Hermie Seeds - What can I expect?

Hi!

I had a sativa dominated strain, wich I bought from a UK/NL seed company. They grow really tall and lanky, and they are almost impossible to keep under 6 feet.
The smoke is amazing though... and it's a early finisher, approx. 8 weeks. I call this strain Candy (it was supposed to be Northern Lights, but def isn't!).
It's a really forgiving plant and very easy to clone (one time I just cut off a cutting an put it in soil with a humidity-dome - It WORKED!).
I currently have only clones from one mother wich I keep alive.

The thing is, I had another strain growing beside it. It was a beautiful and very promising specimen, but like 5 weeks into flowering it got sick. Really sick, and turned hermie.
This plant was def. a hydrid, as it was about 1,55 cm high (5 feet) but with kind of broad, indica leaves. It was completely covered in chrystals/trichomes.
I named this bagseed Chrystal. When it turned hermie and due to the decease, was looking awful, I cut it down.

It had ofcourse already pollinated the other plants in my growtent. So I got like 200 seeds off one of the sativas. I saved theese... (Candy x Chrystal)

Now I have germinated and sprouted 7 of theese seeds. I am planning on sexing the plants, cut the males and grow the females out. Then I want to select one, maybe two (if I get different phenos),
female(s) to continue as a mother plant. Maybe use it for further breeding later on...

What do you guys think?
Will I even be able to find a good female in theese seedlings?
Is there going to be alot of variation in the seedlings?
What will my m/f ratio be like?

Any tips or suggestions are welcome

Bump.... Anyone???

GrowMoe said:

Bump.... Anyone???

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GrowMoe,

I'm not saying that some of those seeds couldn't produce some fine females but I think if you grow them out the chances that you'll get another one of those type of hermies like you just had is greatly increased. It'll be like playing Russian Roulette with two or three bullets in the gun instead of the customary one bullet.

You seem to think that that plant getting sick or stressed was what caused it to hermie on you. I'll have to disagree with that. I think that was just in that plants genetics and was bound to happen no matter what conditions it was grown under or how healthy it was kept.

You didn't say (and I'm curious to know) but were your original seeds "feminized"? From all my reading in these forums it seems like the kind of hermie you got (as opposed to that late flowering stage formation of those yellow bananas) is for the most part the result of growing from feminized seeds.

When I was starting out and using random bag seed it seems like almost every grow I'd get a hermie like what you just had that would cause a lot of seeds to form on the other plants. And that use to just piss me off to no end. So at this point if I were you I'd just throw all those seeds a way. Because the odds are just to great that some of those seeds carry that recessive gene that causes that kind of hermaphroditism to occur.

hermie seeds are nothing but problems, unless you have the time to pick thru the garden and throw out the non females.

hermie going in = hermie coming out. i could only guess at the male to fem ratio but id say a good % of them will hermie. youd have to grow a hell of a lot of them out to find that special keeper

Don Gin and Ton said:

hermie going in = hermie coming out. i could only guess at the male to fem ratio but id say a good % of them will hermie. youd have to grow a hell of a lot of them out to find that special keeper

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OK thanks for all the replies.

I think I'll grow them out just to see what I get. Just for future referance. I might get lucky.

I have a growlog under the same name on grasscity with a poll on the m/f ratio. well, not on the ratio, but how many females I get... should be fun to see what the end result is.

I have 5 of the seedlings coming up today!

good luck man i know if a plant puts out male bananas in flower if you pollinate a cut of the same plant it will give you fem beans. but i'm not sure if that applies with a plant with proper bollocks and female pistils. ive not tried it.

good luck either way man

GrowMoe said:

OK thanks for all the replies.

I think I'll grow them out just to see what I get. Just for future referance. I might get lucky.

I have a growlog under the same name on grasscity with a poll on the m/f ratio. well, not on the ratio, but how many females I get... should be fun to see what the end result is.

I have 5 of the seedlings coming up today!

Click to expand...

GrowMoe,

I'm on my 4th grow of the Allegria strain (80% indica, 20% sativa). The original 15 (un-feminized) seeds came from KiwiSeeds. I picked them up at the Dampkring store in Amsterdam.

On the first grow I saved a male and used the pollen from it to selectively pollinate a few branches on some of the females to get some future seed stock.

This grow (with this stock seed, which is now around 1.5 years old) I had a 95% germination rate. Of those 65% turned out female.

I have never had one of these plants do that early stage hermie thing like you've just had. How ever almost every plant produces those late stage "yellow bananas" right at harvest time. At most, at times I've gotten a few of those small, white, partially formed immature seeds in some of the buds. But nothing that I consider to be detrimental to the quality of the smoke.

Now when I see that first yellow banana I know I'm with in a week to 10 days of harvest.

Jack

Jack in the Bud said:

GrowMoe,

I'm on my 4th grow of the Allegria strain (80% indica, 20% sativa). The original 15 (un-feminized) seeds came from KiwiSeeds. I picked them up at the Dampkring store in Amsterdam.

On the first grow I saved a male and used the pollen from it to selectively pollinate a few branches on some of the females to get some future seed stock.

This grow (with this stock seed, which is now around 1.5 years old) I had a 95% germination rate. Of those 65% turned out female.

I have never had one of these plants do that early stage hermie thing like you've just had. How ever almost every plant produces those late stage "yellow bananas" right at harvest time. At most, at times I've gotten a few of those small, white, partially formed immature seeds in some of the buds. But nothing that I consider to be detrimental to the quality of the smoke.

Now when I see that first yellow banana I know I'm with in a week to 10 days of harvest.

Jack

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Hey Jack.

Obviously Im no expert but it sounds like your selected male had some hermie-genes. If the majority offspring show theese traits, they are genetically predisposed to turn hermie late in their flowering period. That's why "those late stage yellow bananas" are forming at harvest time. It's a genetic survival-code...

If you know that the female was not prone to hermafrodism, you know it's the male...
I belive if you find a better male specimen and pollinate the same mother, you will get some better seeds, but there's no guarrantees.

Anyway, When I got home yesterday there were 6 little seedlings reaching for light. I'm sticking to the plan, and hoping for a good female specimen, to keep as a mother.
Fingers crossed...

GrowMoe said:

Hey Jack.

Obviously Im no expert but it sounds like your selected male had some hermie-genes. If the majority offspring show theese traits, they are genetically predisposed to turn hermie late in their flowering period. That's why "those late stage yellow bananas" are forming at harvest time. It's a genetic survival-code...

If you know that the female was not prone to hermafrodism, you know it's the male...
I belive if you find a better male specimen and pollinate the same mother, you will get some better seeds, but there's no guarrantees.

Anyway, When I got home yesterday there were 6 little seedlings reaching for light. I'm sticking to the plan, and hoping for a good female specimen, to keep as a mother.
Fingers crossed...

Click to expand...

Hey GrowMoe,

Believe me I'm no expert either. I'm just going off what I've personally observed in my grows.

I agree, that late stage formation of "yellow bananas" is a form of hermaphroditism. But it seems to me that there are two distinct forms of hermaphroditism that we are concerned with here. There's those late stage "bananas" and then there's that earlier stage formation of those standard clusters of male flowers that usually form lower down on the plant.

It's this latter form of hermaphroditism (earlier stage) that seems to be the one that causes all the problems and is the one every one is trying to avoid.

Getting those bananas late in the game really doesn't bother me at all. I don't think they have any measurable detrimental effect on either the quality or yield of the plant. In fact I kind of look at them showing up as one more indication that it's getting time to harvest. By then my calyxes have swollen up and my trichs are getting amber.

Here in another 4 or 5 weeks I'll have some more data to work with. I'm going to keep close track of how many and which plants form those "yellow bananas".

Several of my plants (not all) have had one of their lower branches purposely pollinated and have visible seeds forming on them. It's kind of my hope that this will have satisfied that particular plants desire to reproduce and will inhibit it's forming those yellow bananas, up in the top colas, right at the end. We'll see.

Jack

Jack in the Bud said:

Hey GrowMoe,

Believe me I'm no expert either. I'm just going off what I've personally observed in my grows.

I agree, that late stage formation of "yellow bananas" is a form of hermaphroditism. But it seems to me that there are two distinct forms of hermaphroditism that we are concerned with here. There's those late stage "bananas" and then there's that earlier stage formation of those standard clusters of male flowers that usually form lower down on the plant.

It's this latter form of hermaphroditism (earlier stage) that seems to be the one that causes all the problems and is the one every one is trying to avoid.

Getting those bananas late in the game really doesn't bother me at all. I don't think they have any measurable detrimental effect on either the quality or yield of the plant. In fact I kind of look at them showing up as one more indication that it's getting time to harvest. By then my calyxes have swollen up and my trichs are getting amber.

Here in another 4 or 5 weeks I'll have some more data to work with. I'm going to keep close track of how many and which plants form those "yellow bananas".

Several of my plants (not all) have had one of their lower branches purposely pollinated and have visible seeds forming on them. It's kind of my hope that this will have satisfied that particular plants desire to reproduce and will inhibit it's forming those yellow bananas, up in the top colas, right at the end. We'll see.

Jack

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Yeah, that makes sense. And if you harvest right after the bananas show, the seeds won't have time to mature.

I just hope I can get at least one nice female to keep going

GrowMoe said:

Yeah, that makes sense. And if you harvest right after the bananas show, the seeds won't have time to mature.

I just hope I can get at least one nice female to keep going

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morn'n GrowMoe,

You might be interested in what I've got to report about seeds forming in this other thread I started.

https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/301266-seeds-bud-picture-discussion.html

I've just proved (to myself) that it only takes 2 weeks from pollination to get a full sized seed formed. I don't think they're fully mature and viable at this point but they do appear to have achieved at least 90%+ of the physical size they're going to get.

So tying this bit of info in with those yellow bananas I'm expecting to get again I'm guessing that the best plan to avoid getting any seeds up in my top colas from those bananas is for me to harvest the buds that have them with in a week of first seeing them.

There might even be a little larger window than that. Because when you can first see a "yellow banana" forming it still needs several more days to mature and ripen up to the point where it opens up and releases pollen.

Judging from that 2 week time for seed formation I just got I'm guessing that it would only take around 4 to 7 days (from one of those bananas releasing pollen) for you to get some of those small, partially formed seeds in your bud around where the banana was located.

Jack

Jack in the Bud said:

morn'n GrowMoe,

You might be interested in what I've got to report about seeds forming in this other thread I started.

https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/301266-seeds-bud-picture-discussion.html

I've just proved (to myself) that it only takes 2 weeks from pollination to get a full sized seed formed. I don't think they're fully mature and viable at this point but they do appear to have achieved at least 90%+ of the physical size they're going to get.

So tying this bit of info in with those yellow bananas I'm expecting to get again I'm guessing that the best plan to avoid getting any seeds up in my top colas from those bananas is for me to harvest the buds that have them with in a week of first seeing them.

There might even be a little larger window than that. Because when you can first see a "yellow banana" forming it still needs several more days to mature and ripen up to the point where it opens up and releases pollen.

Judging from that 2 week time for seed formation I just got I'm guessing that it would only take around 4 to 7 days (from one of those bananas releasing pollen) for you to get some of those small, partially formed seeds in your bud around where the banana was located.

Jack

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Thank for the info. Will be sure to check it out.

GrowMoe said:

Now I have germinated and sprouted 7 of theese seeds. I am planning on sexing the plants, cut the males and grow the females out.

Click to expand...

Since there is no males in the parentage then all the seeds will either be duds or females. What we call hermies are actually intersex plants. No plants are sprouted from seed as hermaphrodites.

The intersex tendency is stored in the same way we carry the genetics of our parents in that if one of them developed cancer that does not automatically mean we will get cancer although we will have the propensity to get cancer should the same environmental conditions exist in us that triggered the cancer in our parents.

Plants are the same. The fact that one of the parents for whatever reason became diseased and died and in the process grew male parts, means that if whatever the conditions that created that intersexing is repeated on the seedlings, be it over feeding, over watering, bugs, heat shock, constant light leak etc, then those seedlings are at greater risk of developing male parts to protect themselves.

Jonus said:

Since there is no males in the parentage then all the seeds will either be duds or females. What we call hermies are actually intersex plants. No plants are sprouted from seed as hermaphrodites.

The intersex tendency is stored in the same way we carry the genetics of our parents in that if one of them developed cancer that does not automatically mean we will get cancer although we will have the propensity to get cancer should the same environmental conditions exist in us that triggered the cancer in our parents.

Plants are the same. The fact that one of the parents for whatever reason became diseased and died and in the process grew male parts, means that if whatever the conditions that created that intersexing is repeated on the seedlings, be it over feeding, over watering, bugs, heat shock, constant light leak etc, then those seedlings are at greater risk of developing male parts to protect themselves.

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Exactly! That was what I was hoping. I still don't know what the decease/sickness/problem was, but I haven't had that problem since and I think I've got it under control, so it won't happen again. It might have been due to bad soil or nutes, or maybe a virus.

I searched the net but couldn't find the solution: It was getting orange spots all over the leaves and they would die off. Started at the bottom and worked itself upwards untill it was all fucked up. I'm sure the hermie-thing was due to stress from this decease.

Anyway, let's hope for females. I'm now down to five after pulling two weaklings. Fingers crossed...

I had a purple haze mother I'd pollinated with some widow. she went hermie...most of her seeds hermed,or were male. 2 of them were totally non-herming bushes over 5' tall. purple haze widow ROCKS! I think that strains vary in their suceptibility to throw nads; and many can be prevented from doing so by avoiding the usual stresses of light, heat, water,etc. but it's russian roulette...especially indoors.

i have a bubba kush that came off a herme plant i got seed from...its ready to flower but im scared to pollinate everything

Ok, just to recap.

There were 3 females and one hermie among the seedlings. They were sativa dominant, but two of them were better than the others. I kept clones from all of them except the hermie which showed to be hermie within two weeks of flowering. The two best ones showed that by trichome production. One had the caracteristics I was looking for, denser buds and the same taste and smell as its mother. Next run with these, I can post some pics, but that will be a while...