Stress induced vs. genetic hermaphradite flowers?

who dat is · Mar 19, 2014

I was wondering if there was a difference in the male flowers that might show up on a female plant? I know in the past when I have stressed plants with interrupted light cycles or other reasons they have demonstrated male flowers in the form of the banana variety only. I have recently started to battle regular looking male flowers on my cross that I'm currently test growing. At first it was only one plant which I culled. Now I'm seeing it on several others. I'm trying to figure out if it is an environmental stressor that brought on the males flowers or if it already had a genetic disposition to show male flowers? I have never seen the traditional male flowers pop up due to stress, only nanners.

Sam_Skunkman · Mar 19, 2014

If stress can make plants produce inter-sex flowers I bet they have the genes for inter-sex.
As you say late forming non pollen releasing male flowers on the tips of the buds are bad enough, don't use them, and stress test females for inter-sex before using for breeding.
Do you understand that a female transformed to express male flowers, like with STS, is still genetically female? It is not a male. You can get it to express male flowers, not genetically be a male.
-SamS

who dat is said:
I was wondering if there was a difference in the male flowers that might show up on a female plant? I know in the past when I have stressed plants with interrupted light cycles or other reasons they have demonstrated male flowers in the form of the banana variety only. I have recently started to battle regular looking male flowers on my cross that I'm currently test growing. At first it was only one plant which I culled. Now I'm seeing it on several others. I'm trying to figure out if it is an environmental stressor that brought on the males flowers or if it already had a genetic disposition to show male flowers? I have never seen the traditional male flowers pop up due to stress, only nanners.

who dat is · Mar 20, 2014

Sam_Skunkman said:
If stress can make plants produce inter-sex flowers I bet they have the genes for inter-sex.
As you say late forming non pollen releasing male flowers on the tips of the buds are bad enough, don't use them, and stress test females for inter-sex before using for breeding.
-SamS

Thanks for the input Sam. Here are the flowers that I'm speaking of, I didn't think to add them to the first post.

As you can see, these are different from the non pollen producing male flowers on the bud tips. More importantly though here are how are they different and what causes each one respectively?

Thanks!

homebrew420 · Mar 25, 2014

Yeah buddy! we cull those immediately. Hopefully we notice in time.

Peace

BudsBudsBuds! · Apr 2, 2014

Sam_Skunkman said:
If stress can make plants produce inter-sex flowers I bet they have the genes for inter-sex.
As you say late forming non pollen releasing male flowers on the tips of the buds are bad enough, don't use them, and stress test females for inter-sex before using for breeding.
-SamS

so you cant stress a feminized plant to the point of herm?

who dat is · Apr 2, 2014

BudsBudsBuds! said:
so you cant stress a feminized plant to the point of herm?

I imagine every plant will herm with the right set of conditions. Some will just be more tolerant of the abuse prior to herming.

Sam_Skunkman · Apr 2, 2014

BudsBudsBuds! said:
so you cant stress a feminized plant to the point of herm?

What do you mean? If you have a feminized plant? Do you mean a male plant that has been feminized then try and stress it to make it herm? Why?
Maybe you mean feminized seeds that only give females?
Any plant from seed that has the inter-sex genes or combination of genes that force or allow a plant to be inter-sex from environmental stress, then wether it is a female from a male/female population or a seed from an all female population, you can make it show male flowers with stress in most cases.
-SamS

JointOperation · Apr 2, 2014

a hermi is a hermi. lol.. wether its late in flower or not.. these plants should not be used for breeding purposes.. but are used all the time for breeding... and alot of breeders do not stress there females.. or try to get them to hermi. to see if they are prone to it.. they find a keeper.. and boom they think they struck gold.. make seeds.. and end up like CALI CONNECTION. hah. were hermis are in everything

GonBush · Apr 2, 2014

I haven't had a hermie for years, and I stress plants in all sorts of ways, disrupt the dark cycle, different lenghts of daylight, over fertilize, under fertilize, let them get root bound.

If you start off with good seeds you wont get hermies.
Makes me wonder where you are getting your seeds.
If you are paying for seeds then you shouldn't get hermies, they shouldn't sell plants that will hermie if they are doing their job properly.

Sam_Skunkman · Apr 2, 2014

who dat is said:
Thanks for the input Sam. Here are the flowers that I'm speaking of, I didn't think to add them to the first post.

View Image

As you can see, these are different from the non pollen producing male flowers on the bud tips. More importantly though here are how are they different and what causes each one respectively?

Thanks!

Genetics can make the plant be inter-sex every time.
Some varieties require an environmental stress to express inter-sex. This is genetic based also.
Inter-sex plants are of many different types, from all branches with male and female flowers, to a few male flowers on female plants that only show up on the tips of the buds and often don't open or release pollen.
And everything in-between.
Plants also have a male and female flowering habit, with male being tall and thinner flowers, while females have squatter denser flowers. Males can have the female growth/flowering habit, females the growth/flowering habit.
There are up to seven types of flowering profiles, ranging from pure male to pure female with everything in between, which are used as guidelines in selecting desirable plants. The most desirable types are mostly female in appearance, especially the flowering tops, and only develop a few male flower clusters which rapidly release their pollen and fall off.
This is used to in maintaining Monoecious varieties, an elaborate system of categorizing cannabis plant types, in order to select only those with the most stable proportion of male and female flowers.
Enough for now.
-SamS

who dat is · Apr 2, 2014

I understand what you are saying Sam and thanks for your input. Still, I'm wondering about the male flowers themselves and how/why they show up.

Let me be more direct here and state my hypothesis.

*The following statement is merely a hypothesis, don't take it as fact.*

Traditional male flowers are a product of intersex/hermaphrodite genetics where as the atypical "banana" type flowers are brought about by environmental stressors.

Based on what you've previously stated Sam I imagine that you will say they are both present due to intersex genetics and that is fine. I value your input. The root at what I'm getting at is the difference between the two types of male flowers and what causes each one respectively. If they are both due to intersex genetics then why would a plant have or need two different variations of the male flower?

BudsBudsBuds! · Apr 2, 2014

Sam_Skunkman said:
What do you mean? If you have a feminized plant? Do you mean a male plant that has been feminized then try and stress it to make it herm? Why?
Maybe you mean feminized seeds that only give females?
Any plant from seed that has the inter-sex genes or combination of genes that force or allow a plant to be inter-sex from environmental stress, then wether it is a female from a male/female population or a seed from an all female population, you can make it show male flowers with stress in most cases.
-SamS

yeah i was talking about a plant grown with feminized seeds.
but ok, its just really rare right? i mean if the seeds are all guaranteed female you'd really have to hurt it to herm it right?

Sam_Skunkman · Apr 2, 2014

You want to understand the genetic basis for inter-sex in Cannabis, wether it is inter-sex genes or or genes that cause Cannabis to form male flower expression.
This is not the case, Cannabis inter-sex is still being unraveled. Cannabis that is XX female or XY male is pretty well understood, at this point, while what makes up an inter-sex Cannabis is not. Regardless there are not just two variations of inter-sex there are at least 5 or more. Ican Bocsa found 5 I think, based on the amount and placement of male flowers as well as the floral habit M/F as I explained above.
-SamS

who dat is said:
I understand what you are saying Sam and thanks for your input. Still, I'm wondering about the male flowers themselves and how/why they show up.

Let me be more direct here and state my hypothesis.

*The following statement is merely a hypothesis, don't take it as fact.*

Traditional male flowers are a product of intersex/hermaphrodite genetics where as the atypical "banana" type flowers are brought about by environmental stressors.

Based on what you've previously stated Sam I imagine that you will say they are both present due to intersex genetics and that is fine. I value your input. The root at what I'm getting at is the difference between the two types of male flowers and what causes each one respectively. If they are both due to intersex genetics then why would a plant have or need two different variations of the male flower?

BudsBudsBuds! · Apr 2, 2014

and who dat, i know what you mean but why did a plant need two variations in the first place? like sativa indica it could have been just one species.
anyways dont you get nanners with col silver too?

Sativied · Apr 2, 2014

who dat is said:
*The following statement is merely a hypothesis, don't take it as fact.*

Traditional male flowers are a product of intersex/hermaphrodite genetics where as the atypical "banana" type flowers are brought about by environmental stressors.

If "environmental stressors" includes the lack of males, ie. not getting pollinated and spawning bananas 'as a survival mechanism', then I think that statement is not far from the truth. Like Sam said, the ins and outs of intersex behavior in cannabis still needs to be unraveled.

who dat is said:
The root at what I'm getting at is the difference between the two types of male flowers and what causes each one respectively. If they are both due to intersex genetics then why would a plant have or need two different variations of the male flower?

Cannabis and many other plants have only one purpose in life: live long enough to reproduce and spread its genes. Cannabis is particularly horny

That said, the behavior of spawning bananas late in the cycle seems to occur with some plants and not with others, which indicates it genetics. Maybe different genetics that herm traits earlier in flower cycle, but more likely a combination of.

There's no "need" though, just random mutations that proved to beneficial to survive and therefor survived.

trichrider · Apr 2, 2014

...so shouldn't plants that do not show intersex attributes reduce the gene pool?

if they are incapable of intersex and are unpollinated naturally the genes are lost.

especially in limited release/purchase of seed on the net. jmo

blastfrompast · Apr 2, 2014

To the original poster...

Any chance you have changed up your nutes, or added a supliment of some sort. I know of a supliment that when added to your nute solution will cause what you are seeing...VS the late breaking nanner's....great on veggies tho..lol

who dat is · Apr 2, 2014

blastfrompast said:
To the original poster...

Any chance you have changed up your nutes, or added a supliment of some sort. I know of a supliment that when added to your nute solution will cause what you are seeing...VS the late breaking nanner's....great on veggies tho..lol

Nothing too crazy or out of the ordinary. I always grow strictly organic as well. No plants are exhibiting signs of nute burn either. The only possibility I can think of to cause the male flowers are from a timer malfunction three or so weeks ago. I also had a crawlspace vent on the complete opposite side of the crawlspace that *MIGHT* have had a very tiny amount of coming in and has since been spray foamed shut. Again, this isn't about the cause of intersex/hermaphroditic traits but rather the differences between the two main types of male flowers (barring the knowledge Sam dropped a couple of posts back).

Thanks for weighing in with all your thoughts and opinions everybody, especially Sam.

:yes:

blastfrompast · Apr 4, 2014

There is a organic "supliment" that causes what u are seeing, or did in my case... Doesn't mention it on the bottle....seems to be if you use it as a nute supliment vs foliar feeding....
.I used it a few times after using it on my veggies and growing monster Tomato plants, beans, etc.....Increases folliage size, and calyx size, but causes male flowers on a normally stable female.

I flowered a lights worth of WW this time with a small veg cabinet open nearby so it was always like there was a full moon out...not to mention it also doubled as a smoking area for 15minutes every morning where I would turn on a flashlight......5 or 6 Nanner style flowers in total while trimming is what we found.

Add the "organic" supplement to the same WW....full blown balls on every 2nd bud...

PM me

Scottish Research · Apr 4, 2014

I think that stress can induce inter-sex in a plant that is genetically disposed to this type of reproduction. I have had on various occasions plants that were extremely stressed and the never flowered inter-sex. That said, I have had some plants go hermi on me for no apparent reason; the few times I've noticed this trait it's always pollen sacs found hidden under flowers, so sometime they are very hard to spot unless you catch them early.

During my Mango Haze seed run, I found one pollen sac located at the first node, where I topped her. The clone run showed no pollen sacs even though the temp variations were way out of recommend norms.

Stress induced vs. genetic hermaphradite flowers?

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