"Male hermies arent bad"

[Redrum92]

Kind of wanted to discuss this concept I've seen theorized a few times: Maybe a "male" plant that throws a few female flowers isn't "bad". Maybe this plant tends to be sensitive to female hormones/whatever female plant signals/triggers, and isn't necessarily a plant with general intersex instability, but a plant that heavily skews towards female flowers, which would be beneficial in actual female offspring. I know the exact mechanism of both flowering and "herming" are still a bit nebulous/hotly debated


Has anyone ever tried a breeding project with "male hermies" x a normal female? It seems every breeder and chucker since the beginning of time has bred against these traits, understandably

I'm basically playing devil's advocate and trying to learn here; I don't necessarily believe this one way or the other

 

[GMT]

Like begets like. Hermies be bad.

 

[willydread]

It is never a good idea to introduce hermie genes into your work, however sometimes you are at a loss; I have a line where ALL males are hermies, (they start out as declared males but show some hairs during flowering, especially on the tips of the branches ),the females, on the other hand, are stable, so in this case they don't represent a problem...
You have to know your plants, know what they can pass on to the next generations (and take a little risk)

 

[Redrum92]

It is never a good idea to introduce hermie genes into your work, however sometimes you are at a loss; I have a line where ALL males are hermies, (they start out as declared males but show some hairs during flowering, especially on the tips of the branches ),the females, on the other hand, are stable, so in this case they don't represent a problem...
You have to know your plants, know what they can pass on to the next generations (and take a little risk)

See, this is the kind of stuff that has me wondering. If a line can have male hermies but stable females, the concept is at least worth investigating

Super helpful post. Thanks.

 

[Dime]

It is never a good idea to introduce hermie genes into your work, however sometimes you are at a loss; I have a line where ALL males are hermies, (they start out as declared males but show some hairs during flowering, especially on the tips of the branches ),the females, on the other hand, are stable, so in this case they don't represent a problem...
You have to know your plants, know what they can pass on to the next generations (and take a little risk)

Sometimes if plants are not mature before inducing flowering they will revert or show both sexes,also growing out of season ,running opposite light cycle to outside may influence it,I wait till they go to alternate phylo before flowering,most strains show here and there in veg. It's like that for sex ratio too as is applying heavy fertilizer. ex heavy nitrogen early may give more females.

 

[GMT]

Hermies are female anyway, this is like talking about whether or not pushmepullyous are friendly.

 

[Mudballs2.0]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/effective-population-size

effective population size (Ne), rather than the census size (N). The genetically effective size is the number of individuals that would result in the same loss of genetic diversity, inbreeding, genetic drift, etc., if they behaved in the manner of an idealized population. An idealized population consists of hermaphrodites with equal number in each generation, random union of gametes,

...Mudballs has entered chat

 

[djonkoman]

I've had a similar train of thought where my thinking goes that maybe we are wrong to define herming as one trait, but it should be split up in 2 traits, female and male herming. male and female expression have different cause/background/trigger after all.

for example, a mutation in an ethylene receptor making the plant completely unresponsive to ethylene should have a similar effect as ethylene blockers(sts/cs) in a female genetic background, i.e. it would flower as a full on male.
in a male genetic background, this same mutation would not lead to female flowers.

on the other hand, from all the available scientific stuff that has come available so far, I've only read about hermi's being identified as being xx individuals genetically, so it seems so far there is no proof for male hermi's even existing.
so under that model, a 'male hermi', i.e. a plant that develops as male at first but later shows female flowers, would actually just be a female hermi that leans heavily to the male side.
i.e., in this case that would be the worst possible herms to breed with, way worse then a herm that just throws a few nanners late in flower.

 

[Redrum92]

I've had a similar train of thought where my thinking goes that maybe we are wrong to define herming as one trait, but it should be split up in 2 traits, female and male herming. male and female expression have different cause/background/trigger after all.

for example, a mutation in an ethylene receptor making the plant completely unresponsive to ethylene should have a similar effect as ethylene blockers(sts/cs) in a female genetic background, i.e. it would flower as a full on male.
in a male genetic background, this same mutation would not lead to female flowers.

on the other hand, from all the available scientific stuff that has come available so far, I've only read about hermi's being identified as being xx individuals genetically, so it seems so far there is no proof for male hermi's even existing.
so under that model, a 'male hermi', i.e. a plant that develops as male at first but later shows female flowers, would actually just be a female hermi that leans heavily to the male side.
i.e., in this case that would be the worst possible herms to breed with, way worse then a herm that just throws a few nanners late in flower.

Huh, that is definitely an interesting thought. I don't have nearly enough experience with males to comment, but them being immune to truly herming would be quite the game changer

 

[Brother Nature]

There have been some very well known strains bread from males that exhibited female traits. Think more of trichome covered bracts at branch nodes than full blown female flowers on a male plant.

 

[zaprjaques]

if i remember correctly dj short said he preferred the more feminine males that would throw a few pistils late in flower.
its on the potcast, the topic also comes up in one of the episodes with chimera, but he wouldnt go deep into it cause he thinks males are on their way out in cannabis breeding.

 

[CreeperStipule]

if i remember correctly dj short said he preferred the more feminine males that would throw a few pistils late in flower.
its on the potcast, the topic also comes up in one of the episodes with chimera, but he wouldnt go deep into it cause he thinks males are on their way out in cannabis breeding.

He plainly used intersex plants, his populations are riddled with them and he also used sterile "males" that seem to of passed that trait too.
Hence skewed ratios in his lines, ie heavy female and intersex.
That said I still like to smoke his shit.

 

[GMT]

@djonkoman chimaera posted up a paper showing that all Hermies had the female marker and non had a male marker. Are you saying you know that paper was flawed?
I have tried to search for the post but chimera seems unsearchable.

 

[CreeperStipule]

The paper was put up in chimeras bit of forum but not by him .. it was deleted for unknown reasons.

 

[GMT]

He certainly referenced it a lot if he didn't put it up, but thanks for confirming I didn't imagine it. If it's been taken down, I have to assume it was proven incorrect. Interesting, thank you.

 

[Mudballs2.0]

I've seen 2 males go full hermi on me.
I destroyed both. One was stress induced from a transplant outdoors followed by an immediate non-killing frost for 2 days. He just freaked out. The 2nd was non induced, it was weird...i had 4 males of same strain out for pollen collection (im big into male cannabis for now) and only 1 of the 4 went absolutely bonkers with male and fem parts. Killed it too.
Just trying to change topic from DJ bashing. Science says we have to have them if you wish to retain genetic diversity. The number required for that population i dont know. I would think like willy said it depends...i think genotype would decide that number. I see 500 plants alot...250...idk but all i know is if you do not include hermis you are not doing a true preservation run.

 

[CreeperStipule]

I've seen 2 males go full hermi on me.
I destroyed both. One was stress induced from a transplant outdoors followed by an immediate non-killing frost for 2 days. He just freaked out. The 2nd was non induced, it was weird...i had 4 males of same strain out for pollen collection (im big into male cannabis for now) and only 1 of the 4 went absolutely bonkers with male and fem parts. Killed it too.
Just trying to change topic from DJ bashing. Science says we have to have them if you wish to retain genetic diversity. The number required for that population i dont know. I would think like willy said it depends...i think genotype would decide that number. I see 500 plants alot...250...idk but all i know is if you do not include hermis you are not doing a true preservation run.

do we wheel spin or move things forward?

 

[CreeperStipule]

He certainly referenced it a lot if he didn't put it up, but thanks for confirming I didn't imagine it. If it's been taken down, I have to assume it was proven incorrect. Interesting, thank you.

it certainly wasn't because its incorrect, it was more the whole thread removed due to some other "issues" ie bills not paid.

 

[Mudballs2.0]

do we wheel spin or move things forward?

I dont understand the question? Im seriously trying to participate in the topic. Not trying for conflict

 

[djonkoman]

@djonkoman chimaera posted up a paper showing that all Hermies had the female marker and non had a male marker. Are you saying you know that paper was flawed?
I have tried to search for the post but chimera seems unsearchable.

no, that's exactly what I alluded to in the 2nd part of my post, so far there is no scientific proof that male hermies (=genetically male, but with some female expression) even exist. I don't know which exact paper he referenced, but I think there are multiple basically making that same point of herms always testing as genetically female.
ofcourse no proof so far is not the same as they will never be found for sure. but at least so far, every idea that includes male hermi's needs the * that they might not even exist.

so, in the case male hermi's indeed don't exist, that would mean all those plants that people have observed which are almost fully male in phenotype but with some female flowers, would have to be in fact genetically females, just with a very male expression.


(btw, just to be a bit of an exact nitpicker, I think that referenced paper must have been about male markers only, i.e. herms never show a male marker, I'm betting that female marker part of what you said is not in the actual paper. because making a male marker would be way easier since you can just focus on the y chromosome, buth if you'd make a marker for the x chromosome both males and females would test positive. there would still be ways to see the difference in quantity if you'd use a pcr-based marker, but that would be a more complex procedure than just testing absence/presence of a male marker. and I think the male markers for cannabis described in literature aren't even pcr-markers, but based on an older technique for markers)