I have a few female plants currently flowering with healthy buds. One in particular has the beginnings of seeds. Whether or not this is from contact with a male plant or if the plant is a hermaphrodite I'm not sure. My question is, would it be advisable to pull the seeds from the buds at this point in time? For harvesting/appearance purposes, I would prefer the buds to be seedless (or as seedless as possible). If I don't care about preserving the seeds for additional grows, will it harm the plant if I remove the seeds with tweezers, etc.? Thanks in advance to anyone who can provide insight - I'm new to this and do not want to injure my first harvest.
If the calyxes are pollinated, you'd have to destroy the plant to remove all the seeds. The ones you're noticing now would only be the beginning. Are you certain they're seeds and not just fat calyxes?
Hi - thanks for your replies. I'm not sure if they are seeds or fat calyxes - is there a way to check. Also, do you mean that by removing the seeds (if they are in fact pollinated) I would destroy the plant, or are you saying to go ahead and just kill the plant. If it's a hermie, can I pluck the seeds?
Pictures would be helpful to identify whether you have a hermie or not. From what you're saying it sounds like that is the case. If you remove the seeds they'll grow back, if it's your only plant then you might aswell keep it, but if you got other females then rip that shit up man
Thanks rdb! I'll get pics ASAP. I do have other females, but what would be the harm in letting the hermie grow to harvest? Will it fuck up the other females? Also, I have them growing so that I can move them around. Would it help to remove the hermie (if it's a hermie) away from the flowering females? And if so, how far would it need to be? You guys kick ass. Thanks.
I meant breaking open every calyx to get all of the seeds out would ruin the plant. Since you'll want the plants to reach ripeness whether there are some seeds or not, there's really no obvious reason to find out for certain if there are any before harvest & drying. That said, you can squeeze a calyx to check for a seed. A seed inside will feel like a tiny rock under the "skin" of the calyx. Doing so will damage if not kill the one calyx, so don't check more than a couple. No amount of distance, by itself, will keep male flowers from pollinating females in the same room. Pollen is like bacteria- it spreads everywhere it can. It is very airborne and sticky. Just walking near mature male flowers will get pollen on your clothes, which can then pollinate any females you walk by. You could wear the clothes days later without washing them, walk by indoor female plants a hundred miles from the males, and you'd still pollinate them to some extent. It takes a great deal of effort to grow both males & females in the same building without a given male pollinating a given female. Unless you want to grow seeds, males & hermaphrodites must be discarded. Alot of hermaphroditism is caused by stress. You should get rid of hermys if you don't want seeds, but if it's caused by stress, any mother plants can still be kept because they may still be able to grow non-hermy clones.