Hermi Seeds

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Bearded Budz

Well-Known Member
Hey guys and gals, I ve been racking my brain trying to figure out what's going on in my garden these past few weeks..... Let me start from the beginning, I found some seeds in a bag of street grass I got a while back which spurred me to attempt my first grow. Wow, did I ever do screw that up but ended up with a harvest so I can't complain! I did a SCROG grow which was the only saving grace to my first attempt but ended up with seeds throughout my plants! Now I ve done hours and hours of research on what may have gone wrong before I started my second attempt at growing with the seeds I got from my harvest. This time I had my shit together and dialed in, week 5 of veg I found one of the plants showed female traits so I culled the rest and concentrated my time on that early showing fem. Week 3 of flower I noticed literally over night that my huge bud filled girl had grown nuts! Now as I was finishing veg and switched to flower I started some more of those seeds and the same thing happened, I found 1 early bird showing hairs at week 5 of veg but instead of culling the rest I kept em and culled the Hermi in flower and the early bird in veg. It happened to be the time when I was gonna switch those ones I had in veg to flower so it worked out well in that sense. Now I m waiting to see what happens in the flower room, it's been a week and I don't see any nuts but I think I might have hairs on the top growth......
Now where I m at is that my seeds I got from my first harvest are fems, the early showers are hermies.... Does this make any sense to you guys??!! All I ve read on Hermi seeds leads to how feminized seeds are made! I just don't know but I guess the next few weeks will tell the story.
 
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Yea I hear ya there man, light leakage and stress was definetly an issue in my first grow, not now though. I did do a lot of LST and HST in veg but nothing to stress them in flower. I was wondering about genetics though..... You might have hit the nail on the head there!
 
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Don't mind the girl in the middle, she's all good and at week 4 of flower, but the unknown ones are the 4 around it! That pic above was taken the same time as this one. I guess it's a waiting game now to see what those 4 do but if they are fems then my theory might be right....
 
In my experience growing and reading about herms... to the point that I named one heirloom strain Herman Munster because it always herms heavilly... If you stress a female you can flip it to being a herm, or even all male. Sometimes they will herm even is they are not stressed (like my Herman Munster strain). The Dutch have done a lot of research on this and there are ways to stress a female plant into becoming male. Usually too much heat, water stress, cold stress, nutrient deficiency, and moving them around too much will do it. There are also certain chemicals that will force a female to become male and force males to become females, but they are not readily available to he public.

The thing (and in my view, the biggest problem) about fem seeds is that they are prone to herm on you because they were herms that produced the seeds. Fem seeds are produced by females that threw male flowers that self pollinated or pollinated neighboring female plants. That process tends to generate mostly female plants, but at the same time they are also prone to produce hermaphrodites. There are likely other genetics or genetic switching at play here, as Thai stick seeds were notorious to herm.

MJ is usually a dioecious species with separate males and females, but they can and do produce both types of flowers on one hermaphrodite plant. As a matter of interest, I have only seen female plants herm with male flowers, and I have never seen male plants throw female flowers. It seems to be a one-way ride from female to herm or male, and not the other way around. I have grown out and flowered a lot of males, as I did this year. I forced 4 fem seed females to be all males this year. I collected and froze pollen from them in an experiment to see 1) if I could force males, and 2) if the seeds produced from their pollin on a female next year will create fem seeds. We shall see. I find that females can and do produce a few seeds from a herm/male flower that gets missed in inspection from time to time. I keep the seeds for planting in future. Generally those seeds will be self pollinated fem seeds. If the strain is stable, I will get a similar plant from the seeds, and commonly I will also get a herm. If it is an F1 hybrid cross between say, a sativa and an indica, its Monte Carlo and anything can pop up.

A few seeded tops will not ruin your whole crop though. You can smoke tops that have been seeded. We did that for centuries (and likely millennia) before they invented sinsemillia. The solution to less herming is to grow using non-fem seeds. Of course then you run about a 50% chance of getting males, but the resulting 50% females will likely not become herms. To produce more females (even if they are genetically 50/50 male/female) grow them in ideal climate and conditions. Pamper the crap out of them and you will likely get more females, even from non fem seeds. Good soil, good sunlight, good food, fungal soil mass, ideal temps. Growing outdoors in ideal conditions in greenhouses in Southern Oregon I tended to get about 75% females from sexed landrace seeds.
 
Wow BigSur, mind blown! That's a lot to take in but that's just what I needed to get me pointed in the right direction. You were absolutely right with the stain, I was told it was a Chocolate Thai so that would explain a lot according to what you said about over stressing! You know, to be honest with ya, I was pulling the odd leaf and still kinda training it a bit by tying down the tops..... Do you think that would have been enough to stress it out to Hermi? Like with the first crop of this Chocolate Thai I did in the scrog, I guess same situation, I was constantly weaving and tying down the tops throughout flower AND veg.... I feel like an abusive father now lol
 
Yah, I just edited and added that post to my blogs for future reference. I have had a lot of stuff crammed into my head over the years. Thai is (or was) notorious to herming, even in ideal conditions.

I have never seen a plant stressed into herming by bending them over though. I have bent many a female in my greenhouses over hard, and that did not affect them, other than getting the desired results of more side branches and buds. My view is rather different than some posts I have read here about MJ being stressed by pruning or bending. MJ plants evolved getting trampled, chewed on and eaten. My education and experience is that if you prune them or bend them, you actually stimulate them into growing more. In the case of MJ, like many plants, the terminal buds release auxins (plant hormones) that suppress side bud growth. If the terminal bud is cut off or the plant is bent over so that gravity does not allow the auxin to travel down the plant, the lateral buds break dormancy and they branch out. I pinch or bend my MJ plants a lot to keep the shorter and to get a lot of side branches. This alters the plant and stimulates it to grow differently, but it does not stress the plant. Plants do not have nerves either. Many people are hesitant to prune their plants, thinking that they feel pain. They do not. I am a heavy pruner of all my plants, nut just MJ.
 
I absolutly agree with ya bud, even though I m still a rookie at this game, I ve been getting THAT EXACT advice on how to look at growing from a good pal on here and an amazing "Grass Guru" online, Jorge Cervantes. I absolutly understand I have so much failure to endure to even come close to being "there" and I think I m just in that Rammy stage with way too much info and not enough experience to apply it properly....With that being said, I so appreciate your and everyone here s advice, it s truly priceless to me. Thanks!
I just popped an Auto AK 47, Cheese, and some Bubba Kush seeds down on the magic paper towel a few days ago..... Still waiting on the auto to pop, day5 now......
 
Love your grows Rifleman, you ve totally sparked my interest in hydro! I just started an auto Ak and I'm absolutly referencing your stuff, your one smart duder! Thanks for all the info, you really lay it out there for a rookie like me to even take in! Might have to pick your brain on this whole hydro thing some day and what I ll need to cross over.:thumb:
 
Bearded Budz said:
Love your grows Rifleman, you ve totally sparked my interest in hydro! I just started an auto Ak and I'm absolutly referencing your stuff, your one smart duder! Thanks for all the info, you really lay it out there for a rookie like me to even take in! Might have to pick your brain on this whole hydro thing some day and what I ll need to cross over.:thumb:
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Anytime I can help just shoot me a pm.
 

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