ok so i've been breeding autoflowers for about 2 years on and off. over that time i've seen a few freaks: self topping plants etc.. anyways this time around i planted 15 reg seeds in order to chose one male with which to make my next cross. seeds sprouted and showed sex: 7 males, 8 females. gave females away to a friend and culled 4 of the 7 males. (those 4 not flowering as fast as the others or not impressing me growth rate wise.) the 3 chose to keep all grew at the same rate, showed male preflower at day 22 at the 4th node. didn't look in on them for 3 days. when i looked in today one of the plants is flowering female. there were 4 male flowers at the 4th node almost ready to drop pollen and everything above the 4th node is female flower even the preflowers. i'v never had any hermie's show up before and i grow out a lot of seeds. i give plants to friends who don't really grow so i can see what they do under different conditions i.e. window sills, greenhouse, burple leds.. up untill now i had found this breeding line to be solid. i've looked online and cant find any mention of male preflowers and female bud. there's loads of info on female plants with male flowers but none on this topic.. i picked off the male preflowers as they were almost ready to drop pollen and i didn't want any dodgy stray pollen polluting my garden. i forgot to get a photo first. doh.. so anyway has anyone ever seen this or read about it ?
Sounds like a true hermaphrodite, a polyploid. Normal cannabis is diploid, XX XY. A polyploid has 3 or more chromosomes XXY XYY XXYY etc... They express in some interesting ways.
its been 3 weeks since i discovered the hermie. i kept the plant on the edge of my garden and have been observing it every few days.. it looks female in every way now. nice flowers and no bananas.. for a plant in a 1 gall pot it actually looks surprisingly good. what im wondering is how it will effect my breeding line . the male i used to make my next cross was a sibling of the hermie. i just crossed it with 3 different strains. do i need to discard the whole line and start from scratch?
A polyploid is a rarity. Unless you use it for breeding, or unless you see the trait popping up more often in the beans you just made, it shouldn't be a problem. If you do start seeing it pop up regularly, then the trait was picked up in a previous crossing.
At some point in my breeding program I must've unknowingly use pollen from a full hermaphrodite because after a few normal generations I started getting a few hermaphrodites in every batch. Now I look for them and remove them so hopefully I'll get rid of the trait one day
hey wanted to post an up date on that plant.. kept the plant on the edge of my veg garden till harvest. here is some pics.. so anyways the plant was harvested, dried and cured for a couple of weeks so far. there has been no sign of male flowers or seeds. the plant only yielded 11g so i was able to look through all the bud for signs of seed.. still waiting on the mother plant that was seeded to dry. as soon as it does will be growing out a bunch to see if the trait shows up and will update again.