Males in my grow

[retired]

The largest plant of every one of my grows has always (always) been male. Why do I feed and provide light to these useless plants for 8 - 10 weeks, only to clip them when they show their balls a weeks after changing my lights to 12/12? They usually show their male-ness very early by growing twice as fast as their female counterparts, leaving significantly less room and sucking up light that the girls could use. Why don't I clip them then? Because there is a slight chance they might be female. After 20 grows that has never happened, but there is that chance...
Am I really that stupid?
My next grow I'm clipping the biggest plant at 6 weeks.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Why not check for pre-flowers before you get to the 12/12 light cycle?

 

[PeteSmith]

Have you considered cloning for sex?

 

[retired]

Thanks for the replies. I grow from seeds; tried cloning but the clones were small and weak and never as robust as the parent and the least little thing would stunt them (temps, over-nute, that kind of thing). I found the itty-bitty buds to be not worth the effort.
I have had good succcess with 8 weeks of 24/0 and 4-6 weeks of 12/12; at the 8 week mark I have never seen any evidence of "sex". It usually takes 3-7 days for the first male (again, always the largest, prettiest plant) to show the first signs of pre-flower. Current grow is 2 weeks at 12/12 and there are 2 plants that have still not shown their sex. Of the original 6 plants the 2 largest were males, the next 2 in size are female, and the 2 runts are still undetermined.

 

[Twelve12]

If you are certain that they are male at 6 week in veg, then clip them to save 2-4 weeks worth of NE$T (nute, energy, money, and time). Feminized seeds are a bit more but it's less when considering factoring in the cost of lost NE$T from growing males.