Hermaphroditism - problem or not discussion.

Most growers are told to pull males and especially the hermaphrodite plants at the first id of the conditions.

I personally believe much might be being thrown out with the hermaphroditic plants. Certain medicinal strains are renowned for their ladyboys (Thai for example).

I think hermaphroditism is simply the plant equivalent of satyriasis/nymphomania. They want to start reproducing so quickly they produce what they aren't getting themselves.

I think it might be beneficial to breed these sorts of plants with early maturing tyoe (genetically) male pollen. Maybe this might introduce pollen to the environment that suppresses the hermaphrodite tendency.

I'm not an advanced enough grower / breeder to undertake such an experiment but it still doesn't address the question of whether hermaphroditism is truly the universal pariah or not. Like I say, my intuition is that there might be something in the condition that has contributed to its selection in some famed medicinal strains.

Afterall who in the cannabis world doesn't know what a Thai Stick was and why it is remembered so fondly?

IMHO I can forgive intersexuality in an unworked landrace/heirloom strain, but not in a modern hybrid or commercial strain from a seedbank.

The sinsemilla method spread intersexuality into a strain. Specially if the source of your seeds is the ones you find in a "sinsemilla" bud as for exaple imported Thai. I am sure the farmers there make seeds properly in a separated crop for growing the next season. The rate of intersexuals must be fairly lower in those seeds.

In my experience I have seen intersexuals aren't less powerful or less psychoactive than non intersexuals. The only drawback is you get seeded buds.

I have seen many people growing an almost impossible to get tropical heirloom cull all the plants due to hermie tendencies in some individuals and they lost the strain. They felt the duty to get their hyped feminized polyhybrids unseeded from those fast growing huge monsters

I have grown intersexual/monoecious plants and the real drawback is most seeds they make are selfed seeds. So you get very fast a narrow genetic bottleneck which drives the strain/line to a strong inbreeding depression.

So all I can tell you is if you can, avoid hermies and cull them. But sometines you must deal with them if you want to grow or smoke some wonderful uplifting, trippy, psychedelic strains.

Grow what you want!

There isn’t a person here that’s going to put a gun to your head & tell you that you must cull your intersex plants. The choice is yours, how you run your grows, & nobody else’s.

If you don’t mind sorting immature seeds that won’t grow & don’t mind reduced yields & want to smoke plant sperm (lol)...
Go right ahead & grow all the herm ridden stock you like.

As for most, we prefer Sensimilia!
A seed here & there aren’t deal breakers but we sure aren’t looking to produce &/or smoke seedy weed.

BTW, Thai variants are my absolute favorite. Intersex traits can be bread from such stock without compromising quality, imo.

One more thing...
If you’re in a legal place & there are others around you that are also growing, I am of the opinion that pollen control is a must.
To pull a Monsanto move & pollinate others crops is irresponsible at best & boardering on negligence.

MJPassion said:

Grow what you want!

There isn’t a person here that’s going to put a gun to your head & tell you that you must cull your intersex plants. The choice is yours, how you run your grows, & nobody else’s.

If you don’t mind sorting immature seeds that won’t grow & don’t mind reduced yields & want to smoke plant sperm (lol)...
Go right ahead & grow all the herm ridden stock you like.

As for most, we prefer Sensimilia!
A seed here & there aren’t deal breakers but we sure aren’t looking to produce &/or smoke seedy weed.

BTW, Thai variants are my absolute favorite. Intersex traits can be bread from such stock without compromising quality, imo.

One more thing...
If you’re in a legal place & there are others around you that are also growing, I am of the opinion that pollen control is a must.
To pull a Monsanto move & pollinate others crops is irresponsible at best & boardering on negligence.

Click to expand...

An interesting angle for sure.

Are there any precedents on pollen control in the legal agricultural world? Do neighbouring farmers need to control their pollen following some sort of written regulation or code of ethics? Is it an unwritten rule and how is it (pollen control) done in the real world? Is it even an issue in other plants?

I’d call it an unwritten rule! Aka respect for others!
Pollen control should be the responsibility of the cultivator that knows pollen is being released. Not the grower attempting to grow Sensi next door that doesn’t have any idea what his neighbor is up to.

Monsanto is constantly suing farmers over crop contamination events & they’ve got government to back their cause & are suing farmers that are UNKNOWINGLY growing Monsanto pollinated GM corn. Somehow they managed to make pollen control the responsibility of the person that does not know it’s flying.

Any other farmers have to control pollen such that their crops do not contaminate other similar crops as well as protect their crops from cross contamination. Especially when growing for seed production of heirloom varieties.

this is something im grappling with at the min.............i have a beautiful looking beautiful smelling Thai pheno from ace seedline zamdelica ..................only problem is it shows moderate hermaphroditism, enough that i have to go pollen sack hunting once a week and even still as of now its 20% seeded on day 58 of flower ...................now i havnt smoke tested her yet, so it could be much to do about nothing, but it screams keeper,its a resin bomb for a sativa, has classic thai structure and height, plus there is sort of a consensus over on the ace fourm that the thai pheno from the early realises are the most sought after and desired phenos

im just torn on whether i can handle the herm

I say kill it.

Get regular seeds next time and it won't happen so often.

growhigh1233 said:

this is something im grappling with at the min.............i have a beautiful looking beautiful smelling Thai pheno from ace seedline zamdelica ..................only problem is it shows moderate hermaphroditism, enough that i have to go pollen sack hunting once a week and even still as of now its 20% seeded on day 58 of flower ...................now i havnt smoke tested her yet, so it could be much to do about nothing, but it screams keeper,its a resin bomb for a sativa, has classic thai structure and height, plus there is sort of a consensus over on the ace fourm that the thai pheno from the early realises are the most sought after and desired phenos

im just torn on whether i can handle the herm

Click to expand...

the temptation i see, will be tough to keep a hermie mom
however, you have some seeds, those have possibilities
some will likely not show the hermie trait, which could make some nice discoveries

troutman said:

I say kill it.

Get regular seeds next time and it won't happen so often.

Click to expand...

igrowone said:

the temptation i see, will be tough to keep a hermie mom
however, you have some seeds, those have possibilities
some will likely not show the hermie trait, which could make some nice discoveries

Click to expand...

they were regular male/female seeds but zamdelica is a cross of 3 landrace sativas,,,, zamal ,,,,malawi,,,, and thai

and thai is notorious for its hermi traits especially under stress

another factor is how root bound and suboptimal the conditions are the plant has been grown for months and then flowered in only 5 litres of rock wool

so i think if shes rocket fuel to smoke i will give her another chance as a cutting flowered quickly with plenty of root space

has such a sweet smell, it almost blueberry'esk