In this crazy yet beautiful world of cannabis, there’s a certain phenomenon that is hard to realize that they do exist. One of the most common phenomena that are happening among cannabis plants is a hermaphrodite weed. While this type of event doesn’t happen in humans or animals, they are prevalent among cannabis plants.
If you want to grow cannabis plants in your backyard and want to know hermaphroditism, then you are in for a treat. In this article, you’ll be learning important things about hermaphroditism and why it occurs among cannabis plants.
What is a Hermaphrodite Weed?
In normal circumstances, a cannabis plant can be either female or male, and on rare occasions, cannabis plants can exude both reproductive organs of a male and female plant. There are many reasons why hermaphroditism occurs among cannabis plants and will be discussed later on in this article.
How Can You Recognize a Hermaphrodite Plant?
If you want to distinguish the appearance of a hermaphrodite weed, you’ll have first to see the structure of both male and female cannabis plants. For the most part, hermaphrodite weed can look like a female plant, but only smaller in structure. The process wherein they turn into hermaphrodites also affects their growth development.
Keeping a close eye among your cannabis plants is the key to identifying hermaphrodite plants at an early stage. Regular cannabis plants have different looking pollen sacks compared to hermies. Hermies have banana-like pollen sacks elongated and yellow, hence the name “bananas” for hermaphrodite weed.
When cannabis plants are still young, these banana-shaped sacs are noticeable on the female cannabis plants, when you discover these bananas, it is a telling sign that it’s a hermaphrodite weed.
Moreover, it is best to dispose of any cannabis plants that exude elongated banana-shaped sacks so it can’t pollinate other female cannabis plants. Otherwise, it defeats the purpose of sinsemilla.
What Causes a Cannabis Plant to Go Herm?
There are various factors why cannabis plants go herm, and they can be categorized into two major categorize, environmental factors and genetic factors.
Genetic Factors
Numerous strains of cannabis are predisposed genetically to produce higher chances of hermaphrodites. For instance, Thai Sativas are notorious for having an incredibly high percentage of producing hermie plants. So, if you plan on growing cannabis plants, most growers avoid this type of strain.
Another instance where hermaphrodites are rampant is when growers clone hermaphrodite plants, and these seeds are made. The offspring will also carry out those genes, leaving them with a higher chance of producing more hermies, hermaphrodite genes are highly passable from generation to generation.
As stated earlier, if you want to avoid hermaphrodite plants from pollinating other female cannabis plants, monitor them first. If you find one, then cut it out immediately.
Environmental Factors
Another primary reason when cannabis plants go herm is ecological stress. Although genes play a role in it, they aren’t as significant as the environmental factor is.
Cannabis plants are known to be sensitive plants, a sudden change in their environment, and quickly adapt to it. When female cannabis plants sense something negative that leads to stress, they will react as a defense mechanism.
When this defense mechanism occurs, hermaphroditism is the way they go about it and shortens their reproduction time, making them easier to reproduce. If the male and female reproductive organs are present in a single plant, pollinating the flowers is easier and produces seeds faster to preserve their genes.
What are the Environmental Factors that lead to hermaphroditism?
Here are some of the most common causes of hermaphroditism associated with environmental factors.
- Altered Light Cycle – alterations between light and day cycles tend to stress plants easily. These are particularly common for cannabis plants grown on an indoor environment; when light leaks during the night cycle, it disturbs the plant. To avoid this, seal up any potential light leaks in your grow room.
- Temperature too high – when cannabis plants experience high temperatures exceeding 27ºC, then plants are likely to be stressed. Please note that there are many environmental stressors for cannabis when one is present, they go hermaphrodite in some cases.
- Stressed physically – if you decide on topping or pruning your cannabis plants during their flowering cycle, it may find themselves stressed, and their defense mechanism soon kicks in. Any structural damage within the plant, either roots, stems, or flower, can induce stress. If you plan to prune or top them, do it during their vegetative stage as they are still developing.
- Plant pests – molds and mildews formation quickly spread among your cultivar. To avoid this, keep your grow room adequately ventilated and has once a single pathway.
- Toxic products – pesticides and insecticides are made with harmful chemicals. Excessive plant regulators can disturb the plant’s balance. Minimize yourself with these enhancers; let them grow naturally.
- Hydric stress – too much or too little of water can stress out the plant. Avoid overwatering at all costs. Also, too cold or too hot may play a role as well. Keep everything in moderation, sometimes – too much of a good thing is a bad thing.
- Don’t delay the harvest – never miss the window of opportunity when harvesting. Delaying your harvest means stressing the entire plant.
- What Things To Do when Hermaphrodite Weed is Detected Within your Grow
Knowing what is the measure you need to do when you’ve detected a hermie in your grow highly depends on what time they were discovered and what the circumstances are. For example, when one of your cannabis plants turns hermie at the end of their flowering cycle, the best thing to do is harvest as much cannabis as possible.
However, if you had detected that your cannabis plants turned hermie before their flowering period started, the best way to deal with this is to cut them off from your grow room entirely immediately. If you’re not cutting them, your risk all of your female cannabis plants by getting them pollinated by this hermie. This results in an even more headache as the offspring of the pollinated female plants will have a higher chance of having hermaphrodite traits. Always keep an eye on your male plants exuding yellow-colored, banana-like figures as they emerge.
Conclusion
Coming across with a hermaphrodite weed in your grow shouldn’t shock you as they are pretty common these days whenever you cultivate cannabis plants. However, it pays to have a keen eye on developing hermaphrodite weed so that you can cut them off and minimize the risk of pollinating your precious female cannabis plants.
As long as you provide the very best within your grow space, cannabis plants, and minimize the stress that occurred within your plants, you reduce the chances of transforming them into hermies. Finally, it will be labor-intensive to watch over them continually, but once you’ve successfully monitored and harvested them, all hardships will eventually pay off.
