How to differentiate males and females in cultivation?
Cannabis is a dioecious or unisexual plant, meaning it produces male and female flowers on different plants. It can also produce plants that exhibit both sexes on the same individual, plants we call hermaphroditic or monoecious.
Male cannabis plants flower, producing clusters of bell-shaped flowers grouped in panicles. These flowers hang downwards and eventually open, releasing pollen. This pollen, carried by the wind, pollinates the female plants and initiates seed formation.
Female cannabis plants produce teardrop-shaped calyxes from which two small, usually white, hairs called pistils emerge, which group together to form buds.
Female plant
Male plant
Male and Female plants
With feminized seed, more than two decades ago, many growers were able to forget about having to identify and remove male plants from their cannabis crops. Until then, all cannabis seeds were regular seeds, meaning seeds that could produce both female and male plants. No one wants male plants unless their intention is to produce seeds.
Male plants should be removed and eliminated as soon as they are identified, as this is the only way to ensure a harvest with 100% seedless buds that offer their full potential in terms of cannabinoids and terpenes. Pay special attention as soon as you see the first signs of flowering in the plants, or when changing the photoperiod to flowering in the case of indoor cultivation.
When can you differentiate male from female marijuana?
Cannabis Sex detection
The cannabis plant begins to flower when the nocturnal photoperiod lengthens (the nights become longer), which signals the flowering process and clearly and definitively establishes its sexuality. Plants reach their state of sexual maturity between six and eight weeks after seed germination.
Two months after germination, plants reach the state of «sexual maturity.» They have likely revealed their sex, and except in some cases of later stress-induced hermaphroditism, this will be the sex they maintain throughout their lives.
Sex Detection in flowerung phase
You may not be able to distinguish the sex of your plants until the flowering period begins. This is when you can’t afford to be careless and must examine your plants daily to identify their sex as soon as possible. Typically, at the beginning of flowering, one of the first signs that the plant has detected longer night periods and is about to begin producing flowers is the loss of symmetry in its nodes, which stop growing opposite each other and begin growing alternately. The plant is preparing its structure to form the long queues of buds.
The second symptom of flowering will be the appearance of the firsts preflowers, which you can find where the buds emerge from the main stem. This is the moment when you can’t fail, and you must identify and remove the males without error. A trained eye will be able to identify the sex of a plant before it’s too late.
