When I first started growing I almost killed my only female plant because I thought it was male. That was stupid, and I don't want that to happen to any of you. Because I could of used a tutorial like this on here when I first started to grow, I feel the need to make one for you guys. I will be examining the male and female parts so you know whether to rid your grow op of the pesky pollinators or keep the busty females. But a little backround first. Basic marijuana 101 -the female plants create the pistils, witch later create the buds. The males create the balls, witch pollinate. That's the simplest way to understand whether your plant is female or not. Hair = female, little cluster balls around the nodes = male. -it takes roughly 4-6 weeks for the pre-flowers to show up. It all depends on the conditions, if they have really harsh conditions it may take longer for them to show up. It's taken me 4 weeks on average though. Also remember, that the strain effects the pre-flowers a lot too. If you have a straight sativa it's going to take a little bit longer for the pre-flowers to show up compared to say an indica like northern lights. -Hermaphrodites are both males and females. They contain both parts of the sex's and are basicly useless. People have picked the pods off in the past with success but I wouldn't recommend it. But my word maybe isn't the best for this because I have never had a hermie Okay! On with the pictorial... you were probably wondering where the pictures were weren't you? Reading all this and expecting some eye candy... well here it comes. The male plant like I said, has little "balls". That's the easiest way to remember, think of them as testicles. They wanna jizz and inpregnate all over your precious mary-janes's. The balls collect around the internodes. You want to look at new growth for the balls, and generally they appear before the female preflowers. Front view: Side view: The female plant is more of a precious little virgin, it's developing little pubic hair turning into a little woman. You must help it out the most at this stage and try not to stress it as it may just turn hermaphrodite on you. Remember, that's a bad thing. The hairs will sprout out of the little pistils at the internodes as well. In the early stages it's easy to mistake the single pistils as pods, don't do that. I did that, very silly. Top view: Side view: Mind you the female preflowers in their are from a AK47 clone. It's a little bit more mature then your regular preflowers, but in general it's the same. So in conclusion, happy growing I hope this helped you out a bit. Most of you will probably of already knew this but if I helped just one person that didn't this was all worth the typing. Good day.
thats a good post swaenk, im sure youve cleared up some questions for all our new blades, i had to give you some "green love" lol
Good thread Some other added tips and things to remember; As mentioned, your males will generally show sex before females. Indoor my males have shown sex in as little as 7 days of 12/12. Outside in the northern US, early August. Lastly, don't panic when you think you have a male and are unsure. It does take awhile for the pollen sacs to grow and the pollen inside to mature. The way it works is; the males pollen sacs mature just as the female plants begin to show sex........ie, so they can pollenate those sexy hairs. In most cases i would say you have just about two weeks from the time of 12/12 to get a positive I.D of the plants sex. If you are a true newby, grow one male start to finish someplace else just so you can examine it and learn from it. Thats what I did with some males and now i can spot them and know about how fast they mature. They are also usually taller than the ladies. Hope this helps also
so i would be correct in saying this young plant is defo a female, as this one is roughly 5-6 weeks. i would be able to tell if it was a male plant long ago?
looks like one, but better to wait a few more days, and then take a pic, your looking for a white hair from a pod, and no balls at the bottom end of the pod...........it's one of those things, that once you nail it, it's hard to describe by photos, you just know........if you held the plant in front of me i could say yes or no to bing female, some pics make it difficult..................Peace out........Sid
I personally can't tell in that pic. I see no hairs, and I see no balls. It's probably still too young, look again every 3 days or so and it'll eventually pop out really noticeably.
Thanks Swaenk! You cleared up some difficulty for me. I just posted pics of my sweeties here http://forum.grasscity.com/showthread.php?p=482995#post482995 and I definitely have some sweet girlies! Woohoo! Been reading your grow journals too...very cool...I appreciate ya'll posting this stuff...gives clueless folks (LIKE ME! LMAO) a clue. Awesome!