aggreenvln
Active Member
Hey electro, here's a link to and some quotes from an article I read recently on feminized seeds that appeared on cannabisculture.com. The article itself takes a bit of an anti-feminized-seeds stance, but it includes an interesting explanation of the trial-and-error history of production of some of the first feminized seeds. Here is a collection of quotes from the article that I feel sum up the gist of it quite nicely:
"During the 1970s and ‘80s it was often the case that the seeds you grew came from a bag of good bud. ... found that after all that trouble of removing males, we sometimes ended up with females that switched sexes when they were stressed, resulting in accidental cross breeding – female plants were pollinated by females that developed male sex organs (hermaphrodites). We decided to grow out those seeds and, to our joy, we discovered that the ratio of females to males was skewed to a greater number of females. This was our discovery of hermaphroditic breeding. ... We took two clones from one female plant, stressed one of the clones until it developed male sex organs, and then bred it with the other female clone. To our delight it worked – we ended up with seeds that grew into females 85-90 percent of the time and were consistent with the original female plant’s characteristics. We could now plant around 30 to 40 seeds and end up with 30 female plants the same size with the same genetics. ... However, silver linings often have a cloud attached and it was true in this case. The female plants that developed from hermaphroditic seeds had the drawback of being far more likely than ordinary plants to develop male branches – turn “Herman” – when stressed. More than once, a power, pump or light failure caused enough stress to the plants that they easily went hermaphroditic." (G, "The Truth About Feminized Seeds". Cannabis Culture Magazine. August 31, 2010 < http://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/node/394 >.)
So anyway, you can see that it is inherent in the "technology" that in a best-case scenario only 85-90% of the seeds will be female. Coupled with additional stresses, a significantly higher portion can become hermaphroditic. Are you sure the plant isn't going hermie? In either case, I'm sure the seed bank you got the seeds from is aware of this, and there may or may not make available some type of disclaimer stating as much. It couldn't hurt to try and work something out with them, but I'm not sure if you should really expect a productive result.
You should post a couple pictures of the suspicious nodes!
