What to do with the males?

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elvis

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Hey All,

This is my first attempt at growing. I have 16 little seedlings about a week old and 2 inches tall. A few questions:

1. At what point can you sex the plants?

2. What do you do with the males? I keep reading that the females are the only ones who will produce bud. Are the males good for nothing?

3. I planted 2 seeds per pot, thinking that since I'm new at this, my germination rate would be about 50%. Anyway, my germination rate was 100% :) so now I have 2 seedlings in each pot. Do I need to separate them?

Thanks for any advice
 
Hey Elvis, welcome to MarP.

You can sex the plants once they show alternating nodes.. Males should be chopped down... they are good for basically nothing... unless u want seeds... or plan on making hash later on.
You REALLY need to separate those plants now, while they are nice and small... MJ grows a quite big root system... and they'll choke each other out.
There are a bunch of "sticky" threads around the forum... check some out... they'll help with 99% of your questions.
 
Hey Kade,

Thanks for the reply. And thanks also for hooking me up with the sticky. Somehow I read thru all the threads but missed the big bold sticky that said read this before posting all your stupid questions that have been asked 1000 times.

Thanks for your quick reply tho because I separated the sprouts out so there is now only one per pot, and was amazed at how long the roots were. Anyway hope I didn't traumatize the little seedlings too much by uprooting them.

Cheers,

Elvis
 
Hey Elvis, Welcome to MP!! ;)
One of your questions, interested me as well.
KADE??? KADE???? Can you make hash with male plants????? In the same way you do with the females? Using the leaves? I love hash (more than MJ) and I would grow just to make it!!
 
Hemp-o Kitty said:
Hey Elvis, Welcome to MP!! ;)
One of your questions, interested me as well.
KADE??? KADE???? Can you make hash with male plants????? In the same way you do with the females? Using the leaves? I love hash (more than MJ) and I would grow just to make it!!

Hey Hemp-o Kitty,

Your question inspired me to do an internet search on hash, and yes you can make hash from the male leaves---at least according to all the info I found on the web. It says you can make hash with the leaves from both males and females.

Just curious: why do you like hash more than MJ? I only smoked it once, while in Amsterdam, but was so baked at the time I didnt notice the difference. Let me know...I hate to trash all those males, it seems so sexist. Would love to put them to use.

Elvis
 
Hey, thought i would add my input here..

the germination rate can be 100% sometimes, but out of 10 plants; 8 will germinate. out of those 8, 4 may become male or hermie (both sexes), so this could leave you with 4 potential females. Out of these 4 females, a lot of people tend to get rid of weaker plants and keep the strongest. that depends on your grow space.

Only way to determine sex is in the first few weeks of flowering when you will see either Pistilles for female (hair like growth between branches) or pods (like small grapes) for male.

chop down your male plants, DO NOT LET THE PODS MATURE! this will give you seed and no bud. They arent good for anything, and hash isnt exactly great... especially where i am from.

EDIT: look up sexing by cloning (this is the BEST way to determine sex without flowering a mother plant).
 
Hemp-o Kitty said:
Hey Elvis, Welcome to MP!! ;)
One of your questions, interested me as well.
KADE??? KADE???? Can you make hash with male plants????? In the same way you do with the females? Using the leaves? I love hash (more than MJ) and I would grow just to make it!!

I save some for tea, and the rest goes into making oil/hash. It's got a nice 'high' but definitely nothing like a good aged girl.
 
males can be utilized for "Hash OIL", but seldom provide enough trichomes to make "Hash"..
 
Hemp-o Kitty said:
Hey Elvis, Welcome to MP!! ;)
One of your questions, interested me as well.
KADE??? KADE???? Can you make hash with male plants????? In the same way you do with the females? Using the leaves? I love hash (more than MJ) and I would grow just to make it!!

I meant hash products actually.... if u have a male... throw it in your leaf bin or whatever (dont get pollen around) and use it with your other clippings to make oil or whathaveu.
 
DrGreenThumb said:
Hey, thought i would add my input here..

the germination rate can be 100% sometimes, but out of 10 plants; 8 will germinate. out of those 8, 4 may become male or hermie (both sexes), so this could leave you with 4 potential females. Out of these 4 females, a lot of people tend to get rid of weaker plants and keep the strongest. that depends on your grow space.

Only way to determine sex is in the first few weeks of flowering when you will see either Pistilles for female (hair like growth between branches) or pods (like small grapes) for male.

chop down your male plants, DO NOT LET THE PODS MATURE! this will give you seed and no bud. They arent good for anything, and hash isnt exactly great... especially where i am from.

EDIT: look up sexing by cloning (this is the BEST way to determine sex without flowering a mother plant).

Thanks, DrG, for your sound advice. But what is the danger of letting the pods mature? Are they just useless and taking up space or is there something bad they can do?

I'm a novice at this and have been reading a lot. I keep reading things like, 'as soon as you sex the plants, remove the males immediately before it's too late". Too late for what?

Also, should the hermies be trashed as well, or are they capable of producing bud?

Thank you for your advice, Doctor. And please bill my insurance.

Elvis
 
If you allow the males to mature the pods will open up and release pollen, which will cause your females to develop seeds.

If you see female AND male traits its a hermie..which will also pollenate the females, I would get rid of any hermies AS SOON as you notice them. Inspect them regularly, Females can turn hermie for many reasons, Light leaks will interupt the females 'night' cycle and cause her to grow balls:eek:
This seems to be the most common cause of 'self pollenation' Herms will produce bud also but it's not ganna be enough to risk your crop.

As far as the hash oils from the males, It would take ALOT of male plants to make this worth while IMO, simply because the pollen is a very fine dust that could potentially 'hitch a ride' on your hands, tools, supplies, hair..It only take one microscopic spec of pollen to ruin your crop. I take the males and hermies far far away.

If you keep a couple of strong females for mothers you'll thank yourself later.
Just take a cutting from each plant, label the cuttings and donor plants respectively, toss your cuttings into individual cups in plain water, and put them under a 12/12 light cycle, within two weeks you should be able to identify the males from females from the cuttings so you can continue to veg the females and get rid of the males before they even show pods;)

Sorry to hijack the thread...Im bored:D HOPE THIS HELPS. KEEP READING.
 
TURKEYNECK said:
If you allow the males to mature the pods will open up and release pollen, which will cause your females to develop seeds.

If you see female AND male traits its a hermie..which will also pollenate the females, I would get rid of any hermies AS SOON as you notice them. Inspect them regularly, Females can turn hermie for many reasons, Light leaks will interupt the females 'night' cycle and cause her to grow balls:eek:
This seems to be the most common cause of 'self pollenation' Herms will produce bud also but it's not ganna be enough to risk your crop.

As far as the hash oils from the males, It would take ALOT of male plants to make this worth while IMO, simply because the pollen is a very fine dust that could potentially 'hitch a ride' on your hands, tools, supplies, hair..It only take one microscopic spec of pollen to ruin your crop. I take the males and hermies far far away.

If you keep a couple of strong females for mothers you'll thank yourself later.
Just take a cutting from each plant, label the cuttings and donor plants respectively, toss your cuttings into individual cups in plain water, and put them under a 12/12 light cycle, within two weeks you should be able to identify the males from females from the cuttings so you can continue to veg the females and get rid of the males before they even show pods;)

Sorry to hijack the thread...Im bored:D HOPE THIS HELPS. KEEP READING.

Thanks for hijacking the thread. You're a wealth of knowledge. A few more questions, since you're bored:

If some pollen does infect my crop, will the females develop seeds INSTEAD of bud? Or do they develop seeds AND bud?

Also, am I understanding you correctly that my chicks can grow balls?

So even if half of my crop turns out to be females, they can switch to males or hermies later on?

Also, I had always presumed that if you take a cutting from a female plant, that cutting would turn into a female. Not so? A cutting from a female plant can turn into a male?

Holy cow, I thought this growing thing was going to be easy. I feel like I'm getting a PhD.

Thanks in advance for any and all advice,

Elvis
 
No problem man, Not seed INSTEAD just seeded bud, and unless you want to harvest the plants for seeds to use in future grows you dont want to trade resin glands for seeds. So to avoid this try to prevent any stress on your ladies(such as light sneaking in through a crack in your growroom during the 12 hour dark period.) I had a plant that was around week five of flower (seven weeks is a typical flower time in soil) This thing looked 100% female even up close, but tucked away on a single lower branch was a sneaky little cluster of "baby bananas" haha thats what the pod looks like when opened. Lucky for me this was not a big deal so late in the cycle but had it hermed in say week three...there would be atleast another 4 or 5 weeks for the problem to worsten.
As far as the cuttings, each cut will be an exact replica of its donor/mother(hints the term 'clone") If the mother is eight weeks old, the clone starts out eight weeks mature. which means little to no veg time for clones. Dont get discouraged, It's easy enough once you develop a system.
The point of keeping mothers is so you can keep your flower room full of clones all the time so you are always producing bud.
 
Hick said:
males can be utilized for "Hash OIL", but seldom provide enough trichomes to make "Hash"..

That remindes me of a recipe I use to use back in the day for cheap low grade hash. Take 3 grams of oil made with the ISO method. Add equal parts of leaf powder (best ground up in a coffee grinder on high for 2 minutes then sift), untill you end up with a thick paste. Kneed by hand adding drops of water as you would if you were kneeding clay working it until it becomes a uniform firm. Let it sit for 48 hours in open air where it will darken to almost black as whatever remnants of liquid evaporate., then wrap in plastic and let sit for another 24 hours. You'll end up with a cheap low grade hash with a half decent kick.

Not traditional 'hash' like Hick says, but good no less.

To answer the questions at hand,

1- Your concern isn't so much about the seeds as it is that your plant's overall potency will decrease dramatically.

2- Yes, plants under lots of stress can turn hermie. I've stressed plants to the hilt before, breaking stems and over pruning, without problem, and had others turn with just a few hours of bad light. Depends on the plant, but I do know that it's more likely during flowering.

3- yes. see above

4- a cutting can only turn male if a) it's stressed or b) if mom turns out to be dad. Odly enough, you can turn a male hermie and have his potency go up, but I've never seen it happen.

Again, Not as experienced as some of these guys, but I've seen my share.
 
Wow this is some complex stuff.

Can you stress a male and make him turn female?:)

Thanks to all who have replied for your invaluable knowledge.
 
elvis said:
Wow this is some complex stuff.

Can you stress a male and make him turn female?:)

Thanks to all who have replied for your invaluable knowledge.

Actually, it is pretty easy to cultivate this plant. The trick is to get the most out of the genetics of the strain. You've asked some very good questions and have been very respectful of the posters that have answered them for you. I'm no expert, and learn something all the time from others.

As far as stressing a male, and turning it into a female...I've never heard of anyone doing it. I don't think it could be done.

Let me leave you with this thought, elvis...read ALL that you can, and practice PATIENCE during your grow. These are the key to success of MY favorite hobby. Wish you well, and hope to see you around the forum!

Nelson :guitar:
 
Nelson Mutz said:
Actually, it is pretty easy to cultivate this plant. The trick is to get the most out of the genetics of the strain. You've asked some very good questions and have been very respectful of the posters that have answered them for you. I'm no expert, and learn something all the time from others.

As far as stressing a male, and turning it into a female...I've never heard of anyone doing it. I don't think it could be done.

Let me leave you with this thought, elvis...read ALL that you can, and practice PATIENCE during your grow. These are the key to success of MY favorite hobby. Wish you well, and hope to see you around the forum!

Nelson :guitar:



Thanks for the advice, Nelson. Patience is definitely not my strong suit, but I'll do my best.

Also I've been reading and reading and my head is spinning from all the info. So bear with me if I ask some dopey questions along the way.

Thanks again to you and everyone else who have willingly shared your knowledge. This venture is a little intimidating to a novice like me. It definitely helps to have people in the know who are willing to help.

Cheers!

Elvis
 
Just remember: you want decent bud with the full effects of the plants potential; males are bad. basically it to me lol.

now that you know how to identify a male or a hermie you will know to take them for away from any female plants :)
 
Okay, got it. I've become a true male basher. The minute I see any sign of a male in my garden I will hack him to bits.

Regarding this whole sex change thing: the females switching to hermies....does this happen often or is it a rare occurrance? Do I have to constantly check my girls for balls? I don't want any of these horny dudes knocking up my ladies. Its like a rooster in the hen house.

Also, another random rookie question: is there any difference between the seeds from the males vs females? If I do want seeds would it make sense to segregate a male and use him as a seed plant?

Thanks for the advice,

Elvis
 
elvis said:
Okay, got it. I've become a true male basher. The minute I see any sign of a male in my garden I will hack him to bits.

Regarding this whole sex change thing: the females switching to hermies....does this happen often or is it a rare occurrance? Do I have to constantly check my girls for balls? I don't want any of these horny dudes knocking up my ladies. Its like a rooster in the hen house.

Also, another random rookie question: is there any difference between the seeds from the males vs females? If I do want seeds would it make sense to segregate a male and use him as a seed plant?

Thanks for the advice,

Elvis

biology 101..."Males" do not/cannot produce seeds. Males release pollen that "fertilize" the females pistills. Fertilised female flowers=seeds.
"Hermies" are freaks of nature that produce both gender of flowers. They are the opitomy of poor breeding practice, and a serious detriment to "quality" drug grade mj. ,,IMHO
For decades(if not longer) knowledgable breeders, breeding for selection, bred AWAY from hermie genetics. Attempting to eliminate them from the gene pool, due to their negative effects.
But with the .."discovery" of breeding for feminization, hermies have been "reintroduced" into the pool. I can't help but "believe" that a good portion of the "unwanted" hermies, (and seemingly increaseing numbers) we are seeing over the last few years, is related. Inexperienced, unknowledgable or immoral growers attempting to produce their very own "feminised" seeds are breeding this poison into the gene pool. i.e.,,"poison pills"
Hermies can express thmselves at anytime dureing the grow.
 

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