Question about male plants

Surfer Joe · Oct 18, 2013

Hi to all.
I'm new to growing and tried a few feminized autoflowering seeds to see how I got on.
I had them in different size pots to test what size I might want to use again, and I already think the pots are too small, but now they are flowering and I don't think that I should put them in a larger pot.
The one in a tiny pot suddenly became a male so I separated it from the others because I didn't want it to pollinate the females, but I read that it's not an issue with autoflowering plants, so I was wondering if it's ok to put it back in with the rest?
I am interested in seeing it grow just to learn, and also wondering whether it is worth trying to harvest and smoke?
Thanks for any advice.

Locked · Oct 18, 2013

Surfer Joe said:
Hi to all.
I'm new to growing and tried a few feminized autoflowering seeds to see how I got on.
I had them in different size pots to test what size I might want to use again, and I already think the pots are too small, but now they are flowering and I don't think that I should put them in a larger pot.
The one in a tiny pot suddenly became a male so I separated it from the others because I didn't want it to pollinate the females, but I read that it's not an issue with autoflowering plants, so I was wondering if it's ok to put it back in with the rest?
I am interested in seeing it grow just to learn, and also wondering whether it is worth trying to harvest and smoke?
Thanks for any advice.

What size are the pots? I grow regular strains in one gallon pots and do fine and they are in those pots for more than 10 weeks...sometimes 12-13.
I used to grow autos and ran those in one gallon pots as well.

As for the male, I would segregate him from your ladies or you could wind up with heavily seeded bud, and when that happens you lose potency because the plant devotes resources and energy into producing beans. Throw in the fact that autos are not the most potent plants to begin with and you could be in for a big let down and a waste of your time and resources as well. jmo

Oh and welcome to MP...

Surfer Joe · Oct 18, 2013

Hamster Lewis said:
What size are the pots? I grow regular strains in one gallon pots and do fine and they are in those pots for more than 10 weeks...sometimes 12-13.
I used to grow autos and ran those in one gallon pots as well.

As for the male, I would segregate him from your ladies or you could wind up with heavily seeded bud, and when that happens you lose potency because the plant devotes resources and energy into producing beans. Throw in the fact that autos are not the most potent plants to begin with and you could be in for a big let down and a waste of your time and resources as well. jmo

Oh and welcome to MP...

Thanks.
They are really small. The largest is just a clay pot about 6 inches high and 5 inches in diameter. The smallest is just 3 inches. Silly, I know.
I read that tall pots would be better than wide pots. Is that true?
I will keep the male apart. Is it smokable?

Rosebud · Oct 18, 2013

The male is only good for pollination. Throw him out. You would get nothing but a headache if you smoked him. And yes, welcome to MP.

ozzydiodude · Oct 18, 2013

Toss the male with you just getting into grow it will just cause you headaches down the road

sunakard2000 · Oct 18, 2013

yes taller pots are better, the thing with autos is that any stress can drasticaly effect their growth and when the tap root reaches the bottom of the pot and it starts to bind around the bottom looking for new space to grow it effects the plant because it wants more space, most people who regularly grow autos recommend 18 inch tall pots, personaly in my current auto grow im using 17.5 inch tall buckets as pots, with the ~18 inches the tap root has enough room to grow before the plant starts to automatically flower so it doesnt bind and possibly stunt growth, so more depth means 1) larger plants to a degree as tap root doesnt bind as early in its life cycle, and 2)allows the plants to reach closer to their max potential due to less stress especially early in life.

as for the male, sorry to hear that a femmed seed turned out male, but hey at least you caught it early before it did its thing, i also agree if you havnt already toss that male out before it does its thing.

Surfer Joe · Oct 19, 2013

Thanks everyone, I have a lot to learn.
It's a shame about the pot sizes I used. The little one in the 3 inch pot is beautiful and has some lovely buds and nice leaves but it is only about 2 inches tall.
The ones in the 6 inch pots are about 10 inches tall and have quite a few buds growing all over them, but nothing like the photos of the heavy bud clusters that I see in the photos here.
They started flowering almost 2 weeks ago.
How long should I expect them to continue developing buds?
How will I know when it is time to harvest them?
Will the plant automatically wither and start to die or do they need to be harvested at an earlier time so that they don't lose whatever potency they may have?

The Hemp Goddess · Oct 19, 2013

Surfer Joe said:
Hi to all.

The one in a tiny pot suddenly became a male so I separated it from the others because I didn't want it to pollinate the females, but I read that it's not an issue with autoflowering plants, so I was wondering if it's ok to put it back in with the rest?

I am not sure where you heard this, but that is not true. Just because the plant is an auto does not mean that it won't pollinate the females. If you have a male in the same house as your females, you can expect the pollen to travel throughout the house and pollinate them. I would get rid of the male altogether. It is no good to smoke and bud with seeds will not be as potent as bud without seeds. In addition, up to 75% of bud weight can be seed with a seeded crop.

You check the ripeness of they plant by checking the trichomes with a 30x or better microscope or loupe. Breeder's estimates are usually optimistic--for instance if they say it is a 10 week plant, it could well take 12 weeks.

Surfer Joe · Oct 19, 2013

Thanks. I'm pretty sure that I got it out before it did anything. It has since started to shed pollen from its open flowers and it's interesting to watch.
The females started showing buds about 2 weeks ago, so I hope that they will continue to develop more buds in the coming weeks. They look like nice miniature pot plants.

I saw a mesh bucket full of clay balls sitting in a larger bucket of liquid nutrients that had an air pump bubbling air through the liquid. The bucket is always sitting in the nutrient liquid and the roots grow into the water.
I think that it was growing tomatoes.
I don't know what it's called, but would this be a good way to grow pot? I didn't think that it was good to always have the roots wet.

sunakard2000 · Oct 20, 2013

deep water culture and yes its a great way to hydroponically grow, however in my honest opinion since your new to growing you should stick with soil untill you get more experience, hydro systems can get tricky and you need some quite pricy items to make sure your nutes are at the levels you need them at, stick with the soil and learn more, then maybe down the road you can upgrade to hydro. hydro is defently more hands on then soil, soil to a degree is like set it and forget it, check up every so often and let it do its thing, but with hydro its way more hands on since you have to deal with ppm and pH to a much more strict degree then you do in soil, more things like air pumps or water pumps that can fail at any moment, over all more indepth

Surfer Joe · Oct 20, 2013

sunakard2000 said:
deep water culture and yes its a great way to hydroponically grow, however in my honest opinion since your new to growing you should stick with soil untill you get more experience, hydro systems can get tricky and you need some quite pricy items to make sure your nutes are at the levels you need them at, stick with the soil and learn more, then maybe down the road you can upgrade to hydro. hydro is defently more hands on then soil, soil to a degree is like set it and forget it, check up every so often and let it do its thing, but with hydro its way more hands on since you have to deal with ppm and pH to a much more strict degree then you do in soil, more things like air pumps or water pumps that can fail at any moment, over all more indepth

Thanks.
The guy in the hydro shop pitched the deep water method as being very trouble free- just keep the solution topped up and then you don't have to attend to the plants every day.
With my small pots, I do have to monitor them a lot to water them when the soil is at the right drying stage, so it sounded like a good alternative.
But I don't plan to try deep water culture until I get through this grow and learn a few things, hopefully.
My plants seem to have all sorts of odd little leaf differences, so I'm sure that I'm messing up the nutrients or the ph.
Right now, I'm investigating the ph of the nutrient water that I'm using. I used a couple of ph meters to test the soil and the water and they seem to be at 7 or a little higher, so I plan to get the water ph down to 6.5 since I read that the ph should be around 6.5 so that the nutrients can be absorbed best.
The problem is that the more different grow guides that I read, the more difference of advice I run into, and i don't really know what will work best for me.

Rosebud · Oct 20, 2013

I grow in dirt organically. It is easier. No ph'ing anything. Just a thought for you.

WeedHopper · Oct 20, 2013

A Male is a MAle,,it will pollinate.

The Hemp Goddess · Oct 20, 2013

Surfer Joe said:
Thanks.
The guy in the hydro shop pitched the deep water method as being very trouble free- just keep the solution topped up and then you don't have to attend to the plants every day.
With my small pots, I do have to monitor them a lot to water them when the soil is at the right drying stage, so it sounded like a good alternative.
But I don't plan to try deep water culture until I get through this grow and learn a few things, hopefully.
My plants seem to have all sorts of odd little leaf differences, so I'm sure that I'm messing up the nutrients or the ph.
Right now, I'm investigating the ph of the nutrient water that I'm using. I used a couple of ph meters to test the soil and the water and they seem to be at 7 or a little higher, so I plan to get the water ph down to 6.5 since I read that the ph should be around 6.5 so that the nutrients can be absorbed best.
The problem is that the more different grow guides that I read, the more difference of advice I run into, and i don't really know what will work best for me.

Keep in mind that (no matter how much you 'like' your hydro guy) he is trying to sell you stuff. I have run DWC for years and love it, but it is certainly not the top up and let it go that your hydro guy said it is. I don't think that most of those people even grow--most are simply salesmen just like those hawking Kenmore appliances and Craftsman tools at Sears.

First of all, what kind of pH meters are you using (exactly). I want to say that if you are using those inexpensive probe things that you stick in the soil to check pH, to throw it away. They are worthless and are never correct. If you start with a good soil mixture with lime, you are not going to have to worry about soil pH, just the pH of your nute solution. When running soil, you want to keep your nute solution in the 6.3 to 6.8 range. What are you feeding the plants?

What different kinds of advise are you running into? While some info will vary, there really is not a lot of variance in what you really NEED for a grow--the amount of light, ventilation, a good medium, and food. Your grow will have to be individualized for you and your space. What kind of things are you having trouble deciding? And why are the grow guides making it more difficult?

This is your starting point: Decide how much money you have to spend on this project. Decide on a space for the grow. Decide how much yield you want to get out of this. So tell us more about what YOU have going on right now (pictures are worth a thousand words). So tell us about your grow, about your space, about your lighting, about your ventilation, about your soil mixture, about the food you are feeding, etc, etc. Otherwise we are just spittin' into the wind. We need way more info to be able to help you and point you in the right direction.

sunakard2000 · Oct 20, 2013

:yeahthat:
i was just reading through your responce and others posts and THG once again hit the nail on the head, theres so much info thats missing inorder for us to properly help YOU in your personal situation, also as for the leaves from what iv seen through my grows not every leaf is exactly the same, they all vary to some degree, cant say for sure without pictures of what your saying is looking different, BUT im guessing the plant is growing properly and the leaves are forming as they usualy do, kinda like snow flakes, not one the same yet all alike

Surfer Joe · Oct 21, 2013

Are there instructions on the forum for uploading a photo?
I'm not familiar with doing that, but it would be much more informative than for me to try to explain how the plants look.
I am also red green colorblind! so I would probably be describing everything wrong. I looked at a chart of leaves showing nutrient problems and I couldn't tell the delicate details apart.
My main concerns are about watering them and feeding them correctly at this point.
I worry that the ph is wrong and they are not absorbing the nutrients or that I am overwatering them or overfeeding them.
I am using cfls and have a lot of them, so I wonder if there is too much light or maybe heat, although most things I read say that cfls are ok and can be about 3 to 5 inches away without causing burns.
I have read at least 4 grow bibles and there is always a variety of opinion, so I am interested in experimenting and learning from my first few attempts.
It's all very interesting and I appreciate all of the helpful comments.

I will try to summarize-
I used a bag of soil compost with vermiculite and perlite added (didn't really know the right proportions) and put them in small clay pots. Planted one seed in each pot, 4 pots total, and all sprouted within a week.
At first, my light was crap and the plants were just growing tall thin stems then I got a bunch of blue and red wavelength cfls and they started to bush out and develop. I now have about a total of 650 watts of cfl lights in the small 80 x80 x 170 cm grow tent. (250 watt red, 125 watt blue, plus 9 30 to 35 watt 6400 and 2700K cfl bulbs in total)
They are in a grow tent with 20/4 light cycle and extractor fan and filter setup and a small non-oscillating fan for moving the plants and the temp is about 25-30 C when the lights are on and down to about 15-18 C when the lights are out.
I fed them a fertilizer in water for the vegetating stage at first and after they were flowering, I switched to a fertilizer in the water for blooming/flowers.
I use the ratios for mixing in with the water so that they are fed whenever they get water. I wait until the soil on the top is dry before soaking them and draining them with the water, and only occasionally do I mist their leaves, sometimes with plain water and sometimes with the fertilizer water (read different opinions on this). They seem to need watering about every day as the soil seems to dry out quicker in the smaller pots.
One in the smallest pot suddenly began showing male parts and it was taken out and put in a windowsill.
The others are at least producing buds with hairs on them, but there is a fair variation of leaves in both color and in slight imperfections such as dry tips, yellowing (?) tips, leaves of different shades or colors, and odd little curls on leaf ends on some leaves.
They were planted on sept 12, sprouted about sept 16, and started to show buds about october 15. They are about 12 inches, 9 inches and 3 inches high at the moment, two in 5-6 inch pots and one in a 3 inch pot.
That's pretty much it.
I tried playing around with the water ph but I had a stick meter and it's obviously crap since I can't get a consistent reading from it. I tried to test it on ph7 buffer solution and it wasn't even close or consistent with that, but then I read that worrying about ph is more a concern for hydroponic systems and soil plants are not too bothered, so I am confused about how to deal with ph with my setup.
Thanks for any advice. This seems like a very helpful forum. Maybe someday I can also offer someone advice, if I ever learn what I'm doing!

sunakard2000 · Oct 21, 2013

well first off pH isnt something to worry about with ORGANIC soils, as they have beneficial life and other ammendments that naturaly balance pH so you dont have to, soil-less mediums and hydro systems need to pH their water/nute solution before feedings.

ok posting pictures, when posting a reply click the go advanced button, there is then a paperclip button at the top of the text box you type in, click it and it will pop up a window to search for attachments to upload from your comp, you may have to resize the pics first inorder for them to fit the required size for the forums, not that hard to figure out using paint, i simply take my pics which are always slightly larger then required so i scale down to 75% orginal size and it always fits the req size.

uhmm lets see next item for discussion... you said your red/green color blind well that blows big time especially with this plant that shows shades of green and possibly red or orangeish hues.
ok so most likely again without pics hard to say but yellowing tips defently means over feeding, the tips are burning from too strong of ferts, basicialy they cant take up all the food your giving them and the yellowing tips are like your pants buttons exploding off after eating way too much food... lol so back off the nutes slightly, also as for the shades of green, for you being color blind this part sucks, basically leaves are green, lol duh, but if the leaves are a DARK green with yellowed tips the plant has an abundence of nitrogen as well as too strong of nutes, if the leaves are new growth they will always start out a light green and darken with age, also if the leaves are developed (not new growth) and it begins to lighten in color and slightly yellow around the veins of the leaves youve got a deficiency of nitrogen thus saying either you are underfeeding (and the yellow burnt tips debunk this idea) or your over feeding and the plant has locked out nitrogen due to too strong of nutes for a prolonged period of time or unbalanced pH thus locking nitrogen out from being avaliable for consumption. again as you can see from just variations of green without pics its like spitting into the wind as THG said. also what nutes are you feeding her and how much per gal of water? are you following the instructions on the nutrients? sldo your soil you said it was a compost soil... is it organic? meaning no added slow release chemical nutes in the soil and since its compost ill take a stab in the dark and say there is a good chance that there are some kind of bacteria and/or fungi in the soil, these are the beneficials that make organic growing so awesome, they do all the digestion of nutrients so the plants can take in the nutes much easier, they also help with pH balance, and should note that chemical nutes will kill the beneficial life in the soil. and im assuming your using some sort of chemical nute, and i PRAY its NOT Miracle Grow...

you may also want to look into a few upgrades, those cfl bulbs are going to kill yah, they are far more expensive to run then a 4ft 4 or 6 bulb T5 High Output fixture and will also put out less heat. id also get that fan thats blowing on the plants out and replace it with an oscillating fan, that way there are no dead pockets of stale air not being moved around.

ooh and the curling of the leaf tips... is it just the tips or are the whole leaves curling up like a taco? tacoing is a sign of over watering. also i forgot to mention since you are watering every day since they are in such small pots you dont have to add nutes in with EVERY watering, make it every other watering and use just plain water inbetween nutes.

The Hemp Goddess · Oct 21, 2013

What are you feeding your plants? What size pots are they in?

Surfer Joe · Oct 21, 2013

sunakard2000 said:
well first off pH isnt something to worry about with ORGANIC soils, as they have beneficial life and other ammendments that naturaly balance pH so you dont have to, soil-less mediums and hydro systems need to pH their water/nute solution before feedings.

ok posting pictures, when posting a reply click the go advanced button, there is then a paperclip button at the top of the text box you type in, click it and it will pop up a window to search for attachments to upload from your comp, you may have to resize the pics first inorder for them to fit the required size for the forums, not that hard to figure out using paint, i simply take my pics which are always slightly larger then required so i scale down to 75% orginal size and it always fits the req size.

uhmm lets see next item for discussion... you said your red/green color blind well that blows big time especially with this plant that shows shades of green and possibly red or orangeish hues.
ok so most likely again without pics hard to say but yellowing tips defently means over feeding, the tips are burning from too strong of ferts, basicialy they cant take up all the food your giving them and the yellowing tips are like your pants buttons exploding off after eating way too much food... lol so back off the nutes slightly, also as for the shades of green, for you being color blind this part sucks, basically leaves are green, lol duh, but if the leaves are a DARK green with yellowed tips the plant has an abundence of nitrogen as well as too strong of nutes, if the leaves are new growth they will always start out a light green and darken with age, also if the leaves are developed (not new growth) and it begins to lighten in color and slightly yellow around the veins of the leaves youve got a deficiency of nitrogen thus saying either you are underfeeding (and the yellow burnt tips debunk this idea) or your over feeding and the plant has locked out nitrogen due to too strong of nutes for a prolonged period of time or unbalanced pH thus locking nitrogen out from being avaliable for consumption. again as you can see from just variations of green without pics its like spitting into the wind as THG said. also what nutes are you feeding her and how much per gal of water? are you following the instructions on the nutrients? sldo your soil you said it was a compost soil... is it organic? meaning no added slow release chemical nutes in the soil and since its compost ill take a stab in the dark and say there is a good chance that there are some kind of bacteria and/or fungi in the soil, these are the beneficials that make organic growing so awesome, they do all the digestion of nutrients so the plants can take in the nutes much easier, they also help with pH balance, and should note that chemical nutes will kill the beneficial life in the soil. and im assuming your using some sort of chemical nute, and i PRAY its NOT Miracle Grow...

you may also want to look into a few upgrades, those cfl bulbs are going to kill yah, they are far more expensive to run then a 4ft 4 or 6 bulb T5 High Output fixture and will also put out less heat. id also get that fan thats blowing on the plants out and replace it with an oscillating fan, that way there are no dead pockets of stale air not being moved around.

ooh and the curling of the leaf tips... is it just the tips or are the whole leaves curling up like a taco? tacoing is a sign of over watering. also i forgot to mention since you are watering every day since they are in such small pots you dont have to add nutes in with EVERY watering, make it every other watering and use just plain water inbetween nutes.

Thanks a lot. That's a lot of info. I am going to try to upload a couple of pics to show the leaf concerns and my setup.

Surfer Joe · Oct 21, 2013

I'm going to try to post a few photos of the plants and setup.
The setup is 80 x 80 x 170 cm.
The nutrients and soil used are what is shown in the photo.
I used miracle grow at first and then switched to the high nitrogen feed. When the buds began to appear, I switched to the high potash feed, but then switched to the terra flores and also added some phosphorus plus.
I diluted it in the water and water them when the topsoil is dry down to my first knuckle.
There are 3 plants. One small one medium which are indicas and the tallest is a sativa.
The small pot plant doesn't seem to have any problems.
The tallest one also seems ok but the top of it looks a bit withered or burnt so I included a closeup.
The medium indica is the one with damaged and odd tipped leaves. I tried to show two closeups of this.
I hope the photos are adequate.
Thanks for any advice.