Feminized Seeds Vs Standard

[ibjamming]

hahaha definitely onto something there, by people culling males as early as possible, ie as soon as they see nanners, they're effectively selecting (accidently) for males that produce pollen sooner and get it out before they're culled. so that natural gap between when male's produce pollen (earlier on) and when females flower) may actually have been caused by artificial human selection against male plants. it's like with mosquitos, everyone kills the ones they can see and hear, it's the ones that you don't that get you and then pass on their genes to make even more stealthy mosquitos... lol but what are your options? if you don't kill them they'll get you anyway! it's called an evolutionary arms race, where things are constantly evolving to outsmart, outmaneuver, outrun the prey or the predator and survive to reproduce.

i'd say that what people incorrectly term "hermaphroditism" in Cannabis is most definitely an integral part of the species. think about it, it's been around for millions of years evolving, keeping what traits are advantageous (or neutral) in fitness, and discarding those that are disadvantageous. "hermies" are still here... they definitely have a purpose, and a benefit. as you say, for those plants that are isolated from any others, if only a few survived a season and are too far to be pollinated, they'd be able to self. if there're few males (ie. because a farmer has killed them all) then those "hermies" can cross/self each other... any that don't have this "hermie" trait and end up in these positions will die, but those that do, clearly live on to pass on these traits! and like you say, those plants that get to the end of their flowering period and haven't been pollinated, in the wild would've died making no seed to pass on their genes, but those that produced "hermies" in flowering, would've selfed/crossed and produced offspring able to do the same thing in the future.

as an evolutionary biologist, this shit constantly blows my mind. you don't realise there's a reason for everything in the natural world, how it is, how it works, why it works, etc... once you start thinking about it all, it's crazy how it all just lines up!

Exactly...we kill ALL the males we see, as soon as we see they're males. I've had them "turn female", hoosierdaddy had one, I've heard of lots of others. Maybe lots of males turn female...as many as there are female that turn male. We just never see that side...because all the males are dead.

I agree...I think it is a big part of the plant to hermi when "frustrated". It's naturally more the norm than the exception. Too long without making some seeds and she starts turning out some stamens...it's "what she does", what nature is telling her to do. IF you can keep the conditions perfect, and she doesn't "panic", you can keep her humming along. But the first sign of stress probably acts like that one crystal dropped into a supersaturated solution...all hell breaks loose.

I'm a meteorologist not a biologist...but I share your feelings about "connectivity" between everything. The more you learn, the more you realize how much more there is to know.

I actually thought the thing was a male...hell it may well have been a male, but it also ended up showing pistols. Anywho, it spit some pollen and I dusted a bud or two of another plant that didn't take. No seed, although I think I remember the pistols browning as if...

Yup...I've had them too. Balls hanging all over the place and then suddenly...pistils start forming at the bud tips. I call them "seed makers" because that's their lot in life...make some seeds for next year.

I just went and did some looking arounf for "plant sexuality" and found some interesting stuff...I'm beginning to think Cannabis is Subdioecious and shows with regularity, both sex expressions on the same plant!

Look at this:

Here are a few highlights...

Protoandrous describes individuals that function first as males and then change to females; protogynous describes individuals that function first as females and then change to males.

Subdioecious, a tendency in some dioecious populations to produce monoecious plants. The population produces normally male or female plants but some are hermaphroditic, with female plants producing some male or hermaphroditic flowers or vice versa. The condition is thought to represent a transition between hermaphroditism and dioecy.

Some plants also undergo what is called Sex-switching, like Arisaema triphyllum which express sexual differences at different stages of growth. In some arums smaller plants produce all or mostly male flowers and as plants grow larger over the years the male flowers are replaced by more female flowers on the same plant.

It happens...some plants are born to be hermies...we may have misclassified our beloved plant. Or, we're fighting against nature every step of the way.

 

[englishrick]

selfing is a different story to feminization,,,,,,i frequently mention Ne,,,,i believe a sustanable population is possible via feminization,,its not a dead end!!

if you had a population of x2000,,,,,and 50 inderviduals expressed desirable traits,,,,probbly 1 of the best moves possible would be to self and feminize them 50 and work it back into the inital population

 

[hoosierdaddy]

Gotta agree with Dank Frank, Fem seeds produce an instant genetic bottleneck and undesireable breeding traits from the outset.

No different in a feminizing where two sibling females are used, than there is in a regular breeding using male and female siblings. Both are incrosses. Although I may know a bit more about what the progeny may hold in my feminized incross than you do with your regular incross.

*And when we speak of a genetic bottleneck...is that not what we are doing when we stabilize a cultivar for desirable traits?

 

[englishrick]

oh btw,,,,ive also had a feminized seed grow totaly male,,,,,after cloning and leaving it to sit in a 3x3 rockwool cube for 6 months [yeh 6 months in a 3x3, i do alot of ai root puning] i grew it again to test cross it an it turned female,,,i was shocked,,,,but then i keep thinkin of Ainsworth an an the way Cannabis is said to have an X/Autosome dosage system,,,an it makes sence

im smokin a nug of it now,,,,nothin but nug!!,,SSH x OGKA,,,,,coctail frank had the same experence with the same seedline,,,,he used the male and progeny was 50:50 Dio to mono

 

[darwinsbulldog]

ibjammingI agree...I think it is a big part of the plant to hermi when "frustrated". It's naturally more the norm than the exception. Too long without making some seeds and she starts turning out some stamens...it's "what she does", what nature is telling her to do. IF you can keep the conditions perfect, and she doesn't "panic", you can keep her humming along. But the first sign of stress probably acts like that one crystal dropped into a supersaturated solution...all hell breaks loose.

you have to be a little careful when looking at it that way because it's not so much on an individual level, not all females will act the same way, some have genotypes that allow a more prominent expression of male flowers, some will show much less, some will show none. evolution wise you have to think of it on a population scale in the natural environment. if you have all these different genotypes of females, from those that produce no male flowers all the way through to those that always produce them with no stress at all, with the majority being in the middle it'd be like a bell curve distribution i'd guess. under optimal conditions, "hermies" won't pose much of a problem to the overall genetic health of the population (ie. they won't just be selfing and thus inbreeding). they will pollinate a few other females around, but the majority of females will be pollinated by males, so over time the "hermie" traits don't take over as they're not selected for, and they don't disappear as they're not selected against. it's more or less neutral. however under suboptimal conditions "hermies" will be more advantageous and thus selected for, ie. when population density is very low and there aren't many males around, there will be females who don't produce male flowers... they will die and not produce seed, there will be females that produce some male flowers and those that produce a lot and they'll self and pass their genes on, though this might lead to inbreeding depression in the short term it wouldn't have much of an effect on population health, the most unhealthy plants would die anyway...in this case "hermie" trait is positively selected for. once numbers are back to normal it goes back to being neutrally selected for.

so i guess what i'm trying to say is that it's not so much that each individual plant knows if it's in strife and produces male flowers, it's just that only the ones that do get to reproduce and pass on their genes, any others fall to the wayside. this is just chance. the plant doesn't know it needs to produce seed at that point in time or it won't pass on its genes, it's just that any that didn't produce seed died out, and any that did (by whatever means) could.

males sex chromosome wise would be much the same as females with the majority having the ability to express female flowers as they'll carry female chromosomes, Xs, in fact i think you'd have to self/cross pollinate some males to create YY males that couldn't produce female flowers and would be considered pure males.

anyway it's 1.30am here, that all made sense in my head lol i dunno if i'll come across speaking double dutch. have a nice night guys

 

[Texicannibus]

another great thread with lots of great info maybe more than the OP wanted even... bravo keep up the debate guys. Its only through vigourous debate can we hope to find the truths we seek. Don't be shy to challenge ideas but its important to listen to the debate and weigh the argument. I often see people debate these things without even listening to what the other side is really saying. Still as a third party many of us can listen to both sides of the argument regardless of the posters... lol.

Thanks again ... intend on doing alot of reading in the near future to educate myself more in regards to breeding genetics. These threads I believe will be a nice primer.

 

[ibjamming]

you have to be a little careful when looking at it that way because it's not so much on an individual level, not all females will act the same way, some have genotypes that allow a more prominent expression of male flowers, some will show much less, some will show none. evolution wise you have to think of it on a population scale in the natural environment. if you have all these different genotypes of females, from those that produce no male flowers all the way through to those that always produce them with no stress at all, with the majority being in the middle it'd be like a bell curve distribution i'd guess. under optimal conditions, "hermies" won't pose much of a problem to the overall genetic health of the population (ie. they won't just be selfing and thus inbreeding). they will pollinate a few other females around, but the majority of females will be pollinated by males, so over time the "hermie" traits don't take over as they're not selected for, and they don't disappear as they're not selected against. it's more or less neutral. however under suboptimal conditions "hermies" will be more advantageous and thus selected for, ie. when population density is very low and there aren't many males around, there will be females who don't produce male flowers... they will die and not produce seed, there will be females that produce some male flowers and those that produce a lot and they'll self and pass their genes on, though this might lead to inbreeding depression in the short term it wouldn't have much of an effect on population health, the most unhealthy plants would die anyway...in this case "hermie" trait is positively selected for. once numbers are back to normal it goes back to being neutrally selected for.

so i guess what i'm trying to say is that it's not so much that each individual plant knows if it's in strife and produces male flowers, it's just that only the ones that do get to reproduce and pass on their genes, any others fall to the wayside. this is just chance. the plant doesn't know it needs to produce seed at that point in time or it won't pass on its genes, it's just that any that didn't produce seed died out, and any that did (by whatever means) could.

males sex chromosome wise would be much the same as females with the majority having the ability to express female flowers as they'll carry female chromosomes, Xs, in fact i think you'd have to self/cross pollinate some males to create YY males that couldn't produce female flowers and would be considered pure males.

anyway it's 1.30am here, that all made sense in my head lol i dunno if i'll come across speaking double dutch. have a nice night guys

I understand your point...

But it "could" be genetically left up to the individual plant. Just like how much darkness it needs to initiate flowering. A female plant left flowering too long..."could"...be "made by nature" to become a hermi to ensure survival through seeding. It could be that hermi-ism is a normal part of cannabis. Much more common than we are aware of.

As an example...the length of night determines flowering. (To my knowledge, please correct me if I'm outdated (I'm 50, school was a long time ago), flowering is initiated when chemical reactions that take hours to build up to the required level, finally have enough time (darkness) to reach the threshold level.) When the dark period is long enough, flowering then begins and continues until the dark period falls below the threshold period.

So why can't an individual plant have another "countdown" timer for going hermi? A countdown to making it's own seeds? It's possible...and likely in my mind. I've found nanners on "old" 90+ day indica hybrid buds. Maybe most/all will if given a long enough flowering period...80, 100, 120 days for an indica. Has anyone taken indica hydrids really long? What did you get? Many hermies?

Just like with the males...killing them before they get a chance to go hermi...we kill most of the females before they go hermi. Because they are past their prime for our uses.

This is just like the male turning female conundrum...we don't know how many are hermies because 99% of the males are killed. We have no male statistics really. We have lots more for females, most people pick at what? 60 days? 70? Hardly anyone goes to 90 and those that do, don't they complain about increased hermies? I think it's more built in than we'd like it to be.

I don't know...I'm asking the question, that's all.

I think since we kill 99% of males at maturity...we don't know the whole story.

 

[Texicannibus]

I understand your point...

But it "could" be genetically left up to the individual plant. Just like how much darkness it needs to initiate flowering. A female plant left flowering too long..."could"...be "made by nature" to become a hermi to ensure survival through seeding. It could be that hermi-ism is a normal part of cannabis. Much more common than we are aware of.

As an example...the length of night determines flowering. (To my knowledge, please correct me if I'm outdated (I'm 50, school was a long time ago), flowering is initiated when chemical reactions that take hours to build up to the required level, finally have enough time (darkness) to reach the threshold level.) When the dark period is long enough, flowering then begins and continues until the dark period falls below the threshold period.

So why can't an individual plant have another "countdown" timer for going hermi? A countdown to making it's own seeds? It's possible...and likely in my mind. I've found nanners on "old" 90+ day indica hybrid buds. Maybe most/all will if given a long enough flowering period...80, 100, 120 days for an indica. Has anyone taken indica hydrids really long? What did you get? Many hermies?

Just like with the males...killing them before they get a chance to go hermi...we kill most of the females before they go hermi. Because they are past their prime for our uses.

This is just like the male turning female conundrum...we don't know how many are hermies because 99% of the males are killed. We have no male statistics really. We have lots more for females, most people pick at what? 60 days? 70? Hardly anyone goes to 90 and those that do, don't they complain about increased hermies? I think it's more built in than we'd like it to be.

I don't know...I'm asking the question, that's all.

I think since we kill 99% of males at maturity...we don't know the whole story.

Well the first thing I would see as a problem with that survival theory is the plant would have little to no chance to create fully mature seeds. Takes about 4 weeks for seeds to fully mature in general from pollination. Remember that indica cannibas tends to originate from areas that have shorter grow periods. I think its more likely people pushing those plants to that age are just causing massive stress. The plant is a annual after all. I remember a debate about if anyone had ever found a plant that had naturally revegged sat or indi and nobody said they had for sure.

 

[englishrick]

when your plant is a cutting and booming its at a different stage in its life to when it was just a 5 week old seedling,,,there are different stages of vegitive groth,,,,,i cant remember the exact names but i could probbly find all the names of different stages if i had a quick look,,,,,

maybe this male turning female thing has something to do with general maturity,,,,or X/Autosome dosage systems??,,,

maybe its similar to veg maturity? :0 ,,,,maybe flowering too early has something to do with this "countdown conundrum",,,,maybe the X/autosome dosage system is favoring maleness an as it the dosage changes so is the gender??

 

[darwinsbulldog]

yeah all really good arguments there guys!

 

[Texicannibus]

when your plant is a cutting and booming its at a different stage in its life to when it was just a 5 week old seedling,,,there are different stages of vegitive groth,,,,,i cant remember the exact names but i could probbly find all the names of different stages if i had a quick look,,,,,

maybe this male turning female thing has something to do with general maturity,,,,or X/Autosome dosage systems??,,,

maybe its similar to veg maturity? :0 ,,,,maybe flowering too early has something to do with this "countdown conundrum",,,,maybe the X/autosome dosage system is favoring maleness an as it the dosage changes so is the gender??

Im not sure of the technical names but this is certainly true or clones wouldnt be viable as they are. The plant seems to have a indefinate lifespan in vegative stage. The plant seems to have a timer once it turns into flower stage.. Most auto flowers cant be flowered because there vegative phase is to short... some of the newer ones I was recently reading about supposedly can be cloned.. interesting stuff.

 

[headband 707]

personally I HATE fem seeds don't even know why ppl waste their time or breeders put them out... I mean I get it (for a perfect grow and who has that?) hence the hermie shit..Who needs to waste their money on that again? Not to mention the fact your fucking with the stock but hey thats just me.. WTF it's too late now right...let the crap spread till the next guy has to grow it....Stick with the old hot and cold method it's worked for millions of years don't fuck with what works I say.. lol peace out Headband707

 

[englishrick]

im pretty sure the names for veg maturity stages apply to clones too,,,,,

imo,,,when clones are freshly rooted they seem to be at an earlyer stage of maturity to the mothers,,,,,im gona have to find the names

 

[Texicannibus]

Yea bro I see it called sexual maturity. Flowering a plant before this is a degree of stress. So almost all clones have reached sexual maturity as soon as roots are down. Atleast thats my understanding.

 

[darwinsbulldog]

Yea bro I see it called sexual maturity. Flowering a plant before this is a degree of stress. So almost all clones have reached sexual maturity as soon as roots are down. Atleast thats my understanding.

yeah i'd agree with this as from what i've noticed they throw pistils within a few weeks of showing roots without any change in light regime etc.

 

[englishrick]

i also think cell framework has something to do with it,,but im just speculating

 

[Texicannibus]

trying to understand rick are you saying you think somehow the clones are set back to the stage just before sexual maturity (early veg)?

 

[darwinsbulldog]

trying to understand rick are you saying you think somehow the clones are set back to the stage just before sexual maturity (early veg)?

i think he's saying that depending on when the clone's taken, ie. if the plant is mature at the end of veg when it's taken, then the cell framework of the clone won't suddenly change once it's rooted, it'll just keep chugging along assuming it's still at the end of veg because it's cells are in that form, as well as hormone levels etc. it'd be interesting to take clones from all different stages in a plants life cycle and see how they react, which grow fastest etc. i've currently got 10 clones of clones of white widow seeds taken from the base of the stem, as well as 6 clones from a revegged white widow from seed we harvested. the 6 reveg clones look totally different and would thus have different cell framework and possibly different hormone levels etc defining current and future growth. so it'll be interesting to see if both type root at the same time, how they'll differ in growth patterns etc once planted.

 

[Texicannibus]

That makes sense bro just wasnt sure because of this part of the statement.

when clones are freshly rooted they seem to be at an earlyer stage of maturity to the mothers

Sorry not trying to nitpick ..

 

[englishrick]

im not sayin its beffore sexual maturity,,

but yeh ,,i am saying clones seem to be in "early veg",,,,,,,at some point during the 18hour days i get a feelin "hay its hittin late-veg",,,,the structure of the plant tells me when to flower,,,,,its like i know its pumped and ready to go