Hermie thread. NEED ANSWERS

[Hennessy1414]

here are some Q's i got about hermies :rastasmoke:

-when you hermie a female plant does the pollen from it spread to other female plants?

-Are hermie seeds really %90 female or are they unstable and produce more hermie plants than it would male or female plants?

-Is it just more worth it to grow a huge plant and just take female clones from that rather than bothering with hermieing?

[Weedhound]

1. yes
2. yes they are unstable and will produce more hermies.
3. not sure exactly what you are asking.

[Weedhound]

Try this old thread.....should have some good info on hermies.

http://boards.cannabis.com/plant-problems/144751-hermie-solution-confirmed.html

[Rusty Trichome]

1. Yes. Pollen is capable of staying airborne for quite some time, and one grain of pollen can make one seed.

2. IMHO (and experience) a female throwing-out male nanners is a defensive genetic response to stress, no matter what the strain. If the strain you want to hermie has been a stable strain before you stressed her for the pollen, the seeds should be no more unstable than the parent. Going hermie is a genetic response you'll find in all strains, (even the stable ones) but some strains require more stress to trigger the event.

I have femmed a few strains, (C-99, Potent Purple, Sweet Tooth, Swazi, BubbleGum, Shishka Skunk, Pokerface, Inca Spirit...) and none of the seeds have grown to be a hermie. Zero, zilch, nada. Unless you consider the few 'femmed' beans out of a hundred, that show male preflowers. (not female parts) These I eliminate immediatelly, but are few-and-far between.

Having said that, I do not cross-feminize. (using the femmed pollen from one strain to polinate a different strain.) I also do not fem plants from femmed seeds.

Also, femming seeds isn't something I do out of necessity. It's more like a hobby. It's something to do while praying for my ladies to mature faster. Before femming any strain, I always make sure to have plenty of regular seeds, in the unlikely event of failure.

Most of the time, I'm willing to bet, it's beginners error that triggers the plants genetic response to stress, not the occatioinal weak strain.

3. If you have the space in your veg room, a mother plant or two will give you a head start with the clones, but if something were to happen to your veg room (lights fallin on 'em, bugs, unseen light leaks, mildew, mold, vacation...) and you have no seeds as back-up...you risk losing the strain.

[Mr. Clandestine]

I have femmed a few strains, (C-99, Potent Purple, Sweet Tooth, Swazi, BubbleGum, Shishka Skunk, Pokerface, Inca Spirit...)

Morning Rusty! Just out of curiosity, what is the average female-to-male ratio of the seeds from plants you've purposefully feminized? I've never grown fem seeds, so I'm a little curious about the hype surrounding them.

Thanks! :jointsmile:

[SnSstealth]

interesting thread....i cross feminized to make my cross....my jack herer got nads on here, went hermie, and i used her balls to pollinate my bubbleberry....growing out the F1s now....seem to be great, still had 5 males though...not sure how that worked, maybe they were the few bag seeds and parent leftovers.....
whiskeytango

[Rusty Trichome]

Morning Rusty! Just out of curiosity, what is the average female-to-male ratio of the seeds from plants you've purposefully feminized? I've never grown fem seeds, so I'm a little curious about the hype surrounding them.

Thanks! :jointsmile:

I never really gave much thought into percentages, but out of every few grows, (12 seeds per grow) I'll get one which shows male pre flowers. A couple of times, I let the 'male' grow out a bit, and it stayed male, with no signs of hermaphrodism. I don't know about it's effects on offspring, tho, because I've never used a 'femmed' male to breed.
But arbitrarily putting a percentage on results is folly. Every strain, every femming technique and even the gardener's schedules, I'm sure, can alter the numbers.

Yes, I could plant 12 'regular' seeds, wait for the males, and keep the left-over females. But with femmed seeds, I already know they will likely be female, and can select the strongest (or best looking representatives of that strain) to continue growing. Slow-growers and strain variants not allowed, lol.

The hype is that if you have room for 12 plants in flower, and only have room to start 12 seeds in your veg closet/room, you chance 50% males, possibly resulting in only 5 to 7 females left to flower. (give or take, but still not an optimal result) Even if the femmed seeds only produce 95% females, you should still expect 11-12 healthy female plants. The clones from the femmed ladies have never had any problems, either. I guess it all comes down to saving time, usable growspace, and effort.
Advantage: growing 3 or 4 different strains at the same time, without much worry about males.

If you have found you have a stable strain, I think it's worth it. If the strains you use are not particularly stable, and you get an occational hermie...likely not a good candidate for femming. Having said all that, I never let myself run out of seeds produced using the traditional male/female method.
I may be gutsy...but I'm not stupid. :thumbsup:

[Rusty Trichome]

interesting thread....i cross feminized to make my cross....my jack herer got nads on here, went hermie, and i used her balls to pollinate my bubbleberry....growing out the F1s now....seem to be great, still had 5 males though...not sure how that worked, maybe they were the few bag seeds and parent leftovers.....
whiskeytango
You sure the JH was a she? Had you grown a male in the same room, recently?
The thing with femmed pollen (pollen from a female) is that technically, there should be no male chromosomes present, and thusly, no male seeds.

[Mr. Clandestine]

If you have found you have a stable strain, I think it's worth it. If the strains you use are not particularly stable, and you get an occational hermie...likely not a good candidate for femming. Having said all that, I never let myself run out of seeds produced using the traditional male/female method.
I may be gutsy...but I'm not stupid. :thumbsup:

Haha! Thanks for your feedback, very insightful as always.

Yeah, I keep a small arsenal of seeds from quality strains I've collected over the ... however, I don't think I've grown one particular strain or crossbreed consecutively enough to know how stable it might be. I've got the room now to flower in two different areas, so it looks like I'll soon have an experiment on my hands...:weedpoke:

Still, it's going to be a little weird keeping my fingers crossed hoping that a female's gonna go hermie on me! Thanks again. :jointsmile:

[Weedhound]

Mr C if you screw around with your 12/12 lighting enough your plant SHOULD go hermie for you. That'd be my best bet.

[Mr. Clandestine]

Mr C if you screw around with your 12/12 lighting enough your plant SHOULD go hermie for you. That'd be my best bet.

Thanks Mrs. Hound, that's probably exactly what I'll end up doing. I know it can also be chemically induced, but I figured there'd be less risk by messing with the photoperiod. I haven't even picked the female yet, but I'm already feeling sorry for her! :D

[Rusty Trichome]

I haven't even picked the female yet, but I'm already feeling sorry for her! :D

This too shall pass, as doubt and panic set in, lol. (kidding)

I place the stressed plant in the back-corner of my growroom, to avoid the wind. As the actual pollen sacks mature, (last few days) I have a couple of 2' x 4' pieces of plexiglass I set around the plant. (open top)
Still gives the stressed plant light, but blocks the wind enough to not worry too much about polination of the entire crop. Has worked great for the past couple of years, and also works for collecting pollen from males, too.

[Mr. Clandestine]

Rusty-

I like the plexiglass idea, and that's something that I actually have laying around my basement. I was actually planning on building a similar enclosure when I just had one growroom to allow males to release their pollen without violating the entire crop. Then I realized that a few CFLs and a separate room were all I really needed to harvest pollen from the fellas.

Do you normally pull the stressed female aside after the lights go out, then give her weird conditions until the lights are back on? Like I said, I've never purposefully stressed a plant before, and am not entirely sure what would be the best way to go about it. Also, do you let the herm pollinate herself for the seeds... or do you collect the pollen and use it on another female of the same strain? Pardon my inquisition, this is totally foreign to me.

[daihashi]

I've never tried to make a hermie but from everything I've read it's pretty simple.

Smack her around, throw in weird lighting schedule (go from 24/0 to 12/12 back to 24/0 a few times), basically just not caring for your plant, but still caring enough to keep it alive.

I'm no expert either but that's what I've gathered.

[Rusty Trichome]

Do you normally pull the stressed female aside after the lights go out, then give her weird conditions until the lights are back on?
Have been using uncoated generic aspirin to induce, for the past few years. (acetylsalicylic acid - one per half gallon, each watering for 3 or 4 waterings) But it takes so long for results, and you can't control how many male flowers you'll get. Most of the time they are in the bud, and unaccessible.:mad: Also, don't re-use the soil without thorough flush, by the way. (spoken from experience, lol)

I am thinking of trying the light stress method tho.

The plan is: Go into my flower room, wait till just before lights out, then take her to a room that will be dark all night.
Once there, I'll cover the plant entirely with 2 of those green or black heavy duty lawn bags. (clear ones won't work) Bamboo stakes to keep plastic off of plant.
I'll cut a small hole thru both layers, and pull a lower branch thru, marking it with a twist-tie. Turn off lights, close door. Could even place a tiny fan for circulation, but likely not necessary.
Just before bedtime, I'll sneak in, (so she doesn't hear me) and zap her for a few minutes with the flashlight, while avoiding as much as possible letting any of the light penetrate the plastic or reflect up from a shiny desktop... (don't want to point the flashlight directly at the rest of the plant)
The next morning I'll uncover her and return her to the flower room . Repeat for a couple of days making sure to zap the same branch (marked with a twist-tie) every time. After pollen is harvested from the branch, should be ok to lop the whole thing off.

Worst case...plastic doesn't protect rest of plant as good as I thought it would, and I get shitloads of pollen for future grows.
Best case...works great, and nanners confined to one (expendable) branch.

Have never tried this method, so anyone with more insight please chime in. :thumbsup:

[SnSstealth]

sounds like it will work....im sure my JH was a fem, she harvested about 70 grams, and only had VERY few male flowers...maybe these males were bagseed...or parent seeds...dunno really...lol, but the rest of the girls in my room, other than the 2 parent plants, are the cross...all ladies
:smokebong:
whiskeytango

[Mr. Clandestine]

Thanks Rusty! I tried giving ya a rep for your help, but I still have to spread the love around. So here's a succession of cordial smilies instead:

:woohoo: :yippee: :thumbsup: :jointsmile: :D:cool: :stoned: :upsidedow :clap: :1baa: :silly: :greenthumb: :dance: :baggy: :yippee: :woohoo:

Your method sounds pretty tricky, but if it works, it definitely sounds worth it. I always kinda assumed that if any part of the plant was to hermie, it would be a random effect on areas all over the whole plant. I don't know if I'll go that in-depth with it for my first attempt, I'll probably go for some kind of nanner record. Having an crap load of female pollen sounds alright to me!

If it works, be sure to fill us in.

[Hennessy1414]

im not 100% on this but wouldnt trying to hermie one branch just fuck up the whole thing! idk mite as well hermie a whole plant ya kno. not worth busting your balls/worrying "did i hermie that whole shit or what!" :rastasmoke:

this should be stickied maby in basic growing all about hermies ya kno *cough cough mods cough cough* :rastasmoke:

[Rusty Trichome]

not worth busting your balls/worrying "did i hermie that whole shit or what!" :rastasmoke:

I'd always wonder if it would work. Will give it a go soon. :thumbsup: Not worried if the light affects the whole plant, because I'd use the pollen anyway. Would be nice if it works, tho. I don't know if the changes would be localized, or be mobile enough to affect whole thing.

Not sure if stickied in the beginners forum would be appropriate for this topic. Best to have a good handle on the basics before jumping into the deep end, lol.

[Weedhound]

I have to chuckle when I think of the Reverse and the fact that I have to close my curtains by hand.....every night.......etc etc etc to prevent hermies. If there is one conclusion I've come to is that if anything will consistently f#*k up your plants and create hermies it's screwing up the lighting. (PS I spend MUCHO TIME trying to prevent this very thing....:D) I have very little doubt that few light shocks here and there (at least three) would hermie most plants. Just my :twocents:

[Mr. Clandestine]

Figured I'd bump this post instead of starting a new one.

Last night, I was reading through one of my grow books for like the umpteen billionth time, Organic Marijuana-Soma Style, and I came across something that I've somehow missed every time before. He briefly outlines his method for creating feminized seeds, and it doesn't include major stressors like gibberelic (sp?) acid, extreme photoperiod stress, etc. His method is to simply let his females mature an extra couple of weeks longer than he normally would, and says that this usually stresses them out enough to make them hermie. Then instead of letting it pollinate itself, he collects the pods and saves them to use on a much younger female at a later time.

Anyone have any feedback about this method?

[Rusty Trichome]

Well I, for one, have no patience, lol. Have heard of over-ripening, but feel that I'm lucky if I can let one get to the stage where the tricomes start to turn amber.

When stressing a plant to force the nanners, you'll likely end up with nanners buried in the buds too, where it's impossible to even detect them. The more mature the plant, the bigger the buds. Seems a long way to take a plant, to end-up with huge cola's and buds filled with little tiny popcorn seeds, (the ones that explode half-way thru a bowl) and pulling them out of really sticky buds sux bunches. :thumbsup:

[Mr. Clandestine]

When stressing a plant to force the nanners, you'll likely end up with nanners buried in the buds too, where it's impossible to even detect them. The more mature the plant, the bigger the buds. Seems a long way to take a plant, to end-up with huge cola's and buds filled with little tiny popcorn seeds, (the ones that explode half-way thru a bowl) and pulling them out of really sticky buds sux bunches. :thumbsup:

Yeah, I've been lucky enough to experience few accidental hermies... and I usually didn't even notice them until I broke open the buds, like you mentioned. I figured this might be less stressful than other methods, but I can see not being able to actually harvest enough pollen for it to really make much of a difference. I'm just brainstorming here, I've still got some time to kill before I try it. :jointsmile:

I won't be feminizing my current crop, because I'm not entirely sure about the genetics. Got these seeds from a friend, not a seedbank. I appreciate the feedback, as always!

[Weedhound]

Oh you definitely would want to stress the plant early and give it plenty of time to grow out good complete seeds instead of those "pip" things.