Help getting a higher % fem.

I'm growing in a small box which will become a LST, SCROG CFL grow and im starting with non-femenized seeds which means i got one shot at it and i don't want to grow a plant and to all that work just to chop it. I've read around and have seen numerous people talk about different ways of increasing the chance a seed will sprout female whether it be before it germinated or during veg. One of the ones i saw with alot of hype was placing seeds in a plastic zip-lock bag with a banana peel which releases ethylene gases that somehow increase the feminine chance for seeds. Has anyone tried this? does it work? Please post other ideas...

Plant more seeds and you will get more females

only god can help you, my son.

I just read about the banana peel thing yesterday, sounds interesting... If mine weren't growing already I woulda given it a try.
The other post around RIU is called "The Banana Religion??" I think.... It's about this too...

Could be wrong but pretty sure seeds are whatever sex they are when you get them. Something to do with genetics. They make femised seeds by breeding females with females that went hermaphrodite, so they only have 'x' chromosomes to work with. Could definitely be wrong though, so mostly I guess just posting to subscribe.

aetneerg said:

Could be wrong but pretty sure seeds are whatever sex they are when you get them. Something to do with genetics. They make femised seeds by breeding females with females that went hermaphrodite, so they only have 'x' chromosomes to work with. Could definitely be wrong though, so mostly I guess just posting to subscribe.

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you could try the banna peel but your best bet is just going to be saving the maney and invetsting in some feminized seeds or even buying from a seed bank un-feminized they usually have really good ratios. good luck

I found this picture. I browsed through net and found, that you can really see a difference - some seeds really have volcano-like depression at the bottom.
But dont know, if that really works 100 %. Will definately do some more research and try to determine sex by just looking at seeds next time I grow.

trying to find out if a seed is male or female by looking at it is like trying to stick two fingers in your pregnant girlfriend to see if your babys a boy or girl.

if that pic above is of female/males then im phucked cause none of mine that i got from attitude looks anything like them...

No worries camp, You wont know what they are until you plant them. Dont go by the black and white pictures provided.

Well its not much of a pic but might as well go with it to be selective... also i can olny have 1 plant 2 if i scrunch them in really tight... and just to be safe im gonna do the selective seed thing and do the banana thing just to be safe.

ethylene and the banana peel trick has shown some improvement in the chances people have of getting fem seeds, but obviously like most things pertaining to weed its not proven. their is an interesting thread over at grasscity that discusses this exact topic. i really dont want to advertise another site, but it is a very valuable thread with good info. originally the poster set out to see if the product "reverse" would actually reverse hermi's back into being only fem. basically he did a shit ton of experimentation and legwork, along with a few other growers and its some pretty interesting info. in his first test he got a 100% fem rate from it... he also looks into making your own type of product at home ("reverse" is expensive, and not worth it) anyhow i dont think i need to regurgitate all the info on here but i really do suggest you try and find it. if i can locate it ill come and give you a link or pm you with it if you want.

dont play with banana peels...in the grow bible theres a bit of reading from DUTCH

PASSION (i think) but it has a list of things l to give you more females from seed like:

higher temps and light color and more i just cant remeber..

i dont know the only thing i can really tell you is theres a lot of things out there...You have limited space so why not do as you said try both...The person that told me about the banana didnt tell me about putting it in the bag 2 weeks before hand i found that on some other sites but i was told to put a banana near the base of the plant let it sit there until it turns black and replace but put another on berfore you remove the other...so they overlap as far as time on the plant...Do this from day 1 of week 3 to last day of 4th or 5th week...i have a couple going nowim going to try it on but i still have a week to go before starting this but i will be sure to keep you posted...

If you flip a coin a bunch of times to decide which seed to start, you will have about the same chance getting a female as doing the banana thing or going by the black and white picture. What I do to get more females is start with clones. If I lived anywhere near texas I would give you a couple but looks like you gotta go elsewhere. Good luck!

Some people have claimed high rates of female plants after germinating their seeds in Dutch Master's Reverse. I've never tried that, so I couldn't tell you one way or another myself though. Google that and see what comes up. It can't hurt.

in a lot of readings ive seen pertaining to the female/male ratio. ive heard that as long as you keep your environment stress free, high in nitrogen and moderate potassium, if can result in my females.

my experience is limited but ive grown 12 plants, 9 bagseed and some various mmj plants and i have only had 2 males. both plants that were males: one was heavily over-fert'd by mistake and had an interrupted light cycle along with other problems. my second male suffered a semi-stressful life and developed balls.

these are my experiences and i am not saying these are 100% successful.


edit: even in the beginning of stages of veg for a couple of my first grows, my plants had suffered from nute burn still ended up being females.

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Dutch Passion feminized seed info:

"In an experiment done in 1999 we grew 15 varieties of "feminized" seeds. We started with 30 seeds per variety. The goals were:

1) to determine the percentages of female, male, and hermaphroditic plants.
2) to compare the uniformity (homogeneity) among plants from "feminized" seeds with those grown from "regular" seeds.

1. The results were excellent. Nine out of fifteen varieties had 100% female offspring. Percentages of female plants from the other 6 varieties were between 80 and 90%. These plants were all hermaphrodites, producing their male flowers at the end of their lifecycle. Seed-setting hardly took place. No males were found.

2. Approximately 70% of the plants of varieties grown from "feminized" seeds were far more uniform than plants grown from "regular" seeds of the same variety. About 20% of the varieties were a little more uniform, while in 10% of the varieties no difference in uniformity was seen.

From literature and our own findings it appears that the growth of a male or female plant from seed, except for the predisposition in the gender chromosomes, also depends on various environmental factors.

The environmental factors that influence gender are:

• a higher nitrogen concentration will give more females.
• a higher potassium concentration will give more males.
• a higher humidity will give more females.
• a lower temperature will give more females.
• more blue light will give more females. (I use a 10,000K veg light)
• Fewer hours of light will give more females.

It is important to start these changes at the three-pairs-of-leaves stage and continue for two or three weeks, before reverting to standard conditions.

To produce our feminized seeds, we start with selected female clones. Under standard conditions these female clones do not produce any male flowers. By the method we found, we are able to have these female clones produce abundant male flowers and pollen (see photos). The pollen thus produced we use for the production of our "feminized" seeds."

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I did the banana thing (in my journal) did not work

that pic is a hoax been on the net for a long time

the other reccomendations merely explain the differences that male and females enjoy more and is no garrantee

Use of actual ethelyne gas has been proven but cost a bit

Hobbes said:

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Dutch Passion feminized seed info:

"In an experiment done in 1999 we grew 15 varieties of "feminized" seeds. We started with 30 seeds per variety. The goals were:

1) to determine the percentages of female, male, and hermaphroditic plants.
2) to compare the uniformity (homogeneity) among plants from "feminized" seeds with those grown from "regular" seeds.

1. The results were excellent. Nine out of fifteen varieties had 100% female offspring. Percentages of female plants from the other 6 varieties were between 80 and 90%. These plants were all hermaphrodites, producing their male flowers at the end of their lifecycle. Seed-setting hardly took place. No males were found.

2. Approximately 70% of the plants of varieties grown from "feminized" seeds were far more uniform than plants grown from "regular" seeds of the same variety. About 20% of the varieties were a little more uniform, while in 10% of the varieties no difference in uniformity was seen.

From literature and our own findings it appears that the growth of a male or female plant from seed, except for the predisposition in the gender chromosomes, also depends on various environmental factors.

The environmental factors that influence gender are:

• a higher nitrogen concentration will give more females.
• a higher potassium concentration will give more males.
• a higher humidity will give more females.
• a lower temperature will give more females.
• more blue light will give more females. (I use a 10,000K veg light)
• Fewer hours of light will give more females.

It is important to start these changes at the three-pairs-of-leaves stage and continue for two or three weeks, before reverting to standard conditions.

To produce our feminized seeds, we start with selected female clones. Under standard conditions these female clones do not produce any male flowers. By the method we found, we are able to have these female clones produce abundant male flowers and pollen (see photos). The pollen thus produced we use for the production of our "feminized" seeds."

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I adhere to most of those principles and I get a consistent 80% (approximately) rate of females from seed. Sex is largely determined by genetics but there is good evidence to suggest that doing certain things with the environment can have an "Influence" on the sex of the plants. These are all pretty easy things to control so I figured I'd give it a try and I got immediate results and haven't looked back.