7/7 Hermies :(

Seven out of seven Silver Haze females that were taken as clones off another female Silver Haze, have today on day 32 of flower, developed male flowers, on my medicinal grow. They probably developed earlier, being that every plant had them in variying amounts, and stages. Some have just a few, others have male flowers on a dozen buds. The female buds are coming along nice and fatty though and I'm passed being sad, and just going to have to finish this crop as a seeded batch. The other patient who hooked me up with the clones said that he hasn't heard of any hermies coming from this mom. I know a couple of the people who got his clones too and they said no hermies on their crops.

I'm not sure what I did to force these ladies to go bi. When they were a few inches tall, they had pH problems. I'm growing them in a pretty light proof 4X4 tent under a 600 Watt cool tube. Temp is always around 80º though before I got a Vortex fan it was about 86º. Humidity stays around 50% in the grow tent, here in the high desert. I left a window open near them and they got 15º air blowing through them for a night. Recently all the larger lower fan leaves yellowed and I am trimming them off when they have no green left. I'm using Roots Soil and their Master lineup, Organics with the addition of two synthetics, Big Swell and Amino Aide. They were vegged under a 4 ft 8 bulb T5, which made them nice and dense.

I've read several posts mentioning Dutch Master Reverse. Is this product good for my situation? I imagine the fewer male flowers developing the better. Also is this product poisonous? I don't want to smoke or make edibles from something that is really toxic.

Several other posts mentioned that this seems to be a good way to get feminized seeds. Since the original mom hasn't allegedly been producing other hermies. Am I correct in this?

I really wanted to grow a crop Sinsemilla, this is my first crop. I feel that I screwed myself big time. I've read tons of articles on this site as well as others, and tried to base decisions for my girls, on advice other people gave, after reading many responses for each topic.

I signed up for a 300 level Biology class called Adaptive Botany, which basically will teach me everything about plants, growing them, and how to produce commercial agricultural crops, for this spring semester. I figure after taking that class I could grow much better, and I need more elective credits.

So my questions:

1. Could a few little light leaks switch a whole crop to hermie?

2. Are the seeds going to be feminized for sure? I read plenty of posts saying this seems to be the case, Xx breeding with an Xx, will produce feminized.

3. Should I kill them all today, and if so will the plants still produce nice hash or butter, they are frosty?

4. Should I run out as soon as the grow shop opens and buy some Dutch Master Reverse?

Thanks, for your responses on my first post here on Rollitup.org Hopefully a pic or two will attach nicely.

I think I can shed some light on this for you, yes light leaks can cause hermies! Thats the main cause from what I've noticed, of course genetics plays a big part in it as stress does too.. But I have heard good things about the dutch reverse, if I where in your situation I would give it a try asap!

That's a real bummer. I'm sorry to hear that they all went hermie on you.

I've seen the questions you've asked debated quite a few times and I doubt you'll get everyone in 100% agreement here. IMO, light leaks absolutely can cause hermies. Some people swear that a light leak here or there wont hurt them but I've had the same thing happen that you had happen and the only issue was light leaks.

You'll have feminized seeds but they'll also be more prone to hermie on you as well. From what I've been told anyway. I have a batch of feminized seeds from the same thing that's happened to you and I wont use them unless it's a last resort.

If all you have in there right now are the hermied clones, grow them out for experience. Otherwise trash em (make butter or hash) and start over. Since it's your first grow, grow em, you'll learn more from experience than you will from any classroom.
The classes will teach you why you're doing the things you're doing but I don't think anything compares to firsthand experience. If you decide to grow them out, make sure you clean your grow room from top to bottom before putting anything else in there. You're not going to want old pollen seeding future grows.

I haven't had any experience with DMR so I can't comment.

Sorry for your luck. Most likely caused by the early pH problems.

i had a real bad light leak and they hermed on me all i did was go banana picking almost everyday and i got like 5 or 6 seeds

I would go with light leaks. Have you looked at the tent with the 600w on in a dark room. If you can see any light, that's the problem.
Yes, you will get fem seeds but , as always, they may hermie too.
Never tried reverse but heard good things.
Don't trash your grow man. Still well worth doing. Trying to make butter/oil etc is a waste of time at this point. The THC isn't there yet. A few seeds isn't the end of the world.
I once gave a loft grow hell in terms of temps and pH, but not light (could only get to it once a week) and got 2 seeds in 18oz of bud!

Thanks for the quick responses. The light leaks consist of about an inch by half inch gap between the zippers at the top of the front door, and what is coming through my ducting. Though I have tried to insulate the flexble mylar ducting by covering it with some old black T-shirts, where it comes out of the tent. When the fan is on the T-shirt blows out, when the light is off the T-shirt falls over the vent hole. The problem is during the night cycle when the fans come on every two hours for half an hour, just to let humidity out. Light can get in then, I do have my T5 blazing nearby. The vertical zipper in the middle of the two flaps that function as the front door, then the zippers on the top and bottom come together in the middle. A four inch flap comes down and covers it, I figured the bright 600 watt light coming out was a lot. However I figured that the incoming light through the hole would be diffused more and not brighten things up. I guess I learned the hard way that this really did matter. It's a 4X4 GYO tent, generic mass produced $85 tent. I sealed off all the other random leaks that I could find with black duct tape.

I'm going to head to the grow shop now and get the Dutch Master Reverse and apply it as soon as my light cycle starts. I have them on from 9PM till 9AM. My only source of heat in my house. Its cold here at 7000 ft at night, but the day times are quite pleasant in sunny Flagstaff, in the 40ºs usually outside, and 65º inside.

If the THC levels are going to be super low anyway, if I chopped them today, I might as well grow them out. I have some Jack the Ripper vegging from TGA seeds which could be started flowering now, they are about 7 inches tall, or I could let them grow out for another month and get some clones off them. They might be huge in a month though when the Hermies are done. I also have two Pandoras Box seedlings which are just little monsters as far as the size of their leaves and stalks. They are on their third nodes. One of the Jack the Rippers looks absolutely Gnarly compared to the other two. I will post pics in a new thread, and ask whats with it. Though the bag of Roots Soil that it is in is about 10% larger then the other bags, I suspect that bag got 10% more of something that affects the pH, and not just more dirt.

Not happy about only having five plants of unknown sex vegging, but there are some people providing clones on Craigslist right now. I figure a 4X4 tent shouldn't have more then four or five plants in it anyway. I started with 9 but culled the two smallest to make more room when I switched to flower. The herms are in 3 gallon dirt bags and about 26" tall.

Everyone says light leaks, but I'm still not convinced.
I think if you have a leak (small) at day 1, the girls are ok with it as they adapt to it. But if 4 weeks you develop at leak, then thats different.
Otherwise, how do people grow outdoors with moonlight?

I wondered that myself KidneyStoner. It would seem that moon light and passing cars and such would affect all plants. The light leaks were definitely consistent. At least now I can give a good review of DM Reverse. Not exactly like I have planned though and I'm kind of anal about any project I get in to, I just hat tricked the Deans list at school.

KidneyStoner420 said:

Everyone says light leaks, but I'm still not convinced.
I think if you have a leak (small) at day 1, the girls are ok with it as they adapt to it. But if 4 weeks you develop at leak, then thats different.
Otherwise, how do people grow outdoors with moonlight?

Click to expand...

Good point, I think it's more like when a light flashes on or something really unusual wakes the plant up prematurely, not a tiny consistent leak.

Speaking of flashes, the first few days that I had my 600 watter (I got it off Craigslist with the tent and cool tube, obviously from an all in one box kit, the guy said he used it for only one grow and everything was clean and organized) the light would flick off for ten seconds at a time before relighting. It was doing this every five minutes. Now it isn't anymore, just the first couple of days. I have a generic ballast, that says Electronic Ballast across the top of it. I switched to 12/12 the first day I got the 600 watter. Also I took some flash pictures of my plants, after the lights were on for several hours already, not out of darkness. Could that hurt a plant that is sitting under a 600 watter?


Could this be the source of trouble? I can run out next week when student loans disperse and get a different brand of ballast. Are they all not basically the same though? How would this differ then say a Lumatek, or Nextgen? I also wouldn't mind, if spending money anyway, replacing the generic 600 watt bulb with a name brand. I might jump up to a 1000 watts, but wonder if my 4X4 setup would be to small for a 1000 watts. I'd rather stay with the 600 personally, saves electricity and heat. As it is the 600 watter makes my room warm enough that I crack my window at night. In the summer it will be considerably warmer here. If my room starts baking me out I might have to move to the couch. Though the Flagstaff daytime temps usually only get to the high 80's every day.

Guino said:

Speaking of flashes, the first few days that I had my 600 watter (I got it off Craigslist with the tent and cool tube, obviously from an all in one box kit, the guy said he used it for only one grow and everything was clean and organized) the light would flick off for ten seconds at a time before relighting. It was doing this every five minutes. Now it isn't anymore, just the first couple of days. I have a generic ballast, that says Electronic Ballast across the top of it. I switched to 12/12 the first day I got the 600 watter. Also I took some flash pictures of my plants, after the lights were on for several hours already, not out of darkness. Could that hurt a plant that is sitting under a 600 watter?
View attachment 1966319

Could this be the source of trouble? I can run out next week when student loans disperse and get a different brand of ballast. Are they all not basically the same though? How would this differ then say a Lumatek, or Nextgen? I also wouldn't mind, if spending money anyway, replacing the generic 600 watt bulb with a name brand. I might jump up to a 1000 watts, but wonder if my 4X4 setup would be to small for a 1000 watts. I'd rather stay with the 600 personally, saves electricity and heat. As it is the 600 watter makes my room warm enough that I crack my window at night. In the summer it will be considerably warmer here. If my room starts baking me out I might have to move to the couch. Though the Flagstaff daytime temps usually only get to the high 80's every day.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that could be it. The fact that huge amount of light was flickering on and off for five minutes or more at a time would certainly stress the plants out I would think. (The plant thinks, "Oh wait it's night time, or not. . .") As far as the camera goes, as long as the light is on a flash from a camera shouldn't do anything, but if you've had the light off and take a snap shot that'd confuse the plants too. I think the main thing is the dark and light periods need to be consistent. When the environment changes rapidly, the plant freaks out and thinks the world is ending probably and decides to do whatever it can to make seeds. Another factor in hermies is when a plant is over ripened (edit: or an old plant I guess) and desperate for pollen; at that stage its adaptation will naturally kick in whether or not the environment is relatively perfect. I've seen that personally. Usually it'll throw a couple pollen pods out of the buds, which can be clipped off, but at that stage the plant is near done anyway.

A generic digital ballast? Sounds iffy. Although I use a generic magnetic from HTG supply with no problems. I just know electronic you don't want to cheap out especially. I wish I could afford the Lumatek one.

Durn grow shop is closed for the Holiday weekend! I have to wait until Monday to get the Dutch Master

Good point kidneystoner. + rep! Found this out. Put some outdoors in wires tomato patch. Got preflowers and noticed landlord. Had electric company. Come out put up security light on pole in his yard. About 75 yards. Slowed them down a little but other than that no problems.

either im blind or u picked all the bananas cuz i didnt see any in yr pics. but if they all hermed then i would definetely scrap that mother plant cuz its in the genes.

The pics weren't of the little bananas, just general pics of the medicine. The male flowers are kind of in smaller clusters scattered about.underneath some of the buds.

Hey bro, u can for sure make some good hash out of them......

Enzogrowspot said:

Hey bro, u can for sure make some good hash out of them......

Click to expand...

Does that mean if I was to harvest soon, before they start dusting my house, or in like a month. I wouldn't mind turning a bunch of hash or edibles from whats going to be seeded. I still have to wait two days to buy the Reverse since the grow shop is closed for the holiday. I am looking forward to the day I can smoke some of this. Either way it is going to be better then non-medicinal brick weed.