GrowLED ACADEMY

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STEP 08 OF 14 · PROFESSIONAL COURSE

Sex identification and managing male plants.

Identify plant sex at the right stage, schedule repeated inspections and assess the cost of accidental pollination.

◷ 7 min read6 sectionsValidation quiz
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Indoor growing & hydroponics since 2007.
Working in the industry since 2009.

GROWLED ACADEMY
STEP 08.
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STEP 08 · ACADEMY PROOVERVIEW OF THE COURSE

Hemp is a dioecious species: male and female plants are separate individuals. In a batch grown from seed, you will get both sexes, and only unfertilised female plants produce the harvest you are aiming for. Sexing is therefore not an expert nicety, it is a campaign operation on which the value of your entire batch depends.

Dioecy, and why it concerns you directly

Most vegetable crops bear hermaphrodite flowers: each flower contains the organs of both sexes, and the question of sexing never comes up. Hemp works differently: a plant is either male or female, and that split is settled at emergence, in proportions you do not choose.

Two separate hemp plants of identical shape: the one on the left bears clusters of pollen sacs at every leaf axil, the one on the right bears calyxes with two white stigmas. Each is enlarged in an inset. Below, smaller, a vegetable flower in cross-section shows its male and female organs together in the same flower. Open the illustration full size
What to look for: hemp needs TWO separate plants where a single vegetable flower is enough. That is dioecy, and it is what makes sexing necessary.

Male plants produce pollen and no usable inflorescences. Their only possible contribution to your harvest is a negative one: fertilising your females. In a crop grown for flower they therefore have no place, and removing them is the rule.

A single male plant left in place can compromise an entire room. Pollen travels, and it does not ask your permission.

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