In simple terms, sexing a marijuana plant means determining its gender. Like any ordinary plant, the marijuana plant has both male and female plants. If you are a beginner grower, you have probably researched growing marijuana. Within your research you have most likely figured out that to grow potent cannabis, you need to ensure that you only have non-pollinated females.
So how exactly do you differentiate male marijuana plants from female plants? While experienced cannabis growers can usually identify male and female plants early on, novice growers may need a bit of practice to get started. Therefore we have created the following step-by-step guide on how to sex your marijuana plants when they are still young. Additionally, you will get to know why sexing your cannabis plants is crucial and how to take care of your plants until you know their sex.
Why Sex Marijuana Plants?
Ever smoked a male pot plant by accident? It’s certainly not pleasurable. In fact, smoking a male weed plant can leave you with a headache and put a strain on your respiratory system. No thanks. Needless to say, one very crucial aspect before you start growing cannabis is becoming familiar with marijuana plant anatomy. If you are a grower, you’ll want to grow female cannabis plants only. The ladies are not only desirable because of the intoxicating high they deliver, but also because they provide a generous harvest of healthy, fat, resinous, and highly potent flowers.
Having a male plant growing in your grow area can prove to be disastrous. That’s because even one male pot plant can pollinate all your females and result in a poor harvest that you may have to abandon. Therefore, you can only have the males if you plan on breeding cannabis and storing the seeds. Yet, another reason to learn how to spot male plants early on.
So are all marijuana male plants bad news? When it comes to sexing pot plants the simple answer is – yes. Most breeders do not want to have a male cannabis plant in their garden. As nature would have it the males have pollen sacs that produce pollen grains. Naturally, male pollen will pollinate as many females as they can reach. Once a female is pollinated, she shifts her focus into producing seeds. Although she will still give you some flowers, you can expect them to be fewer, and even worse, they will be of poor quality with less THC, minimal cannabinoids, and of course, overrun by seeds.
Furthermore, unpollinated females will continue to enlarge their flower buds. They will swell, produce more resins and trichomes, and even get stickier, hoping to catch some male pollen. Eventually, you will be rewarded with heavy-laden buds thanks to Sinsemilla! (Unpollinated, seed-free marijuana).
How Do I Know When to Sex Cannabis Plant?
When it comes to timing, some growers wait until their plants go into flowering to determine gender. But learning the early signs of a male weed plant and determining cannabis sex will eliminate problems in the future.
With this in mind, you can usually tell the sex of your cannabis about six weeks into the grow using pre-flowers. But every strain is different, environmental factors are different, and some plants can take longer until their flowering time. By the time your plants get to 8-10 weeks, they’ll have developed into full flower, and their sex differences will be as clear as day.
Most growers begin by germinating their seeds in small nursery pots until after 14 days when they transfer them into bigger gallons for generous and healthy growth. In the meantime, all plants are treated with equal attention and care. Once the plants begin exhibiting the differences in their sex, the male weed plants must be separated from female plants. Then, the female pots will be transferred into 15-25 gallon grow bags for full germination.
How to Differentiate Male And Female Marijuana Plants in Pre-Flower
Marijuana seed companies have done a great job and fixed the complex process by selling feminized cannabis seeds, taking out the guessing game. But once in a while, your plants could turn out hermaphroditic; with both male and female genitalia, and you’ll have to fix that problem. So, you’re better off equipped with the skills and know-how to differentiate the two sexes.
For you to understand easily and be able to sex your cannabis plants correctly, we would have to start with the basics of marijuana plant anatomy. Generally, both the male and female plants start blooming by producing pre-flowers in the area where the branches meet the main stem.
You will notice the earliest pre-flowers closer to the top in the area where the petiole meets the main plant stalk. Habitually, the male pre-flowers will develop earlier and faster than the female pre-flowers, and luckily, we can tell their differences.
If you inspect your plant closer, you will notice a stipule, which is a slender, leaflike flap protruding from the base at the junction. The stipule is not to be confused with a pre-flower. They are totally different as the pre-flower will appear in the node sites situated between the stipules.
How To Spot A Male Weed Plant Early
While still very early, a male preflower (immature pollen sacs) will have a round shape that is sometimes called a ball on a stick. You will best recognize it because it’s a minuscule ball with a bulbous bottom and a very slight tip (sounds all so familiar right?). As time passes, it grows into a slightly larger ball. In due course, Staminate (the name for a male pre-flower) will open into long pollen grain sacks that are ready to start pollinating your ladies- of course, we aim to eradicate them before they can get here.
How To Identify A Female Weed Plant Early
A female pre-flower usually has an ovoid shape in its early stages with an elongated, slender, and more pointed tip. The female calyx (the name for female preflower) will be fuzzier, with two white/pink pistils coming out from the tip of the calyx. Please keep in mind that not all female preflowers produce pistils.
Other Ways To Identify The Sex Of Your Marijuana Plants
Maybe you have checked the give-aways in your pre-flower differences but still aren’t very sure of the sex of your cannabis plant. Or, perhaps you want to consider more differences just to be 100% sure before making the final decision. Well, there are other methods for sexing pot plants early and determining whether a cannabis plant is male or female.
Every cannabis plant, regardless of its sex, begins by flourishing and blooming during its vegetative phase. However, the male marijuana plants tend to grow much taller towards the flowering phase, they are narrow, more spaced between their branches, and with fewer flowers. In contrast, your ladies will develop into more compact plants that are bushy with many branches.
The Bottom Line
If you want to have a successful cannabis harvest you will need to learn how to eliminate the males entirely as early as possible. Simple as that. Remember that the wind can carry pollen for long distances, so translocating the male pot plants to another grow room will only put your females at the risk of pollination. You can use your discarded male marijuana plants for mulching in your garden, juice the leaves to create a tonic, or even create hemp fiber. Whatever you decide it’s best to isolate the males from your sweet mary jane female buds to ensure a flourishing cannabis harvest.
