Sex identification

Greetings all,

I've been lurking on the forums here for a couple months now, today I have to cross the line and post. I'm a new grower from Colorado, got started a little bit before the new laws were signed into effect by the governor, but I don't think anyone will mind

I also have a couple too many plants going at the moment but now that the sex of the plants is becoming apparent I'm pretty sure I'll be in full compliance soon.

Being a first time grower, I'm being cautious about sex identification (don't want to throw out a lady). I'd appreciate your opinions on my plants.

So I have 5 plants that are about 7 weeks from seed in solo cup, they're about 6 days into 12/12 and flowering nutes.

3 of the plants seem pretty easy to identify, 2 I'm not sure of, so I'll start with the easy ones for confirmation from the community.

First up is alpo, named after my dogs snuck into the grow room and "topped" her when she was only about 3 nodes high, and left only one good branch, she pulled through. Pretty sure those are pistils at the nodes so calling this one female.



Second up is Leaning tree named because she has a serious lean to her main stalk. Again pretty sure those are pistils, so assuming female on leaning tree.



Third up is BamBam (this is what I get for giving it a boy name) BamBam has clusters of "nuts" so I'm assuming male.



Ok so the next two are still in question, will probably be able to tell for certain in a few more days, but still a good opportunity for me to join in the conversation and share some pics.

Next up is Wilma, I'm leaning toward male for Wilma.



Last up is Betty, I'm hopeful Betty is a female, but really unsure at this point.



Thanks for taking the time to look.

Bam Bam is looking for girls

Your guesses are exactly what I'd say

Well, Wilma turned out to be all nuts:



And Betty looked to be a bit of both (hermie) - pistils on the right of the node, nuts on the left had several nodes like this:



So 2 females out of 5 plants, less than 50% so far, but I did take 2 cuttings from each plant before putting them into flowering, looks like 3 of the 4 clones from the females are going to make it.

Sex is determined around the 4th or 5th week of veg, it is thought you can boost f/m ratios around this time by haveing feedhigh amounts of N and very very low amounts of K, where as more K or the same amount of N is present has been known to produce more males, also high temps above 80 can have an effect and cause more males or hermies, keeping the temp around 73-77 f is ideal, humidity should stay above 55 at all times in these important stages of veg and boost your ratios, letting the temp and humidity get to low can also lower your chances of getting females, an ideal and consistent enviorment is key, 24hr light schedules can also cause more males and herms, 16 or 18 hrs of light is proven to help boost ratios in these important stages (week 3 and 4 veg)...get them females.

Weeks 4 and 5 sorry

Thanks for the info Bluecheesehead.

yep I stopped reading the suggestions for the person that thinks nuts cause male/female. The genetics do it all pal. you can hermie a plant by stress though. be patient if you think its a hermie just to make sure. they dont pollenate for several weeks when you see major clusters of males drop and ultimately open. one more time, bluecheese dud needs to learn abit more...before spreading the word.

Cobra widow if you have not got a good enough theory behind why sex is already determined take it else where, as for relaxed how can you think nutes dont and cant cause stress, do you really think temp and rh are the only type of stress, sounds like you need to learn abit, if you think your f/m ratio will not change due to change of better enviorment your just as bad as cobra. So carry on thinking its all in the genetics, when has a breeder ever said you cannot get 10 females from a pack of 10 regs, never because they no sex is not determined.

Dont care about your 1200 plus post go research

I could be off base here, but in the natural world, are there not going to be a large number of marijuana plants growing in the exact same conditions that turn out both male and female regardless of environmental factors? I agree that you can herm a plant through stress of changing light schedules or over use of nutes, or possibly even severe damage to the plant itself causing shock. I just doubt we can make much of an impact on male female ratios, I have gotten 8/10 seeds females before, but it's all a matter of luck, I believe sex is determined within the first stages of growth. And I can't possibly see how it could be determined as late as weeks 4 and 5.

Dude it comes down to stress simple whether it being nutes, light, temp or humidity, and can 100% say sex is not determined during early stages of growth, if anything its determined later than 4 5 weeks of veg. And 8 out 10 being female is NOT luck, can i say you had ideal conditions and caused very little stress. If your conditions were not ideal then maybe you wouldnt of had such "luck".

I'd say the conditions were not likely ideal, as I had them outside in oregon... Temperature fluctuations were something like 15-20 degrees at least, 55-65 at night, 75-80 during peak sunshine. seeds were in organic miracle grow soil that later I came to find out was not meant for container planting, as it had mixed in nutrients. You simply assume my conditions were ideal because of my ratios, when that was not really the case. as far as humidity fluctuations outside, I'm guessing they probably stayed around 30%-45%, was not really keeping track. But i'd say humidity was likely the most consistent variable. even the light was pretty inconsistent, a lot of cloudy days where I am at. but whatever. I guess I'll just have to work on getting my ratio to that 100% females. I hope you are close to that mark as it sounds like you know all there is to be known about why mj decides she wants to be a female or a male, when in the wild it seems like they decide for themselves...?

Edit:Could be some truth to the abundance of N and almost no PK, as the only nutrients I was able to give those plants for there veg nutrients was general purpose miracle grow, which has very high N and is much lower in P and K

bluech. sounds like youve had a lot of experience with bad environments to deal with....lol. If you read i did say stress can cause hermies. didnt go into exactly what can be a ban environment did I...

Feminised seeds from a treated plant where else. Whats feminised seeds got to do with ratios in regs, whats your point.

Did he delete his own comment...? haha
He is trying to point out that people would not go through the trouble of making feminized seeds and paying more for them if all you have to do to get
100% female ratios, or close to that even, is make sure there environment is incredibly stable, with very very minimal stress.

Though that is not an entirely true statement because even if you could alter ratios by controlling environmental factors, some people are still hard pressed to do that, so they would be the type to buy feminized seeds, regardless of if you could get better ratios yourself.