Just a question on growing seeds, do they mostly germinate and sprout and grow into females? 20 of my 21 plants grew female. These are random seeds. I'm really impressed, did I just have good luck or is this normal?
Well the debate of this is on going.. google and you find a lot of answers. I read this :
From literature and our own findings it appears that the growth of a male or female plant from seed, except for the predisposition in the gender chromosomes, also depends on various environmental factors. The environmental factors that influence gender are:
• a higher nitrogen concentration will give more females.
• a higher potassium concentration will give more males.
• a higher humidity will give more females.
• a lower temperature will give more females.
• more blue light will give more females.
• Fewer hours of light will give more females.
It is important to start these changes at the three-pairs-of-leaves stage and continue for two or three weeks, before reverting to standard conditions.
Did your plants sprout from bagseed? If so: I think I've read that there's a greater likelihood of growing females from those "accidental" seeds. If the parent plant of your original stash (or her neighbor/roommate) went hermie, she'd produce feminized seeds with a propensity for hermaphroditism.
In my personal experience: 11/12 of my bagseed babies grew up to be female; 2 of the 11 females went hermie late in flower and produced seeds which are all female so far, though I've only popped 5. 1/5 of those "granddaughter" plants showed a banana in the week before harvest...
I might be wrong, but do make sure not to stress the plants once flowering (esp re: light!), just in case your ladies have latent hermie genes.