Biology lesson.

yeah, right now im about 10 pages into an agro-medical peer review journal about cannabis sativa seeds being exposed to different spectrums of red and blue light and the ones that have higher germination percentages and times. its pretty cool. from what ive gathered so far, apparently far red spectrum near infrared(1000k-2500k) is no bueno for seed germination. but as it turns out from this guys peer journal entry, if you blast a seed with 3 hours of high intensity(7000 or more lumen) 3000-3300k light at 80degrees, you get an ultra quick germination(his tables in the data section show germination within 6 hours submerged in distilled water with an aerator circulating...

let me read some more...

ok im back, lol, he went on to plant these ultra germinated seeds blasted with highintensity 3300k light in a hydroponic solution. he has a few different solutions(for brevity, its pointless for me to talk about the solutions right now. just know he is using them for variable control.)

either way, his ultimate goal is really just to see if the super germination has any effect on the sprouting time.
before we get to that, he did a gas chromatography on the aerated water he germinated in(one seed in one container, with specific volumes of h2o.) the chromatography test showed absolutely no Abscisic Acid, which is weird, because that is what keeps a seed from germinating, its the AA hormone. water leeches it out of the seed husk and that is how we germinate a seed.

so anyways, he has a theory for this, and that is an unknown phototropin(protein that reacts to light, much like melanin in your skin) is either converting AA into something else(he claims that is his null hypothesis) or the AA is being stored in the taproot, which is possible, if the rest of his experiment show stunted growth in parenchyma tissue and apical root tissue.

ive got a ton more pages of data to get through before i can come to any conclusion or make this stuff relevant, but hey, there is a little food for thought while you wait.

He'd have to get into the seed structure itself maybe to find the abscisic acid, eh? I need to find some of my old books, I know light quality via wavelength better than via color temperature. 420nm ALL THE WAY, BABY! Actinic, that's where it's at.

its always nice to see someone that has the same major as me. i find allot of your studies interesting. i have an interesting theory. what if you got the pulp of a female plant and were somehow able to isolate the hormone responsible for female growth then got a hyperemic needle and injected it into an unsexed plant. this could be a possible way of getting a female plant from seed 100% of the time. thoughts? reactions?

Well, my first reaction is that IF the plant's sex is determined essentially upon fertlization then you'd be ending up with a sort of chimera. But, that's the question I'm guessing hasn't quite been answered -- how (and when) is sex determined in Cannabis spp.? If I had the creds (LIKE YOU TWO DO) then I'd be able to cite from stuff gleaned from Google Scholar. BUT I DON'T. Like you two do. <hinthint><winkwink><nudgenudge>

Good read. I agree with the 18/6 light schedule for vegetative growth but what about rooting clones? I've always read that 24/0 is best regarding that.

Seamaiden said:

Well, my first reaction is that IF the plant's sex is determined essentially upon fertlization then you'd be ending up with a sort of chimera. But, that's the question I'm guessing hasn't quite been answered -- how (and when) is sex determined in Cannabis spp.? If I had the creds (LIKE YOU TWO DO) then I'd be able to cite from stuff gleaned from Google Scholar. BUT I DON'T. Like you two do. <hinthint><winkwink><nudgenudge>

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yes and unlike you we have an education. you have contributed nothing constructive.

Wow, so, since I've not offered up something that you feel you can use (i.e. nothing specific to this subject) I've contributed nothing. I thought this was someone else's thread in which he was going to put up his ideas, interpretations, etcetera. Are you saying my comprehension of the situation is inaccurate here?

whoaaa, guys, chill. the last thing i want on this thread is another argument.
fighting over the internet is like winning the special olympics, even if you get the gold, your still retarded!!!.

but anywho, plant sex is determined by sperm, just like in animals. most are fert by two sperm, one sperm fert the egg and the other sperm ferts the endosperm and polar nuclei. (the endosperm is what the seedling eats for nutrients before it can photosynthesize). the sperm that ferts the egg will determine the sex of the plant.
of course you may be thinking "well then why is it that if you stress a plant youll get a hermie or whatever" wellllll in response to the stress hormone regulation is thrown off balance and allows for male phenotypic expression to show up. but you have to note, before that hormone stress, that plant was a female.

as far as isolating hormones... next to impossible. identifying hormones in a mess of other organic materials, possible, been done, many times, just cant be physically separated from the rest of the slew and be separated purely at that..

the pulp you are referring to is largely parenchyma and ground tissue. that pulp is what is referred to as totipotent and undifferentiated. basically, it can turn into anything. given that, i really dont see that happening, you might be able to turn a male into a hermie... maybe. the determining factor for the sex of the plant is the chromosomal configuration that comes from mitotic division in the pollen grain. pollen is a living plant. a living haploid plant. thats kind of hard to understand unless youre versed in plants life cycles. it an alternation of generation cycle, completely different from animals. as if you sperm could grow up and produce babies... kind of. lol.

im not going to go over the whole thing, but this is a quick run down. the actual plant that you think of, a tree for example, is considered a sporophyte. the sporophyte produces spores through meiosis. this means that there is a reduction devision in choromosomes and therefore ploidy number. the spore are what we call pollen that come from male sporangia(spore producing region of a plant) ok, here is a recap, sporophyte has a diploid chromosome number, sporangia produce spores through reduction division meiosis, which means that the spore(pollen) is haploid,and has genetic recombination for a different gene set with every one.

the pollen produces two sperm, like a said before, but unlike animals, the pollen produces these two sperm through mitotic divisions, which means the two sperm each retain their haploid chromosome nature and dont go through another reduction division.
basically this all comes down to the sperm from the pollen determine sex of the plant.

so my answer is no. injecting female "pulp" into an unsexed plant would only produce a female if that plant was female already. if that plant was genetically a male already, there might be a snowballs chance in hell of making a hermie. generally with parenchyma tissue, the plant is just going to churn it up and use it as it sees fit.

so if we could guys, lets just keep it to interpreting ideas about science. thanks, sorry for being an ass right there, just really dont want this thread to turn sour this early.

lets all just get along and smoke a

Great thread!!! If it remains civil, this will be the first I remain subsricribed to. The level of intelligence and information is truly appreciated by those " less in the know", even though I have few posts.

asf2j said:

whoaaa, guys, chill. the last thing i want on this thread is another argument.
fighting over the internet is like winning the special olympics, even if you get the gold, your still retarded!!!.

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Sounds great to me! I've gone into this with the mindset that this is your podium and you'll answer questions best you can. I just wanted to be sure I hadn't completely misunderstood your intention.

but anywho, plant sex is determined by sperm, just like in animals. most are fert by two sperm, one sperm fert the egg and the other sperm ferts the endosperm and polar nuclei. (the endosperm is what the seedling eats for nutrients before it can photosynthesize). the sperm that ferts the egg will determine the sex of the plant.

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Ok, now here's where there is a question in my mind, but is based more on what I'm reading on this forum than anything else. Remembering my own background, we also know that sex can have other influencing factors post-fertilization. The most obvious example that comes to mind are Crocodilians whose clutches can be shifted towards a majority one way or the other (or split) by manipulating temperature. Would this not be possible with what might be considered a lower order life form, in this instance that of a flowering plant?

of course you may be thinking "well then why is it that if you stress a plant youll get a hermie or whatever" wellllll in response to the stress hormone regulation is thrown off balance and allows for male phenotypic expression to show up. but you have to note, before that hormone stress, that plant was a female.

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Which was what I was suggesting with the chimera comment.

as far as isolating hormones... next to impossible. identifying hormones in a mess of other organic materials, possible, been done, many times, just cant be physically separated from the rest of the slew and be separated purely at that..

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In this particular instance, or in general?

asf2j said:

so if we could guys, lets just keep it to interpreting ideas about science. thanks, sorry for being an ass right there, just really dont want this thread to turn sour this early.

lets all just get along and smoke a

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You're not being an ass by making such a request, especially given the nature of some threads we might see here.

nice thread...i just read every post and this is the kind of information im looking for. i am well versed in the particulars of growing, specializing in indoor cultivation. i read a lot and dont post much so dont be fooled by my low posts...kinda the strong silent type. i look forward to the further biological discussions to come

i have read from allot of people on here that the plant sex is determined by how it is treated during growth. such as different temps affect weather its male or female. light can be a factor ect. what do you think "ismoke"? or is it already determined when the seed forms?

sex is determined by the crhomosomes in the sperm that fertilizes the egg.
it is true it some developing animal ebryo's, such as a crocodile still in the egg, sex is determined by temperature. this is not true for most dicot plants. temperature does determine a few things that would lead us to believe it controls sex. it is important to note here the base sex of the plant is determined by chromosomes from fertilization.
there or proteins with in a plant that respond to different temps by creating what is called a "second messenger". you need to start thinking on the most basic cellular level. the second messenger is another molecule that travels into the nucleus and causes dna to turn on or or a specific gene set(note: this is not the chromosomal sex dna.) Gibberellic acid is one of the hormones produces from these second messengers changing cell metabolism and dna transcription.

studies have shown that gibberellic acid can fool with the sex of a plant.(but note once again that the original sex was determined at fertilization.) GA has been proven to grow bigger flowers but may also turn a female into a hermie. When GA is applied to a male plant, the male sporangia will grow huge, but no flowers(female) will develop.
this being said, you should be able to deduce that the original female sex can be change(hermie), but if the original sex is male, the same technique(shifting hormone concentrations) will not "inject" as it were, female chromosomal gene information.

i cant sight the peer review journal for confidentiality reasons at my university(if i break it, they cant protect me)
but if you are a member of a college or university, you can go onto their library websites, and long in with you name and password for school, pretty much all colleges give access to peer reviewed scientific journals online to the students.

try it, back me up on my argument, do some research, itll be a collaboration.

i should add to that, the plant either has the female sex chromosome at "birth", or it doesnt. no way to make a male a female. but a female can be made hermie. temperature alone is not responsible for sex, and has little bearing on pure male or pure female.

This thread is amazing! I just learned about alternation of generation last week. Its cool to see things connecting from the classroom to a hobby. And I'm gonna go look at some journals...

+rep .ive read/will be reading every word of this

appreciated.

I find this really really interesting. Thanks for starting this thread, I will be creeping around here till the time comes that I may possibly add something.

On a side note poor seamaiden got attacked for absolutely nothing haha

& <3