"Male hermies arent bad"

[Dime]

JMO.People who use hermies in Cannabis aren't helping the plant and pass it on like a cold and dilute pure strains eventually .The goal is to breed out hermaphrodism not embrace it. Most plants are hermies but lines die off faster because they all share inbred genetics as pressures take hold over time unless different hermies are introduced. The energy used by a plant is greater to make the plant a hermy due to producing both sexes,thus making it weaker. It also ends up
more homogenous ,confused,and leads to inbreeding depression and will not continue to evolve eventually. We know slight hermy pollen gives rise to female plants ,therefore,most of the population will be female and it results in even more loss of diversity and eventually they will need to be hermies or the line will die off since no new blood is introduced and has only so much to offer for survival. We also know a few males are all that is required to fertilize many females thus narrowing the gene pool even more. Like clones,eventually if a virus or something attack the population most will succumb. Cannabis being dioeceous has the advantage of diversity to beat the pressures,perhaps that's why it is so easy to grow and will be around long after we are gone.

 

[GMT]

Thanks djonkoman, important point. I'm afraid I was guilty of remembering my interpretation of the paper rather than the precise wording. Yes of course "showing as female" would mean an absence of male marker rather than the presence of female. Nice catch.

 

[Thcvhunter]

Some breeders are quiet on the topic because people see a snippet of what someone says and then jumps to conclusions mat.

Breeding by elimination of all and any herm genetics will lead to very low potency after a few f-gens.
There's positive correlation between herms and potency.
Dont jump to conclusions mat - this doesnt mean we want all plants to herm.
Instead, we want to stabilize an acceptable percentage of herms withing the field population. Generally, 5% is a goal.

Then, theres a spectrum of how a plant herms.
A plant that is full tranny at week 4 is no bueno.
But then look at Chems/Diesels. No problem at 10 weeks. But now take those cuts to 14 weeks and you'll see that correlation between potency and herms.
African sativas are known for having a strong population of moderate to late-term herming, as well as a very low population of pure males (males that dont herm when stressed and late in flower). Yet, both Chems and African sativas are some of the best weed around.
So, its a balance.

Ive bred using tranny plants and holy shit the progeny are more resinous and hit stronger. Sometimes the line requires work over a generation or two to get herm rates back down to 5%. Sometimes those tranny plants have children who are more stable than the plants that made the tranny plants.

So, the answer really is, "it depends, and, balance"

 

[Cerathule]

Some breeders are quiet on the topic because people see a snippet of what someone says and then jumps to conclusions mat.

Breeding by elimination of all and any herm genetics will lead to very low potency after a few f-gens.
There's positive correlation between herms and potency.
Dont jump to conclusions mat - this doesnt mean we want all plants to herm.
Instead, we want to stabilize an acceptable percentage of herms withing the field population. Generally, 5% is a goal.

Then, theres a spectrum of how a plant herms.
A plant that is full tranny at week 4 is no bueno.
But then look at Chems/Diesels. No problem at 10 weeks. But now take those cuts to 14 weeks and you'll see that correlation between potency and herms.
African sativas are known for having a strong population of moderate to late-term herming, as well as a very low population of pure males (males that dont herm when stressed and late in flower). Yet, both Chems and African sativas are some of the best weed around.
So, its a balance.

Ive bred using tranny plants and holy shit the progeny are more resinous and hit stronger. Sometimes the line requires work over a generation or two to get herm rates back down to 5%. Sometimes those tranny plants have children who are more stable than the plants that made the tranny plants.

So, the answer really is, "it depends, and, balance"

Interesting. If I may ask a question - do you have any idea why this is so at the genetic level? Does the existance of (things the 2 studies mentioned) retrotransposon-alike elements/ genes previously altered by retroviruses maybe present a strong randomizing factor that is akin to the effect of mutational breeding - to increase you variability of phenotypes to select from?

 

[Thcvhunter]

Interesting. If I may ask a question - do you have any idea why this is so at the genetic level? Does the existance of (things the 2 studies mentioned) retrotransposon-alike elements/ genes previously altered by retroviruses maybe present a strong randomizing factor that is akin to the effect of mutational breeding - to increase you variability of phenotypes to select from?

I havent read the studies, yet.
But, I suspect that herm-prone plants adapt quicker. For example, you plant a field of a strain. But, that was bred elsewhere and this environment isnt compatible. Soil cations are off, soil moisture is off, light angle is off as is spectrum and night-length. So some plants herm to allow quicker adaptation/mutation in the progeny. You can see this with some clones that have high plasticity. Grow it in one environment and its tall thin, green, whispy. Grow the same clone in a different environment and its squatter, purple, broader leaves, etc. And yet some clones dont do this.

 

[Mudballs2.0]

well i just logged out of 420mag for the last time cuz of some calmag deficit fanboi so im running out of smart people and cool forums so keep up the good work yall

 

[Mudballs2.0]

What i do is i always clone the male, then watch how it responds as it comes out of rooting and gets back into veg. The pic i posted is a clone that i let run through to flower again and those are the only 3 pistils/calyx i can find so that's my stability test. If the original seed plant doesn't throw pistil/calyx and the clone don't go cray cray then you got a good stable male and those are the ones you should use.
There has been mention of balance and 'it depends', that comes from experience...there is no forum thread or study online that will impart that to a grower. You just gotta cowboy up and grow some males to learn about males.
I can't put into words all i've seen them do, it's just too big a thing to type out but i can say that "male hermies aren't bad" if you know about male hermies.

 

[Cerathule]

The split into dioecious organs is to increase evolutionairy fitness where other monoicious species developed other means like self-incompatibility, then the reversal back to monoecy could be also understood as being in reality due to it being somewhat helpful evolutionairy. That's a very wild guess, as it could be simply from other causes, but if that is true then the plant must had preserved an internal way to use this in a given situation where this is actually helpful. Like you wrote, late-blooming herms, better selfed seeds than none at all. But that must then be regulated internally, most likely hormonally governed by genes activated during an epigenetic adaptation? It is thinkable that a lot of these things, the finetuning, can go south by alot external factors that may not be like the genetics expects them to be. I can see how that may be greatly problematic to identify and catch a glimpse of what's going on.

 

[CreeperStipule]

hmm, I can only find stuff about a 540 bp pcr product common to both males and females, nothing about it marking the intersexed ones specifically:
Punja, Zamir K., and Janesse E. Holmes. "Hermaphroditism in marijuana (Cannabis sativa L.) inflorescences–impact on floral morphology, seed formation, progeny sex ratios, and genetic variation." Frontiers in Plant Science (2020): 718.

and what do you exactly mean here relating X-hemizygous and intersex? are you saying 'herm' genes are always on the
X-chromosome? yes, due to the Y not copying over so they have polymorphism and are we talking X-hemizygous genes when comparing X and Y, i.e. genes present on the X without counterpart on the Y yes located on chromosome 1 , or do you mean something else like genes/regions being hemizygous between a pair of 2 X chromosomes, or the whole X chromosome having no partner chromosome at all (either X or Y), and so in essence being hemizygous for the whole chromosome? as the Y is gone (degenerated and f-cked) in these X-hemi therefore only passed from the X of XY to the X ie replace the Y with a zero and you get 0XxXX and then no males (genetic). So with an X-specific region (region 1) which does not recombine with Y and region 2 which is the PAR and still recombines with Y.
either way, would love to see a source backing that up then, personally I've never read anything finding such conclusive details of what causes 'herming' in cannabis, personally I wouldn't want to commit to throwing out the option of autosomal 'herm genes' based on anything I've read. Hence the 3 types - autosomal liable types (likely some form of dosage compensation, ie why we see "males" in female lots a survival trait and late nanners (ie no pollen so compensates), XY stable and X-hemi. - So if we consider monoecious as X-hemi then they are all female.

eh, define originally?

by far most plants have both sexes within the same flower, some do split them up into different flowers but still bear both on the same plant, having 2 seperate sexes like in cannabis is rare in the plant world.
so obviously if you go back far enough up the family tree, you'll hit an ancestor that did not have seperate sexes yet.

however cannabis close relative hops also has seperate sexes, so a good first guess could be that the origin of having different sexes would be at least before cannabis and hops evolved into seperate plant species. although that's still just a guess, since both lineages could have evolved dioecy independently, after they already split.
from papers I've read so far though, the evidence seems to point to the origin being relatively old, i.e. before the cannabis/hops split.

but, it's just a matter of going far enough up the family tree/far back enough in history. if you'd trace back our (humans) ancestor species far enough you'd eventually hit on asexually reproducing organisms too. doesn't say much about our current mode of reproduction though.

Tried to reply above.

 

[CreeperStipule]

Some breeders are quiet on the topic because people see a snippet of what someone says and then jumps to conclusions mat.

Breeding by elimination of all and any herm genetics will lead to very low potency after a few f-gens.
There's positive correlation between herms and potency.
Dont jump to conclusions mat - this doesnt mean we want all plants to herm.
Instead, we want to stabilize an acceptable percentage of herms withing the field population. Generally, 5% is a goal.

Then, theres a spectrum of how a plant herms.
A plant that is full tranny at week 4 is no bueno.
But then look at Chems/Diesels. No problem at 10 weeks. But now take those cuts to 14 weeks and you'll see that correlation between potency and herms.
African sativas are known for having a strong population of moderate to late-term herming, as well as a very low population of pure males (males that dont herm when stressed and late in flower). Yet, both Chems and African sativas are some of the best weed around.
So, its a balance.

Ive bred using tranny plants and holy shit the progeny are more resinous and hit stronger. Sometimes the line requires work over a generation or two to get herm rates back down to 5%. Sometimes those tranny plants have children who are more stable than the plants that made the tranny plants.

So, the answer really is, "it depends, and, balance"

Well females are known to be more potent in regards to THC than males so this is not something new or groundbreaking, but if you'd have used a stable female in the 1st place you'd have no need to clean the mess up on isle 3.

 

[X15]

Just me speaking out loud with the crew…

Every defined male I’ve ever had (with a strong relationship throughout growth) was male and stayed male unless I changed something drastic in its life… like light change from moving inside to out or feed cycle got fckd up due to me. So stress was the only thing that would force these guys to grow female parts.
All of the non defined males I’ve had were such from the get go. Very obvious hermaphroditism from the get go. The thing is those types have always had the most vigor.
I have also had a male that has gone into pollen production, then after being moved and getting upset has shown some female growth…. But then I’ve experimented by re vegging that male….now healthy, Later cycle back to pollen production and no signs of any female growth.
Oh the triggers.

 

[IndicaFarmer]

I may be wrong here but, would it not go in the direction of male plants with a small amount of female pistils would breed to a normal female producing mostly female offspring in the progeny/seeds? I don't know why but this has been in my thinking as a possibility. I have a landrace Durban I am flowering and it is a male, to collect pollen from. It has one or two branch tips on the lower point that have some female spikes. very small, very minor. I am gonna see what happens when i breed it to some of my other varieties and see what comes out of it when i grow the resulting plants. I do know that hermies are in a lot of African landrace and also SEA varieties as a last ditch effort to pollinate a female near life end. So from that standpoint it is a lifeline, or a good thing in nature under less than optimum conditions for normal reproduction. But we humans have our needs, wants and ideas on why we are growing this plant in the first place. Its like the herm is a real sexually frustrated female. Voila, nature finds a way! PEACE

 

[Redrum92]

JMO.People who use hermies in Cannabis aren't helping the plant and pass it on like a cold and dilute pure strains eventually .The goal is to breed out hermaphrodism not embrace it. Most plants are hermies but lines die off faster because they all share inbred genetics as pressures take hold over time unless different hermies are introduced. The energy used by a plant is greater to make the plant a hermy due to producing both sexes,thus making it weaker. It also ends up
more homogenous ,confused,and leads to inbreeding depression and will not continue to evolve eventually. We know slight hermy pollen gives rise to female plants ,therefore,most of the population will be female and it results in even more loss of diversity and eventually they will need to be hermies or the line will die off since no new blood is introduced and has only so much to offer for survival. We also know a few males are all that is required to fertilize many females thus narrowing the gene pool even more. Like clones,eventually if a virus or something attack the population most will succumb. Cannabis being dioeceous has the advantage of diversity to beat the pressures,perhaps that's why it is so easy to grow and will be around long after we are gone.

I understand that intentionally using herms is bad in general, but that doesn't mean it's not important to understand whats at play, especially if there are actually multiple types of "herm" that people are all lumping together. Maybe some of the "herm" traits displayed specifically in males is not what people have been assuming, in terms of what genes it may pass, or what it actually is itself.

Also, it would be impossible to completely breed out hermi traits. They are in so many landraces, and so many of the core building block strains of the modern era. Avoid, sure, again, definitely agree with you there. The point of this thread is absolutely not to convince people to start consistently breeding with herms.

Fem seeds on their own don't result in a loss of diversity. Small numbers and lack of pollen chucking do. Selfing, backcross, or outcross... still plenty of options with fem seeds.

 

[exoticrobotic]

Maybe the male herms are a result of our indoor setups.

It's so cosy they want to stay

If it was a harsh environment they would be true males and want to fly further afield.

A bit like us

 

[Mudballs2.0]

I may be wrong here but, would it not go in the direction of male plants with a small amount of female pistils would breed to a normal female producing mostly female offspring in the progeny/seeds?

Can you reword this by chance? Im not sure i understand what's being asked and we may see your request better if rewritten.

 

[IndicaFarmer]

Can you reword this by chance? Im not sure i understand what's being asked and we may see your request better if rewritten.

Sure, I can tryanyways, I was just thinking that for some reason, a mostly male plant, with some small fraction of female parts, may impart through breeding with a sexually stable female, more likelyhood of having a higher proportion of female seed in its offspring. I can't explain scientifically or rationally why this might be so, or even why I am thinking this. I just have had it in my mind for a little bit as a possibility. I will know coming up if it is fact or not, because I am actively doing this right now, I will report on the outcome as soon as it is all completed. Thanks for the question and interest in my statement. PEACE

 

[Mudballs2.0]

Sure, I can tryanyways, I was just thinking that for some reason, a mostly male plant, with some small fraction of female parts, may impart through breeding with a sexually stable female, more likelyhood of having a higher proportion of female seed in its offspring. I can't explain scientifically or rationally why this might be so, or even why I am thinking this. I just have had it in my mind for a little bit as a possibility. I will know coming up if it is fact or not, because I am actively doing this right now, I will report on the outcome as soon as it is all completed. Thanks for the question and interest in my statement. PEACE

Good question we can't answer because we don't know where the sex is determined. At least i have not found conclusive proof. We dont know if a seed is male or female in a regular breed pairing. We would need to know that to answer definitively that a bias is occurring

 

[CreeperStipule]

50/50 dioceous, skewed to female the rest.

 

[Mudballs2.0]

Epigenetic sex bias Google search
Think before you speak

 

[Mudballs2.0]

To answer his question we would have to know exactly what sex each seed is before germination to quantify any bias derived from the males pollen.