Male dominant hermaphrodites

the simple explanation (because I am not a botanist, or ever played one on television :D) is, the seed is genetically pre-determined to be either male or female ... however, the male is hardier than a female (unlike humans, where the female is superior in every way ... obviously, my girlfriend may read this, I'm taking no chances :D ) ... so, the male better withstands abuses and extremes of temperature, disease, wind, whatever ... IF a female is subjected to what it understands to be a threat to its survival, sometimes Mother Nature steps in, and reverses the sex to male, hoping that the 'male' can withstand the bad growing conditions better ... it is NOT a desirable trait ... over the years, breeders learned that pollinating a female with 'hermie male' pollen results in higher percentages of female seeds .. sounds great, doesn't it ? ... BUT, they don't tell you it GREATLY increases the odds for having hermaphroditic plants, and that faulty trait will continue in the line for generations to come, possibly forever ... that's why I personally ridicule the use of 'feminized' seeds ... lack of growers' patience WILL result in bastardized strains for the future ... you only have to look at how cannabis indica has forever 'lost' many native sativa landraces (try to find authentic 'Panama Red', 'Columbian Gold', 'Maui Wowie', etc.) ... desperate for fast-finishing, huge yielding plants, indicas have been crossed with sativas, to make 'commercial-grade' pot ... some of us, on the other hand, prefer to grow slowly, patiently, with ultra-potent sativas, and very stable crosses ... remember, this is only the opinion of an old, decrepit dirt farmer, from a bygone age :jointsmile:

reaper, i agree with you 100%! herms are bad, for hermies breed more hermies.

i did, however, have a male i was keeping for pollen reverse on me. it ended up spunking my haze female, and i and a few of my freinds are growing it out to see what happens next. i'll make a thread to discuss ratios and growing conditions, etc. i will nix the project at the first sign of hermie, like i have done with others in the past.

love, lestie

It's not a single chemical reaction- it's the epigentic expression of normally silenced DNA as the result of a hormone cascade. Sexual ambiguity in cannabis does seem to be most frequently triggered by photoperiod irregularity during the reproductive phase- It's not possible to state that the expression of ambiguity in an individual not known to be photostressed during flowering is the result of light stress earlier in development, as it's not possible to know that no other environmental stressor exerted influence in earlier development, because we don't know what's going to be a stressor for a certain individual. ( For instance, I cant eat FDA Red #5- blinding migraines.) We also cant know all of the possible stressors a plant has been exposed to, as anything in it's environment is a potential stressor, and we cannot be aware of all environmental factors.(For a sick joke some time, bring the ethylene level in your space up to about 150 ppm sometime- if you didn't know that the ethylene was there, you'd have no idea why all of your leaves were falling off. )

Reversal of sexual expression is a mechanism triggered by a reproductive strategy. For whatever reason, the plant has decided that it's best strategy to produce the maximum # of progeny that will survive to reproduce is to express both genders.
Lots of females will respond to non-pollination late in ripening phase by popping a few male flowers. It's pretty easy to see the reproductive advantage of this strategy- this plant will produce seed. Why not be generating pollen throughout the flowering cycle? While this stategy has a 100% chance of immediate success ( seed will be produced to reproduce next season), it's value decreases grately w/ each succeeding generation. If every individual were to only or to primarily self-pollinate, recessive negative traits will reinforce, leading to genetic drift ( which will limit the global total of individuals with which the individual can reproduce) and survival-negative genes will eventually accumulate, limiting the long-term viability of tthe genetic line. In the absence of another mechanism to limit the accumulation of negative traits, it's a dead end.

Most folks who have kept a male alive and flowering long enough will have seen a female flower on it eventually. This plant is saying to itself " Hey, I've been flowering for four months, so it must be like December! I'm still alive! This must be the best place on Earth! If I had kids here, they'd definately live long enough to reproduce!". The value of the potential breeding opportunities outweighs the cost of the reproductive investment ( forming female flowers instead of producing pollen).

Value={(potential of future reproductive opportunities) - (investment of reproductive resources)}. If Value>0, then the reproductive strategy is viable. Now the qustion becomes " What strategy will give me the highest Value?" . This computation is complicated by the presence of the two variables (potential/investment).

Now we get into the tendencies of gene lines, which can be likened to the personality of a chess player.
Some players are just more aggressive than others. Some will play a conservative game, and try to game the probabilities of each interactions. Others ( Bobbie Fischer?) will sometimes behave in seemingly random fashions which balance a low probability of return against a high value of return and a high cost.

High probability of return+high value of return+low investment of resource- you do it.
Mid prob of return+mid value of return+ low investment- you do it
Low prob of return+ mid value of return+mid investment- maybe you do, maybe not.
High prob+low return+mid investment- another maybe
Mid prob + low return+ high investment- most likely not

Furthur muddying the mix is the previous success of a strategy in a gene lines history. The individuals that pursue the most successful reproductive strategy in a given situation reproduce most successfully and therefore comprise a larger portion of the genepool that faces the next situation. If the same strategy is not the most successful in this new situation, the genepool of the next generation will be previously selected to pursue both stategies.

It's all a #'s game.

So what chemical reaction makes a plant go hermie? What makes a poker player bluff? What happened in Reykjavik? It's tough to know down to the molecule.

Certainly there are ways to chemically reverse sexual expression- colchicane will do it, as will ( anecdotaly) mega-doses of GA. But that's kinda like screwing up somebodies chess game by macing them- not whatchya'd call specific.

Hope this wasn't too long and obtuse for a non-answer.

It's not a single chemical reaction- it's the epigentic expression of normally silenced DNA as the result of a hormone cascade. Sexual ambiguity in cannabis does seem to be most frequently triggered by photoperiod irregularity during the reproductive phase- It's not possible to state that the expression of ambiguity in an individual not known to be photostressed during flowering is the result of light stress earlier in development, as it's not possible to know that no other environmental stressor exerted influence in earlier development, because we don't know what's going to be a stressor for a certain individual. ( For instance, I cant eat FDA Red #5- blinding migraines.) We also cant know all of the possible stressors a plant has been exposed to, as anything in it's environment is a potential stressor, and we cannot be aware of all environmental factors.(For a sick joke some time, bring the ethylene level in your space up to about 150 ppm sometime- if you didn't know that the ethylene was there, you'd have no idea why all of your leaves were falling off. )

Reversal of sexual expression is a mechanism triggered by a reproductive strategy. For whatever reason, the plant has decided that it's best strategy to produce the maximum # of progeny that will survive to reproduce is to express both genders.
Lots of females will respond to non-pollination late in ripening phase by popping a few male flowers. It's pretty easy to see the reproductive advantage of this strategy- this plant will produce seed. Why not be generating pollen throughout the flowering cycle? While this stategy has a 100% chance of immediate success ( seed will be produced to reproduce next season), it's value decreases greatly w/ each succeeding generation. If every individual were to only or to primarily self-pollinate, recessive negative traits will reinforce, leading to genetic drift ( which will limit the global total of individuals with which the individual can reproduce) and survival-negative genes will eventually accumulate, limiting the long-term viability of tthe genetic line. In the absence of another mechanism to limit the accumulation of negative traits, it's a dead end.

Most folks who have kept a male alive and flowering long enough will have seen a female flower on it eventually. This plant is saying to itself " Hey, I've been flowering for four months, so it must be like December! I'm still alive! This must be the best place on Earth! If I had kids here, they'd definately live long enough to reproduce!". The value of the potential breeding opportunities outweighs the cost of the reproductive investment ( forming female flowers instead of producing pollen).

Value={(potential of future reproductive opportunities) - (investment of reproductive resources)}. If Value>0, then the reproductive strategy is viable. Now the qustion becomes " What strategy will give me the highest Value?" . This computation is complicated by the presence of the two variables (potential/investment).

Now we get into the tendencies of gene lines, which can be likened to the personality of a chess player.
Some players are just more aggressive than others. Some will play a conservative game, and try to game the probabilities of each interactions. Others ( Bobbie Fischer?) will sometimes behave in seemingly random fashions which balance a low probability of return against a high value of return and a high cost.

High probability of return+high value of return+low investment of resource- you do it.
Mid prob of return+mid value of return+ low investment- you do it
Low prob of return+ mid value of return+mid investment- maybe you do, maybe not.
High prob+low return+mid investment- another maybe
Mid prob + low return+ high investment- most likely not

Furthur muddying the mix is the previous success of a strategy in a gene lines history. The individuals that pursue the most successful reproductive strategy in a given situation reproduce most successfully and therefore comprise a larger portion of the genepool that faces the next situation. If the same strategy is not the most successful in this new situation, the genepool of the next generation will be previously selected to pursue both the first strategy and whatever was the most successful stategy in the second situation .

It's all a #'s game.

So what chemical reaction makes a plant go hermie? What makes a poker player bluff? What happened in Reykjavik? It's tough to know down to the molecule.

Certainly there are ways to chemically reverse sexual expression- colchicane will do it, as will ( anecdotaly) mega-doses of GA. But that's kinda like screwing up somebodies chess game by macing them- not whatchya'd call specific. or repeatable. A lot of folks played with colchicane reversal of expressed females as a pollen source to produce hybrids of clone-only cultivars a good few years back, but then I stopped hearing about it, so I'm guessing there were problems. ( Or maybe not? ) IIR, this was mostly female to male reversal, though I think it was done both ways, with varying viability.

Essentially, they were using the colchicane as a stressor to initiate reversal. No need to worry about selection twoard hermaphrodism when exposed to colchicane, though- as the odds of an accidenal colchicane exposure are just about nil. ( Again, probability...)

Hope this wasn't too long and obtuse for a non-answer.

No it wasn't to long in any way I enjoy learning all the details, It looks like I found the right place to be. What kinds of mutations have been known to happen when colchicine is applied? I read about as much on that subject as I can find but I havent found any examples of what the effects might be. I've heard about people soaking seeds in the extract of the autum crocus hoping to find a plant with increaced potency, yeild and pretty much any desireable trait. Just wondering what could come out of it.

Don't know exactly- never played with it myself.
IIR, more an issue of unreliable fertility than "mutation".

Geek moment- the expression of formerly silenced DNA due to methylization isn't really a mutation, as there has been no damage to the genome.

Rhizome you GEEK
-and I mean this in the best way!-
Quite seriously, have you ever thought maybe it would be time to write a book on horticultural techniques?
KISS attitude + scientific knowledge + good written communication = you could practically teach Britney Spears to grow orchids, lol....
I'll be awaiting publication.

Stinky, I think I would have to agree with you, he should really write a book, I'd buy one in a heartbeat.
Rhinome, thanks for the answers to my questions I appreciate you taking the time to write all of that.

Wow...Great post and answers.

Thanks

I just noticed one of my autoflower males just started showing female hairs. I am on 22/2 and about 80 degrees so it is not a light or temp stressed hermie and I use FoxFarm Ocean soil and do not use any nutes untill they start to flower so I also know its not stressed that way either.

S_a_H