How do you handle growing from un-sexed seeds in a small space?

Basic Growing Info
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I have another newbie question. Im going to be getting some un-sexed seeds from @Kalgrae - Thanks again!!

I understand I will need to veg these long enough to see if they are male or female, then ditch the males. But how do you do that in a small space hydro grow with only two ebb/flow pots in the tent? I dont have room or $$ for two grow tents.

Im worried that, if I plant several seeds in each pot, by the time they are old enough to tell the sex of the plants, they will have huge root balls that will all be mixed together in the pots. If I cut down the males, wont that leave a bunch of roots to rot and cause issues?

How would you handle this?

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What are the dimensions of the tent? Have you considered doing a soil grow. You can use small containers (1/2 gallon) and keep them small until they show sex.

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What kind of hydro system are you using?

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Space is about 28"x38"x48"tall = roughly 7 sq ft.

Im growing in soil now, but plan to do a DIY ebb/flow setup for my second grow. Here is the plan.

hydro planlabeled.jpg939Ă—630 99.8 KB

If I start them in soil pots, wont that be a pain to transfer to the hydro?

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I just start twice as many as I need and toss males during stretch. Ebb and flow tables are nice because you can still move stuff around. Pack them in, veg them out, start to flower, then toss the males and give the females room to stretch.

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Put 2 plants per pot, repot as needed after sex is determined. Easily done in perlite

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It sounds like you are both saying it wont be an issue with the roots getting all mixed together in the grow media? Hydroton in my case.

I was concerned I would not be able to separate the two sets of roots and when I pull the males, I will rip out some of the female roots and leave behind male roots that will then rot.

I just thought of another possible issue. Im going to do a scrog. On my current (first) grow, I started training the plants into the scrog screen at week 5 of veg and they didnt show pre-sex until week 7. So I was two weeks into the scrog, still in veg, before I had any clue on sex. I flipped to 12/12 at week 8.

How would you handle that - just wait to start training into the screen?

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You can use fabric pots to keep the roots seperate. It will somewhat restrict the roots but you should still be able to fill your space even after culling 1/2 the plants. Or just cut the tops and leave the roots intertwined. You might want to use some enzymes in your reservoir if you do this to start to break the dead roots down. SCROG could be a problem if you start before sexing. Feminized seeds?

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My current grow is fem seeds, but I’m really wanting to try these unsexed seeds. They sound like they would be an excellent fit for my medical needs.

I just had another thought based on your comment. Is it possible to just trim off the branches with the male bits and leave the plant alive? In other words, castrate the stinker, but leave enough leaves to keep it alive?

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You can cut the root ball in half and repot. It will stunt them a little but they will come back.

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It would probably keep trying to put out flowers, but I guess if you were religious about removing them you could do it.

You could grow the regular seeds out in a less restrictive setup, pick a phenotype you like and take clones to run in your system.

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Good to know. If all else fails, this can be a fallback option. Thanks!

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Thats an interesting idea. I could just let them grow until I can sex them, then take clones and start over.

Hmmmm. How long can you keep clones around before they need to go into the grow tent with proper lighting and heat etc? I seem to remember someone saying you can keep freshly cut clones in a fridge for several weeks?

If I could keep them “on ice” for several weeks, then that takes away a lot of the worry. If I screw up the removal of the male plants or the roots die and kill the females or I kill them trying to re-pot, I would have the clones to fall back on and they would be female for sure.

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Another thought just occurred to me - how bad is it really if you get some males and they do their thing with the ladies?

I dont smoke, so every part of my grows will be going into making RSO - leaves, stems, and buds. Will I loose a huge % of oil if I let them breed?

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Often, the lack of selection leads to inferior crosses. On the first run, should be the least trouble with successive runs potentially deteriorating in quality.

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I would say yes, I am working through some heavily seeded bud and I would say it’s about 75% seed and stem by weight. It’s OK because I only pollinated one branch of each plant, if the whole garden is that way you won’t like it.

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Thats too bad. Thanks guys.

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Why don’t you stick them in small soil pots till they show sex, then when females are ID’d, rinse the soil/perlite from roots and into hydro…
I don’t do hydro , nearest to hydro for me is a hempy bucket lol… I find soil suits myself… or use fabric pots as said by someone else :arrow_up: You’ll find a way no doubt.! Happy growing
Gaz

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Thats a viable option for sure - but - then I wouldnt get to play with my shiny new hydro setup until I started flowing :slight_smile:

Thanks for the help!!

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You could have Phylos or another lab test them. I think Phylos charges $15 for 4 tests. You send them a small sample like a smashed cotyledon and they will find out if the plant it came from is male or female. You would find out weeks earlier.

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