sex is decided after sprouting ?

Threads like this that shed some light are great. Thanks for it

XX = Female, though you can manipulate to behave as a male.

XY = Male, though you can manipulate to behave as a female.

How they behave does not at all change their true sex. Just like a female Olympic runner with boobs. If "she" tests for XY then she's really a "he" and can't compete in woman's Olympics. Feminized male plants are simply, and perhaps only temporarily in drag.

mikmike said:

Environmental sex determination is known to occur in a variety of species.[SUP][78][/SUP] Many researchers have suggested that sex in Cannabis is determined or strongly influenced by environmental factors.[SUP][65][/SUP] Ainsworth reviews that treatment with auxin and ethylene have feminizing effects, and that treatment with cytokinins and gibberellins have masculinizing effects


THANK YOU WIKI

Click to expand...

wiki is right, treatments of the intended seeded plant will effect the outcome of chromosomes in the seeds produced after the treatment of the plant.

Rrog said:

Nice references.

The first one speculates that the seed sex ratio may be influenced by environmental factors. That is, when momma and daddy plants got together to pollinate flowers, the environment AT THAT TIME might influence the sex of the seeds. That doesn’t seem odd, but note that the seeds are still male or female.

The second article, though anecdotal, confirms that hormones can affect the expression of male or female traits. His beef with feminized seeds is also my beef. Some of the “females” aren’t females at all. They are male plants in drag.

Both article confirm my points nicely.

Click to expand...

this is explainable also, and is not a fact that can be used as the basis of the hypothesis ie. maybe some non feminized seeds got mixed in with the batch, while stoners, while dealing with buckets of seeds of hundreds of strains, are sorting the miniature balls by hand into tiny test tubes and zip locks????...seems plausible to me.

breeders get better reps when they are able to produce more females in their reg seeds than males, and are skilled at doing so.
When you get 95% males everytime you grow, it has nothing to do with prayer or light, it's good breeder genetics and habits, not ours

also known is that just because a plant is treated does not guarantee every seed will be effected, just most.

okay so the expression changes how am i getting ratio like i am?


okay okay i believe you guys, my understanding of genetics is not top par, most of what i know is what i have read or experimented with. i have read several articles that say it is environmental, but i have to say i have seen more that say it isnt. but why would a male express only female organs if it needs its male organs to reproduce?

polyarcturus said:

ha if you think they prove your point your wrong. and as i told you gender may be influenced by genetics but not decided. the decisions is made after germination they only have a genetic predisposition to a gender.


that may have came off a little harsh but its true. as far as genes determining gender it all is a part of the enviro that affects the plants gender choice.

some other good example of where genes do not play into gender as much is in Rodents and Reptiles

Click to expand...

You are correct about some reptiles, but wrong about rodents, which are mammals, and their sex is determined early in gestation, having nothing to do with their environment, but with the Y.

In the gametic life cycle, of which humans are a part, the species is diploid, grown from a diploid cell called the zygote. The organism's diploid germ-line stem cells undergo meiosis to create haploid gametes (the spermatozoa for males and ova for females), which fertilize to form the zygote. The diploid zygote undergoes repeated cellular division by mitosis to grow into the organism. Mitosis is a related process to meiosis that creates two cells that are genetically identical to the parent cell. The general principle is that mitosis creates somatic cells and meiosis creates germ cells.
The first major breakthrough in understanding sex determination was the discovery of sex chromosomes in the early 1900s. From meticulous analyses of male and female insect chromosomes, scientists discovered that, although most chromosomes were present in equal numbers in both males and females, there were one or two additional chromosomes that were unequally represented in the two sexes. Analyses of additional species over the years has revealed that chromosomal differences are primarily responsible for sex determination in most animals.
Sex Determination in Mammals

Figure 1: The SRY gene is on the Y chromosome and causes the development of male characteristics in humans.

In the absence of SRY gene, the embryo develops as a female.

Used with permission. Copyright 2005 by W. H. Freeman and Company. All rights reserved.



In placental mammals, the presence of a Y chromosome determines sex. Normally, cells from females contain two X chromosomes, and cells from males contain an X and a Y chromosome. Occasionally, individuals are born with sex chromosome aneuploidies, and the sex of these individuals is always determined by the absence or presence of a Y chromosome. Thus, individuals with 47,XXY and 47,XYY karyotypes are males, while individuals with 45,X and 47,XXX karyotypes are females. Humans are able to tolerate supernumerary numbers of sex chromosomes because of X inactivation and the fact that the human Y chromosome is quite gene-poor.
Although the role of the Y chromosome in mammalian sex determination has been known since the early twentieth century, it was not until 1959 that scientists were able to identify the region of the Y chromosome that controlled this process (McLaren, 1991). Later, researcher David C. Page analyzed the chromosomes of sex-reversed XX men, rare individuals who look like men but have two X chromosomes instead of one X chromosome and one Y chromosome. Using DNA hybridization with probes corresponding to different regions of the Y chromosome, Page discovered that sex-reversed males carried genes from a 140-kilobase region on the short arm of the Y chromosome (Figure 1). Presumably, this region had been transferred to the X chromosome during a translocation (Page et al., 1985). Subsequent experiments narrowed down this region (McLaren, 1991) and found that one gene, the sex-determining region of the Y, or SRY, was the master regulator of sex determination. The presence of just this region from the Y chromosome is thus sufficient to cause male development (Koopman et al., 1991).




Figure 2



In human embryos, the SRY gene encodes a unique transcription factor that activates a testis-forming pathway at about week seven of development. Before this time, the embryonic gonad is "indifferent," meaning that it is capable of developing into either a testis or an ovary (Figure 2). Likewise, the early embryo has two systems of ducts, Wolffian and Müllerian ducts, which are capable of developing into the male and female reproductive tracts, respectively. Once the SRY gene product stimulates the indifferent gonad to develop into a testis, the testis begins producing two hormones, testosterone and anti-Müllerian hormone, or AMH. Testosterone and one of its derivatives, dihydrotestosterone, induce formation of other organs in the male reproductive system, while AMH causes the degeneration of the Müllerian duct. In females, who do not contain the SRY protein, the ovary-forming pathway is activated by a different set of proteins. The fully developed ovary then produces estrogen, which triggers development of the uterus, oviducts, and cervix from the Müllerian duct.

im gonna save that. and read it till i understand it.

PolyA, I'm in my second Plush Berry grow. 80% females and I'm not aware of any feminizing. Others have sprouted mostly females PBs also, and I have no idea why. That part of it I have no idea at all about.

i mean it makes sense that a good breeder could select a female that produces mostly female seeds how would they know clone one grow the seeds fromit then decide if its good for breeding this is part of my program but it still seems the ratios are unusually high.

maybe its part of evolution and MJ is symbiotically responding to produce more product for us in return for the continuation of its species. lol i know that sounds crazy.

maybe they are aware of some dialed in factors, after a mother/breeder is chosen for her expressed traits, to subject her to while being fertilized, favoring female rather than male production, based upon the moms environmental messages....is what I've been learned.
But there are no proofs in science, and poly could be found correct someday. Or maybe mj will change its sexual expression course, like so many other species have to adapt. Many fish used to be/are able to change from boy to girl in a second, and actually exchange sperm for eachothers eggs. They contain eggs/and sperm relative to their gonads.

Poly--no observation in the cycle of life on earth is a crazy notion. animals live within 700f steam/water on fissures, bacteria using hydrogen sulfide instead of water as a reducing agent, producing sulphur/sulphuric acid.....now thats crazy shit !!!!!

Peace Poly

I think you both have good points. There surely is some selection going on. And lets face it, these plants are geared for survival and if they wanted to take over the planet they'd have almost all females and two scrawny males pollinating their asses off. You don't need a 1:1 female to male ratio. You have more progeny if you had a 20-1 or 100-1 female to male ratio

Rrog said:

Gender is predetermined. Expression is influenced.

Click to expand...

Yup.

To expand on this a little bit, all cannabis plants have hard-coded into their DNA the ability to make flowers of either gender.

Under the right conditions (or wrong ones, depending on your point of view), any genetically "female" plant can express male flowers and any genetically "male" plant can express female flowers.

Its actually typical of wild-growing cannabis strains for female plants to be hermaphroditic and express male flowers. The converse (typically male plants with female flowers) does happen, though its seen less often.

The reason why most strains people on this board grow are NOT hermaphroditic is because that trait is particularly undesirable in "medical" cannabis. For that reason the trait has been selectively bred out of most "commercial" strains by on purpose. But under the appropriate conditions, like severe light or heat stress, or the action of hormones (eg gibberellic acid) or chemicals (colloidal silver), pretty much ANY plant can make flowers of either gender. With some strains, female plants will normally make some male flowers late in flowering, particularly if the plant has been unfertilized. Its basically nature's "last ditch" effort to create offspring and perpetuate the line.

The main point is what was quoted above. . .the gender flowers you see on a plant don't always correspond with the genetic "sex" of said plant.

Now as a related issue, its generally been my experience of getting greater than 50% phenotypically female plants from "normal" seeds. I don't think this is just because I'm "lucky", or particularly skillful, nor do I think I'm the only one here.

One possible explanation is that under favorable conditions of good nutrients, pH, and lighting, maybe some otherwise genetically male plants will display an all female phenotype. I can't prove it, but in fact, I do NOT think this is what's happening.

I think a better explanation is just that cannabis plants don't always throw off a perfect 50-50 gender ratio in their seeds. In some strains, at least, "female" seeds are more common. Some "bagseeds" might be the result of fertilization of female plants by male flowers from hermaphroditic female plants, and are therefore naturally "feminized". Along the same lines, some "male" plants may actually be genotypically female, again, resulting in greater than expected number of female genotype offspring.

Lastly, there may be a survival bias here, where male seeds are just less likely to be viable or survive the seedling stage.

polyarcturus said:

okay so the expression changes how am i getting ratio like i am?


okay okay i believe you guys, my understanding of genetics is not top par, most of what i know is what i have read or experimented with. i have read several articles that say it is environmental, but i have to say i have seen more that say it isnt. but why would a male express only female organs if it needs its male organs to reproduce?

Click to expand...

What ratio are you getting? Again, I don't think its uncommon to consistently see more females than males when growing from ordinary seed (see my last post).

I honestly don't know if its common for genetically male plants to express all and only female flowers, or vice versa. I should add, though, that if this is true, it ought to be a relatively simple thing to prove, and in fact if so, it may have already been proven.

To answer the question, males put out tons of pollen, and you don't "need" a 1:1 ratio of males:females for the species to perpetuate itself.

Think of this like a flock of chickens with one rooster, or a herd of cows with one bull, etc. Its pretty typical in species that reproduce sexually that a small number of "alpha" males pass on their genes to perpetuate the species, with quite a few males never getting the opportunity to reproduce.

If you take the commonly biologically accepted "selfish gene" perspective that each plant simply wants to perpetuate its own genetics, it would make perfect sense for some male plants to want to express only female flowers *IF* being female gave them a better shot at passing on their genes to offspring.

In other words, in an environment with lots of male pollen around and relatively few females, any individual male plant might have a relatively slim chance of being a successful "father" plant, and might face better odds of being a parent if it converted gender to be "female".

If you're going to a bar with the expectation that there will be 20 guys and 5 chicks there, and you a. want to "make babies" and b. can pick your gender. . .which gender are you going to pick?

I've read some interesting papers on the fact that we are culling males from our gardens worldwide that some adaptation is taking place. And also, one supposition that we are here to facilitate the psilly shrooms' actions, and are an actual part of their life cycle, cosmically, and quantumly speaking. very trippy info on google, now if I could only be here and there at the same time...wait a minute....

This has been a thoroughly enjoyable thread. Thanks for all the excellent contributions.

and the thread thanks you Rrog !

This buds for you

pharmacoping said:

I've read some interesting papers on the fact that we are culling males from our gardens worldwide that some adaptation is taking place.

Click to expand...

Could you cite them? I'd love to see them.

You didn't say this, but I find it beyond belief that cannabis plants "out in the wild" can sense what's happening to their "relatives in captivity", so to speak, and are adjusting their genetic expression because of that.

Its more reasonable to think that since we're doing the selection, then we're controlling the genetics. More to the point, selective pressures can have intended consequences, as well as unintended ones.

In nature, most species that reproduce sexually put out approximately 50% of each gender. The perfect 50-50 ratio is maintained by natural selective pressure. For example, lets say that the genders got "out of whack" leading to a species strain that tended to produce 90% females and 10% males. At that point, any genetic variant that naturally produced a greater proportion of male offspring would enjoy a tremendous reproductive advantage since a small increase in the number of males containing these genes would lead to a significantly large increase in offspring containing them. After only a few generations, virtually ALL of the male genes would come from this variant, driving the natural gender ratio back towards 50-50. If the male ratio actually EXCEEDED 50-50, the same sort of pressures on the female side would tend to drive it back towards 50-50.

The point is, under "normal" circumstances of random mating, a 50-50% gender ratio at birth is maintained by normal selective pressure, and this "should" apply to wild cannabis plants growing outdoors under normal conditions.

However, most of us are not growing wild plants outside, and the specific case of cannabis plants being grown indoors is NOT a natural situation at all. At this point in time, most commercial/medical cannabis strains contain genetics that have been bred entirely indoors for literally a hundred generations or more. For example, most commercial strains contain genetics from Northern lights and/or Skunk #1 and each of these two have been specifically cultivated indoors (in some cases ONLY indoors) for at least 30 years.

In this scenario, virtually all males are culled, leaving only female plants. This creates an extremely strong selective pressure to retain female genes, and I think after 100 generations of this pressure its entirely possible that many of the indoor strains have been naturally "feminized" to put out a greater than normal proportion of female seeds.

Looking at this from the "selfish gene" perspective, in an indoor situation where virtually all males were culled, any strain variant that put out mostly female seeds would see a greater greater proportion of its offspring survive compared to a 50-50 strain variant. Greater numbers of surviving offspring would tend to pass on the "super-female" trait to future generations, maintaining it.

In nature, if a strain put out only 20% males, then some "super male" variant putting out a greater proportion of males would eventually come along and dominate the gene pool, increasing the proportion of males back to 50-50%. Indoors that doesn't happen, simply because all the males are culled. Not only is there no selective advantage to being a "super-male" indoors (because virtually all of the super males would be culled) , but this would actually be a disadvantage, since having more male offspring would mean that a greater proportion of plants containing these genes would be culled. A plant that had nearly 50% of its offspring killed at sexual maturity every generation would be outcompeted by one that only had 20% of its offspring killed.

Bottom line is that I believe its likely that over many generations, consistent selective pressure to weed out males has created strains more prone to create female seeds, and this is why some non-feminized strains yield greater than 50% female seeds.

pharmacoping said:

And also, one supposition that we are here to facilitate the psilly shrooms' actions, and are an actual part of their life cycle, cosmically, and quantumly speaking. very trippy info on google, now if I could only be here and there at the same time...wait a minute....

Click to expand...

I've heard this stuff, but personally, I take suggestions that human beings exist to perpetuate mushroom spores (and the like) as "cuckoo-talk".

Now, I can't deny that human beings may have altered the life cycle of psychoactive mushrooms to some extent over the millenia. With these mushrooms typically growing on cow-poo, and humans domesticating cattle and changing their natural habitats, human activity probably has altered mushroom 'evolution' to some extent. But the same could be said about any number of plant species including maize, wheat, cannabis, or tomato plants, and any number of animal species like dogs, cats, horses, etc, and its undoubtedly MORE true of those species. If humans exist to serve the mushroom, why don't we exist to serve the daschund or cock-a-poo?

I find the converse. . .that mushrooms have altered human evolution. . .again, to put it politely, "implausible".

Its really a great STORY, but if eating magic mushrooms could produce a survival advantage for hunters by creating better eyesight (as McKenna, etc, have suggested) then how come it hasn't "benefitted" other species (like apes, lions, wolves, etc) the same way? If mushrooms truly offer the benefit of better night vision, for example, then how come nobody on the planet (eg military, hunters, etc) uses them this way any more? If human and mushroom genetics are so intertwined, what does it say that most humans never use these psychedelic mushrooms their entire lives nor want to?

I re-read my above post and see it might be a little confusing to those who aren't "hip" to evolutionary theory.

Making it as simple as possible, any "strain" that put out 80% female seeds and 20% male seeds would probably be ideal for most indoor growing purposes. This won't happen under normal circumstances in nature.

But 100+ generations of pure indoor selective breeding, where virtually all males are culled every single generation and not allowed to reproduce may have led to exactly this situation, creating strains that put out mostly "female" seeds.

Not only would strains like that do well inside indoor gardens, they should also tend to do well in the marketplace too! Individual growers pleased to get 70% females from their seeds would want to buy more of these seeds, increasing demand, and therefore, eventually, supply.

Jogro said:

Could you cite them? I'd love to see them.

You didn't say this, but I find it beyond belief that cannabis plants "out in the wild" can sense what's happening to their "relatives in captivity", so to speak, and are adjusting their genetic expression because of that.

Its more reasonable to think that since we're doing the selection, then we're controlling the genetics. More to the point, selective pressures can have intended consequences, as well as unintended ones.

In nature, most species that reproduce sexually put out approximately 50% of each gender. The perfect 50-50 ratio is maintained by natural selective pressure. For example, lets say that the genders got "out of whack" leading to a species strain that tended to produce 90% females and 10% males. At that point, any genetic variant that naturally produced a greater proportion of male offspring would enjoy a tremendous reproductive advantage since a small increase in the number of males containing these genes would lead to a significantly large increase in offspring containing them. After only a few generations, virtually ALL of the male genes would come from this variant, driving the natural gender ratio back towards 50-50. If the male ratio actually EXCEEDED 50-50, the same sort of pressures on the female side would tend to drive it back towards 50-50.

The point is, under "normal" circumstances of random mating, a 50-50% gender ratio at birth is maintained by normal selective pressure, and this "should" apply to wild cannabis plants growing outdoors under normal conditions.

However, most of us are not growing wild plants outside, and the specific case of cannabis plants being grown indoors is NOT a natural situation at all. At this point in time, most commercial/medical cannabis strains contain genetics that have been bred entirely indoors for literally a hundred generations or more. For example, most commercial strains contain genetics from Northern lights and/or Skunk #1 and each of these two have been specifically cultivated indoors (in some cases ONLY indoors) for at least 30 years.

In this scenario, virtually all males are culled, leaving only female plants. This creates an extremely strong selective pressure to retain female genes, and I think after 100 generations of this pressure its entirely possible that many of the indoor strains have been naturally "feminized" to put out a greater than normal proportion of female seeds.

Looking at this from the "selfish gene" perspective, in an indoor situation where virtually all males were culled, any strain variant that put out mostly female seeds would see a greater greater proportion of its offspring survive compared to a 50-50 strain variant. Greater numbers of surviving offspring would tend to pass on the "super-female" trait to future generations, maintaining it.

In nature, if a strain put out only 20% males, then some "super male" variant putting out a greater proportion of males would eventually come along and dominate the gene pool, increasing the proportion of males back to 50-50%. Indoors that doesn't happen, simply because all the males are culled. Not only is there no selective advantage to being a "super-male" indoors (because virtually all of the super males would be culled) , but this would actually be a disadvantage, since having more male offspring would mean that a greater proportion of plants containing these genes would be culled. A plant that had nearly 50% of its offspring killed at sexual maturity every generation would be outcompeted by one that only had 20% of its offspring killed.

Bottom line is that I believe its likely that over many generations, consistent selective pressure to weed out males has created strains more prone to create female seeds, and this is why some non-feminized strains yield greater than 50% female seeds.

Click to expand...

I am sorry Jogro, I cannot. I am sure that when I saw the articles, along with a bong rip, I took them with a grain of salt, and considered them mind candy, not a theory. somewhere on google, maybe a shroom sight?

I saw someone mention males with female flowers here, and I would like some more info on that...I posted a thread on the topic, but haven't gotten any responses. Here is my original post from that thread:

I have a cross of Deadhead OG and Qleaner that I grew from seed. This was one of the healthiest, fastest growing plants I ever grew. Both parents were grown by me from regular seeds. It's been flowering for about a month now, and was clearly male until today. There are many male flowers, and some have already opened, but today I noticed white hairs here and there (not nearly as many as the male flowers). I know female plants can produce male flowers under stress, but I've never heard of it happening the other way around. The plant was given the best care I could give...high quality organic soil, small amounts of organic nutes, plenty of light from CFLs, a 400 watt HPS and the sun (on sunny days). I very much doubt that it has been stressed in any way, and besides, there are hundreds of male flowers, and only a few female looking ones...when females hermy, they have mostly female flowers with a couple of bananas here and there...The only time this happened to me before was with Subcool's Apollo 13 x Vortex. So yeah, my question: can male plants produce female flowers, and is this a negative, neutral or positive trait (should I bother breeding with it)?

I am now also wondering what would happen if I let my male pollinate itself...will I get all-male seeds?