Mr. Cancelled

I came across the following in a grow guide awhile ago:
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Male flowers are often treated as a novelty by growers, who make individually rolled sticks from them, as follows. Hang the plants upside down; the leaves will wilt and hang down, covering the male flower clusters. Then roll each cluster within its leaves between the palms of your hands, to compress the cluster into a joint-shaped mass. Dry the "stick" in a warm dark place. Rolling the grass ruptures many of the glands; so dried sticks should be stored carefully until each is used.
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One of my plants I grew recently (my 1st grow ever) was a male. I decided to give this a try.

After hanging the plant upside down for about 3-4 hours, I went back and began the process of cutting the "colas" off the plants some 2 inches below the flowers.

Then, using most of the small leaves by the flowers, I began to "mold" the mass. Then i cut some single pieces off some of the larger fan leaves and wrapped this around the whole thing, finally compressing it tightly between my palms as per the above. I ended up with a soggy, somwhat joint-like object when I was done, which I left with the rest of the plant to dry (I had 3 of these "joints" when I was all done, in addition to a bunch of smaller "buds" (flower/sm. leave combinations).

When I went back to check on the process of my drying today, just under 24 hours had passed, and I expected, among other things, that these 3 joints would still be all soggy since of course the rest of the plant's going to take 1-2 weeks to dry.

to my surprise, they were all quite dried, and I would argue ideally suited for smoking.

So, I popped a wrapper around one of them, lit it up, and WOW! Way good smoke (especially for a male!)

The guide I quoted above seems to indicate to me that the mass you'll end up with is in itself what you'll smoke when it's dried (ie, you don't need a wrapper). But mine were such that even as I was rolling them I realized that I'd need a wrapper (When you're done, you're no longer dealing with fan leaves around some dope, you're dealing with one solid mass).

But yeah... So what. It's already shaped correctly and it's no big deal to wrap a zigzag around it.

So there ya go... a proven, quick, and somewhat cool way to deal with the males in your crop. It'll at least tide you over until your females are ready for harvesting!

At least for me it's turned into a good thing.

Panama

Great post, Mr C.

I'm gonna move this over to Recycling.

[This message has been edited by Panama (edited July 15, 2000).]

tucker

So at what week of flowering should you do this to the male? I know you wanna get it out of your grow space before it pollinates the girlies....

And by the time a male plant has big flowers on it, hasn't it already released pollen?

I'm a first time grower...and I'm pretty sure 3 out of my 3 are all females, but I'm sure I'll have a male sometime, and I'd like to know. It breaks my heart to think about cutting a plant down and trashing it after giving it all that TLC for a couple months.

Mr. Cancelled

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, helvetica, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tucker:
So at what week of flowering should you do this to the male <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No idea I'm afraid. I'd imagine that the reason you can't find a grow guide that will specifically say "Harvest after X number of months" is due to all of the varieties and growing conditions that exist.

It'd be nice if it was like a vegetable, and you could say "Germinates in 7-10 days, and harvest in 60-70" or whatever, but I think there's just too many variables in marijuana growing to give that accurate of an estimate.

In a different posting I explained the differences between my 1st plants, and the grow guides... Just as an example of variations and differences between "book growing", and real-life grow experiences.

I don't think until it's legalized, you'll be able to nail down various strains, and therefore grow times.

I'd reccomend just eyeballing it, and then sampling occasionally.

As for visual cues, I picked just as the buds of the flowers were getting that white line indicating that the petals were about to open. Weeks-wise, I was at about 30 days since I began cycling the light.

Hope this helps.


[This message has been edited by Mr. Cancelled (edited July 18, 2000).]

tucker

So just before they open up and pollinate my ladies, cut 'em down and try this?

I took a better look at my plants last night, and I only know for sure that one is a female.

I'm guessing the other two will show sex in the next week, probably a bit sooner.

lovedope

Well, tried this, and it works, but.

The smoke from these "cigars" is incredibly harsh. I think it's gotta do with the breaking of the plant tissues and the resulting extra-quick drying.

I get much better smoke from the male flowers if I just dry them slowly in brown envelopes in the dark. Mix with enough dried, young leaf material so it burns evenly, and you get real good joints. The male flowers (and young grow tips) are even a bit sticky, even though there are no visible resin glands.

I've been smoking my two males for the past week or so, and I still have enough male "bud" for a couple of fat & long joints. Then it's time to try out the females, I gues.. dam di dam

Just friday we smoked a real big fat joint in the cemetery nearby, I shared it with two buddies and we just couldn't finish it, afterwards we were stoned quite out of our minds... I walked the guys straight in a psychiatric hospital's front gates, and they didn't realise it until I told them. Man, did the passers-by look at us as we staggered out of the sanitarium grounds laughing our asses off...

(oh hell, I already told this story in a post to the mj.com... so what )