Is it a hermie?

[foolededucator]

So this is my first grow, I have 3 plants, I flowered them pretty early due to small space. Also using LST which seems to be working very nicely so far.

One of them showed two male preflowers about 5-6 days into 12/12. I'm using a pro grow 260 led with two 2700k cfls.

I couldn't get a decent photo (no macro lens) to of the preflowers in order to ask, so I just plucked them off and waited.

Everything else since then (over a week ago) has been female, with obvious pistils, I can't find any male flowers anymore. Checking every day.

So I think that either:

1. I confused myself and it wasn't a male preflower

2. It really is a hermie and just not really showing male stuff anymore (they did get a little stressed due to a power outage displacing my analog timer during "night". Instead of shortening the next "day" I just left it as is, offsetting the whole cycle, and later reading seemed to suggest this might have not been the right call).

I'm also pretty sure I have minor light leaks which would probably contribute to messing things up, my grow set up is not yet finished, but I don't really mind since I'm learning a lot and this is just ditchweed bagseeds.

So what I'm trying to figure out is what is the chance that it will develop more male flowers and polinate everything? The LST has made it dense enough that I'm not sure I will be able to spot a new male flower if one comes up, and I don't want to spoil the whole crop.

On the other hand it seems fine right now, and throwing out 1/3rd of my potential crop out of paranoia seems a bit harsh, especially since I'm trying to get the most practice before I germinate my fancy seeds.

Unfortunately reading up on hermies in the forum only got me more confused.

 

[foolededucator]

So I shouldn't say "so" so often... sorry ;-)

 

[s00thsayer]

if you can't tell and you have the space just keep waiting before making the call. you have several weeks before you have to have to worry about pollen so no hurry in chopping or plucking off pre-flowers right now. wait two weeks and you will know for sure.

 

[jenery]

hello, i have ordered the same light and will probably supplement with some cfl as well, going to follow your progress. About the male preflower I have recently read about some guy growing the cbdcrew strains and had this hermie problem with one of their strains on the mns forums.Quite a few people chimed in with their opinions. The possibilities that it was caused by a light leakage was ruled out, some other people suggested he did not veg long enough, but that is for sure not the reason. Other possibility was that the lights vere not strong enough to penetrate to the lower branches and that is why the plants went hermie. The most plausible explanation (at least for me) was that these seeds were not fully tested before being released and so consequently these hermie traits showed up. Anyway, whatever the reason is, if you are checking everyday, there is no reason to panic and hopefully these hermie traits will not show up anymore. Good luck with the leds and enjoy growing!

 

[foolededucator]

I think for me it's a combination of light leakage, a bit of photoperiod mess, and bad genetics ;-)

Anyway, I've got my cab pretty much sorted out now, so the seeds I bought will hopefully be treated better... We'll know in a few weeks


So anyway, one plant is consistently budding male flowers. I spray with water and pick them off but I'm pretty sure I missed at least one, though: some of the pistils on this plant and the adjacent one have turned browinish and seed pods seem to be developing. That means they've been fertilized, right?

That said, there are still many white pistils on both and new growth. I was planning on harvesting in about 3 weeks, but now I'm considering doing an early harvest on the hermie. Any suggestions regarding the tradeoff?

The trichromes are generally clear in color right now. The plant is about 9 weeks old, it was put into flowering about 5 weeks ago.

 

[s00thsayer]

it's just going to get worse as flowering progresses. hermies with single bananas popping out a few buds rarely seed other plants but full blown hermies can seed like mad. i'd chop the hermie since it sounds like it's full blown.

 

[s00thsayer]

full blown hermies (like the pic below) have fully developed male flowers at the internodes and in the buds that can produce a lot of pollen

 

[foolededucator]

Thanks!

I'm definitely seeing clusters of male flowers as you described, so that's that =)

Regarding harvesting, anything I should do besides flushing and keeping it in the dark for 24-48hrs to make the most of the little growth it had so far?

 

[s00thsayer]

If it's only flowered a month or so the buds are not going to be very good. I compost plants when they have to be cut down that early. If you really need the buds from the hermie you can keep plucking the male flowers for another 3 weeks but you know how that goes.....

 

[foolededucator]

I think I'll still give it a shot, this is my first grow and is mostly a practice run so I don't waste seeds I actually bought... I might as well figure out how to dry/cure even if it's not going to be worth much as I'm sure I can still find plenty of mistakes to learn from this time around ;-)

Thanks for your advice!

 

[opiumo]

Stay with it, no hurries. Even though it might be a waste of time

 

[ItsTopShelf]

stay with it.. y kill something to start something else if ur shit isnt done?

Light PROOF that bitch asap.. make sure u have 0 light leaks. then start over with good genetics. fuck bagseed,.. ive popped hundreds of bag seeds.. nothing good really..

but ive poppped seeds from shit ive grown and had problems with light or stress and got seeds.. and those seeds were ok alot better then all the other bagseed ive grown.

grab some strains from the server fund to learn.. cheap and better genetics then bagseed.

 

[ItsTopShelf]

stay with it.. y kill something to start something else if ur shit isnt done?

Light PROOF that bitch asap.. make sure u have 0 light leaks. then start over with good genetics. fuck bagseed,.. ive popped hundreds of bag seeds.. nothing good really..

but ive poppped seeds from shit ive grown and had problems with light or stress and got seeds.. and those seeds were ok alot better then all the other bagseed ive grown.

grab some strains from the server fund to learn.. cheap and better genetics then bagseed.