Feminized seeds & hermies. Do you want to know the truth?

[themanwiththeplan]

I'm really tired of seeing 20,000 threads/posts wondering if feminized seeds are more prone to going hermie than reg seeds or people claiming that fem seeds are prone to going hermie...

heres the truth...for the last time:

FEMINIZED SEEDS ARE NOT MORE LIKELY TO TURN HERMIE THAN REGULAR SEEDS! PERIOD!



Want to know WHY a feminized bean isnt any more likely to turn hermie than regulars?

regular seeds are made from crossing a male (xy) and female (xx) cannabis plant. therefore the offspring can be either xx or xy...correct? yes.

ok.

feminized beans are generally made in a few different ways but lets use the colloidal silver method. say one female plant is sprayed with the CS and bananas grow. pollen sacs burst...either get itself preggo (S1 seeds would result btw) or the pollen from one female treated with CS is used to get another female preggo.

even though the CS was used the plants are still both female (xx)....so xx + xx can't equal xy (male)...

thats not to say you can't have bad genetics that will go hermie. regular beans DO have hermies...not just feminized seeds. generally seeds from a reputable breeder will stay female no matter how much you stress them. generally if you get a hermie from a fem bean its because of a fault in the genetics.

Ive tested this theory by light/nute poisoning a plant from dutch passion for over 30 days. it got extremely stressed but did not show one pollen sac!

So this is just my attempt to put an end to the "do fem seeds go hermie" threads as well as the (no offense) idiots that say, "dont buy fem seeds...you'll just get hermies"

Also sativa or sativa dominant strains DO TEND TO HERMIE MORE OFTEN/EASILY THAN indica or indica dominant strains. that i dont have an explanation for but ive noticed a pattern regardless if those sativas or indicas came from reg or fem beans.

so its completely safe to buy fems or use them along side regs, etc.










can i get a sticky?

 

[themanwiththeplan]

wow...not even a single post. ive just replied a bunch of fem seed questions on here but i put all the info in one place and not even a post :-/

 

[mrrangz]

nice thread. btw do you think you can use 1 hermies pollen with a totally diffrent female plant to create a new cross? and also if one has a seed from a hermie plant and if you grow that seed to breed with a new male (diff strain) can you fix the hermie traits?

 

[themanwiththeplan]

nice thread. btw do you think you can use 1 hermies pollen with a totally diffrent female plant to create a new cross? and also if one has a seed from a hermie plant and if you grow that seed to breed with a new male (diff strain) can you fix the hermie traits?

you can breed with a natural hermie but that will cause future generations to be more hermie prone. generally natural hermies are discarded. the way to breed for feminized beans (or one way really) is to spray one plant with CS and allow it to pollinate the other female and the resulting cross will make you F1's.

so for example say you wanna breed a skunk female and a White widow female. you'd decide which one you want to be the mother and which you want to be the "father" this matters on what you're breeding for.

you spray the one you want to be the father and allow the plants to flower together as usual.

the pollen sacs will burst and the female will get preggo and and make beans. the beans you pull of the mother will be a skunk x white widow feminized F1 cross.

thats how you'd wanna do it (making crosses with 2 females)

 

[tomato57]

Good post!
I have been using feminized seeds only and have had only one issue with "hermiying," which can be traced back to genetics. It was Master Kush from Dutch passion, which showed couple of staminate flowers during flowering and the second time once ripeness was reached. The other strain (ortega) residing in vicinity, and so under identical environmental conditions, showed no such behavior and remained fully female in both rounds. Genetics do definitely play a more influential role in the sex of flowers than any environmental stress you can think of. The pollen from the master kush that reached my second female Ortega resulted in feminized seeds.
Something to note is that true hermaphrodites rarely occur, usually people get females which produce couple of pollen sacks, but continue to produce pistilate flowers as their dominant product. Another thing to consider are pollen sacks which are sometimes associated with maturity and therefore are produced once harvest time has been reached, this precious pollen would be good for further crossing to attain feminized seeds. Because the pollen sacks emerged once ripeness was attained, it will not result in acute seeding, destroying a sinsemilla crop and can be utilized for further crossing.
I would like to try crossing one day and see how the propensity to growing few pollen sacks on one female parent would carry over to the next generations. Do you think that if I took pollen from a female that showed few pollen sacks at the end of flowering and pollinated another female plant (with no staminate flowers) that I could expect mostly female seeds?

happy growing!

 

[Brick Top]

feminized beans are generally made in a few different ways but lets use the colloidal silver method. say one female plant is sprayed with the CS and bananas grow. pollen sacs burst...either get itself preggo (S1 seeds would result btw) or the pollen from one female treated with CS is used to get another female preggo.

even though the CS was used the plants are still both female (xx)....so xx + xx can't equal xy (male)...

While that appears to make total sense, could you explain why when a breeder makes feminized seeds, and regardless of what method they use, they collect the bananas to then pollinate other females rather than just 'turn' a crop of females and let them pollinate themselves and each other?

Experience has taught them that the female plants that were abused, that were stressed, which regardless of if you see it that way or not is precisely what happened to them when whatever method of turning them was used, if used to make seeds will result in a higher percentage of plants from those seeds turning hermie. If what you said is correct, why is that the case? If that wasn't the case wouldn't it make more sense, be quicker, easier, less expensive, faster and more profitable for breeders to turn a crop of females and allow them to pollinate themselves and each other rather than have a second crop of females growing to pollinate using the pollen from the bananas from the crop they turned?

Also sativa or sativa dominant strains DO TEND TO HERMIE MORE OFTEN/EASILY THAN indica or indica dominant strains.

When I began growing in 1972 all we had to grow from was bagseed. In that era and in my area all we had access to was pure landrace sativa strains. If a pure sativa, and I am only talking about a 100% sativa here and not predominantly sativa crosses (and not because I agree with you about them), is more prone to turning hermie why is it in that era hermies were almost totally unheard of, why were they scarcer than hen's teeth? Why was it that many people grew for years and never knew that such a thing as a hermie existed? Why is it that out of what very, very few hermies that did occur most were what I have seen in books being called a natural hermaphrodite where the pollen was sterile, where the pollen would not produce seeds?

And why is it as the years passed and more and more crosses were created that numbers of hermies slowly began climb and why it is that after feminized seeds were released that the numbers of hermies increased and increased considerably and are now to a point where hardly a day doesn't go by on most any grow site where there isn't at least one new thread about someone's crop from feminized seed having one or more hermies?

What you said sounds like it makes perfect sense. But it doesn't match up with how breeders make feminized seeds and why they do it the way they do and it does not match up with what I both experienced and witnessed with others over the last almost 40 years of growing.

 

[Brick Top]

you can breed with a natural hermie but that will cause future generations to be more hermie prone. generally natural hermies are discarded.

Why is it in books I have read, and also in information on breeder sites, every time the term natural hermaphrodite was used it said the pollen was sterile, that it would not, could not produce seeds, and most of the very, very few hermies I saw decades ago were just as how I have read natural hermaphrodites to be, sterile, but you say that someone can breed with a natural hermaphrodite, though it will pass on the hermie trait?

 

[Jogro]

I agree with most of the above:

Hermaphrodite tendency is largely a matter of genetics. Either your strain has that tendency, or it doesn't. Stress/shock just makes plants otherwise susceptible to doing this actually do it.

Pretty much ALL the pure equatorial Sativa strains (Columbian, Thai, African) have a tendency to go hermaphroditic, and that's why many of the Sativa-dominant commercial strains share the tendency. It wasn't entirely bred out with many generations of selection to expunge that trait, but keep other desirable traits. It might not even be possible to do that. . .if the hermaphrodite tendency genes are linked to other desirable Sativa traits, like high quality, flower scent, etc.

In contrast, there are plenty of stable strains that have had that tendency entirely removed by many generations of selective breeding. For example, with a good Northern lights strain, you can starve it, light shock it, heat shock it, etc, and pretty much no matter what you do you won't get male flowers.

Do you think that if I took pollen from a female that showed few pollen sacks at the end of flowering and pollinated another female plant (with no staminate flowers) that I could expect mostly female seeds?

I've never tried ithis, but yes, I do think so. I think if you could actually get any seeds at all out of such a cross (see Brick top, above) you would expect "female" seeds in the circumstance you describe.

In this particular case, of course you would also expect all these "female seeds" to carry the hermaphroditic trait to. That's just ordinary genetics. . .if the bisexual "father" plant has that trait (which by definiton here, it does) you'd expect the offspring to also carry the genes giving them that susceptibility.

Edit: I can't speak to the sterility of 'natural' hermaphrodite plants. What happens inside indoor grows isn't entirely natural, since we're talking about strains that have been selected specifically by humans for medical-type use over many generations. What I can say is that herm plants I have seen myself can put out quite a bit of pollen, and that I've heard all sorts of horror stories about hermaphroditic plants pollenizing indoor crops and spoiling them with seeds. I'd assume this actually does happen (rather than being some sort of old wives tale or urban myth).

You'd figure if the "natural" purpose of a female plant putting out male flowers is to perpetuate the species under stress, you'd expect that at least some of the time said flowers would actually produce viable pollen. In other words, what evolutionary purpose is there to a female plant making sterile male flowers?

I'm speculating, but it might also be just that plants can't fertilize THEMSELVES (or genetic copies). In other words, pollen from hermaphrodite plant "A" might not be able to fertilize female flowers on plant "A", but might sill be OK to fertilize flowers from plant "D" .

 

[Buddy232]

wow...not even a single post. ive just replied a bunch of fem seed questions on here but i put all the info in one place and not even a post :-/

No you can't get a sticky.

This is the worst post I've ever seen. Don't try to randomly make a topic and force feed people with information that you, with no formal training and what appears not much knowledge at all in how biology works, created as a result of running a "30 day test". You've got to be kidding.

THIS IS HOW THE MISCONCEPTIONS ARE SPREAD. BECAUSE OF DB'S LIKE YOU. And yes, I did work like this (not with mj) for 10 years. So I CAN come in here and tell you that your a complete fool.

Wow, ask anyone on here who know's me and they will tell you I'm the nicest person, but that had to be said and it felt good.

Bud

 

[Jogro]

When I began growing in 1972 all we had to grow from was bagseed. In that era and in my area all we had access to was pure landrace sativa strains. If a pure sativa, and I am only talking about a 100% sativa here and not predominantly sativa crosses (and not because I agree with you about them), is more prone to turning hermie why is it in that era hermies were almost totally unheard of, why were they scarcer than hen's teeth?

I'm speculating, but maybe its because you were only growing outdoors at that time?
EDIT: To be clear here, I'm saying that growing indoors under lights may be a contributing factor to the hermaphroditic phenotype.
I've seen hermies on landrace Sativa plants myself; I believe the plants in question were Thai. Edit: Grown indoors, FWIW.

Why was it that many people grew for years and never knew that such a thing as a hermie existed? Why is it that out of what very, very few hermies that did occur most were what I have seen in books being called a natural hermaphrodite where the pollen was sterile, where the pollen would not produce seeds?

Well first of all, if you're growing outdoor seeded plants (which was the predominant form of growing for quite a long time), then hermies would be irrelevant.

They only really "matter" if you're growing sinsemilla, and even then mostly indoors.

Here is an interesting relevant excerpt from DJ Short, whom I'd assume you'd consider a reputable source of breeding -related information:

A quick word about the virtues of hermaphrodites: Ask any old-time herbalist, one who has been experiencing fine herb since at least the early 1970's, what their favorite all-time herbal variety was, and the answer will be something to the effect of; “Santa Marta or Acapulco Gold” or “Highlandor Chocolate Thai” or “Punta Roya (red-tipped gold Highland Oaxacan)” or“Guerran Green” or “Panama Red” etc. et. al., all of which were equatorial, or sub-tropical, origin sativa and hermaphroditic. Even the great hashish of theera such as Lebanese Red and Blonde, all Moroccan and Nepalese were produced from seeded stock.

This is not so much in praise of the hermaphrodite as it is a suggestion in regard to the cannabinoid profile of seeded verses non-seeded herb. It has been my experience that the cannabinoid profile of seeded herb produces a wider range of effect than from non-seeded, or sinsimilla, herb. The equatorial environment also probably contributed to a wider range of cannabinoids. One of the aspects of the equatorial environment is its consistent day/night temperature range, there is little difference between day and night temps on the equator supposedly inspiring a wider cannabinoid profile. Couple this with the seeded cannabinoid profile and it becomes easy to understand the popularity of the equatorial produced sativa, despite its hermaphroditic problems. I am curious as to what future research in this capacity may provide.

Once the indica was introduced into the mix the hermaphrodite “problem” became controllable. It only takes a few zero-tolerance generations indoors to fully eliminate hermaphroditic tendencies. As a matter of fact, this, coupled with shortening the flowering cycle, became the first main concerns of the indoor or commercial horticulturist. This unbalanced focus maybe the strongest contributing factor to the “blandness” of much of the herb to follow. The author “R” did a cover piece for High Times magazine in the mid-1980's calling for a “Ban the Bud” campaign, against the indica onslought,due to how bad and bland the quality of some herb was becoming then. I remember the times clearly.

So DJ Short. . .who I think knows what he's talking about. . .says that hermaphroditic tendencies are prominent among the famous outdoor equatorial Sativa landraces.
That does couple with my own experience.
Remember, just because a female plant has the ABILITY to make male flowers, doesn't mean it always will. That trait could remain silent until the plant is stimulated/stressed appropriately.

 

[themanwiththeplan]

No you can't get a sticky.

This is the worst post I've ever seen. Don't try to randomly make a topic and force feed people with information that you, with no formal training and what appears not much knowledge at all in how biology works, created as a result of running a "30 day test". You've got to be kidding.

THIS IS HOW THE MISCONCEPTIONS ARE SPREAD. BECAUSE OF DB'S LIKE YOU. And yes, I did work like this (not with mj) for 10 years. So I CAN come in here and tell you that your a complete fool.

Wow, ask anyone on here who know's me and they will tell you I'm the nicest person, but that had to be said and it felt good.

Bud

see my avatar.

you don't know what training i have. what ive done. where ive been ,etc. so don't come in here telling me that i based all my evidence on a 30 day experiment that i did with a plant i didnt have room for in my flower room anyway.

SO after this post i wont feed the trolls any more.


everytime i get on this topic theres always a jackass or two that feel the need to come in try to disturb the thread w/ their BS.

im not spreading misinformation. if feminized seed were likely to hermie then i surely would have come across more than just 1 out of ALL the feminized seeds ive grown (ive grown fems exclusively for 2-3 yrs now).

 

[Jogro]

While that appears to make total sense, could you explain why when a breeder makes feminized seeds, and regardless of what method they use, they collect the bananas to then pollinate other females rather than just 'turn' a crop of females and let them pollinate themselves and each other?

That's very simple.

If you're a commercial breeder, the last thing you want is uncontrolled ("open") pollination going on in your grow room, because the pollen gets everywhere, potentially contaminating everything, including future grows.

If you have open pollination, you also can't control the parentage; any female plant in the room could be fertilized by any other plant in the room, which is not cool if you're trying to maintain line integrity for commercial seed sales!

You may also not want every single female plant in your grow area being maximally seeded; perhaps there are some you want unseeded, or seeded by DIFFERENT males for specific cross testing, etc.

So if you're a commercial breeder, you're going to rely on hand-pollination as the only way to make sure that you know the EXACT parentage of each seed, and that every single cross you do is deliberate.

 

[Buddy232]

Can this thread be stopped PLEASE.

"Sex switching" is a primordial response system that dioecious angiosperms have built into them. That is PROVEN SCIENCE.

There is some information that links X and Y chromosome suppression to sexuality, however not exactly genetic "hermaphrotism" through. Here is the info. It's from the PUBLISHED WORKS of Erin Irish and Dr Timothy Nelson from Yale University. Read their work, Sex Determination in Monoecious and Dioecious Plants.... and maybe a few other REAL works.

Not some random stoner on a forum or some BS in high times magazine.

 

[Buddy232]

see my avatar.

you don't know what training i have. what ive done. where ive been ,etc. so don't come in here telling me that i based all my evidence on a 30 day experiment that i did with a plant i didnt have room for in my flower room anyway.

SO after this post i wont feed the trolls any more.


everytime i get on this topic theres always a jackass or two that feel the need to come in try to disturb the thread w/ their BS.

im not spreading misinformation. if feminized seed were likely to hermie then i surely would have come across more than just 1 out of ALL the feminized seeds ive grown (ive grown fems exclusively for 2-3 yrs now).

This just proves your uneducated in what your trying to talk about. AND that 99% of the people on the forum listening to you and commenting are too. Excuse me for wanting it to stop.

 

[Jogro]

And why is it as the years passed and more and more crosses were created that numbers of hermies slowly began climb and why it is that after feminized seeds were released that the numbers of hermies increased and increased considerably and are now to a point where hardly a day doesn't go by on most any grow site where there isn't at least one new thread about someone's crop from feminized seed having one or more hermies?

Being Devil's advocate, this may be the old post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. Just because one thing comes after another, doesn't mean the first thing caused the second or even that there is any relationship between the two at all.

Just because you're seeing more reports of hermies, doesn't necessarily mean that there is a causal relationship between the increased prevalence and the increasing popularity of feminized seeds. (More reports don't even necessarily mean that hermies are more prevalent, though my guess is that in absolute terms they probably are; see below).

In this case, consider that the number of seed companies has absolutely exploded in recent years, and as you know, many of them are not exactly fastidious about maintaining top quality lines, let alone stablilized inbred ones. Bluntly, much if not most of the stuff out there right now is mongrelized crap buoyed by ridiculous ad copy. So is it any wonder that with all sort of fly-by-night seed companies selling what amounts to f2 lines there are lots of so-called "strains" with hermaphrodite traits? I don't think this was true 10 or 20 years ago, when the number of available strains and commercial breeders were both far lower than today.

Likewise, the number of people growing indoors and posting about it on the internet has exploded. Twenty years ago, there was no "rollitup.com" and the equivalent alt.cannabis posting sites had what, maybe 1/100 to 1/1000 the number of readers/posters? The fact that you're hearing about lots of hermies now may be more a factor of many more posts than many more hermies!

In fact, the exploding number of strains, the increasing popularity of feminized seeds, AND the increasing reports of hermies are probably all be part of the same phenomenon, namely the burgeoning popularity of indoor home growing. That would be in no small part due to the legalization of medical marijuana in many jurisdictions and the ability to trade lots of information easily over the internet.

With 10x or even 100x the number of people actually buying and growing commercially produced seeds, many of which are of low quality, and many of the growers being newbies coming to the internet looking for info or to swap stores, I think of course you'd see more reports of hermies. . .even if the rates of them had nothing to do with seed feminization.

Now, all that said, I think there probably *is* some truth to the fact that feminized seeds may be associated with a higher hermaphroditic rate, though its probably NOT that feminizing the seeds causes otherwise stable lines to become hermaphroditic.

Making a biologic argument here, I know as a fact that Gibberelic acid (which like colloidal silver is also used to create hermies for making female seeds) works as a hormone (auxin) basically fooling susceptible plants into reversing gender. The same effect of sex-reversal can been seen with the hormone in other plants, including corn (maize). This hormone doesn't induce mutation, and as such there is no reason to think it should cause any heritable change in offspring of plants treated with it. So I'm not aware of a biologic reason why feminized seeds created this way ought to be more likely to go hermie than the parents. They ought to retain the same genetics as the parents, and therefore be "equally" likely to go hermie!

What I think may be happening is a little more simple. In order for Gibberelic acid to switch the gender phenotype of a single-sex plant, that plant has to be susceptible to the hormonal effect. By definition, then, any plant grown from a feminized seed has to have at least one hermaphroditic parent. So by natural genetics, then, since the feminized seeds come from at least one hermaphroditic parent, they will be much more likely to "go hermie" than any true stabilized line where the hermie trait has been selectively eliminated.

Now, I'm not entirely sure what the mechanism of colloidal silver is in sex-determination, but so long as it doesn't induce mutation or gross chromosomal abnormality (and I don't think it does), the same should hold true.

 

[Buddy232]

In fact, the exploding number of strains, the increasing popularity of feminized seeds, AND the increasing reports of hermies are probably all be part of the same phenomenon, namely the burgeoning popularity of indoor home growing. That would be in no small part due to the legalization of medical marijuana in many jurisdictions and the ability to trade lots of information easily over the internet.

Jorgo,

What I have quoted is the best statement you made in the above post. That, to me, is the reason behind the millions of discussions regarding this topic.

While I LOVE it when folks make attempts to understand, discuss biology and the world around them... it really hurts me to see opinions discussed/stated as fact. Recently in the Maine forum, we had a chat about CS, "hermies", the future of breeding, etc. It was one of the best and most fundamentally sound discussions I've seen here on RIU. It was also the first time since I stopped studying (almost 5 years now) that I've had restless leg syndrome awaiting responses from others... our discussions were that interesting.

I'd like to address some of the things you've said the best way I can. Which is my opinion, but I like to use as much fast as I can.

For one, I've already mentioned why "hermies" exsisted in the cannabis plant. As I said, it's a primoridal response system - not always due to stress. Not all plants do this... however I'm sure with the interet and the right search terms you could come up with a list quite readily! Therefore all cannabis plants and seeds have this genetically coded into them. That is a fact and as I mentioned it can be read in the paper I cited along with many others. How this relates to the future genetics of those offspring, I'm not sure. (We do know because of asexual reproduction, the resulting offspring are all female, but what is the biological strategy now of that lineage?) I'd be awful interested in reading published works (if any exsisted). Problem is, you have to find that wild population, get the money to study it for a long time, document everything and run alot of expensive tests. Then publish papers which all need to be independently corroborated by your peer botanists, genetic engineers, etc. Those guys NEVER agree. As you can see it's not easy to do this research and with cannabis considered an illicit drug in most parts of the world, few people want to do the research and even less want to read or review it.

The other mention I can't let go is what you've said about corn. While in the past I've made reference to the corn seed industry because I like the technology and dicipline they use. You CANNOT compare the cannabis plant and the corn plant what-so-ever! Corn is a monoecious plant. (Pefect flower) It naturally produces both pollen and flower/fruit on the SAME plant. Cannabis is a dioecious plant... it has two sexes.


I'm going to give you a "like" for the effort. But come on guys please. Please cancel your high times subsription and spend an hour less a day on here + subsribe to a botany journal or something!

Love you all still.

Bud

 

[Jogro]

Jorgo,

What I have quoted is the best statement you made in the above post. That, to me, is the reason behind the millions of discussions regarding this topic.

Not all plants do this... however I'm sure with the interet and the right search terms you could come up with a list quite readily! Therefore all cannabis plants and seeds have this genetically coded into them. That is a fact and as I mentioned it can be read in the paper I cited along with many others.

We know that in nature, cannabis plants can (and often do) express both male and female flowers. I don't think there is any controversy here. Or at least there shouldn't be.

The point is, though, that in cannabis cultivation, co-expression of male and female flowers (what most people call "going hermie") is considered an undesirable trait. People growing cannabis want pure female flowers, and any unintended expression of male flowers in their grows is strongly undesirable.

The fact that it happens in nature is interesting, but not entirely applicable because people aren't growing wild strains of cannabis outdoors. They're growing indoors, and they're growing strains that have been deliberately selected over many generations to eliminate any tendency to show flowers of both genders.

Even though every cannabis plant may be genetically capable of expressing both gender flowers, the reality is that most of them don't do it and won't do it under any conceivable "normal" growing situation. (Obviously adding Gibberelic acid or colloidal silver isn't "normal"). The trait isn't expressed, and that's what all these discussions come down to. . .what causes plants to express this trait, and how can you prevent it from happening in your plants.

The topic of this thread is, whether or not creating feminized seeds increase the penetrance of the "hermie trait". More specifically does "feminizing" seeds CAUSE the offspring of these plants to co-express both flowers?

I gave my answer above. . .I don't think so. I think what we're seeing is effectively selection bias. Plants that already have the tendency to "go hermie" are also the ones most likely to successfully undergo the feminization process, and for many reasons, reports of "hermie" plants are also more prevalent.

I simply don't believe that the seed-feminization process creates any heritable genetic change in plants. I've always maintained that the "hermie trait" is mostly genetic. So if you want to avoid "hermie" plants, all you need to do is stick with high quality genetics where that trait has been selected out.

Put more simply, if you can manage to obtain feminized seeds created from parent from plants unlikely to "go hermie" than the plants grown from those feminized seeds should also be unlikely to "go hermie".

How this relates to the future genetics of those offspring, I'm not sure. (We do know because of asexual reproduction, the resulting offspring are all female, but what is the biological strategy now of that lineage?)

I don't see any issue with asexual reproduction (or more specifically, self-pollenization, which isn't exactly the same thing). The role of the feminized offspring of self-pollenization is the same as the role of any other (eg non-feminized) female plant. Since males can (and do) fertilize all sorts of plants there is no need for a 1:1 female/male ratio in the offspring, and in my experience, you'll often get more than a 1:1 female/male ratio in plants grown from seeds derived from open pollenization.

If female plants have a "last ditch" ability to self-fertilize to create more female plants, that could help the lineage survive if, for whatever reason, males are scarce or absent.

This might explain why male flowers are expressed in some lines at the end of flowering. . .that's just to ensure that at least SOME female flowers are fertilized to maintain the line. While true sexual propagation is probably better for the species, self-pollenization is still preferable to none whatever.

The other mention I can't let go is what you've said about corn. While in the past I've made reference to the corn seed industry because I like the technology and dicipline they use. You CANNOT compare the cannabis plant and the corn plant what-so-ever! Corn is a monoecious plant. (Pefect flower) It naturally produces both pollen and flower/fruit on the SAME plant. Cannabis is a dioecious plant... it has two sexes.

Sure you can compare them, and my comparison was highly specific. Both are both commercially bred/grown plants whose sexual expression can be manipulated with external treatment with gibberellic acid. Here's a reference for you:

Gibberellic Acid-controlled Sex Expression of Corn Tassels

• D. J. Hansen,
• S. K. Bellman and
• R. M. Sacher

Abstract

Foliage of corn (Zea mays L.) was sprayed with gibberellic acid (GA[SUB]3[/SUB]) in an attempt to regulate sex expression of corn tassels. Complete suppression of staminate development would facilitate hybrid seed production. Tassels of inbred lines ‘A619’ and ‘Gaspd Flint’ became pistillate, male sterile, or remained male fertile depending on the time of GA[SUB]3[/SUB] application. Maximum pistil development within the tassel occurred when 5 rag/plant of GA[SUB]3[/SUB] was applied 8 or 9 days prior to the start of microspore meiosis. Complete male sterility without pistil development was observed when applications were made 1 to 3 days before the onset of meiosis. Sex expression of the tassel was not altered when GA[SUB]3[/SUB] treatments were made after the start of meiosis. Ear sex expression was not modified by any of the treatments. Stem weakness accompanied pistillate expression within the tassel and the stem either broke or was incapable of holding the plant in a verticle position. GA[SUB]3[/SUB] treatments altered stem and peduncle elongation but did not change total plant height. The precise timing needed to obtain male sterility without stem weakness reduces the utility of GA[SUB]3[/SUB] for hybridizing large populations. Plants in a normal field population do not reach this time frame at an uniform rate.

So, per the above the article, with appropriate application of gibberellic acid, you can make corn plants show male bits, female bits, both male and female (no treatment) or sterile male bits only. Not exactly the same as cannabis plants, obviously, but the point that you can chemically manipulate gender is there.

I'm going to give you a "like" for the effort. But come on guys please. Please cancel your high times subsription and spend an hour less a day on here + subsribe to a botany journal or something!

Ain't gonna happen.
Nobody here who already isn't a plant scientist is going to spend the time, energy and money to convert themselves into one just to grow some marijuana.

 

[Buddy232]

Jorgo,

I don't know what to say.

While again I agree with a point here and there in your statements. Most of what you say is based on your opinions and is factually baseless.

Cannabis isn't a special plant at all. It kind of is, because more than 90% of the known plant fauna is monoecious... but of the ones that aren't - cannabis acts the same as any other dioecious/sub-dioecious does. There are males, females and hermaphrodites. All the research is out there about these plants, cannabis and other sub-dioecious plants... they all relate.

As to a definitive answer to if a "feminized" seed is predisposed to produce a hermaphrodite (which I guess is the question you folks are trying to address?). I doesn't matter (to me) however the hell they decide to make the seed in the first place. That is whether they use chemicals to force the plant to EXPRESS genes it already posses anyways (but are normally suppressed by genetic coding), or they allow the plant to do it naturally and down the line select only the plants who don't show visual signs of male reproductive organs. Anyways, to answer the question it appears your asking... I think there is no scientific anwser for any plant species at this time. You could 1000 "naturally feminized" seeds from 10 different populations and not end up with consistent results. However for more than 100 years science has studied photoperiodic responses in plant and been able to find realitivly consistent results with respect to enviroment and affect on sex expression (as well as a world of other things). That information has been consistent.

You were correct when you said pollen in this "business" is a problem. Your absolutely correct, I don't entirely diagree. What your forgetting though is for the last 50 years or more this plant has been bred and cultivated with ill-intent. The only reason males and or pollen producing plants are considered undesireable is because they influence seed production and that is perceived "bad" in the illicit market. However in the future with the correct people, research and applications - perhaps modern science can help solidify strains by omitting genetic diversity in real breeders final products and producing seeds that are viable but infertile. The latter being the most obvious leap for cannabis science.

I find your last statement so ironic. It seems you posted an excert from a research paper, so I guess I "converted" you. No actually I just want you all to be more informed... and it's called a botanist, although plant scientist is probably more recognizable.

Regarding the excert you did post though. You cited it entirely wrong. Chemical treatments (I beleive) are used in hyrbid corn production to render the male organs sterile. Years and years ago they use to manually go out and chop off every tassel by hand. Real talk!

As I said and you then you must have google confirmed... corn already has male and female orgrans as 90% of all living plants. First of all, it appears to me excert purpose is to states the realitivly poor affects the acid had in relation to overall plant growth. But anyways, yes GA and CS treatments do have a confirmed ability to help a plant express/supress male and female - just as hormone treatments in humans do. You CAN use this to your advantage like they do in that industry (remember I said I have cited the corn indsutry for their techniques and determination) however just like a hormone treatment you can't turn a male into a female or vice versa or "manipulate gender" as you said. It says it right in your citation... "to facilitate hybrid seed production".



Seriously. It seems like folks get mad at me for trying to stop the "rumors and bs" you all complain about. I also think it's ironic who the person who started this mess of a thread (and wanted a pat on the back for it) doesn't have anything to say for themselves.

 

[Jogro]

As to a definitive answer to if a "feminized" seed is predisposed to produce a hermaphrodite (which I guess is the question you folks are trying to address?).

Yes, that's what this thread is supposed to be about. If not a definitive answer, at least a reasonable discussion.

I doesn't matter (to me) however the hell they decide to make the seed in the first place. That is whether they use chemicals to force the plant to EXPRESS genes it already posses anyways (but are normally suppressed by genetic coding), or they allow the plant to do it naturally and down the line select only the plants who don't show visual signs of male reproductive organs. Anyways, to answer the question it appears your asking... I think there is no scientific anwser for any plant species at this time. You could [take] 1000 "naturally feminized" seeds from 10 different populations and not end up with consistent results. However for more than 100 years science has studied photoperiodic responses in plant and been able to find realitivly consistent results with respect to enviroment and affect on sex expression (as well as a world of other things). That information has been consistent.

I didn't ask the question; I just responded to it. Again, the question is, are feminized seeds more likely to result in "hermie" plants than non-feminized seeds of the same lineage? (Or at least, that's my take on the question).

Your opinion, I guess, is "nobody knows"?

I say "no".

As you say above, since every cannabis plant should contain the innate genetic ability to make male or female flowers, and since treatments with the chemical agents used to create feminized seeds effectively just flip this already existing "switch" without (so far as I know) causing other genetic alterations, I don't see a reason why the genotype of the feminized seeds should be divergent from the parent plants. The feminized seeds still ought to contain exact copies of genetic material lifted from each parent, analogous to what would have happened with a natural cross, and therefore should be no more. . .or less. . .likely to "go hermie".

This opinion, obviously, is based on a fundamental biologic/genetic perspective, not empirical data, so its theoretical, not "definitive". But if you disagree, feel free to state why. . .that would be a lot more interesting than simply dismissing what I'm saying as "baseless".

Responding to the above, even stipulating that nobody really "knows" the answer to the question, I don't think the answer is "unknowable". Its certainly should be possible to perform empiric testing on a variety of otherwise similar feminized vs. non-feminized seeds to see if the feminized ones are more likely to be phenotypically hermaphroditic. Whether or not such testing is practical or even necessary are different issues, but there does appear to be a lot of interest in the answer here.

You were correct when you said pollen in this "business" is a problem. Your absolutely correct, I don't entirely diagree. What your forgetting though is for the last 50 years or more this plant has been bred and cultivated with ill-intent.

Bluntly, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that term here, but whatever you might mean, I think "ill-intent" is a normative opinion.

Again stipulating for the sake of discussion that indoor cultivation and selective breeding of cannabis for medical/recreational purposes constitutes "ill intent", its still been done outdoors literally throughout recorded human history, as long as. . .if not quite a bit longer than. . .just about every other plant species deliberately grown by people.

You seem to "forget" that people have been breeding cannabis for a "little" longer than 50 years, and that for the overwhelming majority of the roughly 10,000 years that human cannabis cultivation has been documented, such cultivation and ensuing genetic selection has not only been perfectly legal, but often encouraged and/or celebrated for its fiber, nutritional, and medicinal value.

The only reason males and or pollen producing plants are considered undesireable is because they influence seed production and that is perceived "bad" in the illicit market.

Not so; male plants are also considered undesirable because they manufacture far fewer cannabinoids.

Next, its not just a "perception" that seeds are bad; if you're trying to make medicine, its a reality. Specifically, if you're trying to create smokable cannabis flowers for medical or recreational use, and/or maximize cannabinoid production, then for multiple reasons you don't want them to be full of seeds.

This is true irrespective of the legal status of said flowers. Specifically, production of seedless cannabis flowers is still a main goal of cannabis cultivation in the many parts of the world where such cultivation is either overtly or de facto legal, including including many parts of the United States today.

Regarding the excert you did post though. You cited it entirely wrong. Chemical treatments (I beleive) are used in hyrbid corn production to render the male organs sterile. Years and years ago they use to manually go out and chop off every tassel by hand. Real talk!

I posted an abstract (not an excerpt), and I most certainly did cite the article correctly, with name and authors. To complete the citation, its from the May 3rd 1975 edition of Crop Science, and I chose it because it appears to be a seminal work in its area. I guess what you disagree with is not my citation, but my interpretation.

My point was that GA can also alter sexual expression in other plants, and its sometimes used to do so; cannabis isn't the only plant where this is true. I stand by that, and I see you agree.

Now, specifically, the abstract I referenced states that with the appropriate application of GA the authors could make corn tassels pistillate (ie no tassels/stamens; female parts only), male fertile (stamens and pistils), or male infertile (infertile stamens and pistils). The authors stated that they couldn't get a male-only phenotype using GA on corn, but that's besides the point. Presumably you don't disagree.

No, obviously people aren't try to do the exact same thing with corn as they are cannabis and I didn't mean to imply it.

As I said and you then you must have google confirmed... corn already has male and female orgrans as 90% of all living plants. First of all, it appears to me excert purpose is to states the realitivly poor affects the acid had in relation to overall plant growth. But anyways, yes GA and CS treatments do have a confirmed ability to help a plant express/supress male and female - just as hormone treatments in humans do. You CAN use this to your advantage like they do in that industry (remember I said I have cited the corn indsutry for their techniques and determination) however just like a hormone treatment you can't turn a male into a female or vice versa or "manipulate gender" as you said. It says it right in your citation... "to facilitate hybrid seed production".

You're mistaken if you think I didn't know that cannabis is dioecious and corn monoecious prior to making my post or what the difference between the two is.

I believe I used the term "sex reversal" and I was just being colloquial about turning a phenotypically female plant into one with male flowers.
Obviously spraying GA on female plants doesn't make them male; it just makes them express staminate/male flowers.
You're right, it would have been more precise to say "manipulate sexual expression" or "sex phenotype" instead.

Seriously. It seems like folks get mad at me for trying to stop the "rumors and bs" you all complain about. I also think it's ironic who the person who started this mess of a thread (and wanted a pat on the back for it) doesn't have anything to say for themselves.

I'm not that person, and I'm not asking for a pat on the back.
However, I'd suggest that things may not be quite what they "seem".
Why are people getting mad at you? Hint:

This is the worst post I've ever seen. Don't try to randomly make a topic and force feed people with information that you, with no formal training and what appears not much knowledge at all in how biology works, created as a result of running a "30 day test". You've got to be kidding.

THIS IS HOW THE MISCONCEPTIONS ARE SPREAD. BECAUSE OF DB'S LIKE YOU. And yes, I did work like this (not with mj) for 10 years. So I CAN come in here and tell you that your a complete fool.

Gee. . .why would a post like that rub anyone the wrong way?
Why would stating fundamentally wrong assumptions about what people know seem irritating?
Are you aware that sometimes reasonably intelligent people can make some pretty "foolish" errors?

Believe it or not, its possible to disagree with someone, or even correct their mistakes without resorting to invective.
Some might even suggest that its generally more effective to do so (a la Dale Carnegie).

 

[Buddy232]

I'm not even going to spend more than a couple minutes respond to this... I quit. Please be advised no one is going to listen to or believe in you fellas stoner bs logic, except maybe so fellow stoners. Funny nobody has taken an interest now, except me telling others to beware and of course telling you repeativly how wrong you are.

And please don't try to give me a lesson on the history of anything. I've done more acclaimed work in my life than you've ever read about.

I'll advise you pick up a book or two. Starting with a dictionary. Here I will start with one definition for you... Since apparently you don't realize words can have more than one meaning.


cite
[sahyt]   Origin
cite
1    [sahyt] Show IPA
verb (used with object), cit·ed, cit·ing.
1.
to quote (a passage, book, author, etc.), especially as an authority: He cited the constitution in his defense.
2.
to mention in support, proof, or confirmation; refer to as an example: He cited many instances of abuse of power.
3.
to summon officially or authoritatively to appear in court.
4.
to call to mind; recall: citing my gratitude to him.
5.
Military . to mention (a soldier, unit, etc.) in orders, as for gallantry.


Have a good Christmas.