Did you know that all the cannabis we smoke, turn into extracts, or otherwise enjoy comes from unpollinated female plants?
Unpollinated female cannabis plants are the only ones that produce the psychoactive flower we enjoy. Male cannabis plants do not produce flowers, but they put that energy into producing pollen instead. Pollinated female cannabis plants put less energy into producing flowers because they’re making seeds.
This is why it’s so important for growers to be able to identify the sex of their cannabis plants. Here’s a quick guide that can save your harvest.
The Basics of Cannabis Reproduction
There’s some basic cannabis knowledge that every grower should have. Knowing the difference between sativa and indica, being able to find a u pass drug test near me, and understanding how to sex your cannabis plants are all a must when you get serious about weed.
There’s a few things that we need to discuss when it comes to cannabis reproduction. Let’s start with the basics of how many species of plants reproduce.
Male cannabis plants produce clusters of pollen sacs that burst open when they reach maturity. These release pollen into the air which contains the genetic information required for cannabis plants to reproduce. Female cannabis plants grow a calyx which contains the part of a plant known as the stigma which is designed to receive that pollen.
Once pollinated, female cannabis plants put less energy into producing flowers and more energy into producing seeds.
It is true that cannabis plants can become hermaphroditic. This means female cannabis plants are capable of producing pollen. However, this only happens under extreme circumstances, so we’re going to focus on just identifying the sex of the plants today.
How to Identify the Sex of Your Cannabis Plants
There’s a lot of unconfirmed information around cannabis topics like passing drug test and sexing your cannabis plants, but these are actually issues of science. We’ve got the facts.
Here’s how to identify the sex of a cannabis plant.
Male Cannabis Plants
We’re going to talk more about identifying the sex of a male cannabis plant because these pose a risk to your operation. If a male cannabis plant is able to release pollen, it could pollinate your female cannabis plants and considerably lower your next harvest.
The life cycle of a cannabis plant is divided into two stages. There’s a vegetative stage when the plant grows leaves, stocks, and other parts of the plant. And then there’s the flowering stage when the plant reaches sexual maturity.
You’ll be able to identify the sex is your cannabis plant in the vegetative stage. It’s highly important to remove male cannabis plants before they reach maturity.
You will be able to identify male cannabis plants from the pollen set clusters that start to grow on their nodes. The node of a cannabis plant is the area where branches start to break off from the main stem. Pollen sack clusters can start to form as early as 14 days, but often take much longer to develop.
Make sure to remove male cannabis plants right away as pollen sack clusters are very fragile and accidentally brushing against one can cause them to burst. Research has found that cannabis pollen can carry for up to 10 miles.
Female Cannabis Plants
You’ll take a similar approach to identifying the sex of your female cannabis plants.
You’ll start to see a calyx developing in the nodes of female cannabis plants. This is often called a pre-flower and is the part of the female cannabis plant that will later grow into the flower that we harvest.
How to “Predetermine” the Sex of a Cannabis Plant
There are plenty of things in life that you can influence ahead of time. This is as true for a cannabis drug test as it is for determining the sex of your cannabis plants.
You can force the gender of a cannabis plant by using photoperiod manipulation and a clone of a known cannabis plant.
Take the clone of your cannabis plant and put it under a 12-12 light cycle. This will force the plant into the flowering stage of its growth cycle regardless of its age. The plant will have the same gender as the plant it was cloned from because they are genetically identical.
