Bud Bananas? - 4 weeks into flower

[DirtyDanny]

I used to see these "false male flowers" years and years ago in my outdoor crops randomly.
An "old timer" i showed them to said it from from a "overgrown strain" and the strains genetics needed refreshed by crossbreeding with a different strain to refreshen the gene pool.
We did end up cross-breeding our crops a few years later.........and magically the false male flowers never appeared again im my crop after that.
Im an old skool grower and I just started catching up with all the new Tech and grow slang.........So my method of madness is quite outdated and obsolete.....Take it with a grain of salt::

 

[AfricanGrower]

>>> The exhaust fan comes on twice at night to remove humidity and constant on during daylight.

Quick clarification question xtrachessreal, does your whole ventilation system shut off during the dark period except for those two times it comes on at night, or do you still have intake running constantly throughout the grow?

 

[xtrchessreal]

All the fans shut off then an hour later just the exhaust fan comes on for 15 mins and once again a few hours before daylight just for 15 mins. Is that bad?

X

 

[AfricanGrower]

No its not bad, I was just asking as long as your temps and humidity are steady you are good! Although I like to keep constant breeze on my plants to promote thicker stem development.

 

[xtrchessreal]

I used to see these "false male flowers" years and years ago in my outdoor crops randomly.
An "old timer" i showed them to said it from from a "overgrown strain" and the strains genetics needed refreshed by crossbreeding with a different strain to refreshen the gene pool.
We did end up cross-breeding our crops a few years later.........and magically the false male flowers never appeared again im my crop after that.
Im an old skool grower and I just started catching up with all the new Tech and grow slang.........So my method of madness is quite outdated and obsolete.....Take it with a grain of salt::

I got these from a friend's friend that has been producing these seeds on his own for about 15 years - so I was told. Maybe genetics are the issue AfricanGrower and DirtyDanny have made the same point from two different views.

I guess I can create a new crop from a different source and see if I still get issues. It just sucks that this is happening on my first bloom and I was so careful to build the room dark and calculate the cubic feet for lighting and air exhaust etc.

On the other hand, I just realized, my friend is growing a crop of the same stuff in a completely different room and is not seeing this so it is more likely that a systemic response is the culprit e.g. nutes, light, whatever else. I have been using a 4:1 mix of Hydrogen peroxide to fight off some gnats and it is also possible the roots are bound at this point in 3 gal pots. Flippin' who knows? I'll just keep pulling these false male flowers until its harvested.

Once again thanks for your input

X

 

[AfricanGrower]

How far along is your friend into flowering?

>>>Once again thanks for your input

And no prob X!

 

[xtrchessreal]

He is about 11 weeks into bloom, which just blows my mind since mine are at this point 6 weeks and looking very near the end. Acapulco Gold is known for yellowing early from what I've read. The plant I've pulled most of these flowers from was the first to begin yellowing and the others are just now beginning to look like it was at 4 weeks. However my others seem to have even better buds. My friend's is all green but lost its stem fan leaves. Plant 1 of mine lost all of its stem fan leaves and dropped most of its branch fan leaves. The bud leaves are green but also getting pale with some gold sugar all over them. The cola is about 7 inches tall and about 3 to 4 inches wide at the base, the branches have 3 to 4 inch buds on the tips and lots buds all the way from the stem to the tip of branches and lots of branches. My others have a 10 inch cola and as many branches. My friend has longer colas and buds but far fewer branches. The age is the same, the difference is I let mine veg for about 5 weeks longer under 120W cfl he used 400W MH. I bloom in 1000w HPS, He uses one 400W HPS, and three 400W MH.

To the point of my longer veg maybe the soil lost its buffer. Hey is it too late to transplant into bigger pots? I think I probably should have a bigger pot to help the roots and it would give some new soil and nutes. Jorge says many plants have been saved by transplanting. It's my first grow though and I don't want to be greedy and screw things up even worse. I don't have kids but you could imagine all the worries I would be going through if I did. I live with the creed less is more so I don't over do chemicals but I over do engineering the room, research, read, study... I wish I could fast forward to 10 grows from now so I could just be laughing.

X

 

[TheCapn]

Hey xtr and the subscribers here,

I'm seeing some nice advanced cannabis talk here; I like it! I thought this info might be helpful to some. disclaimer: I'm not an expert, and I don't have a degree in horticulture. I am speaking here from my own experience, and I welcome anyone to enlighten me if I say anything incorrect. xtr brings up some good info and questions about the "bud bananas". Like xtr was saying, there is not a lot of info available on this.

For those of you who found this thread with a google search... you might be saying, "my plant turned hermie!" Or someone may have told you this. I see it all the time on the forums. No it didn't "turn hermie". Your plant grew male reproductive organs due to stress. Cannabis is dioecious, meaning there are separate males and females, like people . I'm assuming you already know this, and you know how to sex them (plants, not people), but here is what I have found regarding cannabis plants:

If you really want to call it a "hermie" then so be it. But it's not a true hermaphrodite. A TRUE Hermaphrodite would be a plant that has both male and female organs, right from the time it starts to mature. This would be "by design". It is very rare to find a true Hermaphrodite in cannabis plants (or humans). There is so much incorrect information posted on the forums about Hermaphrodite cannabis plants. Like I said, I'm not an expert, but I'll tell you what I've learned from my experience.

What you've read about light leaks during flowering growth, IS TRUE. When I first started growing, I had light leaks like crazy, due to a poorly set up closet. My female plants would grow pollen sacs on lower branches, due to stress from light leaks, and who knows what other stress I subjected them to. My plants had seeds, but still plenty of smoke-able bud, and no more seeds than a cheap bag of street weed.

If you find male flowers on your plants during the flowering growth stage, don't throw that plant away, unless you have 10 other unaffected, pure females you want to prevent from being pollinated. If you're only growing a few plants, just let them grow. Plus, if you stressed one plant enough to grow male pollen sacs, the others probably have them too. Inspect all your plants every few days, and attempt to remove any male pollen sacs you find, before they open. First, spray them with a water mist (this will prevent pollen from becoming airborne), then use tweezers to remove and dispose of them. Yes, You will have seeds, but still plenty of smoke-able bud. Don't stress! It happens to many of us; your crop is not "ruined".

After a few "con semillas", (with seeds) crops, I got smart. I realized my watering timer came on the middle of the night, had a LED light on it, and lit up the closet. I also accidentally left my digital ppm / ph meter plugged in a few times, which also lit up the room. At one point, my plants in flower literally started to revert to vegetative growth! I made every mistake in the book. I know these seem like newbee blunders, but I have seen many seasoned growers make similar mistakes. When you go into your flower closet, you should wait 5 minutes for your eyes to adjust, and then you should still not be able to see your hand in front of your face. Go in your closet at different times and look around. Right at lights out, again just before lights on... you might notice some light leaking at different times of the lights out period.

Some females (humans and cannabis plants) are hard to please. They require near perfect conditions and even then it seems they are not satisfied. Some females (humans and cannabis plants) will still stab you in the back, even when you provide a perfect environment. The goal of any female (humans and cannabis plants) is to reproduce. It is instinct. When a plant is stressed, it is a natural instinct to try to reproduce. Therefore, it produces it's own male organs in an attempt to produce seeds / babies. I will agree, that some plants have a natural tendency to grow male organs. If this is your case, and you're sure you're not stressing your plants, grow a different strain or different seed.

In order to prevent your females from adopting testicles... there are some other things you can do to keep her happy. Give them a 10 - 15 degree change in temp between day and night and no hotter than 85 in the day. Give them the proper nutrients. Give them a cool growing medium (70F or cooler). Good airflow but not a wind storm. Don't rape your plant by cutting off too many branches or fan leaves in one sitting. Don't yell at your plants. Spend time with them, but don't micro-manage them. I have found that CONSISTENCY is important. Instead of spending more money on additives and co2 generators, get back to basics and make sure you have the environment set up properly. You can shower a woman with jewels and flowers, but if you don't treat them well, the fluff means nothing.

Near the end of flowering, females will have the instinct to grow male flowers, even when conditions are ideal. They do this because they know they are getting ready to die. This is common, especially when a plant is let go too long. If they can't produce seeds, babies won't grow next spring. I have seen this on many plants, particularly the TGA strains I have been growing over the last year (ACE and Agent Orange). They have a few male flowers here and there, but not like the typical pollen sacs you see at lower intersections due to stress. These are embedded in the bud, just like xtr was saying (picture below). I find them when I am trimming, and I cut them out of the buds. When I do this, I don't see any pollen poof out of them, like I do from normal male pollen sacs. When I say "male flowers", I'm referring to the presence of the yellow/lime green banana looking things. On a 14oz plant, I usually find about 1/2 dozen of these.

Here is the kicker... Over the last year or so, I have always had 2-3 large plants in flowering, at different stages. So, there is always a female ready to be pollinated. Upon harvest, I usually find a few of the "bananas" in the bud of almost every plant (not on lower intersections). But I have not produced a seed in two years (sin semilla). So, even with the presence of the male organs embedded in the bud, there is either no pollen, or the pollen that was released is sterile.

If anyone else has had a similar experience, I would like to hear it.

Here is a picture of the male flowers in the buds (frosty!):

 

[GigaGrew]

extremely good write up...apart from your opinion of women

 

[xtrchessreal]

Thanks TheCapn, Nice Pic! My camera just won't go there. Finally I feel better about what I am seeing. Your image shows exactly what I get.

I just so happen to be growing Acapulco Gold and some other unknown strain. The unknown strain shows false male flowers just like your pic and I have been pulling these off with tweezers for a while now. The AG had these for a while and then stopped. There is one big difference between the two.

The AG false male flowers would drop off almost like a leaf in the fall, I could use a pencil tip and just brush them and they would fall, I would catch them in a small cup of H2O2 as they fell. Sometimes I would come in the room and they would be on the floor or the soil.

The unknown strain takes some time to tweeze, I am as careful as can be to get the whole banana looking thing but many times on this strain they seem to poke out in groups of one, two, and four. If it is as yellow as in your pic I shut off the fans first before going after it.

I am half done with flushing to harvest. I figure the plants are so yellow now that even if they were somehow pollinated they would not have enough energy to produce any seed before harvest. So, I am more confident I am getting a good harvest.

As far as Light leaks I fixed all I could weeks ago and those were so minute it took 10 or 15 minutes just to see them. I cannot see my hand in front of my face, I cannot tell if my eyes are opened or closed. All of my controls are outside the room so no power strips or LEDs from anything are inside.

I have read some things that make me believe I stressed the plants from using a H2O2 solution to kill gnat larvae, while also using molasses as part of my nute program. The H2O2, from what I read reacted with molasses to kill good and bad fungi and as well as microbes necessary for good roots etc. I lost 45% of the Harvest from an initial Hermie explosion while I was fighting these gnats. The plants that were pulled showed full blown male flowers in a matter of hours, I saw it just before the real male flowers exploded pollen. I know that time frame sounds crazy but these unknown plants grew in veg from 1.5 feet to nearly 5 feet in about three weeks under 23 Watt CFLs. I thought maybe they had that ruderalis gene in them because they even began to show sex while in veg. Anyway, I was able to shut off the fans and remove plants without any powder drop, you know how you can see it on the leaves below. Powder dropped after I removed the plants and only when I was trying to save the decent bud tips that had already been growing. Once I saw powder I just stopped doing that too and bagged it.

It was a week later the AG showed these false male flowers and another week when what was left of the unknown strain showed. I had seen real pollen male flowers rupture on the leaves and then I had these false male things. That is when I started doing the research across the net to find out info.

Thanks for your post.

Btw the height of the remaining unknown strain plants is 5.5 and 6.2 feet while the AG which has several weeks more of veg growth is 3 to 4 feet.

X

 

[TheCapn]

xtr,

I know you said you get the "bud bananas", but when you talk about the "full blown male flowers", are you talking about the normal male flowers at intersections?

>>>I know that time frame sounds crazy but these unknown plants grew in veg from 1.5 feet to nearly 5 feet in about three weeks under 23 Watt CFLs.

Wow that's wild. I once grew some unknown bagseed and it was some of the fastest stuff I've grown too. I'm growing Agent orange now and the stretch in flower is crazy. I have to double decker SCROG it.

>>>I thought maybe they had that ruderalis gene in them because they even began to show sex while in veg.

Most plants will start to show sex in veg if you leave them long enough. For me, it's usually 6-8 weeks from seed, depending on the strain.

 

[AfricanGrower]

Well written post back there Capn, I couldn't have said it any better if I tried
+reps when I'm allowed!

 

[xtrchessreal]

Capn,

>>>I know you said you get the "bud bananas", but when you talk about the "full blown male flowers", are you talking about the normal male flowers at intersections?

As far I can tell from pictures of male plants when they are starting to open their petals and explode pollen with four little puffed out banana things hanging down from the center of the petals on tiny fibers aka stamen. These were located about 1/4 inch behind a fully formed bud of calyxes with nice looking pistils. The buds were about 1.5 to 2 inches long on the tips of the branches. These male flowers I am talking about were down the branch about two nodes or so where other buds were also formed and showing female, about 1/4 inch behind the female flowers.

I check the ladies everyday three on average times a day. I had watered early in the daylight, rotated, looked around at the cool looking buds and was happy...five or so hours later I checked on the plants and found the male flowers opened petals and all and ready to burst. I know it sounds crazy about the time frame but it was like the ladies getting a pimple in a few hours time. It is very possible that I just didn't know they were there earlier as I had already determined sex for a couple weeks earlier and was not worried about looking for sex at the time this happened. Lesson learned.

Either way these were female plants that also had several male flowers opened and ready to drop pollen. I know this because as I said before I removed the plant and then tried to save a couple of the longer buds when I noticed white powder on leaves below.

I got lucky and removed them prior to popping as far as I know. I was careful. The other ladies stayed female looking and are still, there was no immediate amber turning pistils or calyxes enlarging. Then maybe between a week or two later I started seeing those false male flowers on the AG embedded in the buds. Another week later I found them on the unknown strain.

Sorry to run on and on. I just like to be complete as possible with my answers.

X