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What's the quickest way to identify a female from mixed seed?


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Some people swear by the starting on 12/12 method, but I don't personally like it.  Some strains will show sex using that method quite fast, but many will still take a few weeks to show and can end up a little stretchy.  Then you have to go back into 18/6 for a while before going back to 12/12.  I just don't see how it saves any time in the long run.

 

When they are small you can fit the extras in for those first few weeks, and most strains will start showing preflowers after 3-4 weeks, and if not in many cases you are at about the point of flipping the lights anyway, which will then get preflowers showing within a week or so after that at worst.  Just means you have more plants than wanted for a little while, but not much longer than the other way.  This is the method I prefer, but either way it can still be a pain in the arse.

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you can take a small cutting and put that into 12/12 to see what sex it is, just throw the cuttings away once you figure it out...or you can try and grow them

 

a clue to gender includes the growth rate, males tend to grow taller, faster... so if you have one that is much taller than the others, a good chance it is male (not 100% tho)

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After a little thought, for your situation with the smaller height in your setup, you would need to tailor it to your situation.  Full on sativas would pretty much have to be 12/12 from seed in there anyway.  Even your hybrids and indicas would probably be best flipped after 2 weeks, but I still feel they would benefit from that couple of weeks of 18/6 and it won't really make any difference to the time it takes them to reach sexual maturity and start to show.  Unfortunately you will end up with a bit of overcrowding in there for a little bit no matter what you do.

 

I've seen a theory about looking at the little crater bit on the bottom end of the seed under magnification, think it was perfectly round = fem, rough and wonky = male, but I've never tested it out.  And of course Itchybro swears by the banana peel method of turning them female before germination, again I've never tested it, but will be one day.  I think there's also a female seed soak product of some sort on the market, but I'm dubious about that.  At the end of the day if you've plenty of your own regular seeds it's easy enough to just chuck extras in at the start and cull back to the best girls.

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I usually find that by the time I am ready to flower the plants have already past the point of preflowering, but if I want to know earlier I will do similar to Matti's suggestion.

 

Take a cutting from each plant once they have reached 6-7 nodes... mark the cuttings, stand the cut stems in a glass of water and then put them into a dark cupboard. Open the cupboard once a day and check for gender... they should show within a week, then discard the cuttings. This way there is no having to wait around for the plants to revert to vegetative growth after determining gender. 

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8pjptNTff8

 

Here is something interesting to watch...I have 6 kosher kosh seeds left and went through them and found that I may have 3 females and 3 males based on this vid...

 

When I do my kosher, I will try those I think female first which I have separated..

 

Wish I knew about this 2 days ago for the skywalker..

 

Even if it just improves the odds on regular seed.. better then nothing..

Edited by lookinggoodguys
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I usually find that by the time I am ready to flower the plants have already past the point of preflowering, but if I want to know earlier I will do similar to Matti's suggestion.

 

Take a cutting from each plant once they have reached 6-7 nodes... mark the cuttings, stand the cut stems in a glass of water and then put them into a dark cupboard. Open the cupboard once a day and check for gender... they should show within a week, then discard the cuttings. This way there is no having to wait around for the plants to revert to vegetative growth after determining gender. 

 

I have also read this is the better way - I will be doing this in the future as well

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