Distinguishing male and female cannabis plants
HOW TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN MALE AND FEMALE CANNABIS PLANTS
In order to differentiate a male cannabis plant from a female cannabis plant, our plants must complete their entire vegetative cycle. In our online grow shop we tell you everything in detail!
Cannabis develops the first signs of sex when it starts to pre-flower. The pre-flowers can be found in the internodes of the branches, in the fourth or fifth internode of the central stem, and it is the first sign that our plant is getting ready to flower. For our plants to start the pre-flowering cycle, the light photoperiod must change, i.e. 12 hours of darkness and 12 hours of light. From the eighth week of life of the plant we will be able to determine with exactitude the sex of our plant, because it is the exact moment in which our plants acquire the point of sexual maturity.
Difference between males and females
The first characteristic to take into account is in the internodes, at the junction of the stem with the branch, male cannabis plants will begin to form small bags that will end up hanging and are filled with pollen, while female cannabis plants will form pistils (small whitish hairs). In this way we will be able to distinguish the sex of our plants more quickly.
As our plants flower, the flowers of the male plants will develop much faster than the female plants, which is why if we do not want a male plant to develop, we should remove it from our crop as soon as possible.
Male flowers are different from female flowers, while in female flowers we have a formation of calyxes with pistils, in which the union of them end up creating clusters known as buds, and they grow along the branch, male flowers develop pollen sacs that grow near the base of the branch and end up hanging downwards.
MALE CANNABIS PLANT
FEMALE CANNABIS PLANT
Male cannabis plants
Male plants produce male flowers in the shape of small balls containing pollen grains. When the balls open, the pollen grains inside will travel up to 5 km around to pollinate the female plants, resulting in female plants with fewer, smaller buds and seeds inside. It should be noted that male plants do not produce buds. The balls will not sprout the hairs characteristic of female plants.
The purpose of male plants is to reproduce, that's why they release pollen from the balls, so that the female plants produce seeds, because of this, if someone in your town or village has planted some male plants it is possible that we can find seeds in some of our outdoor plants.
The characteristic balls of male plants take a maximum of 3 weeks to open. So, if you don't want them to pollinate your plants, you should remove them as soon as possible.
If you are interested in growing male plants to make cannabis seeds, you should buy regular cannabis seeds.
Female cannabis plants
A female marijuana plant is the plant of choice for any grower who wants buds. Feminized plants are plants in which the flowers form buds, which is where the trichomes are mainly concentrated.
At the time of pre-flowering in feminised plants, the formation of the female calyx will begin, the plant will start to produce hairy white pistils on the axial stem (the part that joins the branch with the stem), which would be where, in the case of being pollinated, the seeds would be stored.
Female cannabis plants form dense calyxes or buds along the stems, forming clusters of buds, which will develop during the first four to five weeks of flowering. As the crop progresses, these calyxes swell and fatten, forming large buds.
If you are interested in growing cannabis plants that produce buds, we recommend feminised cannabis seeds.
But that's not all, sometimes we may have a female cannabis plant with developed buds, and we find some small bags filled with pollen typical of male plants. At that moment we will be dealing with a hermaphrodite cannabis plant. If you want to know more about hermaphrodite plants, don't hesitate to visit our post on "Hermaphrodite plants".
