Sexing at germination

OK -- try this - plant your seeds upside down with the tap root up. i'll bet every single one curls around and starts growing down... would that make them all females?

Angus said:

I'm not arguing for the legitimacy of this method...

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Actually, yes you are.

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email468 said:

the straight tap roots on the females show this to not be true.
why do people continue to do anything that isn't proven to work? good question - if you figure that one out - let me know!

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OK... but that's only ONE result. I don't know what anyone else is thinking but personally I never for a minute thought this would produce a 100% accuracy rate. I'm interested in knowing what percentage of the time it proves to be true. I like math… I wanna see the numbers.

Say it only turns out to be accurate 70% of the time.... that could still prove to be useful information. Not so much for a 3 - 6 plant grower like me as I would likely never risk tossing out a seed I paid so much money for . However for people harvesting lots of seeds.... and germinating large numbers (50-99) at a time I could see it being useful. They are probably not so attached to a single seed.

I also imagine if one were to really study this there might be more to it then a simple curl. As another poster said.... perhaps it has to do with length when it begins to curl.... or the type / extent of the curl…. or perhaps the strain itself. What about Indica dominant vs. Sativa dominant.... perhaps one has a higher percentage of this being true then the other????

I'm not trying to prove anything one way or the other... and again... I would never expect this to be a 100% accurate method. They say pregnant women carrying the baby high (location... not stoned) will likely have a boy while women carrying the baby low will more likely have a girl. Is that a 100% guarantee??? Certainly not.... but it's been true for most of my friends who've had babies.... and it's fun for women to sit around and speculate about when a friend is pregnant.
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I’m going to try to keep up with this thread and run the numbers in a spreadsheet. Don’t know how successful I’ll be at keeping it updated as this thread is already getting pretty big…. But I’ll do my best. It would be great if people posting about their germination / results could also include the Strain and Dominance (I’m no expert on strain names / dominance so you have to tell me if the strain is Indica or Sativa dominant). I’ve attached what I’ve gathered so far from digging through the posts. If you have an update to what I have either post it or PM me (I’m not going back over old posts so if you edit an old one I won’t catch it). Also…. I assumed if you posted what you are germing that you would want to be included…. If you don’t just PM me and I’ll remove you from my spreadsheet.

There are many more mathematical formulas I could do here… but I wanted to keep it simple and also fit on the screen so I’m really only looking at the success / fail rate of females from both tail types. If you think it’s important to look at anything else let me know and I’ll add it to the sheet



Here's what we have so far (sorted by screen name to make it easy to find yourself) :

Florida Girl said:

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OK... but that's only ONE result. I don't know what anyone else is thinking but personally I never for a minute thought this would produce a 100% accuracy rate. I'm interested in knowing what percentage of the time it proves to be true. I like math… I wanna see the numbers.

Say it only turns out to be accurate 70% of the time.... that could still prove to be useful information. Not so much for a 3 - 6 plant grower like me as I would likely never risk tossing out a seed I paid so much money for . However for people harvesting lots of seeds.... and germinating large numbers (50-99) at a time I could see it being useful. They are probably not so attached to a single seed.

I also imagine if one were to really study this there might be more to it then a simple curl. As another poster said.... perhaps it has to do with length when it begins to curl.... or the type / extent of the curl…. or perhaps the strain itself. What about Indica dominant vs. Sativa dominant.... perhaps one has a higher percentage of this being true then the other????

I'm not trying to prove anything one way or the other... and again... I would never expect this to be a 100% accurate method. They say pregnant women carrying the baby high (location... not stoned) will likely have a boy while women carrying the baby low will more likely have a girl. Is that a 100% guarantee??? Certainly not.... but it's been true for most of my friends who've had babies.... and it's fun for women to sit around and speculate about when a friend is pregnant.
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It is five results and i do have more examples of poker straight tap roots resulting in females. (EDIT: I see you noted that)

I must disagree since this method will only result in the continuance of spreading myths and old-wives tales. I think marijuana growing has enough of those already. If it is not an accurate way of determining females with a statistically significant result - then it is just coincidence and completely useless in predetermining sex. You'd need a lot higher number than 70% - you'd need a number that chance alone can not explain.

Or to look at it another way - if I see pistils coming out of the calyx that is a 100% guaranteed female (granted it may suffer from deleterious hermaphroditism - but it is still a female). So we already have a 100% guaranteed way of determining sex so it is not impossible.

I am not arguing against doing the experiment - but ultimately the tap root will curl around if you plant it upside down. That is what tap roots do - they curl and twist until the embryo is in the right position. The seedling will die if it runs out of food before the root reaches an outside source. A basic botany book describes this in great detail. I don't see how that fact does not negate what is being claimed.

Let the experiment be made - but leave the confirmation bias at the door and report the real results - not what we want the results to be. It's not like i wouldn't want to know if a seed will result in a female or not! I'd love to have that information before planting... who wouldn't?

email468 said:

I am not arguing against doing the experiment - but ultimately the tap root will curl around if you plant it upside down. That is what tap roots do - they curl and twist until the embryo is in the right position.

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Agreed... but for this we are only looking at the taproot before planting. Again...I agree it's likely an old wives tale and will never be 100% accurate... but I'm still interested to see what the results will be.... can't help it... I'm a curious girl

Florida Girl said:

Agreed... but for this we are only looking at the taproot before planting. Again...I agree it's likely an old wives tale and will never be 100% accurate... but I'm still interested to see what the results will be.... can't help it... I'm a curious girl

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awesome - i am often wrong and don't mind admitting it if i learn something new in the process!

though i would add the following warning - don't let your seeds germinate too long before planting them - experiment or no!

hey guys, i just germed 1 seed and it had a straight tail. ill tell you guys what i get in a few weeks.

notserious said:

hey guys, i just germed 1 seed and it had a straight tail. ill tell you guys what i get in a few weeks.

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And I just planted one that had a curled root...I will tell you the results in a few weeks.

Well, 4/4 of my Diesel Ryder seed's germed, and all of the tap roots are straight. I'll post pics in a sec.

ok I wanna be sure what are u talking about here is that what u mean?

..left one is straight and right one is curled..


lol

Brunox said:

ok I wanna be sure what are u talking about here is that what u mean?

..left one is straight and right one is curled..


lol

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LOL.. did you paintshop that?

Im starting to think this method is flawed... as i think of it, my first try with the Aero Garden had a good mix of curled seeds and straight seeds, and they all were friggin males...

Its all about genetics and stress... You can take a perfect female, and turn her gay if you arent careful... next thing you know, she uproots herself, tucks her balls back, and heads to california...

Well I got my Female Seed in the mail today and I am germinating them right now...we will see if they curl around itself.

I am really looking forward to this. I only have a limited amount I can grow, so if I can insure that I am growing all fems, I will be extremely happy

i need to subscribe to this

email468 said:

OK -- try this - plant your seeds upside down with the tap root up. i'll bet every single one curls around and starts growing down... would that make them all females?

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Ok, I should have prefaced by saying that germination prior to planting was a given. When I was told of this 'theory' it was already understood that I was germinating them, as he always did, in a paper towel.

email468 said:

Actually, yes you are.

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Actually, no I'm not.

If I believed that this was legitimate I would have posted something along the lines of, "Holy shit guys look at this easy ass way to sex seeds before you even f$%#$ plant them!!", instead of what I did post, which was more along the lines of "Is there any way what this old timer said can hold any truth at all?"

I wouldn't argue for something I made clear I wasn't sure of I was simply pointing out that in a magical universe where this method was 100% accurate, your results would not be an exception to the rule.

Subscribed

this place has become outlandishly humorous in the last few months....

perhaps you kids should search the term, "geotropism"? then you might understand what you're are or are not arguing about.

lol, blind leading the blind. priceless!

Brunox said:

ok I wanna be sure what are u talking about here is that what u mean?

..left one is straight and right one is curled..


lol

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Angus said:

I don't know how else to say "curl over itself". I guess take your right arm and grab the back of your left shoulder.

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Basically it comes out one end/side and goes the other direction, over top (or bottom) of itself. Like your second picture, but layed down on the seed.

blah blah blah thats all i hear. let the people who actually have something to say talk.