Update - more closeups seeking early gender confirmation of plants grow from regular seeds
Greetings 420 enthusiasts! We have rain forecast for apparently every day next week, which if true would make any closeup photography difficult. So today I took a lot of closeup pictures in an attempt to 'find' some pre-flowers with pistils which to me would then confirm that I have females remaining on my balcony. I concluded 5 days ago that these 3 remaining plants were female,
but at the time I only had confirmation (seeing pistils) on one plant, the Mulanje Sherbert which was a nice early surprise.
My initial post made 5 days ago with closeups to evaluate the gender structures of regular seeds
was posted --> here. I would have preferred to have waited another 2 or 3 days, but if rain is ahead then it has to be now, because if I have gender confirmation then at least any training I do won't be wasted.
Before I get to the closeups, I wanted to stress again some points that me are important for reaching the right conclusion (for anyone interested).
Please note: Early gender structures can look very different - it may be from structure, the angle, or quality
For a start, photographing/viewing gender structures at an enlarged level that has clarity is quite challenging. I would say for myself, that without clear and multiple pictures I cannot be sure about the gender, not enough information! Many times I have seen a structure that I was sure I knew what it was, but I misidentified it because I didn't seek out more and compare them. So, in this and my previous mentioned post, I have tried to stress how important this is if you want to feel most confident in your conclusions.
Last week I attempted to make labels and criteria for the different appearances of early gender structures. I hadn't formulated them as such previously, and I only put that together for the post to this thread as a way of trying to describe my thinking around determining gender with the hope that someone else can benefit.
Don't let angles cause you to misidentify
Pictures taken at a certain angle can look really convincing that they're one thing when they are in fact, the other.
A curious example of gender structures found on a damaged piece of limb that survived
About 10 days ago I accidentally caused the end of a prime branch to break. I actually broke off 2 and couldn't be bothered trying to save one but decided to do so with the other just to see what would happen.
The break looked pretty terminal
But I managed to cut a bit of electrical tape and sort of bind it up a bit. I thought afterwards I should have used a kebab stick as splint. Anyway, I didn't think it would survive but it did and was growing new growth too, so I decided to take off the tape because I thought the plant must have made a big knuckle to repair itself. But when removed the electrical (perhaps a little rougher than I wanted) it broke off completely.
And interestingly, there was no big knuckle of self repair, instead most of the break was dead tissue and only a little bit of white live tissue at the bottom
So I thought, never mind, I use it to take some close up pictures to see if I can see any pistil development.
Here are 3 closeups I took of gender structures seen on that broken piece of branch. I have to say I was a bit surprised at how they looked more male than female. Here, take a look..
In regard this picture, It is not of good clarity. I think the angle is from above perhaps falsely suggesting a male 'ball shape'. Uncertain on it's own.
This picture is also not of good clarity. It has a bit of a male 'fronded' appearance, but the main thing we have to say here is that it is not clear, and therefore we are likely to 'see' what our imagination sees, or wants to see.
This picture is also not of great clarity. It does concerningly look a bit 'crab claw' like. I have seen where a female structure can end in a pointy tip, and yet others may have a split tip or square tip. Once again, take many pics and compare to get confirmation. I have seen pointy (very female indicator), and also split, square, and 'fronded' female gender structures. But 'crab claws' and balls are quite male indicators.
Once again while those 3 pics weren't pretty (in the desired female sense), very importantly they were also not great quality, so altho a bit disappointing in that they look a bit more male than female, let's move on to the rest of today's closeup pics.
For purposes of brevity, I am showing just several pics of each plant. I actually took a lot, and I need to take a lot of pics to find a sufficient number of high quality pics of different gender structures on the same plant to view and compare. Of course with digital photography it is easy or almost unavoidable to not bang off lots of pictures. I have pointed out in my own photos where the quality is poor and causes it to be hard to evaluate.
Mulanje HP
Well, this look pretty female to me. It may take me a very long time to find the one node with 2 pistils coming from a single structure. So generally I feel 'reassured' when I see a bunch of pistils on the plant. But to me, I am pretty convinced that this is indeed a female.
* I just added this as I'd meant too originally but forgot. I had wondered if the male-like appearance of the broken piece was actually some sort of male/hermie response to being nearly wiped out?? But regardless, the 6 pics above say female to me.
Mulanje ME
As above, I'd prefer to see a bunch of double pistils erupting, but used as an early sign it seems to be working. To me, the above pics are confirming a female.
Mulanje Sherbert
We saw pistils on her last week but here's a couple of her feminine 'pollen catchers' to complete the trio.
So, this is great, 3 females (at least that's how I'm reading them). I would have taken more, but seriously 3 is plenty, even 2 would have been great.
I would add one more thing, the commonality of the above 3 plants is none of them have a pedestal base. That is a biggie to me.
* Sorry, added this too.
Anyway, I hope this closeup business is of some usefulness. All the best.
️ what you are seeing so we would know for sure what your looking at. Thanks. CL
