Recognizing Males and Females

Here you see male flowers on a very small male flower. These flowers will open within a few hours. — This smal male plant has male flowers ready to open and spread pollen

Female in early flowering — This is a White Widow in early flowering. Hairs are popping out everywhere.

Hermaphrodite — A Hermie - just pull the plant and use it. Don't let it grow.

Female preflowers come right here. Notice the two white hairs coming out of the calyx of the female flower — Female preflower come right here. Notice the two white hairs from each flower.

In order to grow marijuana of highest quality we want to make sure there are no male plants in between our crop.

Why are we removing males?

When the males are removed the female flowers do not get pollinated and start making seeds - instead they get bigger and keep making flowers for a longer period. You can smoke the male plants too, but mostly we take it too early for any hardcore THC production.

When to remove males?

When you first see sign of male flowers just harvest the plants - when you are completely sure that is. You don't want a male plant to cause any shadow on the females and neither do you want the male to open the flowers making all your crop full of seeds containing 0% THC. The male plants usually flower some weeks earlier than the females. This gives you plenty of time to find the males and get rid of them before anny pollination happens.

If you want to make seeds you need both males and females

Remember that if you wish to create seeds for fun or some other reason instead of planting out all female clones of your favorite plant - then you will be needing to save a nice male plant's pollen. You can shake the plant in a bag - save it in the freezer for when females flower - then put som pollen carefully on some bottom branches with female flowers. You want to put pollen right on the female flower's white hairs.

Watch out for Hermies!!!

If you have stressed your plants or don't know where the seeds come from you have to watch out for male flowers on the female plant. Just a few flowers that will grow and open in 2-3 days can pollinate a LOT of weed and thereby make weed with seeds in them. These seeds are off course of no use since they will carry on the hermaphrodite genes. I i see one i just ripit with no bad feelings. It's like killing a sick animal - just get rid of it when you see it.