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How to Tell if Your Plant is Male or Female Before Flowering

The growing cannabis plant is quite interesting to try to grow as you need to learn many things about it, such as knowing what the sex (male or female) of the plant is. It is considered a big help for many cannabis growers who like to identify male plants from the growing room early to remove it through the entire growing process. So, how to tell if your plant is male or female before flowering?

Why Remove Male Cannabis Plants

The main reason they remove the male cannabis plant is that only the female plants develop potent flowers. Male cannabis plants produce non-potent pollen sacs, where the female grows its cannabis buds. Moreover, the female flowers are required to avoid pollen from the male plants to develop high-quality cannabis buds.

Here are the reasons why you need to remove male marijuana plants in your garden:

  • As mentioned, a male cannabis plant is not beneficial when you aim to harvest a high-quality cannabis bud. The male plants can affect the quality of female plants near them. However, without using male plants, you cannot bred female plants to develop new cannabis strain. 
  • On the other hand, female plants are the main source of high-quality cannabis buds. The buds it develops will either contain the seed or seedless. Growing female plants away from male will let you have seedless buds that called sensimilla.
  • Knowing the plant’s gender before the flowering stage can show a sign for you to determine either it is a female or male plant. The cannabis plant develops a small version of adult flowers, which helps you to reveal the plant’s gender.

Difference: How to Tell if Your Plant is Male or Female Before Flowering?

Female Cannabis Plant

So, how to tell if your plant is male or female before flowering? The female cannabis plant commonly begins to reveal its gender by having small preflowers during the first 4 to 6 weeks from seed. 

Check out these facts about female cannabis plants:

  • You may notice that the pre-flowers grow like a small white hair that comes out from a green-colored, compact shape calyx. This formation is commonly known as pistils. The small pre-flowers will grow into cannabis buds that have the biggest content of cannabinoids concentrates. 
  • The female plant will grow into three different kinds: automatic, feminized, and photoperiod.
  •  The small hairs of the female cannabis plant are called bracts. If the cannabis plants have small bracts, this will definitely a female plant. It is the popular sign to help you reveal the gender of your plant before flowering. Similar to male plants, females also grow their sex organs in an area where the leaves connected to the stalk. 

Before the flowering stage, both male and female plants have the same looks that make you feel confused about knowing their gender. One way to help you reveal your plant’s gender before it reaches its flowering stage is by looking for small hairs. Those who have small hairs are female cannabis plants.

Male Cannabis Plant

Male and female cannabis plant both grows flowers that look different. The cannabis plant will grow a flower that seems like a small ball that usually appears after 3 to 4 weeks from the seed. When the male plant matures, it grows pollen sacs with pollen grains inside that no trichomes content. 

Check out these facts about male cannabis plants:

  • You can see the pollen sacks near the leaves that connected the stalks. The nodes will until the cannabis plant becomes fully mature. You always need to check the nodes as it can possibly burst, and the pollen within will goes everywhere. 
  • The male cannabis plant is not responsible for producing high-quality buds. Still, they are very reliable when it comes to pollinating female plants in order to develop more cannabis seeds and buds. 
  • Another method that you can use to help you reveal the gender of your plant before flowering is by using a small hand-held microscope. With this material, you can see a closer look where you see the spot of pollen sacks develops. 
  • Other early signs if the plant is male is they are commonly growing taller and less bushy compared to the female cannabis plants. 
  • Moreover, the male preflowers develop fast about 3 to 4 weeks. When the pollen sacs open, they certainly begin pollinating that burst not only in your existing crop but range about 5 km around.

Hermaphrodite Plant

Sometimes, the hermaphrodite cannabis plant will occur. The plant will develop both male and female flowers. If the plant becomes stressed, it begins to develop flowers that have the opposite sex on each part. 

Hermaphrodite in male plants still works with no issue, but in female plants, this will worsen the plant resulted in fertilizing itself. In a garden with all-female plants grows, there is one hermaphrodite plant develops resulted from many growing seeds used. 

Here are the good-to-know things about hermaphrodite marijuana plants:

  • Hermaphrodite plants that need to get rid of your garden once you detect it as it can possibly begin to pollinate some other female or male plants. It will result in producing more hermaphrodite plants. 
  • To help you check for hermaphrodites plant in your growing area, the first thing you need to do is to check each node of the plant where you check about the gender. This technique is ideal if you have less number of cannabis plants. However, if you deal with different garden annoyances, checking each node will definitely give you a hard time.
  •  Another sign to check in your plant is if it has growing anthers. These anthers are also known as bananas. Once you notice an anther in your plant quickly remove them as it can make your crop a mess. 

Anthers or bananas are consists of yellow-colored broaden sexual organs that look like the growth of female cannabis buds. Anthers develop pollen that pollinates your plant and develops many hermaphrodite seeds. If you are aiming to produce other kinds of seeds, it is better to kill all the male and hermaphrodite plants first.

Conclusion

So, how to tell if your plant is male or female before flowering? By knowing the gender earlier before flowering will allow you to choose how many plants, male or female plants you will keep. Knowing the gender of your plants plays an important role in your future harvest as it helps you harvest a high quality and a large number of yields. 

It can also help you develop your very own new hybrid strains or make your current favorite strain a sturdier one. With such ideas, you may now easily identify the male and female cannabis plants, even the hermaphrodites.

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