Hinter

Hello all!

First time grower here. I'm on my 13th day of 12/12 right now and I'm pretty certain that I've suceeded in growing 3 males out of three plants. Needless to say, I am very dissapointed in this outcome.

The "flowers" actually came out pretty early. That is, the very top of the plants sprouted very early on with a pyramidal bunch of little balls. And slowly going down, every node started having them too as well as some leaf tops. Ever since then, I've been hoping it was just innexperience at spotting sex and that I'd see white hairs coming out but they are still not there and comparison with pictures I've found tell me they must be male. All 3 of them ...

These were grown from bag seed and statistics should've been on my side. I was expecting at least ONE female. Or is there a possibility that all these bag seeds will sprout males?

Is there something I could've done differently to influence the sex of my plants? My lighting setup was not good at the beginning but since then, I've gotten 2 40" fluos (optimized spectrum for plants) and lot's of reflective material around the plants so that they do get enough light. I've fed them some 5-1-1 fish based ferts through veg growth and am now using 0-5-5 mixed in with the first one for flowering.

There is 1 thing I did which might not have been a good idea. Under the advice from a "friend", I topped all 3 plants when they were about at 10". What made sense in this advice is that two branches would stem from that part of the plant and produce twice the yeild! I'm now starting to wonder if that added stress of toping them did not push the plants into becoming males. Could that be?


Finally, any advice as to what I could do with three male plants to enjoy the most out of them? Are male flowers smokeable?

Thanks for any and all advice.

stoker6

klb

Lizzie Borden

Sorry to hear about that Hinter. I would say it's probably just bad luck. Stress can cause plants to become hermaphrodites, but I don't think it can make them male. I did read something about a study that showed seeds germinated in deeper containers had a higher female %. Some strains tend to have M:F ratios different than 50:50 too. I once got 7 males from 9 Blueberry plants, and later found out this strain has about a 60:40 M:F ratio.

Males are worthless for smoking in my experience. I smoked a bunch of a fully mature male plant once and didn't get any buzz. You can make hash oil out of them but probably won't get much yield.

I would get some more seeds and try again. Every seed from that weed won't be male. I have topped almost all of my plants 1-3 times each and I think most growers top. It's good because it makes them bushier, with more tops and more buds. It won't make them male.

Your ferts sound good. You'll probably want some more light, preferably a MH or HPS, if you want to grow some serious bud though.

Good luck.

smokinrav

But I would suggest you practice your cloning techniques with the males while your waiting for your next seeds to come in. Unfortunatly most recommend starting four or more seeds to assure yourself of a female, tho I must say 3/3 males sucks. Look at it this way, if you believe in the law of averages,(and I do) the next time you germ youll get a ridiculous amount of females. Or you will eventually

later

Smokin

Hinter

Hey, thanks for the replies! Those poor satistics had me wondering if I had failed somewhere. I'm reading up the forums here to learn how to make hash oil. So far, it seems pretty easy. How potent is this stuff? I've never used it before and I'm wondering how much of it I should use when rolling a fat one.

I rooted my three guys last night and put them up to dry. Heartbreaking moment I tell ya... two of them thanked me by spitting pollen all over me! I wonder if that's gonna be a problem for the next grow. Should I "clean" my grow room to make sure there is no polen there or does this pollen loose potency after a while? I sure wouldn't want any females I grow to get pollinated from this.

Again, thanks for the replies, it's put my mind at ease.

Lizzie Borden

You definitely need to clean the grow room. First sweep or vacuum, then wipe down everything with a bleach and water solution. Pollen can be viable for several months and there's a good chance it could pollinate future crops if you don't clean the room well.

JORDANSDAD

dude i just grew two beautiful plants and they turned out male- my homie grew one damn plant and it was femme. im starting 10 seeds this time - just hoping for 3-4 females. you have to just take your chances- smokinrav's right tho- just figure that 1 out of 3 will be femme-- ps. if youre interrested, i made pot brownies out of my two plants dried them for two weeks and nothing- not a buzz at all. next time ill make hash- theres a good thread on making hash with ice water in the recycling fourum.

__________________
Dry spells, cause roots to go deep.

wrongway

a better method of making hash from males is hash oil... you can also find the howto in the recycling forum. you use everclear 180 proof vodka and shred the plant matter and double boil it until all the vodka is gone and whats left is this sticky dark brown to blackish syrup. empty the double boiler into a small container and keep for further use. take the bowl from the double boiler and freeze it so that the remaining oil can be chipped off the bowl with a spoon and put into your other oil to melt. 100% efficiency..... if you dont mind using some axle de-greaser (180proof vodka)

Hinter

Well my dudes are just about ready to be processed into hash oil... I'm gonna cut them up and put them to soak in 90% proof alcohol today.

JORDANSDAD: Yeah, I know your pain. It's hard to invest yourself so much for so long to get almost nothing in return...

wrongway: Yeah... I figured this was the best way to use those males.

I've got three new plants started. I don't have the space for more than three unfortunatly. One of them has already sprouted! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there be at least on lady in there.

I've got a few questions but I'll do some search on the many forums here before I ask them. Wouldn't want to actuallly look like the newbie that I am