Sexing in veg, savants and veterans please post up!

Breeder's Lab
#1

So first, is everyone familiar with sexing chickens, or chicken sexing, or “chicken venting”? I’ll let your minds wander a bit!

Ok here is what I’m referring to:

Trained/skilled humans sex food industry chickens when they are tiny chicks fresh out of the shell. The females are kept, and they cull the males. This sounds strangely familiar.

((Now, animal cruelty is a thing, moral relativity is a thing, all on a 3D gradient, and human creativity is endless so long as time is endless, and so on some level, this topic is touchy. I get that and respect that. At the same time I’m laser focused on the human-AI-sexing aspect of the industry. I’d like to pay respect to the pain teacher here but ask that we chat about that side of life in another room.))

So, I’m here to ask if you or anyone you know has the ability/skill to sex a plant in veg reliably. It might be based on structure, vigor, preflower shape, or something I’ve not thought of. If you can honestly sex the plant, you probably don’t know how exactly you’re doing it (but I still want you to try to articulate it).

It would seem that sexing in veg is exceedingly difficult, and genetic testing is widely available. I still assume that among us walk a few veg sexers, perhaps not even realizing it?!

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#2

Pre-flowers, most reliable way, without lab testing. (At least to me.) I’ve got 3 week olds that are showing.

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#3

Often mine won’t show until week 7 or more, it’s a pain in the butt.
I’ve thought about experimenting with the lighting, maybe tick down a few minutes each few days until they show, then back to 18/6.

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#4

Agree with this.
Preflowers always show up once the plant reaches maturity. I know this a debated topic but I have always had great success with 23/1 my first three weeks and then week 4 I’ll drop to 18/6 and the preflowers always show up.

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#5

There are physical features that suggest sex but it’s tough to be sure.

I make guesses and sometimes I’m right. Maybe 50% of the time :joy:

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#6

I usually have my outdoor plants from seed sexed by June. You look at the pre flowers. It’s quite simple with a small scope

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#7

I have about a 75% success rate guessing sex in late veg; the shape of the preflowers usually gives enough to go on. It saves a few weeks of flower time sexing them, but it’s really not as useful as sex testing seedlings based on cotyledons would be if it were cheap and readily available to prohibition-land. Still have to grow out the plant for a month or so before it’s large enough. I often take a clone and then put the original plant into flower first just because I’m impatient and want to move things along.

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#8

@ReikoX uses two 12/12 days after three weeks of veg to get an early show.

@JoeCrowe is exploring early sexing with his research-grade photo micrographs.

-Grouchy

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#9

I usually start moving plants to opposite sides of the grow to separate the sexes about week 3 of veg based on vigor and something that I can’t quite put into words because I sometimes move plants that most think would be fem but I just know that they are male. I’ve only been wrong about 15% of the time. I told a growmie once that he had best move the male away from his girls and they insisted that it was showing fem preflower, all I can say is they ended up with a lot of hash material because by the time they realized that it was male a bunch of early pollen had been released already and seeded the other 3 plants in the grow.

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#10

There’s a trick to sex early I learned from Skunkman Sam saves you a few weeks.If you wait till your plants get to the 5th or 6 th node give them one to two days 12/12 and flip back to 18/6.They will express just enough to show thier sex for a brief min then revert back to veg.Equatorial varieties need 3 days of 12/12 then back to flip.I’ve never had a problem with herms doing this.

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#11

I appreciate the other responses so much, but wanted to specifically state that your behavior as reported is the stuff of the savant; the person who has no idea why they can draw so well, so to speak! And no matter what they could tell me, they can’t help ME draw even though its the same pencil, paper, etc.

An excerpt from that link I posted:

“How the accomplished chicken sexer achieves such accuracy is a riddle. According to Richard Horsey, a cognitive scientist who studies the process of chicken sexing, “If you ask the expert chicken sexers themselves, they’ll tell you that in many cases they have no idea how they make their decisions.” Cognitive scientists are fascinated by chicken sexing because the mechanisms behind it could be essential for better understanding the way we assess other situations and, in turn, make other decisions.”

I have 6 plants at day 30, a few with preflowers (Kali Mist, Juju Bee) and a few with nothing yet (Jalalagod, TKNL5. I suspect preflower appearance somewhat predicts flowering duration too?

Over time I’ve become obsessed with early sexing. I’m using a couple days of 12/12, I’m taking macro photography of the preflowers. I’m taking microscope shots. I’m looking at structure (shoulders and hands). I’m looking for odors, anything really!! I’m sorting and trying to guess early and track success.

Guessing female, ends up being female = ~50% rate. (LOL) @Foreigner looking at you!!

Guessing male and ends up being male = ~75% rate. (Better)

So although obvious it’s good to remind myself that I’m really looking for a masculine essence. To gain cycles on this I’d need to inspect a ton of vegging males over time. These two sentences alone are worth printing on a xmas card with no context, but that’s besides the point!

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#12

Thank you for this, I hadn’t taken anything to 3 days 12/12 so far! Not saying TKNL5 is an equatorial variety but 2 days of 12/12 made zero preflower difference at day 28). Maybe timing is off!

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#13

I’ve often tried to predict which is which but I’ve often been wrong idk if there’s a sure fire way without pre flowers?

A trick i picked up is to cut a shoot from the vegging plant and put that in a glass of water and put it 12-12 letting your plants to grow on uninterrupted.

If you know what sex they are you can tie them, train them etc with confidence.

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#14

Here’s what I’ve noticed about the cannabis plant sexes.

  1. They have sexual dimorphism aka females are smaller.
  2. females grow a preflower at about the 7th node if they are photos, and 4rth node for autos.
  3. only males grow a leaf bract at the node.
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#15

Two days wasn’t enough for the Dominion Diesel last time. I may just go with three from now on. :grin:

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#16

I have yet to sex in flower and I don’t think I’ve missed a male yet. I do veg a long time, usually about 70-80 days from seed, but it means preflowers have been easy to spot with a loupe on the top nodes. I definitely use preflower shape and position to decide, but really I’m just looking for that sparkle of a single pistil. Some strains show much earlier than others IME, C99 has been the easiest, it seems like it shows sex very early, weeks before some others.

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#17

I find that it is VERY strain-dependent on how reliable sexing is without pre-flowers…
But with a hand held magnifier or scope- look at the spurs that format all the nodes—
Tight behind the spur will eventually form either calyx’s or male bud clusters…

OFTEN (but not always) either a 2nd pointed/clawed ‘spur’ will form there-- meaning it will become a calyx/female flower… or a rounded, sometimes football shaped ‘nub’ will start to form-meaning t is male.

Some plants will NOT do this until in 12/12 and damned good and ready to pre-flower… others will ‘show’ around week 5- of veg… and it does NOT account for hermies, and is in no way 100% accurate!!

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#18

Well it’s not rocket science. Been growing for a minute, there’s no reliable pre-male pollen sac that I’ve seen.
I’ve heard many 'if it has this leaf or that leaf ’ and other preposterous nonsense. But speaking from experience…
Until you see the banana, lack of obvious white hair protruding from you know where, refrain from a decision.
Secondly, while I see and hear MANY talks of ‘herming’ and hermaphrodites , in many seasons, never seen it. Must be an indoor thing.
Had friends that let plants go too long, and they may have ‘hermed’ but otherwise, I dunno. Maybe Im Just lucky

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#19

Iirc Dave/Sam said 2-3 days of 9+ dark hrs

It helps but it won’t show up the next day or anything like that. I don’t have a set time for doing it but usually around day 30 in veg for 2 consecutive nights.

This year my light schedule is 15.5 on, 8.5 off then abruptly to 11/13 or 10/14 depending on when I get my shit together. :sweat_smile: bright blue LED in my garage doesn’t affect them at all, neither does jumping around with the bloom time.

:evergreen_tree:

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#20

Hi @LD50 > permission to add

After week 6 > Veg mode >18x6 > Near the full moon > Foliar feed > Salt flower boost > At least the males get out of the cabinet

Savants rules OG :call_me_hand: :green_heart:

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