Anyone Seen a Male Hermi?

What @deep_rob said is not pure opinion… there are actual facts in there.

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Indeed, lots of off-topic and opinions in here. The whole fem seeds and breeding is a whole other argument. I should have known better, lol.

Never thought I would be told to “get some proper males and females” on a hobby/home growers website. Personally I just like people who grow; top shelf F1’s, F2’s, friends seeds or bagseed.

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My buddy had a male from the Maui daydream that he kept alive in a solo cup in the kitchen, it kept growing pollen sacs for about 2 months and then burst with hairs one day, it wound up creating around 20 seeds on it self before finally dying. I doubt he will ever grow them out but if he does I’ll make sure to take note on what happens.

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Cool, I’ve heard of rodelization with a female but never a male.

If you have any pics or stories let me know :slight_smile:

I’m guessing it was probably just recessive hermaphroditic traits showing up do to the extreme stress and neglect it was put threw.

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Not true w female herms for sure

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That cool, do you have a story behind your experience or link? I was wondering about when the chromosomes change if they do temporarily or permanently change the plant. Did you stress a female, put it back into veg then re-flower and it was fine the second time?

Its been fine on most runs since but if too high temps itll throw nanners

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Thanks, good to know :slight_smile: I know some strains are more prone than others but have never tried it myself.

I have a few pistils on the lower branches of my male plant that I plan to use as a donor. I’ve heard that DJ Short favors this trait in breeding, I think in his book on breeding he says it can increase potency. I’ve also heard it may increase the precentage of female offspring. The downside would seem to be that the male would produce less pollen as it is putting energy into female pistil production (very little effect as low pistil production) and that the trait on my plant may have been passed down as the pollen falls onto the pistils below and maybe produce seeds (not sure if the pistils would even be pollinated and produce seed, not that I would want that). I don’t think a small male herm would increase intersex traits/herms in female offspring. Many of the comments in this thread just say its a herm, therefore its bad. That’s not how science works, but I guess it is worth mentioning that there may be pros and cons that I don’t fully understand. @lefthandseeds seems to have a good perspective on this, but there is a lack of info here still. I’ve read of Sam Skunkman interested in reversing and smoking male plants, but that is somewhat off topic. I’m also interested in what meangene says on male’s with pistils.

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Just to note, the reason I selected this plant is mostly structure but also partly becasue the stem rub. The stem rub on this male with a few female pistils had the strongest aroma.

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Meangene says that he knows a breeder who got the most stable female progeny off of a male that had a few female hairs/pistils. Meangene says that a male plant that shows male and grows some hairs/pistils is different than a plant with strong intersex traits, like a 50/50 male female.
Meangene proposes a hypothesis that there may be an opposite state to the herms commonly seen on females and this opposite state may be preferred for breeding. As in females are so female that even the males are slightly female and therefore are the most stable female lines, meangene cites Tom Hill and Dj Short but says it is still speculation to his knowledge.

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That’s because males that throw pistils will also tend to show more female traits, like resin glands.

I’ve grown probably 25-30 Jungle Spice (Congo x 88G13HP) females from seed. I’ve never seen a nanner, let alone balls on a female. Probably 50% or more of the males throw pistils. If someone wants to convince me that male pistils are bad for female stability, they have an uphill battle with me because experience says otherwise.

I’d even wager that if you inbred any number of Bodhi’s 88G13HP crosses, you’ll find plenty of males with pistils. People don’t find intersex females with Bodhi’s 88G13HP crosses that I’m aware of. All anecdotal, but the evidence that says pistils on males = intersex females just isn’t there, while there is lots of evidence that those males produce stable females and perhaps even seed populations with >50% females.

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I have had males with pistils on a few Bodhi strains. I am just in the process of growing out some crosses that i used some pollen with to see what happens.

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i had a male hermi with top dawg gear once… it was all man, except for one bud site near the bottom, which had a seed. The bud was frosty af, and had the nastiest smell i’ve ever smelled… hard to describe… but it was really really pungent. the pollen sacks did seem to be bigger and more full of pollen than other males of the same strain.

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Its still a herm. Pretty sure Ive seen DJ argue this before.

Hermy = both sex organs. Hermie

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Sure, it’s a herm, but you just did what a lot of people on this thread do, say it is a herm and not explaining the effects. When the word herm is used it almost always denotes a female unexpectantly throwing pollen; I have seen no evidence that this trait is passed down to females with male herm fathers. The question is wherther or not a male herm is preferential for breeding.

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There may be herms that lean one way or the other but I agree there is only three , male - female - hermi bastard. There could be some long winded beneficial approach to using hermaphrodites in breeding but I doubt it and why risk it when there are so many good genetics to play with.

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Yeah…hermies are interesting. It can be a waste of time to work with them and in other cases some of the best strains in world came from some hermy pollen. So if you got the time and space give things a chance. Life does find a way sometimes.
But it does work both ways. I used a strain known to herm. Found a male with ONLY males parts and bred him with 5 totally different females. They all hermed except one. So…yeah. I’ll be breeding her soon just to see what happens. Probably more hermies. But if I can reduce the amount of herms with each breeding then I will keep breeding until the problem is gone.
I do plan on utilizing growing outdoors to stabilize the little bastards. After each outdoor season I’ll grow them out indoors and see if they herm.

Another edit*
Now that I thought about things a little more. I believe I’ll keep the only female that didn’t herm to clone from… for now.
But I do have a better feeling backcrossing the best male i kept to the original mother to stabilize the genome. Then grow out female offspring to see what the herm ratio is.
I guess I could do both breeds at the same time. For instance i could put the male outdoors now as the lighting has changed and everything is budding outdoors here. Maybe help the male be more stable in a natural environment. I’ll just throw the mom back in the attic with the other girls I’m flowering. Then bring the love birds together in a seperate in-closed room in a different part of the house. Sounds like a good plan. Results may prove different…

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Good plan V4vendetta, I think breeding with a male is usually a good way to reduce herm traits in female plants, but it does depend on the genes of the male and whether those genes being passed down have herm tendencies in females.
This situation you mention V4vendetta is a bit different than breeding with a male that shows a couple female pistils, as your male doesn’t have this trait. I have never seen a female herm in the line where I selected a male with a couple pistils (a male herm) as the father.
@Heritagefarms, there is a big difference between a female herm that has one pollen sac and a male herm that has one pistil. There may be more risk in using a male herm in breeding, but I’d like to see the evidence. The possibility of benefits in using a male herm in breeding is a risk I’m willing to explore until I’m shown more evidence than just, “its a herm, therefore its bad”. However, there is evidence, mostly anecdotal, that indicates male herms have benefits for breeding.

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