Does a reliable feminized line even exist?

Thought I would give an update since this thread started out complaining about hermies from HSC varieties. Just finished chopping and trimming my Hi=Biscus and Magic Melon fems. Advised Mrs Beer to keep an eye out for nanners and anything that looked like a seed. Did not find even just one and these were very mature at 12 1/2 weeks flower. I will again update on my Vanilla Frosting and Notorious THC (which is a doddle butt and why I just set them to 11/13). These were all nice hybrids; very aromatic, frosty and I am guessing potent.

xtsho said:

The way some of these so called breeders are cranking new strains out there is no way they're doing any real breeding. I've been making fem seeds for years and have never had any hermies from any of the seeds I've made. Half a dozen friends grow out what I give them every year and none have ever had any hermies from anything they got from me either. They also don't overdose their plants with nutrients. Just old school growers using good soil and small amounts of fertilizer if any at all.

I think much of it has to do with the grower stressing the plants. Everyone immediately looks for light leaks and when they don't have any they blame the breeder. Overfeeding is a stress factor as well which many seem to overlook. With people dumping so much stuff on their plants, running insane EC levels, they're stressing their plants. All one has to do is see all the crispy fried plants overdosing on a cocktail of every product available to the grower.

As for stable lines, I have several I've created. Some I've been working with for years. I consider myself a pollen chucker but some of my chucks are stable while much of what people are getting from some of these "breeders" is not.

With so much of the stuff out there today having a lineage that includes everything but the kitchen sink it's no wonder that there are so many strains out there that are all over the map. I always get a chuckle when I read a post from someone talking about how this or that breeder is the best while at the same time talking about the half dozen or more pheno's they got from a pack of 10 seeds. Those strains are just pollen chucks.

As for the OP's question "Does a reliable feminized line even exist?", yes they do. I have vials full of feminized seeds I've made and they do not produce hermies. If someone were to grow them out and get a hermie then it would be due to grower introduced stress of some sort. But so far, myself and many other people have grown them over the course of years without one instance of any developing into hermies.

Click to expand...

xtsho you’re always coming in with the facts, i appreciate you.

buyyouabeer said:

Thought I would give an update since this thread started out complaining about hermies from HSC varieties. Just finished chopping and trimming my Hi=Biscus and Magic Melon fems. Advised Mrs Beer to keep an eye out for nanners and anything that looked like a seed. Did not find even just one and these were very mature at 12 1/2 weeks flower. I will again update on my Vanilla Frosting and Notorious THC (which is a doddle butt and why I just set them to 11/13). These were all nice hybrids; very aromatic, frosty and I am guessing potent.

Click to expand...

love to hear that, from what ive grown from hsc that did not herm, its all of the above of what you said the bud is very aromatic frosty, potent, the terpene profiles are amazing. I figured out my issue, I shouldnt have let my cousin care for these girls while i was away. He put a green light that was in no way a full green light, in the tent during dark cycle which definitely had stress factors for these pineapple girls. I still have plenty of hsc seeds so im gonna continue to pop these fems till i get it 100% right, obviously this is error on my part and i will fully admit that. Never let someone else care for your plants, even if you dont have a choice lol.

NanoGadget said:

Literally none of that has anything to do with what I was talking about. You are harping on about grower skill and pretending breeding isn't important. We get it, you have a really high opinion of your own abilities. Goody for you. I've been growing for over 25 years so I'm not someone who needs things brosplained to me. Yes, an unskilled grower can literally fuck up any plant. We know. Put shit genetics in the hands of a master grower and you still have shit genetics. All a skilled grower does is allow plant genetics to be expressed to their fullest potential. It isn't a magic power.

Click to expand...

goat status tell em g

buyyouabeer said:

Thought I would give an update since this thread started out complaining about hermies from HSC varieties. Just finished chopping and trimming my Hi=Biscus and Magic Melon fems. Advised Mrs Beer to keep an eye out for nanners and anything that looked like a seed. Did not find even just one and these were very mature at 12 1/2 weeks flower. I will again update on my Vanilla Frosting and Notorious THC (which is a doddle butt and why I just set them to 11/13). These were all nice hybrids; very aromatic, frosty and I am guessing potent.

Click to expand...

i love the “advised mrs beer” part. Thank you for your input mr beer!

xtsho said:

With regards to feminized seeds it does come down to X and Y. Female plants have XX while male plants have XY. Remove the Y from the XY which is what you have when you reverse a female to produce pollen and you have XX = female seed. There is no Y to produce males like you would have from a true XY male.

I wasn't trying to start a debate over genetics. My previous reference to X and Y was in response to a comment about the process of making feminized seeds being prone to hermaphroditism. I don't believe that to be true.

Click to expand...

With regards to plants as a species a more accurate quote -

' in the octoploid red sorrel Rumex acetosella, sex is determined in a single XY system. In a more complicated system, the sandalwood species Viscum fischeri has X1X1X2X2 chromosomes in females, and X1X2Y chromosomes in males '

Male and female is a loose term, underlying that is a layer of complexity that adds a few more sexual outcomes which to the untrained eye appear just male and female.

BBQtoast said:

With regards to plants as a species a more accurate quote -

' in the octoploid red sorrel Rumex acetosella, sex is determined in a single XY system. In a more complicated system, the sandalwood species Viscum fischeri has X1X1X2X2 chromosomes in females, and X1X2Y chromosomes in males '

Male and female is a loose term, underlying that is a layer of complexity that adds a few more sexual outcomes which to the untrained eye appear just male and female.

Click to expand...

I was trying to keep it as uncomplicated as possible. Plant genetics is complicated. XX and XY are sufficient for explaining feminized cannabis seeds.

I didn't want to make things confusing and bring up topics like whether a cannabis plant is monoecious or dioecious.

So I went simple.

Male = XY
Female = XX
Reversed pollen = XX

xtsho said:

I was trying to keep it as uncomplicated as possible. Plant genetics is complicated. XX and XY are sufficient for explaining feminized cannabis seeds.

I didn't want to make things confusing and bring up topics like whether a cannabis plant is monoecious or dioecious.

So I went simple.

Male = XY
Female = XX
Reversed pollen = XX

Click to expand...

You said there is no Y to produce a male, if we jump up one level to XYY and XXY we see that there is a Y in both male and female, this is just an example.

All pollen must be male XY, in the simple XY XX, there is no one rule for you and another for genetics. To achieve pollen that lacks the Y you need a different genetic sex determination scheme not XY XX.

A lot of what's said is based on simple error, it doesn't work like that for cannabis, it will work for red sorrel as quoted before.

BBQtoast said:

You said there is no Y to produce a male, if we jump up one level to XYY and XXY we see that there is a Y in both male and female, this is just an example.

All pollen must be male XY, in the simple XY XX, there is no one rule for you and another for genetics. To achieve pollen that lacks the Y you need a different genetic sex determination scheme not XY XX.

A lot of what's said is based on simple error, it doesn't work like that for cannabis, it will work for red sorrel as quoted before.

Click to expand...

So are you saying that what I said regarding feminized seed production is incorrect? What was the error?


"The dioecious plants, Cannabis, Rumex, and Silene reportedly have heteromorphic sex chromosomes (X and Y chromosomes; Parker 1990, Chattopadhyay and Sharma 1991) and the sex of the plants is genetically determined. Yamada (1943) revealed that the female plants of Cannabis sativa L. have two X chromosomes whereas the male plants have one X and one Y chromosome. The Y chromosome is much larger than the X chromosome and the autosomes. The roles of the sex chromosomes in sex determination have been studied using haploid, diploid, and triploid plants of C. sativa (Warmke and Davidson 1944, Nishiyama et al. 1947). It is reported that the X and Y chromosomes of C. sativa carry female and male-determining genes, respectively, and that the autosomes are not involved in sex determination."



"Silver ion applied as STS was more effective than AgNO3 in inducing flowers of altered sex. The induction of male flowers on female plants demonstrated in this work is useful for producing seeds that give rise to only female plants. This technique is also useful for maintaining gynoecious lines."

Herm is nature its natrual every plants a herm its weather u trigger it. Fems are more suseptable. But hsc is defo not to blame there heavily vetted and 1 of few that do 10k growouts and will happily speak hours with ya on the phone about random shit lol
I jave had companies tell me to pissoff askin abkut their strains. Humboldt co i got like 200 emails haha
No herms here just best bud i ever grew it stinks

These dudes know what there sayin. Rodilisation is a herm trigger for every plant end of season.. If u treat her bad she wil trigger this early

Plant tryna breed to seed before she thinks she wil die

Stop holding ur plants hostage and they wil stop seeding there scared n stressed

xtsho said:

So are you saying that what I said regarding feminized seed production is incorrect? What was the error?


"The dioecious plants, Cannabis, Rumex, and Silene reportedly have heteromorphic sex chromosomes (X and Y chromosomes; Parker 1990, Chattopadhyay and Sharma 1991) and the sex of the plants is genetically determined. Yamada (1943) revealed that the female plants of Cannabis sativa L. have two X chromosomes whereas the male plants have one X and one Y chromosome. The Y chromosome is much larger than the X chromosome and the autosomes. The roles of the sex chromosomes in sex determination have been studied using haploid, diploid, and triploid plants of C. sativa (Warmke and Davidson 1944, Nishiyama et al. 1947). It is reported that the X and Y chromosomes of C. sativa carry female and male-determining genes, respectively, and that the autosomes are not involved in sex determination."

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/cytologia1929/63/4/63_4_459/_pdf/-char/en

"Silver ion applied as STS was more effective than AgNO3 in inducing flowers of altered sex. The induction of male flowers on female plants demonstrated in this work is useful for producing seeds that give rise to only female plants. This technique is also useful for maintaining gynoecious lines."

Induction of fertile male flowers in genetically female Cannabis sativa plants by silver nitrate and silver thiosulphate anionic complex - PubMed

Apical application of silver nitrate (AgNO3; 50 and 100 μg per plant) and silver thiosulphate anionic complex (Ag(S2O3) 2 (3-) ; STS; 25, 50 and 100 μg per plant) to female plants of Cannabis sativa induced the formation of reduced male, intersexual and fully altered male flowers on the newly...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Click to expand...

Yes an XX is a reversed female, no it's a reg female, no a Herm, no wait you haven't explained anything at all except a simple X Y system.

My error, it was pollen without the Y..

BBQtoast said:

I don't think you know much worth writing, we can test the indica sativa Herm theory, someone give a new grower a pure kush and pure low land Thai see which Herms more.

Click to expand...

Tell ya what Mr. know it all. You basically baffle newbies with BS....

You seem to know nothing about how the herming actually took a foot hold in early feminizing.
Yes, cannabis has the trait in it's DNA BUT, it shouldn't be as prevalent as many think it is.

That brings me to the term "herming". It actually would be more accurate to say "reproduction by bisexual activity". Technically, the plant is NOT a hermaphrodite when it throw's nanners or actual balls.

If your environment is consistent as far as control is concerned. You should basically have little to no problem with just a few minor nanners being thrown in late bloom. Did you know that these "late bloom" nanners are mostly NON VIABLE as far as the pollen goes?

When it was first offered - feminized seeds. They were produced by stressing the plant to force a natural male reproductative response. It's the plant making what it thinks is a last ditch effort to simply reproduce and carry on the line. By feminizing in this manor. It was quickly discovered that the actual trait in the DNA was brought to the surface, or became actively passed on to the seeds.
They also followed Mendel's rules on the # of, or the % of these seeds that carried on the trait. Most would but, some did not express it till down the road some. Some didn't at all.

This began to weaken the gene pool and those who really cared, went to chemical manipulation to create far, far more stable strains - as far as expressing or expressing down the road, the trait of bisexual reproduction.

Yes some long running equatorial Sativa's have a real problem with herming. It's also NATURAL for them to be that way. Can you say lowland Thai?
Yet other equatorial Sativa's don't express it as a "rule". Like Panama Red, about any Columbian, Lambs breath, and southern Mexican Sativa's.

The thing is. With proper pheno hunting and solid breeding practice. You can create "stable" offspring of a whole new genetic strain. The REAL term "stabilized" as used in breeding. Is to describe the stability of the strain to produce offspring as closely consistent to each other as possible.
The way they grow, the concentrations of cannabinoids, Terpine profile and growth patterns. This is achieved by "backing" the offspring to the mother, the father and so on. "Cubing" is a term used to describe this practice.
It was used in the making of my Bruce's Monkey strain and about every other strain I ever created. Once you have found your goal in a breeding project. One must "stabilize" that to keep it consistent. Look what happened to AK-47 (among others).

Just because something was created with a sativa in the mix. Does not make the offspring more apt to "herm". Yes, if you use something that already does. Your going to have issues. Finding that right pheno TO breed with is the real work. Not to mention the hundreds and hundreds of beans/plants you run of the offspring, to find the pheno you wanted.

You have no idea of just "WHO" I am, and the education I have. Not to mention the decades of work in the field....

getogrow said:

I was under the impression that making a fem seed would automatically put it at high risk of being hermie , so you would weed out the hermies and only select the fems for future breeding/growing? Am i completely wrong here in my assumption ?

Click to expand...

I think hes wasting all his breath on this post of mine which was proven all wrong and im here to admit i was 100% wrong in all ways of my thinking on breeding. no big deal , i was wrong.

getogrow said:

I think hes wasting all his breath on this post of mine which was proven all wrong and im here to admit i was 100% wrong in all ways of my thinking on breeding. no big deal , i was wrong.

Click to expand...

Nice post.
I'm here to say it was a real standup thing you just did there!

Good luck. Keep asking questions, you'll get real answers. Sometimes you just have to pick though the chaff, a bit.

Dr. Who said:

Tell ya what Mr. know it all. You basically baffle newbies with BS....

You seem to know nothing about how the herming actually took a foot hold in early feminizing.
Yes, cannabis has the trait in it's DNA BUT, it shouldn't be as prevalent as many think it is.



When it was first offered - feminized seeds. They were produced by stressing the plant to force a natural male reproductative response. It's the plant making what it thinks is a last ditch effort to simply reproduce and carry on the line. By feminizing in this manor. It was quickly discovered that the actual trait in the DNA was brought to the surface, or became actively passed on to the seeds.
They also followed Mendel's rules on the # of, or the % of these seeds that carried on the trait. Most would but, some did not express it till down the road some. Some didn't at all.

This began to weaken the gene pool and those who really cared, went to chemical manipulation to create far, far more stable strains - as far as expressing or expressing down the road, the trait of bisexual reproduction.


You have no idea of just "WHO" I am, and the education I have. Not to mention the decades of work in the field....

Click to expand...

When fem seeds were offered through stress it was a natural process that's happend in wild settings and always has through all strains.Your basically saying fem seed made this way are all more Herms.

Then you go onto say proper reversing doesn't make Herms.

Weakened gene pool - clarify, in your context it's vague.

Mendel who actually saw results of bred traits and made ratios, again we don't have any Mendel here or even a breedable trait.

If it's all breedable what have you bred in this field that has made this true, you have Mendel crosses of plants that never Herm to check? Not seen a bank offer non Herm strains yet but getting excited as you seem to mention them and a whole way of breeding it out.

A weak response, what field - stoners buying seed.

getogrow said:

I think hes wasting all his breath on this post of mine which was proven all wrong and im here to admit i was 100% wrong in all ways of my thinking on breeding. no big deal , i was wrong.

Click to expand...

No drwho seems to agree with you, we can breed and weed out Herms, he just wrote the same thing.

BBQtoast said:

When fem seeds were offered through stress it was a natural process that's happend in wild settings and always has through all strains.Your basically saying fem seed made this way are all more Herms.

Then you go onto say proper reversing doesn't make Herms.

Weakened gene pool - clarify, in your context it's vague.

Mendel who actually saw results of bred traits and made ratios, again we don't have any Mendel here or even a breedable trait.

If it's all breedable what have you bred in this field that has made this true, you have Mendel crosses of plants that never Herm to check? Not seen a bank offer non Herm strains yet but getting excited as you seem to mention them and a whole way of breeding it out.

A weak response, what field - stoners buying seed.

Click to expand...

Your working on logic here. You sure don't have ANY ag science education.

Proper use of the right chemical mix does NOT produce expression of recessed traits - like "herming"

It IS a breedable "trait. The increase of any trait expressed IS going to be a breeding result. Mendel said it too.

PLENTY of (seed)banks have piles of strains that don't "herm". Feminized too! Many REAL breeders don't feminize anyway.
While I as a rule of thumb, don't self strains. I have used Feminized plants to further other breeding practice. Many of the best do too!.


Your basically saying that all feminized seeds are NOT "stable" in regard to "herming".
This is an UNTRUE statement.

The only vagueness here? Your ability to understand.

It is coming from an uneducated mind.
The real weak mind at work here? Yours.

As far as trading insults goes. I'll go no further. Your not worth it.

You should sit on your hands and let it go...

BBQtoast said:

I go to a seed site buy seed, says 34% thc finished from seed in sixty days. Come here ask what a Herm is and get told all your rubbish about fem seed and breeder genetics.

About the biggest load of steaming lies going.

Give me Soma and some bag seed over what you spin anyday. Work in the field - yer one that's already mastered bullshit.

Click to expand...

i got my grade 8 and even I am understanding some of what drwho wrote... soon as you said "trainwreck has produced many unseeded grows" you lost me.... you missed the WHOLE point.
Either way , i learned a few things in this thread so im happy.

getogrow said:

i got my grade 8 and even I am understanding some of what drwho wrote... soon as you said "trainwreck has produced many unseeded grows" you lost me.... you missed the WHOLE point.
Either way , i learned a few things in this thread so im happy.

Click to expand...

Yeah what happened to this thread. You asked a question about feminized seeds. I responded with a simple answer regarding how they are produced without claiming to have a PhD in plant genetics and someone starts going on about red sorrel and sandalwood which have nothing to do with cannabis as the species are not related.

It's one of those "What just happened?" moments.

BBQtoast said:

With regards to plants as a species a more accurate quote -

' in the octoploid red sorrel Rumex acetosella, sex is determined in a single XY system. In a more complicated system, the sandalwood species Viscum fischeri has X1X1X2X2 chromosomes in females, and X1X2Y chromosomes in males '

Male and female is a loose term, underlying that is a layer of complexity that adds a few more sexual outcomes which to the untrained eye appear just male and female.

Click to expand...

Where did you study plant genetics and what does your post have to do with feminized cannabis seeds?

And if you're going to cut and paste from the internet you should cite your source which happens to be wikipedia.

getogrow said:

i got my grade 8 and even I am understanding some of what drwho wrote... soon as you said "trainwreck has produced many unseeded grows" you lost me.... you missed the WHOLE point.
Either way , i learned a few things in this thread so im happy.

Click to expand...

What point, that you want stable Herm strains, read the thread they don't exist.

Trainwreck - sativa crosses people found hard to grow when it came out in an overhyped market as the next strongest strain. Point proved again, not sure you or others really grew that strain out much to know.

The whole lowland Thai thing never sank in much either did it.