Have I made a terrible mistake?

Hi

I'm hoping someone can chime in and let me know if I have made a mistake by starting to cut this plant down thinking she is boy.

I was half way through with the scissors, starting on all bottom growth as to make sure I was only cutting out one plant from a very crowded scrog, when i started to see these balls on the other two Critical Kush plants next to her. I then noticed that further up the branches these balls had opened up with loads of pistols growing out. See pictures.
I stopped and doubted everything I had learned so far, and now seeking some advice please.

I only went in to re tie down everything again because of the huge stretch that just won't let up, I didn't notice the balls yesterday.
This was my prize plant because it was massive and was always three times the size of the other 4 ever since it stuck its head out of the rockwool. This one has always been dark green (oddly) where as the others are lighter in colour.

There’s three Dinafem Critical Kush (female seeds)
Also two Dinafem Critical Jack (female seeds) One is a runt. (No balls on these as far as I can see. They are slower in flowering as expected.)
7 weeks of 18/6 from popping their heads out to the 12/12 switch
Two weeks of stretch then flowers started to form a week and two days ago.
I read a few weeks back that I should look out for pre flowers, but they just flowered and the little pistols near the stipules came later.

600w Dual spectrum hps, cool tube. I use two extractors in veg to keep lights cool but retain some humidity 60-65% . Switching to one big fan through tube and filter in flower to reduce humidity, 45-55% on average.
Nft scrog in gutters with gutter lids all sealed up.
Two big air stones, 60 litre res. Automatic top up from another 60 litre top res. Part filtered & part tap water so easy getting ph correct.
Ec 1.2 today Ph 5.9 Started drinking 6 litres of water a day about a week ago.
Dedicated dark room.
Canna Vega, Canna flores, Rhizotonic and Cannazyme.
Lovely thick mat of white roots.
Res temp 20-21deg C
Room temp 22-24 deg C lights on, 18.5 – 20.5 deg C lights off.
Circulation fan.

My first grow but I have worked hard at this and I’m still learning something new everyday.

The other picture shows what these balls become.

My apologies for the long post.

Looks like a Hermie.

Fuck it, hermie. Carefully put your plant in a large plastic bag or wrap it tightly in plastic (reduce all air movement to a minimum so polen spreads as little as possible), remove it and either isolate it in another room or kill it.

Hermi......

Thanks people. I was right to cut it then.

Are those the male flowers that are growing? are the pollen sacks something different? I don't have little clusters of balls like I have seen elsewhere on the net.

stratski said:

Are those the male flowers that are growing? are the pollen sacks something different? I don't have little clusters of balls like I have seen elsewhere on the net.

Click to expand...

The little clusters are male preflowers. This is a full on mature male flower. My condolences. I know what it feels like to veg something out for so long and just whack it down. Painful to say the least.

yea on pick 2 on the left side looks like one of those male sacks opened... you see any yellow residue on a leaf?

Bucees said:

The little clusters are male preflowers. This is a full on mature male flower. My condolences. I know what it feels like to veg something out for so long and just whack it down. Painful to say the least.

Click to expand...

Yes I think I get it.
Agreed, it does feel like a kick in the teeth, we know the risks I suppose and we just keep going. I enjoy the growing and to be honest the hardest part was building the environment in which to grow.

Grojak, I didn't notice any but I wasn't looking for it. I'll go and have another good look.
I have spent an hour in there this morning with a magnifier inspecting all the plants carefully, neither of the jacks have any balls at all but all three of the kushes have them.

The bit I am still confused about is that when these balls open, a bunch of white hairs grow out of them. Is the pollen on the hairs? the hairs look pretty much the same as the white pistols. I can see the outer shuck eventually gets discarded.

Another close up picture coming.

Hope this comes out clear enough.

Am I being a bit dim? is it because it's a hermie that the POD is both male and female and therefore grows female flowers from a male pollen sack?

Sometimes you can cut a branch off, and eliminate the male flowers , and the rest goes on it's merry way. I've had male flowers show up at the end.... They were inert or sterile? thankfully, either way it had no effect the pollen didn't do anything.

one time..... I had a male that I got from a friend, it was towards the end of a flowering cycle on some females I had, 3 weeks from harvest I put the male in. It seemed to me that once the male was introduced, the females got pollinated, and then put on masssssssive weight, the hairs went into the pods, but never formed seeds, some hairs stayed out, but the pods got massive. The plants seemed to mature a week earlier tha Normal as well....

the smoke was a little harsh, needless to say... The seeds never developed shells... But the weight. And the density, the stickiness.. Was incredible.

One time, at band camp.......

The kushes are looking so nice that I feel it would be a waste to trash them. I'm going to TRY and gently remove them from the scrog and put them in a different area and keep an eye on what they do and remove all the balls as they show up. I will probably learn a little from their development, and I also read that hash can be made from hermies successfully.
My concern would be that they are still in the same house, hopefully the filter will catch any airborne pollen should it arise.

Thanks for the input

If there are more suggestions or comments, please keep 'em coming.

Cut the balls and keep her rolling

It was a hermie and would have contaminated the crop.

Coming from experience, chop that bitch down and get it gone now. It only takes a very small amount of pollen to ruin a complete grow. All you need is to miss one ball and overnight it can open. Its just not worth it.

If you have 50 plants, yes, if you have 4, maybe not......

And as for band camp? Berkeley School of music wouldn't let me bring my glass harmonica.....

suppose it were a female. I have had much success with wrapping accidentally broken branches with string if the cut is diagonal, if not, you need a splint.
plants are remarkably durable to abuse.

take your time.
start an inch -or even two if you have the room- beyond the cut/break. leave a little tail and start wrapping the string around back onto itself. don't pull tight, pull taut. keep the string nice and even. keeep going. your arm will get tired and it will take forever, but that is your penance here. Once you get about an inch past the break, stop wrapping. tie a single knot. just once over because you are going to take it off when it heals.

you will know the branch is healed when it starts to bulge out on either end of your wrap-job to be flush with the string. then it is time to take off the string.

i have done this about 6 or 7 times. the only time it did not work was an outside grow, late into veg. it was getting unseasonable cold, and light was scarce. just not enough for her to bounce back from the trauma of an attempted eating by my dog

if u only have a few plants, and its not a crazy male outbreak maybe just like a small bottom branch or so,
then I would cut the male parts off and keep rollin....fuck it u came this far stick it out if u can...

I was in your exact situation not long ago, I chose to cut...

I should have just grown them out...

Its unfortunate but not the end of the world, we all have gotten a sack of some pretty good herb and found a seed or two before. This is no different.

If let grown to long they can produce seeds, if stressed, if hermie, theres a million reasons and there all bad.

But if I remember correctly a true 100 percent hermie is quite rare, most of the time said "hermie" is 90 percent male with 10 percent male flower on isolated branch or two.


when I found one small seedpod branch at the bottom of my plant I chopped her immediately...I found zero seeds in the entire harvest except for what I had originally seen.

I guess its all case by case basis...

Update.
It is official, I have 5 hermies. The two Critical Jacks started growing balls a few days ago. I have been pulling the balls off every couple of days.
The kushes are looking quite nice and they could be done in about 3 weeks, I may have something usable at the end of the day.

I'll try and get some pictures later.

I lost control of the scrog some time back and is overgrown. Churchill's black dog turned up again for a few days so I got behind with the tying down and gave up.
There must be something wrong with my growing environment as I doubt these hermied because of genetics. This is difficult to resolve because of lack of experience. The only thing I know it can't be, is light leaks or light schedule, this I have tested many times. I've sat in there for 20 mins and it is truly dark, and very boring I might add.

Can the stress be also from over crowded root zone? I keep thinking of potential problems above ground but forgot about below. The plants look very healthy to me and very sticky with resin. Some PK13/14 went in the res a few days back, they look happy but still stretching, they're getting near the light now.
There is still a smell of coffee in the room which is nice and the kushes do smell of oily lemon when rubbed on my fingers. The jacks have more of a sour smell, I'm guessing this is a skunky smell. I was too quick to call one of the jacks a runt, I have now read that there are two common phenos. One is short and darker, the other is lanky and lime green. I have one of each.
One thing I am pleased about is that the overall odor is very light, and some days I can smell very little in the room. I was expecting trouble with smells but this just isn't the case.