How to determine the sex of cannabis
Cannabis is a bisexual plant, and only non-pollinated female plants produce buds. Before the advent of feminized seeds, every grower had to be able to determine the sex of cannabis: find male plants and hermaphrodites in order to remove them from the plantation.
Feminized seeds produce female plants with a 96-99% chance. The exact percentage of "girls" when germinating regular seeds is not known in advance, so the grower should check all plants for male characteristics before flowering. It is also recommended to control feminized bushes, especially for beginners. The appearance of hermaphrodites or male bushes among women is usually associated with improper care: violation of the irrigation regime and poor lighting, excessive potassium fertilization.
Differences between male and female plants
Male bushes are noticeably taller than female ones. Nature thus facilitated the process of pollination. This is also the first signal for the grower to take a closer look at the plants.
Female plants are not only lower, but also more compact. The foliage is thicker than that of the "boys".
By the flowering phase, plants form sexual characteristics - pre-flowers. In "girls" usually in the sixth week of the growing season, in "boys" they appear a few weeks earlier, which makes it easier to identify them in a timely manner. Look for the first pre-flowers between the fourth and fifth nodes from the root. In female plants they are pear-shaped, with two thin hairs, in male plants they are spherical. Mounted on legs, usually appear immediately in five or more pieces in one place. During maturation, the male pre-flowers elongate into a banana shape and turn yellow. It is important to remove the bushes before this point so that the pollen does not have time to come out and pollinate the female plants.
Also, hermaphrodites should be removed from the plantation - plants that have female and male characteristics. In appearance, they first resemble "girls", but at the pre-flowering stage, along with female "pears", they have male pre-flowers.
How to determine the sex of cannabis