I've heard that if a female plant becomes too stressed it can pollinate itself. How true this is I don't know, I've tried researching a little bit online but to no avail. Let me lay a bit of ground work before I ask my questions concerning pollinated female plants. When I first started I had 1 plant and did not know if it was male or female. I did not take a clone and sex it. Instead I switched the light cycle to 12/12 to induce flowering which it began to do. I then immediately switched the light cycle back to 18/6 to continue to veg it. I then took a few cuttings from it and began cloning. A few months go by and I decide to go ahead and flower the mother as she was getting way too big for her growing space. When I did this she produced magnificent buds. However, with one slight problem. There were seeds. I had no male to pollinate and I made sure this female was not a hermi. The clones also produced a few seeds as well. Question #1: Did I stress the female (mother) when I switched the light cycles on her and did she pollinate herself? Question #2: Will the seeds that the mother produced be of both sexes, e.g. male and female? I am considering growing with the seeds she produced. Question #3: If stress is what causes a female plant to pollinate itself without the aid of a male plant, what steps can I take to reduce the stress? Sorry I'm still learning this process....
I also just read that if you leave a female in the flowering stage too long it will make a last ditch effort and pollinate itself...wonder how true this is as well.
i dont think your supposed to switch from flower to veg like that. stress will cause a plant to hermie and im guessing thats what happened to yours. you can grow the seeds, you will get males and females from them. to reduce stress dont go from veg to flower to veg. you could have took clones from the plant while it was in veg.
You might be jumping to a conclusion that seeds = pollination. Usually true but not always. If the female buds truly were pollinated then they were fertilized by pollen, which can only come from a male or hermie. So that may be what happened. Other possibility is that some strains, if the female is not pollinated, late into flowering it will generate some seeds but without pollination. This is a survival mechanism -- the plant knows it is close to dying and will not be able to pass on its genetics, so some strains have developed the ability for the female to produce seeds that are effectively clones of the mother/female plant. If this is the case then those seeds will be 100% feminized (because all of their genetics came from a female), but the trait to produce seeds like that also will be passed on, so you'll grow yet more seedy bud.
Toastybiz I think your right. I think I waited way to long to harvest because the buds looked great with no seeds in sight until very very late into flowering. I think next time I just need to harvest quicker.
I have two strains here who seeded like that, and they are both excellent. If you're growing for personal use, waiting till the plants are fully mature can be a good choice. Even if you do end up with a couple of seeds.
This was one of my harvest - http://forum.grasscity.com/stash-jar/638654-4oz-mystery-herb.html#post7962786 Like I said, the quality of the herb was superb. I couldn't tell a difference smoking sensimilla and smoking my stuff. Just my stuff some seeds.
Do you have more info on this? I'm going to google it at some point, but I'm curious about this. I bought 10 AUH#1 Femenized seeds, and 5 WW feminized seeds. If there was a way to flower it longer than I should to get femenized seeds, I'd love to do this.
Ive only heard of 2 methods of producing feminzed seeds and here they are... sourced from 420mag There are two methods that I am familiar with; Light-Poisoning, and Gibberellic Acid Treatment, both forcing female plants to produce male flowers and pollinate themselves. I have employed both methods, and both have yielded satisfactory results. NOTE: YOU MUST START WITH FEMALE SEEDS/CLONES TO ENSURE THAT THERE WILL BE NO MALE CHROMOSOMES PRESENT. LIGHT-POISONING METHOD: During the first three weeks of flowering, turn the lights on for an hour during the middle of the dark period. That is, 12 hrs. on, 5.5 hrs. off, 1 hr. on, 5.5 hrs. off, and repeat for the first 3 weeks, after which you may return to the normal 12/12 light cycle. This causes a plant to go "hermie" and pollinate itself, as well as any other female in the room. You must use plants originating only from female seeds or clones to ensure that no male chromosomes are present. The resulting seeds will produce NO MALE PLANTS! GIBBERELLIC ACID TREATMENT: Select your favorite female plant and spray it from approx. two feet away (first under the leaves, then on top). This must be done 2 weeks before the plant is put into the flowering light cycle, thus the need to start with female seeds/clones. DO NOT SMOKE BUD TREATED WITH GIBBERELLIC ACID! Spray the plant again after 2 weeks have passed, and place it under 12/12 lighting. This plant will "hermie" and pollinate itself and other females present. It will not produce as much pollen as a pure male, thus less seeds. However, these seeds will be 100% female. CONCLUSION: Now, femenized seeds have also been known to produce hermaphrodites. This is just an evolutionary safety precaution to ensure the survival of the species in the event of environmental catastrophe. All seeds have the potential to hermie. Variables such as pH levels, lighting scenarios, fertilizer problems, etc. will also be factors in the outcome of the plant's sex. Just keep 'em healthy, and give them your tender, loving care, and you should be fine.
This is just not true. Seeds cannot be formed without sexual reproduction, ie; must be pollinated. The reason your plant is seeding is because of the longer flowering period. This causes a few male flowers to form and the pollen from these male flowers is pollinating your plant. As Housefull said, plants can hermie because of light pollution, or chemical treatment with Gibberillic acid, or from environmental stresses. Harvest when the flowers are ripe and this is not a problem. The seeds created by this method produce females and hermie seeds if pollinating the same plant the male flower was originally from. The pollen from this type of male flower will make female seeds if pollinating a different plant than the original but a few offspring can possibly be hermi also. Revegging from flower does not cause this to happen and is done all the time without issues.
Thank you so much! Thread is bookmarked, and I will try the light poisoning method during one of my future grows.
Not sure if it happens in weed, but seeds can be produced asexually. It is called parthenocarpy or agamospermy. It occurs when meiosis in the ovule is interrupted, producing a diploid egg cell. This diploid cell functions as the zygote without being fertilized. Again, I don't know if this happens in weed or not. But it does happen.
There are other methods. Colloidal silver would be easier to control than fucking with the light cycles. You can also control exactly what flowers herm. Light stress is an unpredictable gamble.
Light stress can be cause a female to produce male flowers, but not necessarily all strains will do so and definitely not all on the same light schedule. Breeders figure out what works for each strain they are trying to feminize -- what may cause male flowers with feminized pollen in one strain can cause hermie in another. And breeders use light stress on select bud sites on a plant, not on the whole plant. Light-stressing the whole plant is too much for it to avoid going hermie. GA and colloidal silver also work, but again only after careful experimenting to see exactly what dose at what frequency will produce the desired result. Often, light stress plus GA or CS is used. And sorry, but it absolutely is true that some strains (certainly not all) can produce seeds without pollination, in fact because of no pollination, as a last-gasp attempt to pass on its genetics. I've heard it from breeders and even had a plant from such a strain (identified as such by the breeder) produce a bunch of seeds in one of my grows with absolutely no male flowers present, and none of the other females in the grow had even a single seed. This is why I don't like femmed seeds produced this way, because the genetic tendency to seed can be passed along.
Parthenocarpic fruits develop without fertilization and have no seeds in marijuana. Agamospermy: An embryo arises from tissue surrounding the embryo sac Guess I owe you an apology, on this one, only half right, I guess if conditions were right a seed could be formed by Agamospermy. I still feel that the seeds on the OP plant have been pollinated by an overlooked male flower borne in late flowering.
I had no males. I only had 1 seed and 1 female. I didn't see seeds until very late into harvest. This was indoors as well. No pollination from any other plant.