We pride ourselves in only producing stable feminized cannabis seeds. For home growers who can only have a few THC plants to large scale CBD biomass farmers, feminized seeds are the best option for flower producers to yield seedless, high cannabinoid crops. Face it, no one wants to smoke seeds - and heavily seeded crops produce well under 50% of the cannabinoids as non-seeded crops.
That said there is still some work keeping your CBD, CBDV, CBG, THC, and THCV crops grown from seed, seed free. Read on for a guide.
Feminized Cannabis Seeds
Feminized seed got a bad rap in the early days because of growers that would produce seeds from plants that had tendencies to hermaphrodite - female plants that produce male flowers. While much of the offspring are feminized, the tendency to hermaphrodite is carried on.
In our breeding program, we toss any potential parents that have a tendency to hermaphrodite as soon as we spot them.
However, even with our seeds that are 100% feminized - all plants carry XX chromosomes - we do generally see around 1 phenotypically male plant in every 4000.
Environmental stressors, in particular vast changes in light cycles, light leaks in rooms, or lights on a field have shown to increase the number of hermaphrodites in a cannabis population. Other stressors such as field difficult field conditions can also play a role.
With all this said, it is important to check for "males" as your plants go into flower. For us, this means walking our rows weekly starting around the first week of August. Read on to learn how to spot the "males" and keep your cannabis crop seed free.
Identifying Female, Male, and Hermaphrodite Cannabis Plants
Female Cannabis Plants
As female cannabis plants go into flower they show their sex in the form of two small hair-like white pistils that emerge from calyx's at plant internodes. The hairs themselves are a reproductive organ meant to catch pollen and impregnate the plant.
Male Cannabis Plants
Male plants, and phenotypically male plants from feminized seed, instead produce pollen sacks. Remove these plants at first sighting. Males have a tendency to grow taller and more spindly than females. Male cannabis plants are often the biggest in the field and can stand out, and its always a disappointment having to pull them. The pollen sacks eventually open up and spread their dust. If caught early on, there is no risk of seeding - but left to mature will cause the females to put their energy into seed production instead of flower production. If you notice the small flowers on a male plant opening up you can also spray plants around them lightly with water which often leaves pollen useless.
Hermaphrodite Cannabis Plants
And the last group to keep your eye's pealed for are the stress induced hermaphrodite plants. These plants have both female parts and male parts on the same plant. The male sections have a tendency to grow stringy long thin branches.
On some occasions, plants may only produce a few male pollen sacks in the lower 3rd of the plant. In some rare occasions they may produce a male flower out of a female flower. Unless growing triploids, we recommend culling all that produce male parts. Hermaphrodites are particularly common for indoors growers where pampered plants can stress out easier from slight environmental changes. As previously mentioned, interruptions in the darkness cycles, light cycle changes, or other environmental stressors can have huge impacts.
