Agh! Hermies!

[ClassicBruce]

This is my first serious indoor growing with a well-decked grow-room. I have a bunch of females budding, about half were even feminized seeds. Then my HID crashed a couple weeks ago and I had to wait for a replacement to ship. I used a VHO about 8 days in the meantime, always 12-hour periods, but way less grow light.

Anyway, about 1/2 my females (more each day lately), well-along budding, are popping up small male patches near the female buds at higher plant levels now. Maybe from stress? Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this, and what they do for it. Just pinch off any male patches that sprout up? And do think my diagnosis of the cause is correct, or is it likely something else?

[SuiJuris]

i have never read anything about intensity changes causing hermaphrodite plants, this is certianly new to me. but the most you can do is to pinch the sacs off of the plants... time consuming... and hopefully they have not gone to the pollen stage yet? if they have, you will most likey be picking out a few seeds when its all said and done with... pinching the flowers releases the pollen, and hell... how many specks of pollen does it take to polinate a whole room full of females? probably not too many, a few flowers worth mabey... but yes, just pinch them off. its the best you can do...


hope it works out...


oh and how many watts was the hid? and how many watts was the vho?

take care.

[ClassicBruce]

Critter: Thanks, I'll look through your link.

SuiJuris: Yeah, I'm watching the male patches plenty well each day - my tendency at the moment is to let them grow out as much as I can because I'm really curious about this event, it's so peculiar, especially on the feminized plants. But I think tomorrow I'll pinch the largest male buds, they look fairly close to pollination. I'm wondering if the problem will peak soon and then go away now that the HID is back for a while, at least that's my hope. The female buds are still growing well anyway, so this isn't a major disaster so far. It's only a problem, as you say, that I have to be careful unless I want a bunch of weird seeds that might grow who knows what?? :-)

As to the lighting, the HID is 1000W halide Warm Deluxe (adds red spectrum) vs. the VHO's 110W. I guess it's possible the changes HID-to-VHO-to-HID triggered a stress reaction. I'm no expert, but I have a lot of reference material and I've never read/heard of this cause for stress and sex-switching on well-developed females, and I can see you're pretty well versed on growing, too, and haven't heard of it either. It's pretty bizarre though, isn't it?

The only other possibility I can think of is nutrients - I've been experimenting a little using an extra "P" 15-60-15 for budding, though keeping the doses fairly light. I can't rule that out entirely, as I haven't tried P that potent before...I may know for sure if I continue the nutrient but maintain the HID, and the problem goes away soon.

[SuiJuris]

Hello again

well...


1000 watts dropped down to 100 is quite a deviation... This just might have caused it...

they were in fact all female plants?

the high phos. fertilizer isnt going to cause your plants to herm out on you. I am using 10-60-10 also... you can rule this out, its helping the budding if anything, as long as its used correctly.

a question: How many male sacs are there percentage wise as compared to that of the females?

also, you will most likely end up with seeds this time around, so id expect it. like you mentioned; observe. it will if nothing else be fascinating to watch the seeds develop. Unfortunately seeds from such plants will have a tendency to become hermaphrodites themselves, so unless you have some herm plant fetish..lol...they will most likely not be worth replanting.

I am no veteran grower by any means... I just do alot of reading, and try to help best I can, I am growing with flourescent lights still, and never tried a HID, so I have no experience there... But with the interent at hand and so many trial and error reports to read from... It makes it somewhat easy to help people out with certian problems ...

hope ive been somewhat of a help thus far... if at anytime i am getting ahead of myself, just say a rocky bellboa 'hey' ...an... well ill get it.


take care.

[SuiJuris]

Originally posted by critter
lt sounds like you have male plants that grow taller and quicker then pollinate all the lower female ,s causing hermies.

perhaps its just a miscommunication thing, but if not im curious...

how is it that male plants can cause hermaphrodites merely by polinating females? this is the natural cycle of a plants life. perhaps you could clarify? there has to be an initial root cause (no pun intended) for them to turn herm. are you saying that you think he had male plants to begin with and that the male plants turned herm instead of the other way around (females turning..) even so theres still the initial cause missing...


take care.
ave.

[SuiJuris]

Originally posted by critter
what l,am saying is that male plants grow quicker than females ,this is so they can pollinate the lower females.So what l think has happened is that he [she] had male plants that were allowed to grow and drop there pollen turning the lower female plants to seed. The drop to a fluo would suit the male plants as well.

dont hate me alright.

I have this quarky habit for trying to understand people ... ah yes, its probably because i am too often misunderstood and i wish people would do the same for me...lol that said..

this term "lower females" what do you mean by it?

you say you think the male plants (not hermie now...just straight males) turned to pollen and turned the...?lower females?(not herm females. just straight females now) ... into seed. in other words, nature took its course, the seeds s/he grew produced some male and some female, as can be expected. and the males pollinated the females, producing seed...

where does the herm..er -ization come in to play?

what do you mean by suit the male plants? obvious reaction would be "of course they would suit the males..unless they were special males...and well..thats a bit silly)..but again i just think i dont understand, so I wont use this 'obvious' reaction.


sorry again... i am a slow learner i guess...right now anyway.


thanks.
take care.

[SuiJuris]

this is fun...


what im getting from you is that because of poor conditions, male plants were produced instead of females for survival purposes.


i guess this makes sence...


thanks.

[ClassicBruce]

A point to straighten out first: there were no male plants when the hermies began to show - I pulled them all very quickly, as soon as their maleness appeared (not great smoke, but okay for rainy day stuff :-)

I appreciate the comment about the phosphorus being okay, I didn't think that was a problem, but it's good to have some confirmation - as I say, I'm using the 60 grade, but in light doses.

I think that rules IN hermie-creation by stress from light density/strength change, I'd wager on it for sure now. The problem has not grown (pun intended :-) to any other plants in the past two days as the return to halide seems to have stabilized now, and I pinched off the male patches on about 5 plants yesterday. A couple females appear to have recovered and are back to all-female. One plant isn't so lucky, it's actually got male patches MIXED into the female buds, plus the separate male patches. That one is pulled, as it really appears to be turning fully male after launching nice female buds (it should make halfway good smoke, anyway).

So I guess this is a lesson of sorts, like "don't make a big lighting change while flowering is well-along" :-) But OTOH, it's not the worst disaster, like bud mold or something...or dead plants from no light at all. A VHO substitute beats that by a mile!

[SuiJuris]

I agree with your synopsis, and this is what I gathered from your first post... I just enjoyed the little back and forth discussion with critter, things like that are fun...like watching married couples bicker...way different I know, but same theory...lol


take care now.