One of the challenges of growing cannabis is that you have to determine the sex of your plant with great accuracy if you want to get some very good results in the end. Lots of growers want to make sure that the female parts are kept away from being fertilized. In fact, this is the only way to ensure that you get the sinsemilla buds.
These buds are known for the fact that they don’t have seeds, but they do have a lot of THC, and that’s obviously something that the customers want. Male plants are not that valuable, mainly because they don’t tend to offer as much THC when compared to other compounds. However, it’s important to make sure that you determine the sex of marijuana plants.
With that in mind, we created a list of things that you have to take into consideration when you want to sex the marijuana plants. Use this set of ideas and tips; you will have no problem sexing cannabis plants in no time.
Checking the growth patterns
It’s important to know that during the vegetative growth process, all cannabis plants will start to flourish, and this happens regardless of their sex. The way you can identify their sex is when the plants start to age. It all comes down to studying these plants up close so you can get the very best results and experience. The idea here is that you want to check for any complex branching. If that’s the case, then you are dealing with a female plant. This happens in between the seedling and vegetative stage. Males are a bit taller, and they are also less filled out. Make sure that you avoid pulling the plant out, as that’s a bad thing to do. Your focus has to be on studying these minor details so you can get the best experience and results.
You can deal with hermaphrodites
You can encounter plants that are both male and female. So, the idea here is that identifying the sex of that plant is very hard because you get mixed signals all the time. What you have to note here is the fact that hermaphrodites like this appear from emotional stress, so the sex of that plant can be very hard to determine at first. However, if you see that the plant has both pistils and flowers, then you should consider pruning off the flowers. This is necessary because you want to avoid any self-pollination.
Where did the plant sprout during germination?
This is a very good method to figure out the sex of your plant. Some growers noted that when the sprout comes out of the bottom or top of the seed, the plant is a female. Side sprouts are usually leading to a make. It’s not exactly a scientific method, but it does tend to work very well most of the time. Obviously, it can take a bit of time to study all the options here, and the results can be more than ok in the end.
Clone the plant to determine its sex
Take a cutting from your plants, place the cutting into potting soil and leave it to grow for around a week or less. You then need to do force flowering for 12 hours of darkness; then you have to complete the day with 12 hours of light. The clones will have the same sex, so when they enter the flowering stage, you will be able to determine their sex as you normally would. Of course, you have to figure out the origin of each clone if you want to stay away from any potential problems.
Females have pistils; males have flowers
You will note that flowers and pistils will always offer you a good indication of the cannabis plant sex. The idea here is that the female plants will not have any white or yellow flowers. They tend to have whitish, hairy pistils that will trap the pollen dropped from the flower. The downside to this method is that it can take a lot of time to get it done. As a result, you will not be able to get any sinsemilla buds, as it’s way too late.
Males tend to mature faster when compared to females
Male plants will reach sexual maturity 2 weeks before females. They will grow faster when compared to females, and they will also be taller. This can make it easy for you to identify the sex of that plan. Obviously, this works to your own advantage, because you don’t have to wait for a very long time to get the results you want.
Yes, it can be a bit tricky to identify the sex of a cannabis plant. But with enough focus and a bit of patience, you will have no problem getting the very best results out there. Check all the tips listed above, and you will have no problem learning how to sex cannabis plants!
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By week 6, the pre-flowers begin to reveal their gender and you should be able to identify the sex using the tips to follow. Once the plants go into full flower (8 to 10 weeks on average, for a natural outdoor grow) the differences between male and female plants will be glaringly obvious.
In many cases, male cannabis plants tend to be more gangly. They may be tall, narrow, have fewer fan leaves, and longer spacing between branches – also referred to as greater inter-nodal spacing. On the flip side, female cannabis plants are usually more compact and bushy than males.