Reverse hermie: unidentifiable pre flowers? Opinion

[radmichelle]

Howdy Howdy lol
I thought i'd share this, see if anyone has experienced the same. I've heard of female hermie to male, and read about the reverse, showing male and having female parts-

I just threw my current grow into 12/12 lighting about a week ago, they were showing pre flowers on some- and 2 for sure were male if trying to ID by pre flower. Seeing crab claws and what appears to be the ball, definitely not the pointed topped tear shaped female part. Well.. a few days into 12/12 one of the plants showed female parts at the top! I was so confused and shocked, I pretty much posted something on a forum discussing not throwing out males just based on preflower- because obviously they aren't 100% ID based on preflower alone (I've photos if needed)

Well yesterday, I was outside (i'd moved the males outside to let them further develop to take photo's of the balls) and at the top of another "male" plant.. theres pistils... The lower preflowers all have the crab claw.. anyone else experienced this conundrum- I'm pretty good and IDing females, these were males lol- ..and now female!

I can post pics if interested. Thanks again!

 

[TanR]

radmichelle,

I would love to see any photo's you could share. This really interests me.

Thanks in advance,

 

[radmichelle]

Hey TanR, sure no problem, whole thing threw me through a loop! lol I guess I was just happy not to compost the for sure males immediately lol- let me break out the macro cam- brb.

 

[radmichelle]

OK! so here are some photos... I took pictures starting from the base 4th branch which first showed preflower- and then snapped pics of the "balls and crab claws" up to the top- which at the very top are a few fem preflowers.. and upon closer photo observation.. it looks like the pistillate actually has 3 hairs. whatcha think?

This is the second plant of mine that did this in this grow lol!

 

[radmichelle]

Hey guys!
Just about a week later- here is an update. this plant sexed early as a male.. (preflower) or so I thought- until it got female flowers, I really had high high doubts in it being hermie, but here is the update- anyone have any opinions. its a ball with hair lol. reverse hermie?

 

[doopie]

Hey there!

We are actually just discussing if a male can be stressed to become a hermie.

How did those males/females in question do after all?

 

[GigaGrew]

such a shame that this thread was created when I was awol with lifechanges =(

males can definatly hermie into females and self, but the seeds will all be male. still, you may get some smokeable bud out of it.

 

[radmichelle]

Hey there! i'm still here lol and its still somewhat a mystery but I have come across some info since then and have flowered and harvested those plants, I've got pics of them if you want to see. But this plant wasn't stressed into the other sex, there are some naturally TRUE hermies, where 1 plant carries both sexual traits. I find when you see 3 pistil hairs that come from a calyx its a good indicator as naturally the plant has 2 hairs.

The specific growing traits i noted to these plants (mine anyway) were:
(this applies to the plants that I was seeing both male and female parts, zero stress at that point in time)
(let me grab my notes lol this was a harvest ago)

The initial preflowers all looked male. (that's why I pulled the plants from the grow room in first place) but with time hairs came from within.
The male flowers never formed bunches. never formed several balls, it was always a singular ball that formed at the node (not every node)
after reading about reverse hermies (dj short) or whatnot being highly resinous I decided to keep em and flower on through lol Jorge Cervantes also has a section in his book he calls them intersex plants... i'm sure there is a difference in the two but it is noted
I had to thoroughly go through every node to check for developing balls, I was paranoid if I didn't pluck them before it was too late.. well u know, we want sensi here lol. But I noted that the pattern of the balls sack spots were always under the innermost bud (it was flowering) closest to the stem, so as the calyx's swelled if I didn't get to the ball they would be enveloped by the bud. lol

(excuse me if im not making sense just packed the best bowl I've had all day lol)

now with my macro cam I carefully tore apart the sacks that I plucked curious to see what was inside, because a few times on the plant the ball sacks just erupted with hundreds of pistils (hairs) not the casual two. So to my surprise when I pulled it apart there were nanners AND hairs. So basically my plant was producing singular sacks that had a lot of hair and nanners in the same single sack.

The plant harvested wonderful, best smoke ever, it was nerve racking having to fine comb through these plants for those balls, but I never found a single seed, every sack I harvested off of it was watered down before I dissected it to keep the pollen contained. may not have even been viable but either way.

I don't care to grow them because its extra maintenance looking for males balls, but I did reveg the best plant of the harvest, and I have notes on where the balls will appear, but I guess that's that. i'm not really sure about the true asex plants because not much info out there on them, but I know I have one lol and its like playing with fire in a sense lol. idk, if you need any help ive got tons of notes on it but ya know-

 

[StoneAge56]

I see this post is a couple years old but I currently have the EXACT situation going. Pics and all look the same. I've done this before and was certain the preflower showed male on four of four plants. But on three of them the ball has only grown at the spot shown on radmichelle's pictures. Switched to 12/12 to force sexing and........ no more balls and now lots of pretty white hairs. Seeds came from killer medi product. Very confusing....... should I scrap? Thanks for any comments or help!

Peace

 

[MrRudeSnowman]

I see this post is a couple years old but I currently have the EXACT situation going. Pics and all look the same. I've done this before and was certain the preflower showed male on four of four plants. But on three of them the ball has only grown at the spot shown on radmichelle's pictures. Switched to 12/12 to force sexing and........ no more balls and now lots of pretty white hairs. Seeds came from killer medi product. Very confusing....... should I scrap? Thanks for any comments or help!

Peace

Depends on how many balls are there. I had some ~10 balls on my auto, i just tore them off and plant finished like that never happened.

 

[Aedifex]

I've got the same thing going on with a chronic plant. Balls with three pistils emergingFirst Grow

How did it turn out???

 

[Major PITA]

Are you sure they are staminates and not large/swollen calyxes? Some growers get them confused much like mistaking early stiplules for pistils.

 

[Aedifex]

I added a link above "First Grow".

Do you think you could please check it out?

 

[Woznic]

I've got the same situation going on. Admittedly mine is a grow from hermie Mexican sativa seeds, on purpose mind, I just wanted to see what would happen. Well so far I've got balls and also nice long cone shaped female parts (4 days into flower with just preflowers showing). They've topped and trained well and are looking beaut, just not sure what will happen when they truly flower, I'm putting money on most if not all being hermies.

Now, the weird bit...... One was a tri as a seedling, so I threw it in a tent under T5 to keep tabs on it and study how it grew. I trained it but didn't top, then it starts being clever! It split itself into two main colas with no topping, one of these stems was flat and in turn split again into two, so it now has 3 main colas! Looks to be female but still too early to tell for sure. I'll get photos up soon so you guys can check her (I hope) out

My main plants are 600w hps and not in a controlled environment, but the environment is suitable. Topsoil and organic compost mix. Was on formulex but got a bit N toxic so held back then gave Cal Mag with Fox Farm organic bloom because I couldn't feed whilst addressing the N toxicity so they were crying for calcuim (my bad for feeding when I was baked, gave formulex with calmag but forgot the calmag I had was also high in N). Soil level temp is 22-25c and has good airflow. These sativas are trained to 6-7 inches and now flicked to flowering so should finish nice and small but hella bushy. Kinda talking shit now so I'll leave it there and get the photos up when I can

 

[EastCoastGhost]

Subbing up, be interesting to see how they turn out, best of luck to you...️

 

[Woznic]

The main plants under HPS.....

And the little tri, now under just one sunblaster T5 2ft 6400k 24w!

That flat stem just decided to split on its own randomly

 

[Woznic]

Photos taken in down time so look a bit droopy, also I damaged a few leaves when training and rotating, it's not pests

 

[Jackalope]

Hermie is the only word I truly hate. Strains that tend to hermie drop off my grow list pretty fast. That's a bad thing considering all the great strains that have hermie traits. Some breeders do not breed out hermies. Soma calls them natural which they are I guess. But a beautiful Lavender plant that hermies towards the end is just a shame. I also hear that the male used in a lot of Cali Connection strains carry the hermie gene. This I can not confirm but I have found hermies in Tahoe OG that was purchaced from Cali. Will that stop me from growing it? Hell no Tahoe is some super strong shit and defiantly worth the risk. I hope a cross with Super Lemon Haze might reduce the hermie percentage to a even lower level. The lemon profile should also be through the roof.

 

[Woznic]

I've read lots on this, and some really experienced growers argue that all plants hermie a little, the lower branches get nanners that most people don't notice, and since this happens way into flowering it doesn't cause any issues. A dude reckoned it was the plants last ditch attempt to pollinate and reproduce when their life is comming to an end. Obviously this thread erupted into arguments and divided people, who eventually devolved into slagging off each others growing techniques. Interesting stuff though.

 

[Woznic]

So what am I looking at here? Is this male preflower with female next door? Or just male with new leaves emerging next door? This isn't the only evidence of hermie, there are other nodes on the same plants that have definite female parts, some of which already are showing pistils. Bear in mind in a couple of photos I've removed the stipules to get a better shot.....