Quote Originally Posted by Rusty Trichome
Hmmm...I think I have a couple of issues, so what the heck...I might as well get 'em off my chest. :thumbsup:

If the seed-sexing theory is right, this implies that sex is pre-determined.
And if you can stress a female seedling into being male, why don't more newbies suffer from 'over-abundance of males' syndrome'? But, I'm not all that certain the seed-sexing thing is on track anyway.
Granted, I have not tried the technique, but am of the opinion it's likely not reliable. Mainly because during formation, seeds can get squeezed together, pulled, pushed, tugged-on...which can and will distort the attachment point for each seed. I've had seeds long and thin, round and plump, round with a dent or two, almost 'cresent moon' shaped...all from the same strains. Any distortion of the shell does impact the attachment point structure.

And having femmed seeds a few times, (and I still do on occasion) I have never stressed a female into being a male. I've stressed a female to provide pollen sacks, (become hermaphrodite on command) and after harvest I've re-vegged a forced hermaphrodite back into 'normal' female re-growth, but never has stress switched a cannabis plant's sex, in my garden. Since I doubt you change the (sex determing) chromosomes through stress, a sudden and wholesale sex change is unlikely, and nobody has added chemicals to the discussion.

Beware of strains with past or present 'purple' genetics when using the color-coded seedling-sexing, as the normal coloring of the seedling might skew results.
I'm guessing that cooler growroom enviornments might skew coloring, too.

As I previously stated, I haven't tried the seed-sexing. But it just didn't sound right when I first heard it a few years back, and I still have doubts.
just to clear up any confusion...

I did not use the seed shape or examination of the stalk hole (volcano or slit) to determine sex here.
All I used was on day 6, making a guess as to sex based on the color of the stalks and petioles of the seedlings. :rastabanna:

Further experimentation is now needed to see if this method actually got us a 100% identification. The question has to do with #4. According to WW's theory, #4 was the one who exhibited the strongest indicator at day 6 of being female. He was however stunted all of his life and I strongly believe that it was this stress that caused him to become a male. We have referred to him all along as "the runt." There are plenty of opinions out there that stress can and will cause a higher percentage of males in a population. If this is what happened, then clones of #4 grown correctly will not be males and we will have proven that the early sexing method at least in this case resulted in 100% identification. It will also show that sex can change overall because of stress. I will be taking clones to attempt to prove this very soon. You have me very curious now Rusty about this and how total of a transformation can be made by a plant because of stress, but I agree that on a chromosome level, if she started as a female, #4 would still be a female although exhibiting male characteristics... and if so, she/he has just become a very valuable plant. It would be fascinating to get him to change again after harvest and revegging and make him go female next round, but I am going to save that for another experimenter. Who knows? Cloning may prove that #4 was a male all along. In a couple of months, if I have any shred of scientist in me, we will know what happened here.

The exciting thing here for me as a new grower is the situation I now find myself in. If I have a switched female and he is now producing pollen, and I then take that pollen back to my mother and produce seeds, does this not produce feminized seeds? Talk about turning a negative into a positive!:thumbsup:

Emmie