what percentage of plants are hermies?

[Red Fang]

I seem to be plagued by hermies. In the past, the damn digital timer was not going off when it was supposed to. Or I stubbornly and stupidly was not finished what I was doing before lights out. This time, I did not have any of the above problems. I checked and checked and checked some more, and did not find any. Many days of this and then I noticed once of my nicest looking flowers had at least 4 suddenly obvious flowers and the seeding seems worse than ever before (some fully developed seeds and some green, just a few in some cases but quite a few on most)! I don't know if it is better to chop and regenerate and settle for a shit yield of seediness, or risk more seeds but maybe get more weight too? I don't know how this slipped past me! It was right in front of me too! not way in back

The main question is, how often do hermies tend to occur? Say someone is an expert grower but has 100 plants (I have nowhere near that). Will a certain percent always be hermie or will some growers of some strains always be hermie free? I know some strains are more proned to this, like chem types and Thai. So what percent will hermie for various strains? (for example if someone said 15% for Thai and 3% for Northern lights, this is the kind of answer I am seeking). Thanks! ps. the one that hermied was a strawberry diesel kush from fractal genetics. But I have several others of this strain and diesel hybrids from cannaventure that did not do this.

 

[ydijadoit]

Hey, Fang.
I have been plagued by the dreaded hermie since day one of my growing.
I have almost always grown from fem seeds, so that explains a lot of it, but still, I seem to get my fair share, plus somebody else's!
My environment, has always been close to spot on. 78-80 lights on, 40%ish rh in bloom, no light cycle screw ups, ten degree temp drop at night, etc.
I have often wondered if it was the paint on the walls, or my cat farting, that gives me such grief.
Some strains I have grown, won't hermie, seemingly no matter what. Others pop a few sacks out, and the pollen is sterile, seeding nothing, but giving me a hell of a scare.
Two Dinafem strains I have run, both with the same Blueberry parent, were hermie specials. I put up with a few seeds, because it was awesome smoke.
The Dinafem Shark Attack I am running now, is seemingly bulletproof, and it was a fem freebie, at that.
If I think back, I'd say I run a 50% ratio, using fem beans, of at least a few pollen sacks, somewhere. Of that 50%, half of those throw 2 or 3 sacks, and never do it again.
I could lose myself in numbers quickly, but an off the cuff guess is 50% herm to some degree, and 10% of the total strains I have grown, are just obvious, cut and chuck hermie nightmares.
Curious if it's me, doing something wrong, or just the way it works.
No solid answer for you, I'm afraid, but I am in the same boat!
Regards.

 

[HidingInTheHaze]

Overall, I don't get them very often.

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

Ouch, hate to hear that about NepJam.

You didn't mention it, but I'm going to bring up bagseed. These are quite often the result of an intersex prone plant pollinating a crop of intended sensimilla. Bagseed can be a gift from heaven, but be careful. If it had an intersex origin then most all the females from those seeds will carry the genes to throw bananas later. And you don't want this trait to manifest itself in a big screen of green grow either. Try untangling that mess without shaking any pollen loose... ugh...

 

[AlterEgo860]

wat are u using for nutes? ive heard of some nutes making stressful situations.

genetics.. and stress.. i was doing the same thing.. now i grow all my new seed strains together.. for the first run.. and second run together.. so if they hermi.. no seeds for my proven to not hermi strains.. soo.. this makes it a quarentine area to flower out and not fuck your grow. if u cannot do this.. i reccommend not growing too many strains at 1 time.. i had this happen wen i was doing 50 strains at a time.. we did it 10 strains per flower.. and ended up getting 1 hermi and seeding a bunch of shit.. so now. i do it sooo different wen introducing new seeds and clones into my op..

 

[HidingInTheHaze]

Ouch, hate to hear that about NepJam.

FWIW those nepjam seeds were from 07-08 but every time I grew them over the years I had the same result.

I don't know if they have been changed since then.

 

[Red Fang]

Ouch, hate to hear that about NepJam.

You didn't mention it, but I'm going to bring up bagseed. These are quite often the result of an intersex prone plant pollinating a crop of intended sensimilla. Bagseed can be a gift from heaven, but be careful. If it had an intersex origin then most all the females from those seeds will carry the genes to throw bananas later. And you don't want this trait to manifest itself in a big screen of green grow either. Try untangling that mess without shaking any pollen loose... ugh...

who's nepjam? yeah bagseed, it seems everyone here tells newbies to grow it, whether not to cost a beginner much money when they don't know much at all, or to discourage them with the mess they achieve, I don't know. yes I am looking to sog or scrog myself. I have had some damn fine plants make some seeds and saved them, and I may very rarely catch a male too late but it is usually hermies that make the seeds, and hesitant to grow them out. That said, 2 or 3 seeds that come up themselves in the pots of other plants: well, I did not have the heart to eliminate them, and they produced some nice hermie free bud!
So I don't know what to think!

Hey, Fang.
I have been plagued by the dreaded hermie since day one of my growing.

thanks dude, your post makes me feel I am not the lone village idiot! what I mean to say is like you, I seem to have everything the way it should be and herms keep occuring. Dinafem has a few things that interest me, would like to hear more feedback on what is good or not so much from them. Thanks for your comradery! This time around it was like 4% herm but overall slightly higher but that ruins everything! I have a knack for spotting males and early herms, and then I think I get complacent and think they are all gone after like 2 weeks of checking daily, and then that's when they get me! I grow very little fem stuff, but the diesel hybrids are a little more hermie then some but I feel overall I get good results even with them in terms of herm versus non herm percentage but the problem is the one or 4 flowers that do make it to pollen unseen cause all the problems.

 

[Red Fang]

nutes? what are you supposed to use for nutes anyway?
Well I have heard mixed reports about superthrive and stopped using it, but use almost everything roots organics has, and also liquid karma. yeah I grew like 5 seeds of 10 or more strains before, I grow all kinds of strains from all kinds of seed bank stuff to stuff donated to me over the years and find freebies to be more often great than the seed bank stuff! Well I have cut all the pollen/seed infested stuff and have the parent and clone plants beginning a reveg cycle. I often try a strain at least 3 times, first I grow from seed and then I clone it and occasionally even reveg the parent or clone stock to see what it really has to offer. where was i or what point was I trying to make now? oh well that's what tomorrows for

 

[dddaver]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] That said, 2 or 3 seeds that come up themselves in the pots of other plants: well, I did not have the heart to eliminate them, and they produced some nice hermie free bud!

But just because the hermie doesn't show up in one generation doesn't mean the gene isn't there. Every plant is just one phenotype representation. If the hermie gene gets in the line, it WILL show up eventually. Probably you just got lucky there dude.


[/FONT]

 

[Jhhnn]

I think that intersex traits are a survival factor for outdoor domestic cannabis, particularly that grown for sinsemilla for many generations. I suspect that even Nebraska ditch weed has a % of intersex plants. It's the nature of cannabis. The whole point of flowering is to produce seeds. Reproductive frustration is expressed two ways- more flowers, and/or male flowers on female plants.

Thai is infamous in that regard, as are some others, I'm sure.

Environmental factors probably affect it, as well, although those would be hard to identify, other than irregular light cycles & failure to harvest in the right window.

Face it- intersex traits aren't a problem for the plants, just for sinsemilla growers & breeders. As I've come back to cannabis, it seems weird that some tokers are outright fetishists when it comes to any seeds at all, like they're poisonous or something. Seedless pot is great, no doubt, but we need to remember that it's completely un-natural & that life will try to find a way.

 

[ydijadoit]

I think that intersex traits are a survival factor for outdoor domestic cannabis, particularly that grown for sinsemilla for many generations. I suspect that even Nebraska ditch weed has a % of intersex plants. It's the nature of cannabis. The whole point of flowering is to produce seeds. Reproductive frustration is expressed two ways- more flowers, and/or male flowers on female plants.

Thai is infamous in that regard, as are some others, I'm sure.

Environmental factors probably affect it, as well, although those would be hard to identify, other than irregular light cycles & failure to harvest in the right window.

Face it- intersex traits aren't a problem for the plants, just for sinsemilla growers & breeders. As I've come back to cannabis, it seems weird that some tokers are outright fetishists when it comes to any seeds at all, like they're poisonous or something. Seedless pot is great, no doubt, but we need to remember that it's completely un-natural & that life will try to find a way.

Wow, that was very well said. I am as far from a botanist as you could get, and I have wondered this same thing.
I have had a few strains, that just wouldn't "Hermie", as stated above, ( that's zero pollen sacks, no matter what, as opposed to a obvious hermie, that is 50/50%.)
Otherwise, it seems logical that that would be a genetic exception, rather than the rule.
If nine out of ten high school girls didn't look at boys at all, we would have a short future as a species, indeed.
Crude analogy, but it adds up.
I'm signing up for a master gardener course soon, from a local college. First higher education class I have taken in 20+ years.
Part of my prep for this class, will be finding a "Tomato based" method of asking about things like this. I would love to have solid answers, to questions such as these.
Regards.

 

[Red Fang]

that was a great post.
what I get out of what's been said so far is that some don't hermie no matter what, but most plants will with stress to varying degrees. I hoped to get percentages but maybe that's impossible. I think I heard that diesel hybrids are more prone to hermie than others, and I have had some hybrids with no flowers and some with quite a few. Oddly, Diesel Fire hermied like crazy last time I ran it, but was hermie free this time, while the Strawberry Diesel Kush (only one of several) hermied on me. I was trying to figure out, by starting this thread, if that one plant was a "natural born hermie" or something provoked it.

 

[RonSmooth]

True hermaphrodite plants are different than self pollinated females which are much more common.

"Naners" are a result of a female attempting to self pollinate. They are common in late flowering and perfectly normal and natural. The single male pollen sacs or "naners" will form within female flower clusters.

Hermaphrodites show full flowers of both sexes different places on the same plant. They are much less common and can be spotted early.

The majority of "herms" mentioned are just females attempting to self pollinate. A few seeds in the lower buds is the result of a pollen sac or two hiding in a bud and pollinating the nearest calyxes.

I dont believe minor stress causes plants to "herm" I havent seen any studies to show otherwise.

People are getting a few seeds in their harvest and hastily attributing it to "hermies". Then they go back to find some minor stress to explain how it could have happened.

It must have been that time I forgot to water them! Or overwatered them! Or fed them too much, or too little! The pot was to small! Too big! The pinhole light leak! That red "power on" light on that blasted fan in the flower room! The BREEDER!!!!!!

 

[Jhhnn]

Agreed, RonSmooth. The species seeks to grow & to reproduce, and will resort to extraordinary measures to accomplish that. Life will find a way if it can, whether we like it or not.

 

[dontstepongrass]

some good posts here. glad i didnt hafta be the one to go in depth and explain all that.

something i would point out as someone who has lost whole rooms to hermie pollination before, is dont grow untested cuts in large rooms. i found that by doing small test cabs with new stuff will allow you to see what is what. if i grow a plant and it shows itself to herm for any reason, i no longer grow that plant. i like stable genetics...