Will excess darkness hurt male flowers?

[Grandma Weedstein]

So this is an out-of-the ordinary photoperiod question:

I’ve got a male that I want to keep for pollen but I don’t want him fully pollinating all the bud sites of a female side project that I’ve got in a tent. I’d rather pollinate one or two colas selectively with collected pollen.

So while I’m flowering her, I was planning to keep him under an LED outside the tent and just cover him in a reinforced box to ensure total darkness.

However, this would involve getting him covered and uncovered by that box at the same times every day — probably for a couple months or more.

What if I oversleep one or more days and forget to uncover him? I’d imagine that’s much more likely than forgetting to cover him at night — though I suppose that may happen as well, especially if I’m out of town and need to have my wife remember.

In any case: Would exposing him to excessive periods of darkness a few times create any issues with the male flowers? Do male flowers ever hermie by sending out female pistils?

And even if he does hermie in this fashion for whatever reason, would that create the same kind of problems in his progeny? In other words, I don’t particularly care if he would self-pollinate some hermie female flowers. But would I have to worry about his pollen then containing some undesirable traits?

 

[TorturedSoul]

The occasional oops shouldn't hurt a thing. If you want to be sure you're safe, though, spend five bucks for a cheap alarm clock. Or if you have a "smart" cell phone, go to its clock app and set two alarms, one for lights out, one for lights on. Every smart phone I've seen can handle recurring alarms just fine.

Stress-caused opposite sex flowers do not lead to genetic hermaphrodism. On the other hand, if it gets them at the drop of a hat, its genetics aren't worth a plugged nickel, anyway (IMHO), and the propensity for it will probably get passed down just like any other undesirable trait that already exists.

Males often flower (and open their flowers) relatively quickly. It might not take you all that long to collect your pollen. Remember to not allow it to get damp whilst collecting it for cold storage, and when getting a tiny amount out of the vial/etc. to pollinate 32,768 a few pistillate flowers with.

 

[Grandma Weedstein]

The occasional oops shouldn't hurt a thing. If you want to be sure you're safe, though, spend five bucks for a cheap alarm clock. Or if you have a "smart" cell phone, go to its clock app and set two alarms, one for lights out, one for lights on. Every smart phone I've seen can handle recurring alarms just fine.

Stress-caused opposite sex flowers do not lead to genetic hermaphrodism. On the other hand, if it gets them at the drop of a hat, its genetics aren't worth a plugged nickel, anyway (IMHO), and the propensity for it will probably get passed down just like any other undesirable trait that already exists.

Males often flower (and open their flowers) relatively quickly. It might not take you all that long to collect your pollen. Remember to not allow it to get damp whilst collecting it for cold storage, and when getting a tiny amount out of the vial/etc. to pollinate 32,768 a few pistillate flowers with.

Yea I have both alarm clocks and a smart phone but have been known to sleep through if I’ve been drinking, LOL.

Also, even when I haven’t, I’ve got a bunch of shit I need to do every morning (let the chickens out of their raccoon-proof coop, etc.) and may forget for some other reason.

So is it your understanding that excess darkness can cause hermies just as interruption of darkness? I realize that weak genetics make plants more prone to hermie, but I am still trying to discern what leads to such weakness.

Perhaps it’s more of an inherited trait that causes plants to easily hermie — it could have advantages for survival, if a seed ends up germinating far from the original cannabis colony. At that point, the tendency to hermie could help establish a new colony in the wild.

I’m definitely not saying I want such easy hermies, just pondering how such traits develop...

 

[Pennywise]

You should be just fine, he’ll drop pollen and if we’re talking dark period being extended I don’t see it turning intersex. May speed up the life cycle a little.

 

[TorturedSoul]

So is it your understanding that excess darkness can cause hermies just as interruption of darkness?

No; I have no such understanding. But, now that you mention it, it wouldn't surprise me overmuch. Seems like a survival trait, of sorts.

I realize that weak genetics make plants more prone to hermie

That might be a misnomer. Consider: My definition of sh!t genetics and the plants' definition (so to speak) could be - and, very likely, are - two entirely different things. My goal, the majority of the time, is to prevent them from breeding, and to kill them before they do so. This is in direct contradiction to any life form's entire purpose!

Perhaps it’s more of an inherited trait that causes plants to easily hermie — it could have advantages for survival, if a seed ends up germinating far from the original cannabis colony. At that point, the tendency to hermie could help establish a new colony in the wild.

Years - decades, now - ago, I "knew a guy" whose job took him to some... interesting places. He used to bring back bud and stuff. Guess they didn't test government employees (or at least not ones in his line of work) at the time. I'd find a seed "or two" and grow it. Had a wonderful, dreamy, functional (to some extent ) sativa from Thailand or thereabouts. Was the kind of bud that'd make you wonder if those stories about product getting soaked in "opium water" was just an extra strong batch, lol. Anyway, that shit was a hermaphroditic nightmare! I worked with it - not as a professional, understand (although, technically, I guess I was, since I was dealing), but I kept trying to end up with something that didn't have a tendency to self-seed. We all know that cannabis can - and, often, does - produce a few staminate flowers as the end of the flowering season approaches, but man. Was worse than Chicago's historic political scene ("vote early, vote often!"). Seemed like you could "lose" what made it so special, but you couldn't lose that trait. I finally gave up.

I’m definitely not saying I want such easy hermies

<LAUGHING> You really don't.

just pondering how such traits develop...

Like any other trait. Organism mutates. Mutation doesn't end that line (meaning it's either a positive, in terms of survival, or a neutral). Organism breeds. If not recessive, there you go. If recessive, it still gets passed on. That's how the autoflowering trait works (it's recessive), and must be received from both parents to express (but is still present if organism only has one of the pair).