Accuracy of sexing pre flowers on outdoor grow

[Sir PsychoHashy]

I've been having a look around, but am struggling to find any in depth info on pre flowers. I wasn't even aware they existed until about 6 weeks ago.

 

Due to water issues I am looking to cull out some of my outdoor grow to better look after the rest. I have 2 definite females with pre flowers, 8 with what look like male pre flowers, and 9 others with nothing or too early to tell.

 

My problem is that whilst female pre flowers appear to be normal female flowers that simply turn up in reduced numbers earlier than should be expected, the supposed male pre flowers are not turning into a normal male flower, or even an immature male flower that ceases to finish full formation. In fact, to me at least, the ones I have, on close inspection look more like new branches trying to shoot out from where the branch joins the trunk because they seem to have little leaf like growths coming off the end, and the little stem the ball is on is shorter and thicker than what I am used to seeing on mature male flowers. I have attached a close up pic of one that has been on the plant for at least 3 weeks. I am also struggling with the fact that 8 out of 10 currently sexable plants could be male seems to be way over average, and would only leave me with 3-4 out of 19 as females.

 

My original plan was to leave any males in as late as possible, collect some pollen from the best one, and pull them. I wanted to do this as I am planning on using 90% of the crop for hash, and the more mature the males, the more I should get out of them. But as this is no longer looking viable, I am happy to get rid of any males except the best one.

 

I would really appreciate any knowledge or experience anyone has had with the accuracy of sexing male plants from pre flowers, as I am reluctant to pull any of these without more certainty. Putting clones under 12/12, or covering and uncovering plants every 12 hrs is not viable. If I was to keep one of these, and it turned out to be a girl after culling the rest, I would be shattered.

 

What I am doing as an experiment is on 2 of these plants, one that is taller with longer branch spacings as would be expected from a male, and the other more squat and bushy with short spacings, is I have taken a toilet roll tube, covered one end and the outside with foil and then green cloth, and covered one branch on each plant. I remove the tubes for about 1/2 hr each day when I water. I am hoping that this might force these branches into proper flowering, but I expect the rest of the plant will prevent this. I also cut the fan leaves for the respective branches. I'll try this for 3-4 weeks and let everyone know if it works.

[Naycha]

Hey drdave, that's a male preflower for sure. Don't worry you still have 9 unsexed and can plant more seed for some smaller but still decent plants if necessary.

 

Don't count on getting any hash from the males. It is possible to get a male plants with trichomes but it's not common from what I've seen (there's a lot I haven't seen though ) and the male needs to be well into flower for the trichs to really build up.

 

Naycha

[The Hash Nibbler]

Listen to Naych, he knows his Male reproductive bits................ ........... Nibbler.

[Sir PsychoHashy]

Thanks Naycha, I can bring myself to accept they are male pre flowers, I suppose I'm just struggling with the fact that they seem a bit different to proper male flowers, probably a bit of trying to live in hope or denial so that things don't look so bad. The males to hash thing is a bit of an experiment, I'm curious to see if the yield % is going to be high enough to warrant putting time and resources into them in future. No reason I can't do that with just the 2 I want for pollen I suppose, so the rest are for the chop soon.

[The Hash Nibbler]

Heya Dr Dave =) , unless the tops of the plants have those ball sacks everywhere, or starting to form, its probably a hermaphrodite, so can still hash off it- just be a bit seedy, just keep WELL away from ya females unless ya want shit tonnes of hermie seed.

Peace. Nibbler.

[Sir PsychoHashy]

Bugger me Nibbler, your either psychic, or the god of all dope plants. I went up today, and sure as shit I found a couple of female flowers on top of one, and looks like a couple on another but no pistils out yet. I'm a bit rusty as I've been out of the game for many years, but from memory all the hermies I used to get started as girls first. But then again I used to rip most males straight away. Anyway I will assume them to be swinging both ways and grow em for hash, just means I'll have to dig em up and isolate them, hopefully without damaging the roots enough to kill them. Now I'm wondering if maybe some of my seed came from hermie plants, thoroughly inspected the 2 known girls and so far so good.

 

Now for the thing that really weirded me out, some of the male preflowers, on the same 2 plants plus another one, have evolved further and now look like new branches forming. I'll attach a pic. If they weren't coming from a spot that should only produce flowers I wouldn't give them a second thought, but I cannot understand this. Wondering if anyone else has ever seen this happen?

[loylty gets u nothing]

if u can access daily

best bet is to remove males as they show true preflowers

give em a few days and theyll start to show more truer forms and are easier for true identification

anything that shows both sexs remove imediately

all the best

bil

[Sir PsychoHashy]

I have attached a newer pic of the same preflower, it has developed more (albeit slowly) into a branch like growth, and now in no way resembles a male flower???? There are several of these on 3 different plants, could it be some sort of strain specific trait, or is this normal for male preflowers to do?

[Syb3 rm3nt41_%20]

Males are easily distinguishable by the "claw"-like appendage protruding from the start of an apical shoot off the trunk or from the same point along a side shoot/cola. (at the bottom of the terminal where the shoot/cola grows from - where the plant branches outwards exponentially). Some specimens are easily identifiable as early as 4 or 5 weeks of the vegetative period. Females have a small calyx that is a totally different shape; as the plant matures it will begin to shoot pistils (looks similiar to a short fine hair) from these calyx's. There are plenty of photographic descriptions of what you seek online ..... its common plant anatomy.....

 

peace n pot,

 

EDIT- lucky i re-read this

Edited January 12, 2013 by ind00rcultiv8r

[Sir PsychoHashy]

Males are easily distinguishable by the "claw"-like appendage protruding from the start of an apical shoot off the trunk or from the same point along a side shoot/cola. (at the bottom of the terminal where the shoot/cola grows from - where the plant branches outwards exponentially). Some specimens are easily identifiable as early as 4 or 5 weeks of the vegetative period. Females have a small calyx that is a totally different shape; as the plant matures it will begin to shoot pistils (looks similiar to a short fine hair) from these calyx's. There are plenty of photographic descriptions of what you seek online ..... its common plant anatomy.....

 

peace n pot,

 

EDIT- lucky i re-read this

thanks ind00r. I don't really have any problems recognising male and female pre flowers, whats confusing me is that what started as pretty obvious male preflowers seem to be turning into weird little branches. It's blowing my mind, so I go searching for other instances of this, can't find anything, get worked up, and have to blow my mind to calm down, it's a vicious circle that I'm not complaining about. Other weird thing is that particular plant is growing more like a girl, shorter with tighter internodal spacing than most of the others including the ones from the same batch of seed (this one was from a batch of 10 seeds that came from 1 decent bud).

 

The whole grow started off as a semi experiment, so I'm gonna keep this one growing until it drops proper nads and see what happens with these branches. I'll post the final result of the pictured branch/preflower when this happens, assuming that it will develop further.