How Do I Recognize Male Or Hermie Plants?
So you’re growing feminized cannabis seeds and the days are becoming shorter, your plants are about ready to flower. Despite the activation of flowering hormones, cannabis plants will still keep growing during the first two weeks of flowering. After that, the exact timing is different per strain, the first signs of flowering called the “primordia” will become visible. Primordia can appear after two weeks of flowering, but can sometimes take up to 5 weeks. These primordia will appear at the nodes of the cannabis plant, at first it can be difficult to distinguish between male and female primordia. A few days later however, male and female primordia start looking very different. Male primordia resemble a claw, while female primordia have a more oval shape that resembles a rugby ball. Once opened, male flowers have five flower petals with five anthers containing pollen. Female flowers consist of calyxes with pistils sticking out.
Male preflowers are claw-shaped, eventually developing into little balls that hold the bananas
Female preflowers are shaped like a rugby ball and will produce “hairs” after a while.
Other Male And Female Traits To Look For When Growing Feminized Cannabis Seeds
Female plants are generally shorter and will have less branches than their male siblings. Female cannabis plants will usually also have more leaves in general and many leaves around the flowers. Male plants are taller and have less leaves in the top of the plant.
I Found Bananas In My Plants From Feminized Cannabis Seeds
If you do find male flowers when growing feminized cannabis seeds don’t panic. Male flowers need about two weeks before they are able to start pollinating female flowers. If you find bananas towards the end of the flowering phase you will usually spot them around week 7 or 8 of flowering. If a cannabis plant starts producing bananas at this late stage this is usually a last-ditch effort for a plant to produce seeds by pollinating itself. For this same reason you will often see male flowers in a female cannabis plant if it is grown beyond its harvest window. This process is called rodelization and can also be used to produce female cannabis seeds. If bananas start to form in very late stages they usually remain closed and won’t be able to pollinate female flowers. This late-type male flower will generally not fully develop and will often only contain a single anther with sterile pollen or no pollen at all. And if they do manage to pollinate female flowers this will usually be limited to the female flowers that are very close to the banana. This will usually be localized in the bottom portion of the cannabis plant.
What Should I Do With The Bananas?
If bananas start to form during the first stages of flowering this is usually caused by unstable genetics. If hermies start to pop up towards the end of flowering however, this is often caused by stressful circumstances. Avoiding stress is very important when growing feminized cannabis seeds. A common example would be light leaks from using a low-quality grow tent, this can cause hermies quickly. Here’s a short list of potential stress factors that can cause hermies and how to avoid them:
- Overfeeding: Make sure you don’t feed too much too early!
- pH swings: The pH of your feeding solution/medium should remain stable!
- Training/defoliating: Be very careful when topping, training or defoliating plants from feminized cannabis seeds towards flowering!
- Transplanting: Don’t transplant during the flowering period!
I have been growing cannabis for 35 years and there is zero guarantee that
any feminized cannabis seeds will not self. Regular seed under stressful conditions will self.
growing cash crops from feminized seed is gamble. I always tell people if you can afford to have your crop self
then go for it. To successfully grow feminized seed you need to an incredibly stable environment.Stable temperatures
large night time drops in temperature are a stress factor. What geographic area is your strain indigenous to? I keep a temperature regimen of 8 degrees between my day and night 70 and 78 No stress. Detecting light leaks before they are detected by your plants. This is how I prevent light leaks. I f I am using a tent I make a tent for my tent from panda plastic seamed with duct tape. I duct tape around fan ports and use insulated ducting . The silver mylar ducting has little tiney holes in it. similar to tin foil. The area the tent is in gets blacked out to. Walls and windows door ways on both sides. Nutrient Tank Temperature 72 degrees Run to waste. Returning your feed water creates an imbalance-in your your tank. What ever the nutrient label says I cut it by 50% Manufactures are having you push the limits to consume more product . Ph keep consistent.5.to 6.5. Make sure your tank is well mixed . I mix my tanks at volume x 12 per hour. Meaning the pump circulates the tank volume every 5 minutes I wait 10 I test it. Take nots on how much up or down you use to get your tank ph correct. Even with all this its still a gamble. Do you think the seed company is going to give you back your money because you crop selfed? You spend all that money and all that time to roll the dice on feminized seed. Some corners should not be cut. Ask any OG what they think about feminized seeds and if there not drinking the kool-aid they will tell you grow at your own risk. I grow them myself and I have occasional issues but I catch them before problems occurs. Good luck ! May the source be with you!