Male dominant hermaphrodites

[stilkikin]

Just contemplating, Has anyone ever seen one of these? If so has anyone ever used one in a breeding experiment? I'm thinking it would be a great resin enhancer if you could later breed out the hermie trait. I've never seen a male go hermie but it should be possible by my logic.

stilkikin Reviewed by stilkikin on 06-19-2007. Male dominant hermaphrodites Just contemplating, Has anyone ever seen one of these? If so has anyone ever used one in a breeding experiment? I'm thinking it would be a great resin enhancer if you could later breed out the hermie trait. I've never seen a male go hermie but it should be possible by my logic. Rating: 5

[stinkyattic]

Yes, I have seen this happen, with -of course- fucking White Rhino, the most herm-prone strain I have EVER seen.
Don't breed herms!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please? The trait is a BITCH to un-breed.
Hatch enough quality males and you WILL find a pure male with resin. I found one in a pack of Nirvana standard Papaya, of all places, wtf! But who is complaining?
Google 'Space Dude' and see what you get... the little guy is a hero, father to most of Subcool's work- a highly-resinated space queen male ( I want to say descended from the Ortega line) who passes on GOBS of resin to his offspring.

[stilkikin]

Allright, I spent all night searching through years worth of subscriptions because I knew I had read about this somewhere before. This is what I found, it's an excerpt from Cannabis Culture #41 2003 by Dj Short.
" Once sexed, the process of elimination may begin. All of the females are kept and regularly examined to prevent unwanted hermaphroditism. Unwanted males and all hermaphrodites must be eliminated before they shed pollen-usually by the third week in the flowering cycle. The female plants need to checked for hermaphroditism until harvests.
(A quick word on backward hermaphrodites- declared males that eventually sport female flowers- as opposed to the usual female to male hermaphrodites. Theses are semi-rare occurances, usually sterile but sometimes viable, that I have found at times to be valuable in there genetic contributions. Some of the most resinous and desirable males I have encountered exhibited this trait. This trait almost seems to guarantee against unwanted hermaphroditism in subsecquent generations as it also increases the female to male ratio in its progeny.)"
If this is the case does anyone have any idea what strains he bred with this technique? It makes me wonder because all you ever heard was "kill the hermie" when the subject came up, but then someone developed feminized seeds. If there is a use for a regular hermaphrodite why not a backward one?

[stinkyattic]

That's interesting and something I have never heard before. Reverse herms preventing female herms in later generations? Wow... that is bizarre. Sounds like the subject for a masters' thesis. And here I am thinking of going back to grad school....

[rhizome]

I don't see a reproductive advantage to the plant from this behavior(male reversal limiting female reversal in subs generations), so I'm gonna put this observation down to statistical anomaly. Certainly DJ grew out a whole lotta seeds, but I'd need data sets in the hundreds of thousands to take this as anything else.

There's a strong reproductive advantage to parthenogenesis, which is why it's so damned tough to breed out a tendency to sexual ambiguity. Assuming a gene pool of reasonable size, the advantage will always go to the hermie. In an artificially small pool, parthenogenisis might tend to reinforce negative recessives and thereby self-select out thru poor/failed fecundity. Not sure where the tipping points gonna be there.

Personal experiance has not provided anecdotal evidence ( my favorite non-sequitar) that seed from reversed male displayed gender expression signifigantly skewed from baseline

[the image reaper]

all hermies must die :smokin:

[stilkikin]

Ok I have a couple more questions, so here we go. Is there a difference between hermaphrodites that are geneticly pre-disposed to the condition and plants that are stress induced? When you stress a hermie do the genes actually mutate or is the genetic mechanism already there just waiting to be awakened by the right enviornmental/chemical/hormonal inputs? Sorry about all the questions but I have one more. Would a stress induced hermaphrodite have as much tendancy to pass on the hermaphroditic trait as a plant that shows hermaphroditism in perfect growing conditions?

[rhizome]

Any doiecous plant is capable of sexual reversion.

It is a reaction to stress ( the plant essentially covers it's reproductive bets). Some strains, and individuals within strains, will show this reaction at lower stress levels than other strains, or individuals within the same strain.

Cannabis ranges from strains and individuals which will withstand incredible stress before reversal, to strains and individuals which will reverse due to stressors so minor that the grower wont even notice.

Think of it as an allergic reaction, though it's a flawed metaphor. The same little bit of pollen will make one person miserable, while another person doesn't even notice it.

The tendency to show this reaction is genetically mediated- much as members of the same family will often have similar allergies, or proclivity to cardiac disease, or what have you. Not every member of a given family will have hayfever, or a heart attack, or whatever.

And not having a history of allergies, or cardiac disorders, or whatever in your family doesn't disqualify you from developing hayfever or having a heart attack- it's a probability game. A history of expression of a genetically modified trait ( in this case tendency to gender reversal as a reaction to a particular stressor) in genetically close individuals increases the probability of the same expression in a particular individual in reaction to the same stressor.

A "stress-induced" hermaphrodite will tend to reinforce the probability of progeny expressing reversal in reaction to the same stress. If a plant expresses reversal under " ideal " conditions, either

A.) This individual has a very low threshold before reversal is triggered, or

B.) Conditions aren't all that ideal.

There will always be a triggering stressor that causes a plant to reverse, but very very often what that stressor is will never be identified. Much more practical to eliminate the abberant individual than to identify and rectify the stressor ( which may very well not trigger any other individual in the room).

'Course, if it happens a lot, you might want to either switch to genetics which are less likely to express this behavior, or figure out what the stressor is.

[stilkikin]

I'm following you, KILL ALL HERMIES!!! Thank you for taking the time to explain all this to me, those were not short posts. Another question though, what exactly is the chemical process that takes place due to the stress triggers that cause a plant to herm? Is this related in any way to the process that takes place when a plant decides its sex?

[stinkyattic]

very very often what that stressor is will never be identified.

Much more practical to eliminate the abberant individual than to identify and rectify the stressor .

Truer words are rarely spoken.

Word.