feminizing your plants

Did i miss your question or your point? The most common way to induce male flowers on a female plant (for the purposes of creating feminized seeds) is to use colloidal silver. For a break down of the process, check out ---> http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=60610 <--- not intending to link competitors, just the most comprehensive source on the topic i know of.

I don't know about --->

 

He's asking about changing the gender of a plant to make it female even if unaltered it would have been a male.

There is debate over whether that can be done to MJ or not. Many claim to have "seen" for themselves the sex of a seed/plant change, but from what I've seen they just got a lucky batch of more females, they did not conduct anything close to a scientific, controlled test.

No, my best understanding is that MJ gender is pre-determined in the seed, either XX (female) or XY (male) chromosomes.

That article you referenced, all I saw in there relevant to this topic is a general notation that ethylene is used for many things, among them to make some plants become female (no reference to MJ).

 

wouldnt having male flowers on a female plant that produces bud and seeds make the seeds feminized?

 

There are special ways to induce certain budsites of 100% female plants to grow outwardly male flowers. These would produce feminized pollen, which could be used to pollinate a female and the resulting seeds would be feminized. That is how the breeders get femmed seeds. It's not easy to do at home, though.

If you want all females, best to buy feminized seeds. Forget trying to change a male plant into a female with ripening bananas.

 

Gotcha. I know bananas as well as many other fruits release ethylene as they age, i just didn't catch the "y isn't this posted anywhere??" part. I believe the ethylene acts as an encouraging influence, whereas colloidal silver/similar tend to force the desired characteristics. But as far as turning a male to female, i wouldn't know a darn thing about it. Sounds like an experiment for someone who actually has a grow going.

 

I guess the good news is Wales the founder of Wiki will be clamping down on the site limiting what can be posted and who can post updates. Last week I read on there Ted Kennedy was dead, which is also not true. I can not say for certain XX or XY is true or false but I would believe everything you read on that site.

 

heh, wiki doesnt even make a conclusion

they NEVER say its X:A (A is for autosome, like some fly and shit, you're either XX or XA in that system)

they do however state that at one time it was theorized that cannabis followed the x:a system. They then go on to state that it has been shown to be able to be controlled or something

citing ethylene, various auxins as potentially feminizing. nothing conclusive.

that said, my 2 cents is that I dont know of any species that has a standard x:y sex characteristic AND can involuntarily change from male to female and vice versa. So, why would cannabis be the only one?

if you dont think it can turn involuntarily, you havent seen many hermies (or at least paid attention to all the different ways and rates that it can herm at)

 

Hermies are not plants that have changed sex.

 

No! It would produce female/hermie seeds rather than male/female seeds. I'm one that does not agree w/ the chemical treatments used to make female seeds. I understand why it is done b/c producing pure female seeds is a long tedious task requiring multiple grows. When you are trying to make a profit, you really do not want to follow through 4 or 5 grows to produce female seeds.

My techniques for producing female seeds work very well, in fact about 99% range, however it takes a very long time. One technique I used in the past is to take a batch of 8-10 females and light stress them in every possible way. Sometimes it works on the first batch, other times I may have to grow 2 or 3 batches. What happens is that most of the females will hermie due to the irregular light cycles. however, there comes that one perfect female that stands here ground and refuses to hermie. I keep here and make her a mother and start to clone off her. I then take pollen saved from light stressed plants that hermied late or showed very few male sacks, pollenate the clones and so far I have had about 99% success w/ the 1% being hermie.

The other method is allowing a female to go 2 or 3 weeks past it's due date, she will then pop some male sacks which I collect and save the pollen from. I then selectively pollenate clones and get pretty much the same success.

So far on my last 5 grows I have used the many different strains I made seeds of and have gotten females everytime w/ the exception of a Thai cross which produced a couple hermies late in flowering.

A hemrie will not produce a high percentage of female seeds, it will produce the 50/50 ratio only it will be hermie/female. Your better chances of getting a high percentage of female seeds is to choose late hermies; these are primarily female only they show late male flowers. Collect this pollen to use on some female plants and you get a higher percentage of female seeds, but will still have a few hermies.

I have use HPS for veg many times, never noticed where it causes more males.

less

 

I think they do this by stressing out feminized plants with change in light, nutrients ect.. makeing the feminized plants create seeds. witch are now feminized. i think i read that somewhere. I don't remember where tho. lol

 

A female plant cannot produce seeds w/out being pollenated. Using light stress is one method used, however it is used more to find a pure stable female than it is to produce male flowers on female plants. there is always that 1 or 2 out 20-30 that will not pop male sacks regardless of how much change the light cycles. These pure stable females are cloned and used to produce female seeds.

Most seed producers use Gibberellin A3, GA, and (GA3)(gibberellic acid) to reverse the sex to create feminized seeds. Very few breeders use light stress and/or over maturing due to the fact it takes too long and only gives you a 90% ratio on the seeds it produces. Gibberellic acid has proven to produce 99.7% pure female seeds when the pollen from a reversed plant has been used on a female plant.

My suggestion to most home growers is to selectively pollenate first, find those excellent phenos and characteristics you seek, produce some very good stable seed stock, then work on improving the ratio of females/males by reading up on various stress techniques and light techniques used to produce male sacks on female plants. It makes little sense to create female seeds from plants that do not possess excellent phenos and characteristics. Remember, even from the very best breeder, a 10 pack of seeds will produce, if you are lucky, 2 excellent females. Getting an excellent male is even less likely.

Feminizing seeds is a tedious long task of several cycles of growth, careful attendance to the plants, and selectively choosing the right plants. If done wrong, you will end up w/ a high ratio of hermies, and even the females will be sensitive to hermie traits.

less

 

^^Very insightful less^^
+rep

 

Thank you, less. So many newbie growers hear bits and pieces of info on this topic and come away thinking they will just force a hermie and get femmed seeds, bada-boom bada-bing. I've been trying to preach this same gospel for a long time, unfortunately it doesn't seem to get heard very much.