Hermaphrodite - A term being heard far too often!

Browsing over these forums I have noticed a term that is being brought up way too often, that term goes by many names; hermaphrodite, hermie, herm etc.

Yes hermies [this is what im guna call them] can be a problem when growing cannabis. But I'm reading about it way too often.

Warning new growers about this foe is fair enough, but if I were reading these things back when I was new to growing, I'd be scared to try anything for fear of causing a hermie!!!

Hermies are NOT that common, not every little thing causes them and not every bit of stress is going to result in one.

There are TWO main things that will cause a hermie, those things are:

1 - Having hermaphrodite genetics
2 - Having light leaks during the dark period of flowering (as in light leaking into your room from an external source when the plants are supposed to be in total darkness)

Stressing your plant severely may result in a hermie, but this is less likely if you have good genetics and more likely if you have bad genetics (or genetics prone to becoming hermies - Generally you try to avoid cloning plants that have hermed on you because it's likely that their clones will do the same thing, because clones share the exact genetic makeup of the plant they're taken from).

If you have good, solid genetics and no light leaks during dark period of flowering, it is very unlikely that you will have problems with hermies.

Things like topping, LST, cloning, pruning and even heavy pruning do NOT cause hermies in good strains (strains/phenotypes with good genetics), it MAY cause hermies in strains prone to becoming hermies but even that is unlikely, unless the plant is very prone to it, in which case I'd recommend getting rid of as it is most likely shit genetics that you do not want to keep, or your growing a sensitive "experienced grower" strain which you're not experienced enough to be growing.

Please do not get overly fussed with trying to prevent hermies, they're NOT that big of a problem!

Just a friendly bit of advice, especially for newer growers who are freaking out a bit ... If you want to worry about problems, there are hundreds of other things to worry about that are far more common and far more devastating to your crop!

Cheers all!

Pictures of hermaphrodites:

Plus rep just for posting a simple yet informative thread

Hehe,for them to be so hard to come by I sure have seen a lot of hermi pics.

That's because there's a lot of amateur growers here. And from what I've seen, people growing strains they're not experienced enough to grow well.
Light leaks are common when you start out and don't have a full on setup. I know when I first started growing I had some problems with light leaks. Nothing good timing and some repairing can't handle.

I've posted pics of hermies on here myself. The picture isn't from one of my plants, coz I haven't had them in soo long, but its a pic none the less (of female, male and hemire calyxes).

I came by a few when I was only growing bagseed, never had one since I switched to good genetics (bought or home-breed). The only time they come up is if I grow some bagseed out for mates (haven't had one out of them for ages either, but those bagseed seeds are usually from hermies ... A plant has produced a male flower which has pollinated a female flower on the same bud, resulting in a random seed, which a mate has obviously found, and given to me to grow. It has a high chance of being a hermie because it comes from a hermie so its got the hermie genetics in it (Which I mentioned earlier)

How many have you come across in your growing experience?

I get hermies in very batch of seeds.

Heat stress is a major cause.........

GreenphoeniX said:

That's because there's a lot of amateur growers here. And from what I've seen, people growing strains they're not experienced enough to grow well.
Light leaks are common when you start out and don't have a full on setup. I know when I first started growing I had some problems with light leaks. Nothing good timing and some repairing can't handle.

I've posted pics of hermies on here myself. The picture isn't from one of my plants, coz I haven't had them in soo long, but its a pic none the less (of female, male and hemire calyxes).

I came by a few when I was only growing bagseed, never had one since I switched to good genetics (bought or home-breed). The only time they come up is if I grow some bagseed out for mates (haven't had one out of them for ages either, but those bagseed seeds are usually from hermies ... A plant has produced a male flower which has pollinated a female flower on the same bud, resulting in a random seed, which a mate has obviously found, and given to me to grow. It has a high chance of being a hermie because it comes from a hermie so its got the hermie genetics in it (Which I mentioned earlier)

How many have you come across in your growing experience?

Click to expand...

5 hermis in 14 years not a bad record and half those were due to a long power outage not too bad of a record for old Pookie.

I get hermies in very batch of seeds.

Click to expand...

Then you obviously have a lot of shit to sort out before your next grow ... Do you know why you're getting hermies ... If your getting them every batch, something is very wrong - Sort it out mate.

Heat stress is a major cause.........

Click to expand...

I've never (nor have my mates) had a hermie from heat stress... or under-watering or over-watering ... In my experience cannabis is very tolerant to heat, especially if you grow some good Sativa, Sativa comes from around the equator originally so it loves a good bit of heat ... Maybe heat stress causes hermies in Indica strains that would likely be less heat tolerant.
Any form of extreme stress is going to raise the chances of getting a hermie, especially when couples with bad genetics.

5 hermis in 14 years not a bad record and half those were due to a long power outage not too bad of a record for old Pookie.

Click to expand...

5 in 14 years ain't to shabby at all. And due to light problems, probably the most common cause.

i heard that word yesterday....we were talking about jamie presley

Hahahaha classic! ... See now there's a hermie to worry bout

i guess she got a little light in her dark period too

Ahaha i guess so...

Thank you VERY much greenphoenix!!!!! I have been ALL OVER trying to get an exactness on sexing. I'm sure I can accurately spot a female really early on, and I believe I can spot a male (But so far, no males! WooHoo!!) But I have no IDEA what a hermie looks like. I have one plant that I was kinda undecided about. It's definately got calyxes and pistils, yet looks a bit different than the other females. I have yet to see any evidence of stamens or "balls", so I am pretty confident that they are all female. BUT a good pic of a hermie would be great.
Your post allayed alot of worry. How about genetics? Can I expect a MORE than average chance when growin "Bag Seed"? Especially from "supposedly" Sins?

I'll post a pic of a hermie on the first post in a minute.

With bagseed, there's always more chance of getting hermies, simply because the seeds often come from hermie parents (it's easy for growers to miss a couple male pods on a female plants, but not often will a grower miss an entire male plant amongst the females and let it pollinate them - This would create seeds with a small chance of being hermies [unless a pollinated plant was a hermie anyway - Male + Female = Good seed, well good compared to hermie seeds haha])
But like I said this rarely happens and it is more common for a grower to get seeds from hermies (unless they're purposely breeding), which means those seeds will have the 'hermie gene'

But it also depends where you got your bagseed, if someone gave u a random mix of some seed they bought or properly breed but they dont no what they are, they should be sweet. If you found the odd random seed in some weed you bought, there's a 90% chance its from a hermie.

Cheers.

It would appear that luck is with me then, I must be livin' right, 'cuz out of 6 starters, I killed 2 in the veg stage (weak & spindly looking) and kept 4 thinking 2 were gonna be males. NOPE!! 4 beautiful girls.
But I had assumed that since it was bag seed, it probably came from hermies, and you just confirmed what I had surmised.

heres a tip to prevent light leaks.....have your dark period at night when its dark outside,that way there is a less likly chance for a leak

heres a tip to prevent light leaks.....have your dark period at night when its dark outside,that way there is a less likly chance for a leak

Click to expand...

Yip a good tip there ... Just be careful if you live in a cold or hot climate ... Coz if its hot and you have light on during day, it can get too hot.
If you live in cold climate and have lights off at night, it can get very cold (doubt it would get too cold unless it gets below freezing. But cold means slower growth (can turn certain strain purple if the night temps are colder than the day temps).
If you live in a warm climate (like me! ) you're sweet! haha

Cheers.

OK Newbie here- Whats that smell in the room !! ha,ha,ha. Yea now that we established that heat,stress,strain dictates the odds of having a Hermie what do you do with them?

OK Newbie here- Whats that smell in the room !! ha,ha,ha. Yea now that we established that heat,stress,strain dictates the odds of having a Hermie what do you do with them?

Click to expand...

That is up to the grower. Some people destroy them much like you would destroy any males you get (unless your keeping males for breeding - but lets not get into that).

However, a plant that only slightly changes sex (a few male flowers) will result in a few seeds in some of your buds probably, but it's unlikely that it will 'ruin' your entire crop, so they can be kept.
Some people argue that they reduce the plants potency, this isn't actually proven as far as I'm aware, unless full blown pollination occurs. Any potency reduction will be pretty well undetected by the smoker.

The only times I'd destroy a hermie before it's finished it's flowering cycle, is if it is over 20-40% male flowers, or if I'm growing an expensive strain (e.g Super Silver Haze, Hawaiian Snow etc.) and I didn't want to risk them getting any pollen on them.

Hope that helps, cheers.

Too much hermie talk on this site, I'm pretty sure there's a whole section of the internet out there for you people...