was experimenting comparing it to coarse sand as part of gnat ipm...they seemed to make a home within the hulls and could dig 6 inches up/down somehow. but it is great for silica as it breaks down and a home/food for mycos

it also just makes things look pretty, but i don't bother with it anymore on top lol. @BH got me into BMC and it handles the majority of the work coarse sand used to do for me, much easier for gnat ipm

 

[rkymtnman]

one good thing about elevation, not many critters to deal with except spider mites. but that happened b/c of my dumb ass.

no termites up here either which is cool

thanks for the pics. neat to see how some people do stuff that I'd never do! lol

 

[Cradle of Mirth]

 

[Mr Jay]

Are those bigazz coffee filters?
,,, and the cotton/dacron in the mini bungs- for harvesting?

 

[Mr Jay]

.

 

[Bullfrog]

View attachment 222186View attachment 222187View attachment 222188

I want to do this with a highbush cranberry I have on my property, there's only one but I'd like about 4 more. Was going to try just bending down some branches stake them to the ground and bury part of the branch, buy next spring they should be rooted enough to dig up and move. Gotta add that to my list of stuff to do.

 

[Cradle of Mirth]

Are those bigazz coffee filters?
,,, and the cotton/dacron in the mini bungs- for harvesting?

Yeah the cotton bungs are for checking if they are ready or doing small harvests, i usually only box up ones ive already hunted outside, vetted/ran to late maturity to see traits before going through these efforts

When they are dropping the most pollen though ill cut the stalk and slide it out of the hole onto a pyrex dish before processing. Before storing the boxes i blow/tap out what pollen i can remaining inside, mist the inside with 5% bleach water, sun dry.. try to go a year+ before using again. Overkill.

They are regular coffee filters flattened out, but the ones with better meshing. I double them up if cheaper, use hot glue, apply one at a time, make sure the filter is pressed into all the grooves so no leaks. Sometimes the foam seal gasket needs some cotton stuffed in around stem if too loose.

 

[Cradle of Mirth]

once you've made one the hard parts over, and get down technique to streamline a bunch of them faster ...like applying the hot glue on the filter not the jug (no deformation), and applying it before it hardens in one go rather than small sections at a time, using soft foam to help press it into the grooves without needing calloused fingers, and drilling out foam with hole saw or hot wire template.

Easiest jugs to do this with are unfortunately not clear, like rounded bleach and vinegar bottles, less meticulous gluing up. Treated well they last years, synthetic mesh fabrics that won't let 25 micron particles through last a lot longer but the coffee filters I feel wick moisture inside and dry fast ..easy to patch too/diffuse light.