Please help advise? Is pollen the culprit?

[Weaselcracker]

Yes. If you can get closeup pics of the hermies we will know better. But I suppose if you're calling them balls and they look like balls- they're probably balls.
Good for you man. I always wanted to take music to that level. Not an easy life though. What is an easy life... Lol.
Got run over lots of times on my bikes too. Not nearly as bad as you, but I still deal with it every day, including a couple crushed fingers that are making it harder and harder to play guitar.

 

[dbones]

Re the nanners vs balls comment- IMO you have it backwards. I've never successfully kept a plant with balls from growing more of them, not that I generally try anymore. If I've seen anyone else do it.... maybe extremely rarely. Usually they just keep coming. So to speak. They produce a lot of pollen.
Nanners on the other hand I find quite controllable. Also they don't produce much pollen.

I don't think the leftover pollen is as much of an issue as you think. It tends to clump together if the air is moist at all. It's generally hard to preserve even if you want to, because in order to be able to do it's thing it has to be able to float through the air. Once it lands on the floor it's not so likely to get up again and start floating around. Any little water mist will render it useless.

Re the plastic.... sounds like a lot of work. Doesn't hurt to clean the grow though.
If you're putting in plastic then use white stuff. But sometimes white paint is easier in the long run and works better.

I wouldn't bother taking down the filter.

Sorry @Weaselcracker, I just wanted to clarify when you say “clean the grow” : you mean the grow room, right? Or do you mean go in at lights out and mist them? Also (and as well): The filter? Not worth worrying? You don’t think it would store pollen? And as well, if you see the pic of the Green Crack they’re not near good like the cheese alongside and they’re really starting to look pretty damn male! And they were from Humboldt Seeds feminised and I got from reputable supplier. And they have turned it worse.
Hum de dum..

Yes. If you can get closeup pics of the hermies we will know better. But I suppose if you're calling them balls and they look like balls- they're probably balls.
Good for you man. I always wanted to take music to that level. Not an easy life though. What is an easy life... Lol.
Got run over lots of times on my bikes too. Not nearly as bad as you, but I still deal with it every day, including a couple crushed fingers that are making it harder and harder to play guitar.

i guess if you ride bikes one day we get hit or eat road: and I suppose if one starts growing there will be many days of scratching one’s head

 

[Weaselcracker]

Sorry @Weaselcracker, I just wanted to clarify when you say “clean the grow” : you mean the grow room, right? Or do you mean go in at lights out and mist them? Also (and as well): The filter? Not worth worrying? You don’t think it would store pollen? And as well, if you see the pic of the Green Crack they’re not near good like the cheese alongside and they’re really starting to look pretty damn male! And they were from Humboldt Seeds feminised and I got from reputable supplier. And they have turned it worse.
Hum de dum..

There are a few points of confusion in this thread. It would be nice to have some clear pics of what we are dealing with. Like if you snapped some of the plants in natural light, and some close ups of the hermies.

Pollen doesn't cause hermies. It can cause seeds.

In my experience plants with balls are usually just that way from their genetics, and not stress. I haven't ever had a stressed out plant that grew balls.
I've had several plants grow balls, but they did it in veg or early flowering, and it seemed to be just the way they were genetically.

Any time I had a plant hermie from stress it grew nanners, not balls.

The nanners are like little yellow tongues that stick out of the buds. There usually aren't hundreds of them. Only dozens. And they do cause seeds, but usually not thousands of seeds.

I may have seen stress-related balls happen to other people online. I can't remember.... so I'm not 100% sure.

And I'm not sure if you're saying that you grew this plant before and it didn't have balls the first round? Or if the hermie plants are new to the grow.

Re the cleaning. It's just good to have a clean grow room, is all I meant. Not spraying the actual plants. If you spray buds directly it kills the pistils and turns them red. A gentle mist may be ok.

Is it possible to get clearer pics of the problem?

 

[dbones]

There are a few points of confusion in this thread. It would be nice to have some clear pics of what we are dealing with. Like if you snapped some of the plants in natural light, and some close ups of the hermies.

Pollen doesn't cause hermies. It can cause seeds.

In my experience plants with balls are usually just that way from their genetics, and not stress. I haven't ever had a stressed out plant that grew balls.
I've had several plants grow balls, but they did it in veg or early flowering, and it seemed to be just the way they were genetically.

Any time I had a plant hermie from stress it grew nanners, not balls.

The nanners are like little yellow tongues that stick out of the buds. There usually aren't hundreds of them. Only dozens. And they do cause seeds, but usually not thousands of seeds.

I may have seen stress-related balls happen to other people online. I can't remember.... so I'm not 100% sure.

And I'm not sure if you're saying that you grew this plant before and it didn't have balls the first round? Or if the hermie plants are new to the grow.

Re the cleaning. It's just good to have a clean grow room, is all I meant. Not spraying the actual plants. If you spray buds directly it kills the pistils and turns them red. A gentle mist may be ok.

Is it possible to get clearer pics of the problem?

Yeah mate , I wouldn’t spray the plants! And sorry the thread is confusing There’s another thread called “to sink or skunk”
Silly name for a thread I know
Basically I had two grows in this space ok but I’ve learned more about nutes etc and temp after first two grows (they were ok) and then the previous grow to this present grief were clones that had been very stressed - When I got them they were rootbound, big already smelling clones with matted roots coming out in dreadlocks out the bottom of pots!
But even thou they had seeds good nice smoke but low yield and seeds I’ve never had nanners- I’d have seen them
This time I had femmed seeds from humboldt and cheese clones alongside
each other and at first blamed the clones cuz they were a bit scraggly when I got them and they were so small, but I can say the guy who gave them to me is and was the original guy who made UK cheese which was and is very popular now everywhere but it came from uk : I didn’t actually believe him 100% at the time but back in the day when cheese first became common here it was renowned that a guy in Hertfordshire coined it, and when I met this guy at a friends house in east London he did say he’d just driven from Hertfordshire; now I have a mate from there - I called my mate and found out from him that the guy who
I met is really the guy who first started OG uk cheese - he was quite a few years older than me, like mid-late fifties - so I believe him now. And the cheese clones I put in room along with the GCs are doing a helluva lot better than the green crack
Just wish I hadn’t Hermed them!
Tbh, I probably come across here like I don’t know anything at all but it’s cuz I’m learning on my own and only found this site, and you can’t learn it all from the internet : I’ve found the advice of real ppl like you lot on here incredibly more informative than I’ve found anywhere else
But I’m an old head man. I guess I’ve always been a hssh smoker, connoisseur and purveyor. But I wanna get this right and do it on my own.. safe like that.
But here I can tell all and it’s great.
Anyway my partner’s just made cerviche fir dinner and then the plants are a drive away and asleep but I will endeavour to take decent pictures if you want, since you asked .. (i, too, dislike pics taken in the hps light) - in cfl light be ok (nada natural light where I’m growing !!)
And please forgive my rambling writing style ; oddly I’m a songwriter and sold songs and can write but here I’m too wordy, less words the better I guess!
I really appreciate your interest and help: more than you know .. thanks
Cheers mate! back soon
Dem Bones

 

[dbones]

Sorry @Weaselcracker, I just wanted to clarify when you say “clean the grow” : you mean the grow room, right? Or do you mean go in at lights out and mist them? Also (and as well): The filter? Not worth worrying? You don’t think it would store pollen? And as well, if you see the pic of the Green Crack they’re not near good like the cheese alongside and they’re really starting to look pretty damn male! And they were from Humboldt Seeds feminised and I got from reputable supplier. And they have turned it worse.
Hum de dum..

i guess if you ride bikes one day we get hit or eat road: and I suppose if one starts growing there will be many days of scratching one’s head

Also I didn’t express myself right when I said spray the plants I would do that by putting a humidifier on full blast in yh room (am I wrong? I know in flower humid not good but if I used the humidifier to just put mist out into the room it may fuck some pollen up, no?.)

 

[dbones]

Just spray everything with water to kill the pollen, pretty simple. 5 plants could yield more than you could smoke before your next grow. Use 3-5 gallon size pots and veg 6 weeks before you flip. Scrog would be optional.

That is actually good nuggets of advice there mate.. It’s exactly what I was realistically planning to do (all my talk about hermetically sealing the room with plastic sheeting inside is, I admit, a bit OTT [that’s “Over The Top” for all y’all who don’t talk in funny London Accents and Cockney rhyming slang: ie @Weaselcracker, if you were born within earshot of the “Bow Bells”, which makes a real cockney btw, when u said I should post pics you might’ve said “give us a proper butcher’s hook at ‘em” - “Butcher’s Hook” in rhyming Shang means “look”] so I would avoid doing all that and I’m glad you’ve confirmed my penchant for the easy way!)
I’m a proper fekkin rambler innit? Soz!
(J’lope already told me off for not asking questions like I should do, being all ramble and shit.. and he’s right, I know..)
Big luv to y’all
Dem Bones

 

[dbones]

I thought I was that " trusted source" til you get them. Fkn horrible little beasts.

Never had mites, Thank Dog, but one thing I do, more essential in my regime than cleaning, wrongly perhaps, is I light a bug-killer smoke bomb in the room between grows.. must work cuz I ain’t never seen a bug, aphid, or a diddleywotsit in my grow room in over a year
And of course, yes, I do KNOW cleaning is essential! I’m a bit lackadaisical with it and that’ll change big time, but moreover, since my motorbike accident, chronic pain is always with me (I don’t like take what the doctors give me for my pain, which is ‘morphine hydrochloride’ - basically good old fashioned smack, which I’m not keen on taking much (! On a rainy day.) but the NHS are broke and I’ve been Three years on the waiting list for an operation on my foot that’s more expensive than prescribing me smack! .. hence my search for the perfect grow - and re laziness, really it’s cuz I’m only a little bit of a “raspberry”, awaiting surgery fir years! (In Cockney slang “Raspberry” stands for “Rasberry Ripple” = “Cripple”... I love dialect so I’m sharing a bit of old slang to spice up my infuriatingly wordy prose-like rubbish!!)
I’d say LOL but we British don’t say lol (I am half American so call me a pretentious twat: I don’t mind., you’re cool dudes and won’t think I’m a fag (cigarette/homosexual: all depends on turning left at Greenland
Dude, I’m stoned good; red Lebanese pollen hashish: I prefer it to the very best weed in fact. Especially combined with a bottle of good single malt scotch! (Who needs pharmaceutical grade smack?
I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy, that’s fo sho..)
Ok dear. I’m off the trail here,
@Weaselcracker I promise to make a special trip with a good digital camera; maybe this whole fucking cunt of a grow will one day be a monument to “Fucking Cunts of a Grow”
I am, if anything, ambitious: if I’m gonna fuck it up I’ll fuck it up good! No half measures ever!!!
Big luv, DemBones

 

[dbones]

@Weaselcracker, @Guy Cavallero, @Pennwise, @Jackalope and all.....
Very sorry for not getting anymore better pics of my rather understated grow..
I’m gonna go down tomorrow and take pics just with the CFL light on and hope they’re better, but, yes they have hermied for sure (@Weaselcracker I still don’t quite understand what you said about not being hermied: to quote you said “Pollen doesn’t cause hermies but it can cause seeds”, because my plants do look hermied definitely but there’s no nanners, though I have found seeds growing in the top of a couple of the buds). Anyhow, I’m trying to organise and put all of the disparate threads of my questions and you’re answers & helpful advices into one “journals in progress” thread: I wanted to post these in one place as a bit of a tribute to the kindly helpfulness of all you guys and the 420 community in general.. So I’ll copy you in when I get it done..
no real questions of immediate import at the mo: in a way the plants are pretty healthy, especially the cheese clones! -
They’re drinking about 15 litres of water a day (I have a hundred litre tank/reservoir for their water/nutes but I learned early on that there’s a bit of a screwy thing with the pressure of the water from the tank, which sits on its stand about two feet off the ground and is attached to the 16ml pipe running along the length of the room with the smaller 6ml [outer pipe width] pipes coming out from the main pipe with the autopot connectors into the autopot system pots; a couple times I’ve had some flooding when I’ve filled the reservoir Butt right up, the water pressure seems too much for the autopsy system and one small flood I caught quickly was caused by the water pressure being strong enough to move one of the blue autopot gravity feed release thingymajigs enough that it freed itself from the little L-shape post in the tray that holds it in place so it was floating in the tray and allowing it to overflow from the pressure so now I have to fill it every or every other day so as not to have the tank go over half full and since then I haven’t had a flood of any real proportion, except for occasionally little drops coming out of the connectors and the 6mil pipes attached to them but all I have to do then is take the pipe off, see it’s expanded a tiny bit and then just cut the loose end off and re attach it to the connectors, making a good tight seal again.
That is that with the water pressure: something technically wrong there fir me to figure out because it kind of chains me to having to be around throughout a whole grow-period because I can’t risk filling up more than half-way and can’t let it get too low in case any gunk has developed in the bottom of the tank - I don’t really know where the gunk comes from! I empty the tank regular and clean it out and fill with all nice fresh water and nutes, when I have the time I leave the water in another two 50 litre tanks with the tops off cuz I use tap water and that makes the chlorine in the water evaporate..
anyway, you know as much as me about my grow set up now! It can be such a good space when, as Guy said, I get it “dialled in just right” and after this grow wash the whole thing down, paint the whole room liberally with white paint and hope I get rid of any lurking pollen !! The filter is still a source of some concern for me but a couple of you have said not to worry about it
Well, hope to post the intended “tribute journal in progress” pretty soon.
Til then my new cyberspace friends..!
Peace out

 

[Weaselcracker]

yes they have hermied for sure (@Weaselcracker I still don’t quite understand what you said about not being hermied: to quote you said “Pollen doesn’t cause hermies but it can cause seeds”, because my plants do look hermied definitely but there’s no nanners, though I have found seeds growing in the top of a couple of the buds).

Well pollen is just pollen. It's the plant equivalent of sperm. (Don't read this part, young children.)
The pollen grain unites with a female sex organ (a calyx - which is the teardrop shaped thing with two white hairs (pistils) coming out) and impregnates (pollinates) it. One pollen grain can pollinate one calyx. Then between the two of them, a beautiful baby seed is started.

That's what pollen does. It doesn't create hermies.

Hermies do make pollen though. The pollen they make does just what I described above. Same as the pollen produced by males.
The genetics are such that seeds caused by hermies will obviously usually have that predisposition as well. That's a big part of the reason you don't want them. The seeds are useless.

Hermaphrodites are basically a genetic predisposition that some plants have. I believe all cannabis plants have the potential to show some level of hermaphroditism. But some have it bad and will grow up every time producing both balls and pistils and spewing pollen all over your nice 'normal' girls.

Others will just grow a few nanners, usually later in flowering.

Others will only show nanners under stress like low temps and light leaks.

Others seem pretty bombproof but if you leave them to flower extra long and/or stress them enough they'll grow some nanners.

There are some documented incidents of female plants turning 100% male.
Shit happens. Evolution is unstoppable. Even I can evolve. But first I'm going to get out of bed and get some coffee.