I think a lot of people use the term hermaphrodite loosely. Very few plants are actually a hermaphrodite, or show both sexes at preflower. Like Toasty says, it is possible to make quite a few strains turn hermi, although some processes are better than others. In my experience, fem'd seeds made through stress are most likely to throw nanners, followed by those made with Giberellic Acid, and the most stable are made with Collodial Silver. However, in my very humble opinion, "regular" seeds have the best chance of having enough genetic diversity to find a keeper. I say that only on the belief that males can show traits females can't. All the male hash I have ever smoked has been a cut above the female hash. Perhaps I just get shitty hash, but the terpine profiles and the quality of the high from male hash have always been something unique. I know a lot of breeders who refuse to make fem'd seeds and swear by regular seeds regardless of the reason though. TGA Subcool comes to mind.
Toasty- so what your saying is that the pollen sack that is induced on the female plant is essentially identical to the male that was used to make that mother plant? it is genetically impossible for one female plant to produce the exact same pollen as the pollen used to create the mom in the first place.....that is how these bad ass strains are created...the male is just as important in this process. -there in lies my true question i believe: the pollen created/induced on the female plant is such to make the offspring all fem(proven), but are all the offspring of the same genetic quality as those produced by 2 diff. sex parents........im not thinking so. there are hybrids out there that take ONE specific male type w/ ONE specific female type to make ONE specific hybrid(and yah yah i know about heterozygous/homozygous traits) take away one of those factors and your FIRE has just been tampered w/ i realize the seed "doesnt know" how it was made man....and i believe there is more to reg seeds sex determination(as in when that pistil was pollinated etc) than what is currently being circulated(strictly env.)....i mean archaea are just now being differentiated from bacteria, you see what im saying? and not to underate your exp. but i want scientific proof. exp. is worth so so much in this "hobby" and in other real world applications, but the science to back it cements its actuality, and im not seeing a lot of it out there. people grow femmed seeds for convenience-i get this. i enjoyed my last grow...not having to worry about using up all my soil mix on shit that is going to get shit canned. there is genetic drift while cloning(or the potential for...)so there may be that "drift" in the femming process.
He never said that hermi pollen is genetically identical to the male used to make the cross... don't know where you got that from. If both females have the traits you're looking for... yes, you will have the same quality as regular breeding without having to have an eye for good males. Um... selfing (turning a plant hermi and polinating a clone of the S1) a clone only strain is the only way to guarantee seed of a clone only strain unless you want to spend the next 20 years of your life making every trait homozygous. By using a male, even a proven male that you can read what traits are passed on, you still have to breed out the traits you don't want to make your hybrid fire. Look at OG and how it was brought to the market in seed form. I agree, you need to have an eye for recessive genes in any breeding project. Not sure what other point you're trying to make. Well, brushing up on your Mendel would be a good start. The point is, females, even hermis, still pass on their traits the same way regular breeding plants do. I confess I can't find much info either, but I don't need to because the work of many great breeders prove what I'm saying is true. I do wonder about your scientific proof though. Mutations occur during Male/female breeding also. Hence selfing a keeper to have the genes safe for a few years without having to keep a clone going that may start to drift. Again, these are just my opinions based on my and other's grows, so take it with a grain of salt, but there are good reasons to use both feminized and regular seeds. My advice: ask others growing the strain you're interested what traits they found, and if they appeal to you, get that strain regardless of how the seed was made.
I never said anything about the female that produces male flowers yielding pollen that is identical to that plant's father. A female that has male flowers induced on it will generate feminized pollen because that female has only XX chromosomes, there is no Y chromosome, so all the pollen it generates will contain an X strand. When used to pollinate the female flowers of another female that pollen's X strands will combine with the mother's X strands to create seeds that have only XX chromosomes, which is to say female. I agree there is a role for the male genetics. When you mathematically eliminate the Y chromosomes you are taking more than just the gender determination out of the equation. Look at humans for example, there are certain genetic conditions that are more likely in males or in females, because that condition is associated with the Y chromosome or is mitigated by the Y chromosome. So yes there is some genetic diversity lost in the femmed seeds you buy. But as long as the breeders are using males to create new plants for creating new generations of femmed seeds then that diversity isn't lost. And they do use the males, for this very reason. Using different strains for crosses, any combination you want -- all feminizing does is mathematically eliminate the Y chromosome, it does not limit what strains you can cross or what gene pools you can tap into and mix. To put it another way, if you had regular seeds and yanked all the males out of your grow you would end up with the same genetic diversity (or lack thereof) as if you had used femmed seeds. And seed for seed the quality isn't lessened by the lack of a truly male parent. In a regular seed, the male's XY chromosomes are split into sex cells such that 50% carry an X strand and 50% carry a Y strand. If you get a female from a "regular" seed then it got the X from the father (to combine with an X from the mother to create XX female chromosomes). So whatever was on the father's Y chromosome was never passed on to the female offspring anyway. So again, that's why genetically a femmed seed is no different than a "regular" female seed. And I don't see at all what you are saying about sex being determined by environment, when it was pollinated, etc. Sex is genetically pre-determined, XX chromosomes for females and XY for males. Archaea vs. bacteria means nothing to me, all I know about is MJ And I can't entertain every newbie's demand for scientific proof. How about you go out and find the scientific proof that what I'm saying is wrong? Kinda hard to find either since there isn't exactly a lot of money floating around for federal grants to universities to fund detailed experiments on marijuana feminizing techniques. Lastly, you cannot compare feminizing to cloning. Cloning is an imperfect process, it doesn't produce a literal 100.000% copy, there are imperfections and errors in the copy process that yield a 99.99% copy, and if you clone that and then clone that then you are compounding the error. With feminized seeds...again...what reputable breeders do is create a batch of plants by pollinating females with males. They then grow those and select females to use to induce male flowers. Two parents, lots of genetic diversity. No cloning, actual breeding. If you don't want to believe any of this, fine. But you asked the question.
Sex can be influenced by the environment actually. People put extra N in their soil, use a more blue light, or change the length of the day (and the list goes on) to achieve a higher female ratio which naturally tends to be female: male 65:35 with cannabis (likely due to the way it pollinates. It only needs one male to knock up a whole field).
^I've never seen this myself, or proof of it. Environment cannot change genetic sex determination. I've heard of manipulating light frequency, light/dark duration, ferts, temps, ethylene gas, and more as ways to "change" seeds to female. Nothing will change a male to a female. But, it is possible that environment favors the survival of one gender over the other. For example, a certain condition could make it more likely for female seeds to sprout than males, giving the impression that the condition "turned" males into females, but that's not actually what happened. I don't know of any environmental conditions proven to do this to MJ, but theoretically it is possible and is found throughout nature.
ok ok i see where this is heading now....due to the fact i work a lot i am not going to be able to bust the books out to "prove" or better state my thoughts atm. i will when given the chance, but your shitty egotistical attitude is reassuring. good on ya bro. and its not about me proving you wrong(im sure thats what you go to bed at night telling yourself though)...its about proving that femmed seeds are not as potent as non-femmed, or that they are as potent if not more....either way, i dont really care. all i care about is high quality MJ. i thought starting a thread to get ideas/exp thrown back at me w/ out egos thrown into it would be a good idea....once again bad logic on my part.
I will admit I haven't tested it yet you dismiss it much to quick when you agree their is something behind it. Whether it is one of then million different ways that are suggested it is obviously possible. Just like turning a female into a hermie is possible through stress. Through optimal conditions turning a male into a female shouldn't be out of the question. Though more study needs to be done to figure out what is actually effective.
It's not about egos. You are the one who challenged me to provide proof in the first place, right? What I dismiss is the idea that the plant's sex is not genetically pre-determined -- it is, as is the case with every species that has XX and XY chromosomes. Even the language of "turning a female into a hermie" is technically wrong, genetically that female is still a female, the genetic structure hasn't been altered.