***hermies*** : Everything you need to know! Faqs

ENGLAND123

Well-Known Member
LOTS OF INFO ON HERMIES!

Marijuana plants are either male or female . The male Marijuana plants produce pollen which pollinates the flowers of the female Marijuana plant, which once pollenized, produce seeds . If the female Marijuana plant isn't pollenized (if there are no male Mariuana plants nearby producing pollen), the flower/buds continue to develop and produce THC. Female Marijuana plants which are not pollenized are referred to as sinsemilla (without seeds). Usually 30-50% of the Marijuana plants are male.

What's the Difference you ask?

Males are often, but not always, tall with stout stems , sporadic branching and few leaves. Males are usually harvested except those used for breeding, after their sex has been determined, but before the pollen is shed. When harvesting, especially if close to females, cut the Marijuana plant off at the base, taking care to shake the male as little as possible. This helps prevent any accidental pollination by an unnoticed, open male flower.

When a male enters the stage of flower development, the tips of the branches where a bud would develop will start to grow what looks like a little bud (little balls) but it will have no white hairs coming out of it. Females will have no balls and will have small white hairs. >> Read More about Male marijuana plants

Cannabis in temperate climates begin to show his sexual identity by the end of July (end of January in the southern hemisphere) in different dates according to the varieties, Marijuana being the resinous flower of female cannabis plants intended for seed production, in absence of pollen buds turns out pure sensimilla weed and is gentle and sweet to smoke.

It is very important to get rid of male plants on time, as they are unwanted pollen carriers. By the early flowering stage male cannabis, if compared to female's, shows quite a different structure but the characteristic excrescencies would be the sex indicator this are called primordia and will emerge by the side of the third or fourth internodes in the main stem.

Female cannabis are completely revealed when the characteristic "V" shaped pistils become visible, all this to a close observation. Outdoors males will uncover themselvesapproximately three weeks before the females, indoors sexing of both males and females happens within a week to ten days according to the variety.

We've heard of urban legends about environmental conditions, age of seeds, added chemicals and even lunar stages having an influence on sexual differentiation of Cannabis; you might take note of those suggestions as personal communications, but a good handbook or an internet surf works the best if you lack in experience when sexing.

For more pictures of male and female marijuana plants visit our Marijuana Picture Gallery



What is a Hermaphrodite plant?​

An hermaphrodite, or hermie, is a Marijuana plant of one sex that develops the sexual organs of the other sex. Most commonly, a flowering female Marijuana plant will develop staminate flowers, though the reverse is also true. Primarily male hermaphrodites are not as well recognized only because few growers let their males reach a point of flowering where the pistillate would be expressed.

Hermaphrodites are generally viewed with disfavor. First, they will release pollen and ruin a sinsemelia crop, pollinating themselves and all of the other females in the room. Second, the resulting seeds are worthless, because hermaphrodite parents tend to pass on the tendency to their offspring.

Please note that occassionally specious staminate flowers will appear in the last days of flowering of a female Marijuana plant. These do not drop pollen and their appearance is not considered evidence of deleterious hermaphroditism.



Cannabis and Gender
Cannabis plants can be male or female, occasionally they are hermaphrodites a mixture of the two. Clusters of resinous flowers known as buds only form properly on pure female plants. Females therefore are the only things worth growing if you want to end up with buds of sinsimilla. It`s very hard to tell the sex of a plant until it begins to flower and even then you can never be really sure of its sexual pureness until it, or cuttings taken from it have completed a full life cycle.

Female Flowers
A single female flower consists of a little green seed pod with two fuzzy V shaped hairs poking out of it. These hairs, called stigmas are usually white but they can be other colours. The individual flowers build up through flowering to form the dense clusters commonly called buds. Look near stem and leaf joints on your plants to see them forming.

Female Characteristics
Females tend to be shorter and bushier than male plants. They usually take 7 to 21 days to change from growing to flowering when placed on a flowering light cycle.

Females can Change
Even pure female plants have the potential to turn male or hermaphrodite. This can happen if the plant is stressed too much through bad treatment or if hormones are applied to the plant to induce male flowering. Often near the end of flowering unfertilised stressed out females will produce one or two male flowers in a vein attempt to continue the species. Over cloned mother plants kept for too long can also suddenly start producing clones that change sex.

Hermaphrodites
These are plants that are part male, part female. Some equatorial Sativa varieties of cannabis are naturally hermaphrodite and the use of them in the crosses that seed banks sell will sometimes show up. Other times hermaphrodites are caused by the plant being stressed. Quite often you will get plants that are mainly one sex with maybe a branch that shows flowers of the opposite sex. Hermaphrodites are best dumped as they will only lead to disappointment.

Male Flowers
Early on male flowers look a bit like small bunches of mini green bananas or grapes. These bunches are actually sacs where the pollen forms. Later on these sacs open, push back their tepals, like petals but not, and release their pollen. Male flowers contain little THC and their pollen can make people unwell. Like hermaphrodites males are best dumped.

Male Characteristics
Male plants are usually taller than females so they can shower them with their pollen. They also have less leaf and often look thin and straggly compared to a female of the same variety. Male plants start flowering more readily than females taking 7 to 14 days to respond to a change in light cycle.

Separate the Sexes
Unless you have plans to breed or to produce lots of seeds always separate male and female plants as soon as their sex becomes apparent. One or two male plants can churn out enough pollen to tun a whole crop to seed.

Light and Flowering
Once cannabis plants are a couple of months old they can start to produce a few pre flowers even under constant light. These pre flowers can be a good indication to the sex of a plant but can`t be relied upon. To flower properly most varieties of cannabis will require 12 hours of constant, uninterrupted total darkness each day. The dark period needs to be at a regular time each day so use a timer switch if you are using lamps and don`t be tempted to peak during darkness or you will delay flowering, stress your plants and promote sexual deviation.

Sexing a Mother
If you want to grow using cuttings then a good unstressed female to use as a mother is a must. But how do you find a plants sex without causing it stress by flowering it and then reverting it back to vegetative growth? Simple, take a few cuttings from the plant and put them straight into a flowering cycle instead. They are only to tell you the sex of the parent plant so you don`t have to look after them too much.


cannabis plants are either male or female or occasionally hermaphrodite. The male cannabis plants produce pollen which pollinates the flowers of the female cannabis plant, which once pollenized, produce seeds . If the female cannabis plant isn't pollenized [if there are no male cannabis plants nearby producing pollen], the flower or buds continue to develop and produce THC. Female cannabis plants which are not pollenized are referred to as sinsemilla [without seeds]. Usually 30 to 50% of the cannabis plants are male.

Male cannabis plants
Male cannbis plants are often, but not always, tall with stout stems, sporadic branching and few leaves. Males are usually harvested except those used for breeding, after their sex has been determined, but before the pollen is shed. When harvesting, especially if close to females, cut the cannabis plant off at the base, taking care to shake the male as little as possible. This helps prevent any accidental pollination by an unnoticed, open male flower. When a male enters the stage of flower development, the tips of the branches where a bud would develop will start to grow what looks like a little bud [little balls] but it will have no white hairs coming out of it.

Female cannabis plants
Female cannbis plants will have no balls and will have small white hairs. Cannabis in temperate climates begin to show his sexual identity by the end of July [end of January in the southern hemisphere] in different dates according to the varieties, cannabis being the resinous flower of female cannabis plants intended for seed production, in absence of pollen buds turns out pure sensimilla weed and is gentle and sweet to smoke. It is very important to get rid of male plants on time, as they are unwanted pollen carriers. By the early flowering stage male cannabis, if compared to female's, shows quite a different structure but the characteristic excrescencies would be the sex indicator this are called primordia and will emerge by the side of the third or fourth internodes in the main stem. Female cannabis are completely revealed when the characteristic "V" shaped pistils become visible, all this to a close observation. Outdoors males will uncover themselves approximately three weeks before the females, indoors sexing of both males and females happens within a week to ten days according to the variety. We've heard of urban legends about environmental conditions, age of seeds, added chemicals and even lunar stages having an influence on sexual differentiation of Cannabis; you might take note of those suggestions as personal communications, but a good handbook or an internet surf works the best if you lack in experience when sexing.

Hermaphrodite cannabis plant
Hermaphrodite cannabis plant, or hermie, is a cannabis plant of one sex that develops the sexual organs of the other sex. Most commonly, a flowering female cannabis plant will develop staminate flowers, though the reverse is also true. Primarily male hermaphrodites are not as well recognized only because few growers let their males reach a point of flowering where the pistillate would be expressed. Hermaphrodite cannbis plants are generally viewed with disfavor. First, they will release pollen and ruin a sinsemelia crop, pollinating themselves and all of the other females in the room. Second, the resulting seeds are worthless, because hermaphrodite parents tend to pass on the tendency to their offspring. [note: that occassionally specious staminate flowers will appear in the last days of flowering of a female cannabis plant. These do not drop pollen and their appearance is not considered evidence of deleterious hermaphroditism.]

I SEEN ALOT OF PEOPLE ASKING BOUT THIS SO I THOUGHT I WOULD GO OUT AND FIND SOME INFORMATION FOR NEWBIES AND PEOPLE WANTING TO KNOW THE INS AND OUT OF HERMIES

I HOPE THIS HAS HELPED EVERYONE THAT WAS UNSURE :joint:
 

Trousers

Well-Known Member
It is important to distinguish between a real hermaphrodite and a monoecious hermaphrodite.
A real hermaphrodite will have both an X and a Y chromosome. Real hermaphrodites are uncommon, especially from good seedbanks.
Monoecious hermaphrodites are much more common.

Monoecious hermaphrodites are often the result of poor environment as opposed to genetics.
Many growers over feed which is for some varieties enough to make a female plant produce male flowers. Heat is also a very common cause of stress. This is how the "feminized seeds make hermies" myth began.

The resulting seeds from a monoecious hermaphrodite are certainly not useless. They are feminized seeds that are as likely to become monoecious hermaphrodites in the same conditions the parents did.

When a female plant (XX) produces male flowers, it is a normal and natural survival mechanism. The pollen only has X chromosomes, so it can not produce male plants.

Properly made feminized seeds make 99.999999999% female plants. That, along with the latest findings on cannabis sex determination, lead me to believe that a plant's sex is determined in the seed.
 

spek9

Well-Known Member
An RIU newbie wondering if a fem'd seed can be forced into a male to produce pollen got me curious, as I've induced hermies a few times through stress, so I did a Google for "does a hermie produce pollen", and was brought here.

What a tremendously great piece of information... I've learned a ton here simply by trying to help someone else out.

Thanks for this thread ENGLAND!!

-spek
 

MYOB

Well-Known Member
A lot of misinformation. Seems like the OP was an enthusiastic newbie who skimmed a wikipedia entry or two, swiped a few pics off random grow sites and decided this gave him credibility enough to whip up a book report that would impress even newer newbies who wouldn't bother to do any research on their own.

no offense.
 

Jonathanholmes3128

Active Member
th
A lot of misinformation. Seems like the OP was an enthusiastic newbie who skimmed a wikipedia entry or two, swiped a few pics off random grow sites and decided this gave him credibility enough to whip up a book report that would impress even newer newbies who wouldn't bother to do any research on their own.

no offense.
thats not very nice lol
 

bigbudheadshrimp

Well-Known Member
Ummm... No. I love hermie seeds! That's how I found my best mother ever, both in quality and potency. Chembrado, came from Chemdawg D hermie seeds.

Crazy thing is Chembrado is similar to it's aunts 91 Chemdawg, Chemdawg's Sister, and Chemdawg #4 in smoke, taste, and smell. Great head rush. Sweet, lemon, fresh, pine, Pine Sol smell. Very much sativa but it grows very much indica like the mother. Chemdawg D is a very high producing, fairly large plant of medium height. Smoke? Very dense, very potent. At first inhaling the tasty, sweet, earthy, caramel, diesel, shop rag smells and tastes you get an insane head rush, then a smooth body high onset, and finally sleep. Goes from body high to passout, but has never had a couchlock effect. I guess the sativa in it somehow powers you through couchlock and when it gives you fall asleep lol.

Also to note, Chembrado has never hermied on me, even outdoors with many dark interruptions from a 120w flood light that kept getting tripped by cats. Seems to me like hermie seeds are awesome.
 

bigbudheadshrimp

Well-Known Member
The truth:

Planted a seed from a Chemdawg D run that hermied. Currently about 3 feet tall, flowering outdoors in native soil. I dump Jack's Pro Hydro nutes on her. I call her Chembrado and she currently smells like a sweet version of the sativa leaning Chemdawgs. This is my first outdoor grow but so far no signs of male flower.

My Chemdawg D cut is a very high producing, fairly large plant of medium height. Smoke? Very dense, very potent. At first inhaling the tasty, sweet, earthy, caramel, diesel, shop rag smells and tastes you get an insane head rush, then a smooth body high onset, and finally sleep. Goes from body high to passout, but has never had a couchlock effect. I guess the sativa in it somehow powers you through couchlock and when it gives you fall asleep.
Fellow growers,

It's time to man up.

I've been exaggerating and lying. I want to apologize and hope many of you forgive and forget.

I don't want to cause anyone losses so I'm starting a new thread to offer my personal advice with what I hope are no lies or exaggerations. And if anyone has an opposing opinion I promise to respect you and hear it out. Hey we all might learn something new. Reason I came here in the first place.
 

lemmy714

Well-Known Member
image.jpg
Open male flower...fuck! This is the first hermie I've ever had and it's pollen sacks were only at bottom branches. Looks like I'll have seeds this grow!
 

Mr.Goodtimes

Well-Known Member
View attachment 3421423
Open male flower...fuck! This is the first hermie I've ever had and it's pollen sacks were only at bottom branches. Looks like I'll have seeds this grow!
Knock them naners off. I dont think that has pollinated yet. Ill bet if you pick em off and squeeze them between your finger juice will come out not pollen. When they pollenate they will open up like flower petals.

I just knocked 6 different banana sacs off my blue kush about three weeks in flower, just on lower sites. I have 11 plants going so i dont see 6 male flower sacs as too much reason to panick on my end, just have to make sure that no more pop up as flower gets underway
 

lemmy714

Well-Known Member
Knock them naners off. I dont think that has pollinated yet. Ill bet if you pick em off and squeeze them between your finger juice will come out not pollen. When they pollenate they will open up like flower petals.

I just knocked 6 different banana sacs off my blue kush about three weeks in flower, just on lower sites. I have 11 plants going so i dont see 6 male flower sacs as too much reason to panick on my end, just have to make sure that no more pop up as flower gets underway
Good info. This is actually what I did. I cut off lower portion of plant where male flowers were popping up. No more have popped up since I did this. Looks like hell but I didn't want to take any chances. This is the only plant that did this in my garden.
image.jpg
 
Last edited:
Top