The determinator of sex

[Tonygreen]

Plants do communicate with chemical signals.

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1756/20123062

http://www.bashanfoundation.org/heil/heilexplainig.pdf

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1020553531658#page-1

Plenty of other studies showing that too....

 

[xmobotx]

it would be wery nice if the anti-autosome contingent would come up with some coherent thing in favour for thier statements

even if the plant i referenced in post 37 were to prove staminate it is still a very rare thing ~however; i gave it a very close look last night and while it clearly is producing male flowers, it also seems to be showing some fine pistils ~still a bit early for certainty anyway

nonetheless; there is no anti-autosome contingent ~its just that IF it impacts gender; the impact is virtually inconsequential @ best

some coherent thing; XY is standard accepted biology

 

[BullDogUK]

XY is standard accepted biology

Not in all of biology but it seems most likely in cannabis.

 

[DemonPigeon]

Plants do communicate with chemical signals.

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1756/20123062

http://www.bashanfoundation.org/heil/heilexplainig.pdf

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1020553531658#page-1

Plenty of other studies showing that too....

No arguments there but if that was the way gender is determined you'd expect all grows to consist of males and females on a set ratio

 

[Tonygreen]

I wouldn't go as far to say that is how gender is determined but I think it is foolish to completely rule out possible affects. I am very uncomfortable speaking in definites unless its a definite true fact, especially when it comes to cannabis.

Would I say that is 100% how sex is determined? Am I foolish enough to say 100% it isn't or can't be a factor, certainly not...

 

[DemonPigeon]

I wouldn't go as far to say that is how gender is determined but I think it is foolish to completely rule out possible affects. I am very uncomfortable speaking in definites unless its a definite true fact, especially when it comes to cannabis.

Would I say that is 100% how sex is determined? Am I foolish enough to say 100% it isn't or can't be a factor, certainly not...

You're right that I shouldn't say "no never, it'll never impact on it" but I think his example of one room of 25-50* flowering females converting an extra 40% of nearby (but seperate) seedlings into males without causing large amounts of intersex individuals in the flower room seems a highly unlikely scenario.

Perhaps due to the extremely low odds of seedlings and flowering plants growing together in the wild seedlings would be highly impacted by an adult plant releasing chemical gender-allignment hints, but if this is true I suggest a test which would prove it beyond doubt, he should always keep a flowering male in his seedling room. The seedlings would then be effectively feminised.

I doubt this will work but if it does we're going to make millions guys

*(I assume, given he pops 50 seeds at a time that his flowering room contains a number usually within this range?)

 

[Infinitesimal]

EDIT: my fault DP, we're on the same page

No arguments there but if that was the way gender is determined you'd expect all grows to consist of males and females on a set ratio

I take it you've never won at black jack , I mean regardless of what cards have already been dealt... 4/52 cards MUST be an ace, right?

by your logic... if 1000 people flip a coin 10 times each (10,000 flips)... every one of them would land on heads 5 times and tails 5 times... cause we know that the odds of flipping a coin are 50/50 (no hormones, chromosomes or autosomes) right?...

the problem with that logic though is it doesn't take into account the law of averages...

so will each person get 5 heads and 5 tails?

or

will each persons head/tail ratio vary... but over the course of 10,000 flips it average out to about a 5/5 head/tail ratio?

^^ please answer the question so I know if you understand my point or not...

the answer should be pretty obvious... If I pop 50 seeds of one strain and am lucky enough to get 45 females that means that somewhere there are five packs of that strain that contain 9 males and only one female per pack which averages to a 50/50 M/F ratio... It's all odds!

 

[DemonPigeon]

I made that same point you're making to me to Jack Harer earlier Infini, I said that his odds were within what could be considered normal.

It might take millions to average out, however, what I was trying to say to Tony Green (badly I'll admit) was that in plants from feminised seeds we'd see a much higher proportion of males.

Not every grow would hit the average but that fem seeds (if seedlings were so suspectible to gender change) could be expected to (on average) have as many males as regular seeds would in the same conditions.

 

[Infinitesimal]

Jack Harer,

No one wanted to answer these I guess, but figure you (and others) might benefit from the point I am trying to make by it...

so I play devils advocate to make my point... the odds are almost always the same... you may get lucky from time to time with your ratios but over the whole batch of seeds it fairly evens out

for anyone claiming that germination environment plays a role in the sex of an individual seedling... I would like to hear your answer to the following...

tempurature sex test​

lets say we have five rooms with five different environments... into each goes goes ten seeds of the same strain...

Room A: 2/10 female

Room B: 5/10 female

Room C: 3/10 female

Room D: 6/10 female

Room E: 9/10 female

What do these different rooms illustrate about the environments ability to affect sex and which room has the better environment for fostering female plants?

well, that illustrates that in fact the environment DOES play a role in sex since the M/F ratio of the same strain is different in different environments...

and obviously room E has the better room for triggering female cannabis plants

actually the odds don't change depending on environment... as, if you add up all the females from each room (25) and divide it by the number of rooms (5) you will see that the male female ratio is 50/50 and isn't relative to the environment but instead probabilities.

it is the luck of the draw, as in poker with a fresh deck and only four players, each person has the same chance as any other player of being dealt a royal flush since there are four different suits each player should be able to receive a royal flush from the dealer... this never happens, but has the same odds of everyone who gets 10 seed receiving 5 females...

just because the male/female ratio is 50/50, just as the royal flush per deck/player ratio is 1 to 1, doesn't mean that everyone gets dealt the same hand... ya dig?

further more... please explain... as I think I have given an understandable basic explanation to the sexual controls of the cannabis plant and anyone refuting it should at least be able to do the same.

With that in mind,

What is the mode of action... what is happening inside the seed when you lower the temps, increase the humidity, decrease the wind, or whatever else... that is supposedly creating more or less males or females?

FUCK YOU, I don't need to know that SHIT, I get good m/f ratios because I eat steel and shit excellence... I am an excellent grower and my environment is primed for bitches... what more does someone need to understand?

I didn't expect much more from anyone in reply to that

Things that do effect the m/f ratio of standard seed...​

first a male plant produces an even amount of X and Y sperm.

but not every pollen grain lands on a pistil, so some pollen that may have resulted in a female gets lost to the wind, plus each pollen grain contains two sperm and its 50/50 as to which one fertilizes the female gamete... so at this junction in sexual reproduction it is possible for the ratio to change a small amount one way or the other... though because the odds of the lost pollen being 50/50 m/f and the odds of the sperm in the pollen being 50/50 m/f it shouldn't change much at this point maybe 48/52 max...


then,

the plant will automatically terminate between 30-50% of the gestating seeds and redirect the energy and nutrients to the remaining seeds to help ensure that the ones who survive are as healthy and viable as possible... and the plant aborts these growing seeds indiscriminant of their sex... but again odds are about 50/50... but likely worst case scenario is 40/60 either way...

then there is pinch testing... storage... crushed seeds and sometime some just don't geminate or survive germination for what ever reasons...

so even with the worst luck... assuming thousands of seeds are made, the male female ratio for a given BATCH of seeds may be 70/30 one way or the other at the most extreme

I made that same point you're making to me to Jack Harer earlier Infini, I said that his odds were within what could be considered normal.

It might take millions to average out, however, what I was trying to say to Tony Green (badly I'll admit) was that in plants from feminised seeds we'd see a much higher proportion of males.

Not every grow would hit the average but that fem seeds (if seedlings were so suspectible to gender change) could be expected to (on average) have as many males as regular seeds would in the same conditions.

my bad I misinterpreted what you had meant at first... then realized you were saying one can't expect the same ratio every time

I will say the genetics for male expression must be carried in each female or how would Silver treatments work?

it works because the only difference between cell types within an organism is an Epigenetic one... each cell in a body has the same DNA (except in the case of mosaic genetics) the same genes the only difference being the Epigenome's trigger that makes the genetics express itself differently and perform a different function...

so when the female plant is in the process of making haploid gamete cells it needs ethylene, as ethylene is the epigenetic chemical tag for those gametes to end up as an egg cell... CS blocks ethylene within the plant so without it... during the process of meiosis... the diploid cells divide into two haploid cells and without ethylene they produce sperm as a function of the lack of chemical tags from disrupting the epigenome's production of the ethylene

 

[DemonPigeon]

Yes CS inhibits ovum formation but the genetic material to produce pollen and the required apparatus to distribute it exists within female plants.

Clearly while the Y chromosome (or the lack of another X) promotes the staminate flower production the genes are still held by elsewhere in the plant's chromosomes or the females wouldn't be capable of being reversed.

Which must be relevent at least on a very basic level to the question of how the "Y" causes masculine plants.

 

[Infinitesimal]

I think pollen is just the default gamete when there is no ethylene available to make it an ovule...

the plant did come from a common monoecious ancestor so, the genetic code to be able to be both sexes is likely buried in the genome still [ FOR EXAMPLE: we humans share over 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees which we didn't even descend from but instead share common ancestors with, we are nearly Identical genetically but are obviously very very different and besides the >1% differing genes... those differences are mostly Epigenetic... the chimps Epigenome, because of their environment and subsequent mating, is much more similar to our common ancestor than our Epigenome is... hence our differences ] ... the genetic information is still there and just need to be triggered...

epigenetics allow for suppressed ancestral traits to be expressed through modifying the gene function through said chemical tags...

for instance, since birds evolved from dinosaurs... scientist postulate that using epigenetics it may be possible to reverse engineer species using their modern day living descendants... for instance using epigenetic to cause an emu to express traits that were present in its prehistoric ancestors because the descendants still maintain the basic genetic information and frame work of their ancestors...

in this way...

blocking the ethylene likely triggers the expression of latent monoecious traits buried in the cannabis genome... or at least maybe?

 

[CFP65]

@ xmbotox
a room full of females with just one of them having a fucked up hormone motor, IS a consequence. that i do not like.

one cannot get away from the fact that the "sturdyness" that needs to be in a specifick specimen to make it to keeper ie. not going the wrong way genderwise be it late or early in flowering, must lie in the homrone pathways, and maby mixed up with the circadian clock that these have at least some of their root in the autosomes, and maby even in the PAR region of the X and Y chromosomes, breeding with what folks normally call hermies do not follow simple schemes, there must be a mix of several instances that dictate if a certain speciemn is prone to getting the wrong hormonal switches turned on at the wrong time. wheter it be light at night, cold during the day, and what the hell anyone can think off.

its not just a X/Y game or XX/XY or what ever folks want to pronounce the same situation

by the way, the intertalk betyween plants i havent read up on that one in a long time, but what i did when i was growing outdoors once upon a time was to cut of the males and leave the two lowest branches with the to lowest budsites still growing to prevent the females nearby from going into "hermie" and it worked, im not in doubt that plants can and will "feel" (actually they get hormonal switches turned on or off by inviromental cues) the proximity of a ethylene or whatever stinker nearby. but also i think that there could be be something going on at the root level some electrocemical signalling but i dont know, havent seen anything to support it on paper, so its just a feeling i have.

 

[Tonygreen]

Since we are on the subject here is an interesting read on the subject of sex chromosomes in plants....

http://www.nature.com/hdy/journal/v88/n2/full/6800016a.html

And hmmm,,,

"In most studied species with heteromorphic sex chromosomes YY genotypes are inviable (see above), as are androgenic haploid plants of S. latifolia, with only a Y chromosome (Ye et al, 1990), while X-haploid plants are viable. However, the viability and fertility of occasional YY dihaploids (Vagera et al, 1994) argues against complete loss or inactivation of genes, presumably because increased gene dosage permits survival. Finally, female biased sex ratios in both S. latifolia (see Correns, 1928, but also Carroll, 1990) and Rumex acetosa (Smith, 1963; Wilby and Parker, 1988) as well as other dioecious species suggest that pollen grains with Y chromosomes grow more slowly than X-bearing pollen. This suggests that plant Y chromosomes have reduced gene functions (Smith, 1963; Lloyd, 1974), though segregation distortion has not been ruled out (Taylor, 1994)."

 

[xmobotx]

i m look'n forward to a time when we see cannabis specific studies ~'some other plant' studies provide information which could support many irrelevant scenarios {they give us a 'it could be' @ best}

anyway CFP65 my strategy is to test clones for the herm factor ~by doing this i have selected the 2 best female mothers and {if i desired to go into production} i could run clones ad infinitum w/ known qualities & ~zero concern for hermis in production

this is where i stress that good breeders should be transparent about their process & we can know how we should handle certain seeds and whether the product of specific breeders would be suitable for our own grow methods

i full expect breeders to step up their game ~as we can all see that breeding is about to take a step forward in this industry as tools become available to breeders which have not been thus far {well; those of us who arent in denial}

 

[BullDogUK]

the intertalk betyween plants

What everyone needs to be doing is thinking about these traits in terms of their evolutionary history and the advantages they may confer. There are a huge number of species which form either colonies of clones (I'm thinking heather) or exist in groups of individual plants - either way they are presumably going to be in close proximity to others of their kind. If one plant can tell others around that it's being munched on, its neighbours can prepare for that eventuality or what have you. The precise effect doesn't matter but there's an obvious advantage, it's just down to working out how/what happens.

if you add up all the females from each room (25) and divide it by the number of rooms (5) you will see that the male female ratio is 50/50 and isn't relative to the environment but instead probabilities.

The problem there is that the group size is no where near large enough. If you want to actually determine if a value (m/f ratio) is being affected by the environment you need to be doing some sort of statistical analysis. The exact analysis method would be dependent on the number of/type of environmental factors you were controlling but it's a bit more complex than dividing 25 by 50.

it works because the only difference between cell types within an organism is an Epigenetic one... each cell in a body has the same DNA (except in the case of mosaic genetics) the same genes the only difference being the Epigenome's trigger that makes the genetics express itself differently and perform a different function

So how is this not an example of environment being capable of determining sex? As DP and I have both said, as females are capable of producing pollen it seems fairly apparent that the genes responsible for a 'male' phenotype are present in both males and females, as we would expect if the plant evolved from a monoecious ancestor fairly recently.

epigenetics allow for suppressed ancestral traits to be expressed through modifying the gene function through said chemical tags

No they don't; I have a feeling you may be confusing some of the ancestral traits we see in animal embryonic development or something with epigenetics. Epigenetics is likely involved but it's not a well understood field, don't make out like you know what you're talking about.

scientist postulate that using epigenetics it may be possible to reverse engineer species using their modern day living descendants

No they don't; environment and genes have both changed. The proteins expressed by cells today have had an extra x million years to mutate. This includes both the epigenetic switches you speak of and the receptors that would be needed to recognize them and the enzyme pathways involved in processing them.

blocking the ethylene likely triggers the expression of latent monoecious traits buried in the cannabis genome... or at least maybe?

Now that language is better Sorry to be an arse, people asserting 'facts' about brand new fields of biology that are far from being understood in relation to our understanding of other mechanisms within a cell. When you talk about epigenetics you have to remember that the term itself is as vague as can be. Talking about the epigenome is rather like talking about the proteome - the term itself simply mean above genetics so covers the changes in phenotypes which can occur without a change in genotype (as you said) however the way this is done varies massively and adds a layer of complexity to genetics which is just damn frightening to think about (I do). So let's look at a couple of ways in which genome expression is controlled briefly:

DNA Methylation - CpG islands in promotor regions of DNA are methylated by proteins. This prevents the binding of protein complexes required for the initiation of transcription and also leads to:

Histone Modification - Acetylation, phosphorylation, ubiquitination and the reverse reactions are possible on numerous sites of the histone depending on the constituent subunits. These can make some regions of DNA more or less accessible to transcription associated proteins or perhaps changes the affinity of said proteins for binding. Who knows? The point is that the number of modification variants means that every single nucleosome is likely to be completely unique in terms of it's modified structure.

siRNA - small interfering RNA, small single stranded pieces of RNA complimentary to sections of a specific mRNA or multiple RNAs. Double stranded RNA is recognized by RNAses for degredation so prevents expression unless a) [mRNA]>[siRNA] b) Somehow RNAase cannot detect it? c) The double stranded RNA has some other function we don't know about.

So say we have a defined pathway for the synthesis of a protein that forces a plant to be male (hypothetical here; obviously it's way more complex ), how readily do transcription factors bind to that gene? This can be varied greatly (almost in an analogue fashion due to histone modification and DNA methylation) which can lead to varying levels of the transcription of that gene into mRNA. We then have alternative splicing - how much of the 'male protein' mRNA is actually going to make it out and how many of those splice variants produce a completely different protein? At the same time and outside of the nucleus whilst these splice variants are floating around trying to find a ribosome, siRNA is present. How many siRNAs are capable of blocking these mRNA splice variants? And then of course we have to consider that each of these genes responsible for the synthesis of these siRNAs (genes don't just code proteins remember) are affected by exactly the same mechanisms described above. It gets so messy, convoluted and complex that you begin to loose hope of ever understanding how it all works.

 

[Infinitesimal]

Since we are on the subject here is an interesting read on the subject of sex chromosomes in plants....

http://www.nature.com/hdy/journal/v88/n2/full/6800016a.html

And hmmm,,,

"In most studied species with heteromorphic sex chromosomes YY genotypes are inviable (see above), as are androgenic haploid plants of S. latifolia, with only a Y chromosome (Ye et al, 1990), while X-haploid plants are viable. However, the viability and fertility of occasional YY dihaploids (Vagera et al, 1994) argues against complete loss or inactivation of genes, presumably because increased gene dosage permits survival. Finally, female biased sex ratios in both S. latifolia (see Correns, 1928, but also Carroll, 1990) and Rumex acetosa (Smith, 1963; Wilby and Parker, 1988) as well as other dioecious species suggest that pollen grains with Y chromosomes grow more slowly than X-bearing pollen. This suggests that plant Y chromosomes have reduced gene functions (Smith, 1963; Lloyd, 1974), though segregation distortion has not been ruled out (Taylor, 1994)."

all gamete (sperm and egg) cells are haploid as a function of meiosis, except for a case of meiotic nondisjunction where both chromosomes go to one cell and the other is left without... resulting in polyploid condition in the progeny...

rarely are zygote or post zygotic cells haploid and survive especially (Y), apoptosis takes care of them when that occurs in post zygotic nondisjunction (when during mitosis, the daughter copy of the chromosome is unable to detach from the original chromosome and you end up with a mosaic genetic condition... (XYY) + a haploid (X) or (XXY) + a haploid (Y) that would be assimilated by apoptosis leaving the individual non mosaic and instead a (XXY) "sissy man" polyploid [this is how one form of down syndrome can occur, except on chromosome 21 not X or Y]

 

[Tonygreen]

Hey
Bulldog I bet thats how they felt about tryin to make the first microprocessor and computer and shit, we just keep chugging along.

Hell back when I first had my pager I never imagined I would ever be able to send a text message.

 

[DemonPigeon]

Hey
Bulldog I bet thats how they felt about tryin to make the first microprocessor and computer and shit, we just keep chugging along.

Hell back when I first had my pager I never imagined I would ever be able to send a text message.

For anyone else of my age group
Pager: A primitive communication device most commonly seen in 1980's american films. In technology terms it's somwhere between an old mobile phone and Windows Vista.
See also: "Fax Machine", "dotmatrix printer" and "Stone Henge"

 

[BullDogUK]

Hey
Bulldog I bet thats how they felt about tryin to make the first microprocessor and computer and shit, we just keep chugging along.

Oh yeah no doubt, it's what I want to be involved in The computing revolution is slowly drawing to a close and the biological revolution is just starting to take off!

Unfortunately most people tend to think you're a bit mad when you seriously suggest to them that immortality could well be possible in the coming 100 years, that in 20-30 we might well understand cogito ergo sum, consciousness and all it entails and that a full understanding of biochemistry and being able to manipulate its workings at will would give us unlimited potential to produce whatever molecules we can imagine (i.e. easy nano-manipulation with the potential for high throughput made from cheap base molecules).

Unfortunately I can only see this happening if the rate of acceleration of technological advance continues whilst several countries (without naming names ) seem pretty determined to sell out on true innovation in favor of making as much money as quickly as possible. We seem to get ourselves tied up in these no-brainer issues like equal rights, rights to life, rights to bear arms, immigration... when we have these huge ethical questions coming literally just round the corner. How can we answer who owns your genetic information when we can't even decide if you can fuck who you want or grow a certain plant.

 

[GMT]

So how is this not an example of environment being capable of determining sex? As DP and I have both said, as females are capable of producing pollen it seems fairly apparent that the genes responsible for a 'male' phenotype are present in both males and females, as we would expect if the plant evolved from a monoecious ancestor fairly recently.

.

You answered that one yourself mate, you're talking about sexual expression and complaining about determination. 2 separate things. Determination is genotype, expression is phenotype. Phenotype doesn't determine inheritance, genotype does.

And DP, you bugger, made me feel really old.