Chapter Seventeen

Going Male

      Why would a grower want a potion that makes female marijuana plants develop male flowers? These male flowers, hormonally produced, would contain no Y-chromosomes, the ones that make plants male. All plants fertilized by pollen from these plants would be female.

A close-up of this female branch shows clusters of male as well as female flowers.

      Breeders would appreciate a method of creating female x female crosses. Think about it. Growers spend inordinate amounts of time choosing the best females to seed and then pick a male without too much consideration. The parameters for selecting the male are somewhat limited, because many of the characteristics being selected for are more pronounced in the female. If a reliable method of inducing male flowers on a female plant existed, breeders would never have to face that dilemma. Such a method does exist—using gibberellic acid.

This female branch turned hermaphrodite from gibberellic spray.

      Just as in primate societies, marijuana males create havoc in the marijuana garden. Think how peaceful a garden would be without the unwanted seeds created by stray males. In Holland I met a fellow who grew large amounts of marijuana in a greenhouse. He said that the way he spotted males was by standing on a tower and looking at the garden with binoculars. If a certain plant showed signs of turning male or hermaphroditic, the surrounding females would all turn to face it. Unfortunately, by the time this occurred, some of their buds could already be pollinated.
      One male can spoil a good thing. They just have no respect for a grower’s sinsemilla desires. What every grower needs is the peacefulness and tranquility of an all-female society, where there are no ‘unplanned events.’ Seeds from female-to-female crosses have absolutely no maleness in them to spoil a good season.

This stretched branch produced male flowers which dropped pollen.

      I have often reported on the quest for these elusive ‘forced’ males. Readers have reported induction of male flowers on female plants by using aspirin and irregular light regimens during flowering. More growers reported failure trying these techniques, which were, at best, unreliable.
      The application of gibberellic acid, a hormone found naturally in plants, has also been cited as a method of inducing male flowering. However, virtually all the growers I have interviewed have been disappointed by the results. They have reported stretched plants with running female flowers, but no males. However, induction of males using gibberellic acid has been reported in the scientific literature.

This plant was sprayed with gibberellic acid causing it to stretch and possibly turn hermaphrodite.

      We decided to try an experiment to see whether there was a way of inducing male flowers in female plants using gibberellic acid. We used potassium gibberelate, 0.005 by weight, in a spray form. Using several varieties of plants, including many hybrids from Holland, we drenched the stems and branches of those plants about to be placed in flowering. The result was running buds. That is, sparse buds with wide gaps between individual flowers.
      The experiment was performed on clones cut from known female clone mothers, both rooted and in vegetative growth. It was only when the plant or plant part was sprayed two weeks before inducing flowering and again when flowering was forcibly induced (by increasing the dark regimen from 0 to 12 hours), that male flowers were produced. All of the plants under this regimen exhibited male flowering. We also found that the effect was localized: It only affected the areas that were sprayed. The pollen from these flowers was fertile, and was successfully used to produce seeds. No attempt was made to germinate the seeds. Expect an update soon.