Growing Cannabis - Watch Out For Hermies!

in #cannabis6 years ago

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Everything appears to be going great, buds are looking frosty and... wait a second... what the heck is that? A banana!?

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Well, let's face it, the only thing worse then finding a hermaphrodite plant in your flower room is not finding it! Cannabis plants are uni-sexual, meaning they typically produce male and female flowers on different plants. Under certain circumstances cannabis plants may express hermaphrodite traits; male and female on the same plant. If you'll take a look at my photo above you'll notice a bright yellow male stamen right in the middle of my female cannabis flower (or bud). In the photo below the bud has a stamen shooting right out of the top. Hermies will most likely produce seed and the seeds will most likely carry the hermaphrodite trait, so this is pretty much always undesirable.
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There are many factors which can contribute to causing your female plant to become a hermie, or as I like to put it, "shoot bananas".

Some factors may include, but are not limited to;

  • Inconsistent light schedule, light penetration into grow space during "night"
    I have been doing some experiments on this recently to see if not getting 100% dark, but still getting consistent levels of darkness for consistently scheduled periods, actually causes hermies. After all, there are stars and moonlight outside at night. I haven't yet had any issues, it could be the cause of this one however.

  • Stress factors, including; wild temperature fluctuations, drought, extreme amounts of pests, etc.
    This is sometimes a protective reaction to carry on the genetics of a plant in environments where it assumes it may not otherwise survive and produce seed.

  • Poor genetics
    I think this may be one of the main causes of how common this has become in indoor growing. I'm sure many seed producers are more concerned about making money than anything else. Some strains just do not breed well together as you may be breeding out good traits and amplifying negative ones - such as hermaphrodite traits.

  • Taking Cuttings From Cuttings?
    I have heard this may produce hermies and that you should take your cuttings from plants started from seed. Again, I am not sure this is true. This plant is a cutting from a cutting so... i don't know. One plant doesn't really prove anything. I have had great success taking cuttings from cuttings in the past.

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So What Now?

It really depends on what your personal situation is. I have grown some hermies to finish and only got 5 or 10 seeds per plant - not a big deal. It could be horrendous, so the risk will have to be your own. If you have many more plants and don't want to risk your whole crop, chop it and juice it!

As for me, I have decided to pluck all the stamens and isolate her in grow box on a different floor to finish off the last few weeks. All my girls will be finished about the same time and I believe I caught it early enough (fingers crossed) and it's late enough they wont produce much seed even if fertilized. The reason I chose this rout is that I only have the 1 plant of this strain that was gifted to me, and the buds look potent! I am not 100% sure on the strain, I will get my friend to identify the finished product as neither of us can remember what he gave me (Moby Dick?).

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Good luck growing everyone, I hope this has been informative and helps you with any potential identification issues. Hope you all don't have too many bump ins with hermies! Again, it's still possible to get some amazing cannabis from a hermie plant so don't sweat it too much!

I hope you all enjoyed this post! Check out my blog @jayanarchon for many freedom, health and cannabis related posts!

Peace Everyone

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Genetics is complex, and remains incompletely understood, even in organisms as studied as cannabis. Epigenetics remains practically unexplored, and seems to be the postulated mechanism for multigenerational clones producing hermaphroditism.

Further study will eventuate, and increase our ability to induce appropriate stresses (stress is essential to life) for our purposes.

Good looking on spotting those male organs. It takes care to produce good and consistent product. You clearly take it.

For sure... awesome comment.

The average grower really has no ability to determine genetic traits prior to fruition. The number of plants required to accurately breed in/out dominant and recessive traits is in the hundreds of thousands. Owning laboratory equipment to conduct genetic analysis is obviously out of the question. All we can do is develop our horticultural knowledge through experience and show some love!

A friend of mine who produces for yield uses all the bottled nutrients and all the amendments and junk to get his "bumper crops". He produces some great cannabis as well, but not quite like mine and my yields are over acceptable. He always scoffs and says he doesn't know how I do it, it must be love. I think that's one thing he's got right.

"Owning laboratory equipment to conduct genetic analysis is obviously out of the question."

Not true anymore. Check out The-Odin.com. PCR machines for under$200; CRISPR for less than a grand. You can literally analyze the genome of your crops, and modify them to suit you.

The future is already past.

Looks like I have some research to do...

Horrible fuckin' thing, however just few bananas is not a tragedy. It also depends if they produce pollen or not, cause if they're sterile you can pluck them and go about your day. But if they do, then you're in for a pollinated crop!

Also, NEVER EVER grow hermie seeds, even if they came from a nice-yielding plant, cause stress trait is passed onto the next generation, which means you have 50% chance on average to grow a bunch of hermies and sometimes fully intersex individuals!

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