Quote Originally Posted by kadinsky
:wtf: can anyone tell me.. if a plant is a girl but has been messed about with can it change from a girl to a boy? x
yes, it can. this is what's called a hermaphrodite (or hermie). cannabis plants are annual plants (they die off every year and new ones grow next season). the sole purpose of a cannabis plant is to make seeds to carry on it's lineage. the female flowers (pistils, calyxes) start growing trying desperately to catch some male pollen. that's why they grow big and fat. well in nature, if a female doesn't get any pollen it is genetically programmed to hermie, or the female plant will produce male flowers, which release pollen and viola, the lineage goes on.

this is often manipulated by growers. since the originating plant is 100% female, then the DNA in the pollen must be 100% female also. so by using different stress techniques (or chemicals, not so desirable) one can usually cause a plant to hermie. then you collect that pollen and use it on a DIFFERENT plant. since both sets of DNA are 100% female, that's how you get feminized seeds.

hope that helped.



-shake

p.s.- it's possible for a male to go hermie too, it's just not very common.