Males detect females in flower

[pipeman]

mate you can also look in the Growing FAQ under males, females and hermies, there are links to pics in there.

 

but what sneak said is bascially right, males have balls and females have hairs, just like us

[sneak]

- quite right pipeman. You have to admit it is very hard to know the difference the first time until you see it happening on your own plants. After that it's easy.

 

UPDATE:

After destroying the two little horny buggers Yesterday morning, two other babies have started turning out male flowers. I don't think the males detect females anymore. I'm starting to think that females in flower can change undifferentiated babies into males in the absence of other males and make them flower to help propagate the species. I now only have one baby left without male flowers. It will probably also change as soon as I destroy the current males. I will try to trim off all the bits with male flowers from the current two males before destroying to see if I can at least salvage one female from 8 seedlings! If I don't could I be risking hemaphroditism in my females? Any comments?

 

Will keep you all posted on what happens next.....

[pipeman]

yeah sneak I always used to worry I wouldn't be able to tell difference between males and females, but as you said after you see it happen once its easy.

 

mate females that throw male flowers are hermies, sounds like thats what you got. Plants can genetically have strong hermy traits or it can be induced by stress. are your plants stressed out? what are your growing conditions like?

 

if you only get left with hermies they still worth flowering and just try to carefully dispose of all pollen sacks as they appear. Hermies can still give you excellent smoke

[sneak]

No, I don't think they're hermies yet - checked them out with a magnifying glass - almost 3 weeks in 12/12 and no sign of male flowers. Let me clarify. The two female (large) plants are still fully female( currently in 12/12- spending their 12 hrs light in the garden with the "seedlings"). It is only the 4-6 week old "seedlings" that are starting to show male flower clusters (not just preflower and this is without 12/12 light/dark - more like 14-15 hrs light). As I killed off the "seedling" males those seedlings that have not started flowering (under 14-15 hrs light) yet suddenly develop male flower clusters( so far two plants at a time, which oddly matches the number of flowering female palnst (the two large plants)). Now I have one male "seedling" and one undifferentiated "seedling" and two fully flowering female plants, which seem to be orchastring the while process. I suspect the undifferentiated "seedling" will develop male flower clusters soon to possibly get the normal 50/50 male/female ratio. Well its a theory anyway. I will let you know hat happens to the undifferentiated "seedling".

 

I do think the large female palnts could be stressed cause they went through plant hell - mites, overwatering, underfertilizing, small pots etc. but It seems I am lucky for now. I think.

Edited January 26, 2004 by sneak

[pipeman]

mate, I think the last sentence explains why your females are throwing male flowers

 

anyway, I do not believe 50/50 is a normal male to femal ratio in MJ plants. Just anecdotal evidence. And certainly females cannot detect how many many males and females are in the vicinity, and change to males to correct imbalance Just not the way it works mate.

 

I have found good seeds produce predominantly females if grown in good conditions, from the couple times I have grown from seed. Makes sense when you think about it. Plants don't get married and have babies, one male can pollinate hundreds of females. So there is no real need for a 50/50 ratio in nature.

 

Female, male, and hermy traits are predominantly genetic. Stress during flowering can bring out the hermy traits in otherwise good females, which is I think what your situation is. Some even say stress in veg can make a plant more likely to hermy.

 

I know this doesn't relate to your situation but an experienced grower once told me that he grew only one plant for years and always got a hermy, but when he changed to growing 3-4 plants, his hermy problems went away. His theory was that a plant with no other plants in the vicinity are more likely to hermie. Maybe plants do release hormones in the air and know when they all alone? I have told this to other experienced growers and they say its bullshit, so who knows.

[Luke Skywalker]

Several species of plants are known to communicate through chemical signals, be it as defence mechanisms for attack by predators... There is a lot we just don't know about them really, and I'm sure as time and science rolls on we'll understand them better....

 

But yes. AFAIK, it is impossible for a plant to completely change sex before it shows sex. As pipeman said, it is possible for a plant which is female, and under stress, to express otherwise hidden hermaphroditic traits. It may well be that having a garden of all female plants is more likely to produce hermaphrotism, but not necessarily so. It's to a large degree a genetic instability found in certain cultivars, although it may also turn out to be a species wide trait which is expressed differently according to environmental constraints and triggers...

 

But anyway, the seeds sex is determined at fertilisation. From there, it's the environment which will determine if the plant expresses full female or male, (some are genetically predisposed to hermaphrodite expression regardless of environment, i.e. are naturally monoecious) or if it expresses as male with a few female flowers, or female with a few male ones. I personally think there could be a link between plants grown in groups of one sex being capable of differentiation of their sex organs to compensate, but it's something that I couldn't prove without a greenhouse.

 

Hope this helps mate. I think what you're saying is that you've got two full female plants, and a few seedlings which are younger, and some of these have turned out male. Don't worry, it happens, and provided you remove the male before they shed their pollen into the air, you should manage a lovely crop. Even if they do fertilise, it's still smoko, just really not as potent as it could be, and not as easy to mull up... *damn seeds... snip snip* *clink* *damn seeds!*

 

Keep growing them out, remove the males as you go along and you should be fine. take it easy mate.

[sneak]

Pipeman- thanks for your input. Yeah the 50/50 is probably not spot on but from the psots and most grower's guides does it not suggest that there always some males (& females) or at least a hermie when raising from seed.? As I said my females are NOT throwing male flowers. My 2 seedlings are throwing male flower clusters without being in 12/12. My mature female plants (2 again), which is in 12/12 are only carrying female flowers - dettermined using a magnifying glass (it is possible that I missed male flowers but I'm pretty sure). What gets me is that the seedlings are sprounting male flowers (or any flowers for that matter) as they are still getting 14-15 hrs light a day (Luke's point about various factors taken). One possible factor that could be making them flower seems to be the presence of the female flowers (developed by putting the females in 12/12). Not the photoperiod. I am just exploring the possibility that plants can inter-communicate with pheromones which would mean there will always be enough males to pollinate the females. It would be interesting to see if the presence of a fully flowering male (by 12/12) would induce an undifferentiated plant to develop female flowers (without 12/12).

 

I just find this plant to be quite amazing. Maybe I'm giving it more credit that it deserves. I'm not too sure though.

 

Just got your reply as I was saving the above Luke. I know you are right, we do need more research on the plant as a whole. I am no botanical scientist or anything. I'm just theorising. Maybe I'll experiment a bit. Has anyone else noticed similar things happening?

Edited January 26, 2004 by sneak

[Luke Skywalker]

Just a point sneak. 12:12 isn't the only photoperiod trigger level for mj. Males can also appear to show sex in much faster and what is a lot less dark time in total per day than females. Some just ignore photoperiod alltogether. Females are altogether more finiky and tend to change to flowering a little later than the males, but they more than make up for it.

 

What's happening is that you've got males flowering in the lowering daylight/increasing nighttime environment that we have outdoors at the moment. As the daylight doesn't just switch straight from 16/8 to 12/12 in nature, it's also the gradual change from longer to shorter days which is responsible in part for sexual expression in mj. The plant can tell that the night time is getting longer, even if only a short night time and a long daytime apparently is in control, and should be making them veg. Males don't always react the way we expect them to.

 

Hope that helps. Take it easy, you'll get some good girls outta them and I'm sure they'll be lovely. The females that are left from your seedlings which are now differentiating will not be as large as they could be, being planted late and all, but you should still get a harvest of them of some kind, and you can clone them out before them for indoor growing or mum keeping...

[sneak]

Once again you make perfect sense Luke. I just got a little over-excited about this growing thing. I'm sure I'll have some usable bud at least from the larger aldies.

[pipeman]

Yeah mate I think you are giving the plants too much credit

 

Yes it is possible to grow all females from seeds and have no male flowers, you be lucky if you did, but its been known to happen. Of course then you got feminised seeds, but thats a different story.

 

It would be interesting to see if the presence of a fully flowering male (by 12/12) would induce an undifferentiated plant to develop female flowers (without 12/12).

 

nah mate nothing could be further from the truth. A plant's sex is determined from seed as Luke pointed out. Its growing conditions may determine which traits come out. (eg stress causing hermie) But no, the plant does not veg then decide whether its going to be male or female, thats already pre determined. Its only us dumb humans that can't tell the difference until we see it flowering Experienced growers can sometimes determine plant sex through preflowers and phenos expressed in veg.

 

And the presence of a fully flowering male will do nothing but infest your buds with seeds, which you definitely don't want. Also you can't have flowering plants with vegging plants cause they need completely different light cycles. Kill all males on site, they no use unless you want seedy bud.