Seeking advice/wisdom from my trusted organic terrorist advisory board I originally thought these were large calyx with pistils flowering at each node... Until during trim time, I squeeze one open and to my astonishment find this. I then slice the top off a nug and to my astonishment find this. (notice the small immature seed things) Is this what a hermi is/pollinated plant looks like? (To my knowledge plants had no stress, no light leaks, no males in grow) Or are these things normal? If it is a hermi/pollinated plant, is this a classic sign, something I should have noticed sooner? Or does this sort of thing usually not get found until buds start getting cut open? I have yet to find a SOLID seed in anything really, just thinking these are very young immature seeds. Def not forming since the flip if that's the case.... Buds look PRIMO otherwise... I have them on all of my mature flowering ladies..... i'm not too happy about it. Hoping someone can ease my mind a little. My plants were quite mature, in 7gal smart pots with organic water only soil. 4month veg times. Chopped at 8-9weeks. Thanks for any and all assistance. (PS I was told by a friend and confidant, that this was not hermi, and was not a big deal.)
You definitely could have had a stray male flower on one (or more) of your female plants - it just happens sometimes. How many seeds are you finding? Are they all immature? While it may be a little bit of a pain in the neck, its certainly not the end of the world. PS I was told by a friend and confidant, that this was not hermi, [SIZE=14.4444446563721px]If you didn't have a male plant in your garden then it almost 100% has to be from hermaphrodite male flowers...[/SIZE]
Hey, thanks for your time Jerry All seeds I'm finding are tiny. Like the ones pictured. Nothing that screams seed. Most the size of a grain or two of sand. I've had males early on but only when popping beans initially. No males matured enough (lived long enough) to develop pollen sacks. So, the first pic, what is it exactly that I'm looking at there... A calyx right? And if I open that and find a small tiny seed inside... That's a seed right? Meaning a definate sign the female plant had been pollinated somehow. Curious, does this = less quality in the eyes of anyone?
Yes, the first picture looks like a pre-flower calyx to me. yes - that would be a seed inside it. Re: quality - well... depending on how many of these "seeds" you start finding, you might want to bust up your buds before smoking them, because seeds can definitely lower the flavor of your nugs when a seed starts burning. As far as your high goes, those coupla seeds wont make a world of difference. Remove them, smoke, enjoy. There MUST have been several yellow banana "nanners" (male flowers on a female plant) that opened up and pollinated your flowers. Its really not a big deal and I never worry about it myself. It could just be a genetic thing and there's nothing that you can do about that. Hey, ya never know, you might find a few viable seeds in the mix. At today's seed prices it isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you see any yellow nanners next round, just pull them off early with a pair of tweezers. or not. j
Is it possible to tell if a plant is a hermie or a pollinated female? I ask because next year I'd like to do a guerilla grow and not return to the plants until harvest time. I plan on using clones from known females so if they have seeds at the end of the grow I'd like to know if I should keep them or not...since hermie seeds produce more hermies right?
No. You have to be able to visually inspect your plants in order to determine whether or not the pollen came from said plants. You have to be able to recognize stamens and "nanners" as they are produced. At the end of the grow season, those structures will have withered away and disappeared, leaving you wondering where the pollen originated from.
I edited the HELL out of my original post... You ever grow out any of those seeds? How did things turn out as far as the hermi' population is concerned? The thing about the pollen from true breeding females is that it comes VERY late in the growth cycle, like a few weeks past normal harvest times. This is not enough time to produce viable seed. You have to collect the pollen and use it to fertilize a clone of the same mother. Solo' will not be attending his grow until harvest time. I edited to avoid possible confusion with what I was saying.
Too late. Already read it and already a little confused lol. I'll just have to ditch any seeds and stick with what I know. I jus don't have access to many seeds and I'm scared to try to pollinate anything inside so I thought if I could get some off an outdoor plant it would give me something new to play around with. Thanks Solo
I apologize for just taking a snippet of your post, I was just trying to highlight the part you said that I have personal, yet limited, experience with. I have had female plants not showing any hermie traits ,that I could see, produce few seeds as in maybe 10 seeds from say 2+ ozs of bud. From the seeds I've grown out from these, all have been female and none produced more seeds. Like I said though, I am talking low numbers here, and this was just my experience. Hopefully I didn't add to confusion with my post.
As long as you can keep your males and females separate so that you can collect the male pollen, indoor seed making is REALLY easy to do indoors. It's very easy to create a decent amount of seeds on just one or a few lower colas while leaving the rest of the plant sinsemilla. You can collect the pollen and then apply it selectively to mature pistils with a small paint brush (think watercolor paining, or small model painting). Turn off all circulation fans in the flower space, apply pollen to some lower branches, and let it sit for a few hours. Come back, thoroughly stray the pollenated branches with water to germinate any pollen that has not set, and turn your fans back on. Come harvest time, you'll have more seeds than you know what to do with, and the only bud that you "wasted" amounts to no more than about an 1/8th of herb. You just have to be able to grow your male out separately until it starts to produce pollen... You could go through the long process of trying to determine if your plants are TRUE BREEDING females by subjecting them to photoperiod stress, but most folks don't have the room/space/time to do so. I have a procedure from Vic High (a seed breeder), if you're interested... Basically you really mess with the light cycle during flowering. When all is said and done, if no plants have expressed hermaphroditic traits then the plant is a TRUE BREEDING female. You could plant this TRUE BREEDING female outside and leave it until harvest without having to worry about IT producing any male/hermaphroditic pollen that could potentially make for male or hermaphroditic seeds. "Wild" pollinations by hermaphroditic pollen might still occur though... 100% feminized seeds are produced by taking TRUE BREEDING females tested in this way (photoperiod stress), and utilizing chemical methods (which I'm not too hip on) OR the extended grow natural method to create female plants that grow male stamens that contain female pollen. Female pollen then fertilizes female flower which in turn produces female seeds. I hope you're not as confused as I just made myself... What I do find very interesting about this whole process is that you can breed TWO females together (one supplying female flower, one supplying female pollen). Please keep in mind that I'm not a breeder nor have I ever been. I'm planning on making my own seed (not breeding, just a simple filial cross of the same strains) for the first time, so all this stuff comes from things that I've read in the recent past. I have found quite a bit of useful information in the threads here... http://forum.grasscity.com/medical-cannabis-breeding/ Lot of folks that have "been there" and "done that"...