Do you even need a male anymore?

I have a plant (non-MNS) that was a male but turning female. I've seen herm flowers on a predominantly female plant before, but not the other way around. So, it got me wondering are herm seeds worth keeping?
I have always thrown them out but since I've realized the power of pollen it has me thinking maybe I should keep it.
In essence the seeds will be selfed, and a clone of the parent(?) correct me if I am wrong but that could be a good thing, for preserving purposes (1960's heirloom), breeding maybe not so much..
 

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@acrid said: " So, it got me wondering are herm seeds worth keeping?"

In my very limited experience I have grown 4 herm seeds. A Jack Herer, Master Kush, Super Skunk, and a Gold Leaf. In each case the herm seed plant was literally 2 twice the size of the parent plant and the potency was every bit as good if not better than the parent plant. In each case it appears the plants only produced a single seed, so while the plants did not 'hermie bad' I would assume they are hermie seeds? All plants were originally from fem seeds. If any more seeds turn up in my stash I will gladly grow it. This year I am growing M/F plants and trying to produce seeds.

Not a scientific experiment, just the experience of one grower.

Longball
 
@acrid said: " So, it got me wondering are herm seeds worth keeping?"

In each case the herm seed plant was literally 2 twice the size of the parent plant and the potency was every bit as good if not better than the parent plant.

Longball

fee fi fo fum !
It's root bound in a 5 gallon pot and still over 8 feet, I can only imagine what one 2x the vigor could look like..
Maybe I'll take a cut to back cross the f1 to, if not for anything but the fun of it.
 
We used 10 gal grow bags for the hermie seeds. They outgrew them in no time at all! For the fun of it! :)

Longball
 
I don’t
I have a plant (non-MNS) that was a male but turning female. I've seen herm flowers on a predominantly female plant before, but not the other way around. So, it got me wondering are herm seeds worth keeping?
I have always thrown them out but since I've realized the power of pollen it has me thinking maybe I should keep it.
In essence the seeds will be selfed, and a clone of the parent(?) correct me if I am wrong but that could be a good thing, for preserving purposes (1960's heirloom), breeding maybe not so much..
had the same and killed him. If you want pollem from a hermie, I would select extremely careful and from a female. If the slightest stress induces hermaphroditism, kill it. But if it is induced by your hand (spraying colloidal silver on female for instance) that pollem should give 99,x% female seed.
But these techniques are in practice not as easy as in theory :D

Some females produce male flowers when they go overtime, a build in mechanism for self pollination, and I assume that should be female dominant pollem too.
 
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@acrid said: " So, it got me wondering are herm seeds worth keeping?"

In my very limited experience I have grown 4 herm seeds. A Jack Herer, Master Kush, Super Skunk, and a Gold Leaf. In each case the herm seed plant was literally 2 twice the size of the parent plant and the potency was every bit as good if not better than the parent plant. In each case it appears the plants only produced a single seed, so while the plants did not 'hermie bad' I would assume they are hermie seeds? All plants were originally from fem seeds. If any more seeds turn up in my stash I will gladly grow it. This year I am growing M/F plants and trying to produce seeds.

Not a scientific experiment, just the experience of one grower.

Longball

This is nice to see. Everyone goes crazy about hermis but as long as the bud isn't FILLED with seeds who cares!! I always thought of finding a seed or two as a bonus. Nice to hear the potency and yield could improve from the parent!
 
@TGTDE said "Everyone goes crazy about hermis but as long as the bud isn't FILLED with seeds who cares!! I always thought of finding a seed or two as a bonus. Nice to hear the potency and yield could improve from the parent!"

Hello TGTDE!

Speaking from very limited experience, I agree. Based on this limited experience, I look forward to finding a seed or 2.

This plant produced a single 'hermie' seed. Never saw the male flower! But I found a seed eventually and planted it(in desperation I admit, long story)

SS.jpg


I grew that 'hermie' seed and it produced this plant, which according to my inexperienced eye, certainly appears to be a least twice the size of the 'mother' plant which started as a fem seed. No loss in potency.

Darla.jpg

Longball
 
This Jack Herer also produced 1 single 'hermie' seed.

JH 1.jpg


The Jack Herer hermie seed was planted and produced this fine speciman! Again , twice the size of original mother. Keep in mind, this is not a conclusive scientific experiment. Just what happened to me.

Jack.jpg


As the thread is titled 'Do you even need a male anymore?'. I believe absolutely YES! So I've kept this male plant. Even counting the bucket, a bit over the 6 foot wall!

G Male.jpg


Where would we be without the Haze A & C males. Long live the males!

Longball
 
This Jack Herer also produced 1 single 'hermie' seed.

View attachment 53345


The Jack Herer hermie seed was planted and produced this fine speciman! Again , twice the size of original mother. Keep in mind, this is not a conclusive scientific experiment. Just what happened to me.

View attachment 53346


As the thread is titled 'Do you even need a male anymore?'. I believe absolutely YES! So I've kept this male plant. Even counting the bucket, a bit over the 6 foot wall!

View attachment 53347


Where would we be without the Haze A & C males. Long live the males!

Longball

Killer specimens!! Very jealous. How was the smoke?
 
@TGTDE said: "Killer specimens!! Very jealous. How was the smoke?"

The smoke was great, in some cases I think better than the original. While I'm not sure how to prove it here is a picture of a joint I smoked recently of a 2020 Master Kush plant I grew from a 2019 Master Kush hermie seed. For some reason I seem to only get a single seed from these plants. That's ok. I don't have any good comparision picture of the Master Kush mother and it's hermie plant. But here is the 'hermie' Master Kush joint. It was absolutely outstanding and I wish every joint I smoke is like that :)

Webp.net-compress-image(2).jpg

Longball
 
yeah, got all gunked up with THC resin. The stains up on the joint is because I could no longer get a hit off the end so I had to kind of mouth it halfway up to get some oxygen to get the joint to burn. In the end it got too gunked up to finish. Love joints like that with all the THC resin flowing out! :love: Yes, hermie smoke can be potent! Don't know a thing about hermie pollen though. Sounds like a future problem but a seed here and there seem ok?

Longball
 
Awesome guys :) A Congo was self pollinating too and I attained several seeds while I only found one closed banana shaped male flower.

But these seeds (from a self pollinating female) are totally different then seeds from a male dominant hermafrodite.
Using hermafrodite male dominant pollem (hence instable genetics) for future seeds is a waiting problem imho. Unless you induced it yourself and need male seeds I see no benefit.

I have a plant (non-MNS) that was a male but turning female. I've seen herm flowers on a predominantly female plant before, but not the other way around. So, it got me wondering are herm seeds worth keeping?
I have always thrown them out but since I've realized the power of pollen it has me thinking maybe I should keep it.
In essence the seeds will be selfed, and a clone of the parent(?) correct me if I am wrong but that could be a good thing, for preserving purposes (1960's heirloom), breeding maybe not so much..
 
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Great thread, some good posts in here.

Males are definitely needed, nature - balance and all that.

Some selfed pollen doesn't always take as was the case with the clone only UK Cheese.

Takes longer but I'd prefer a stable line from backcrossing/cubing.

Fems, I mostly used to get the basics of growing learnt or when I had to have downtime and the jars needed repleneshing pronto. I've paid for 1 pack of fem seed and a good portion of my fridge tub is occupied with Dinafem and Sweet Seeds giveaways from photo's from my jar filling runs. While I have had some nice smokes from feminised seed I've never had what you would call a nailed on keeper or anything special which I find strange as these fem seeds are supposedly from "elite clone" beginnings.

I don't find it hard to find quality reg seeds with genetics I'm most familiar with and happy to continue working with and smoking - variety is the spice of life but there isn't half as much as what's made out to be out there, everything on the fem market is just a poly-hybrid of a poly-hybrid of a poly-hybrid of a...
 
...I don't find it hard to find quality reg seeds with genetics I'm most familiar with and happy to continue working with and smoking - variety is the spice of life but there isn't half as much as what's made out to be out there, everything on the fem market is just a poly-hybrid of a poly-hybrid of a poly-hybrid of a...

Hermaphrodism is nothing to fk with. 🤣

For the purposes of increasing fem seeds, perhaps. Some may consider this a desirable trait. Not sure it is what Mendel or Burbank had in mind though, this selfing business. Seems more about money than advancing genetics. And BTW, propagating clones is not breeding. In and by itself, we know that hermaphrodism naturally occurs in nature as a survival mechanism. That is totally cool, but it is not cool in grows requiring sensimella. It doesn't take long for one errant plant to ruin an entire crop and a seeded crop in this instance would be a disaster. From my perspective, there is no room for uncertainty; hermaphrodites are more trouble than they are worth and are immediately removed and killed. Nothing is that good to jeopardize one's heirloom repository. Like taking in a stray dog, one always has to keep an eye out, not knowing when you may get bit. Variety is indeed the spice of life; for some, it is the pursuit of the elite clone, for others like myself, it is about the F1's and F2's.

IMG_3892.jpg

🤙Mu
 
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