I’ve been wondering lately what happens to cannabis when you grow it until it dies from weather? I’m talking zero harvesting but 100% taking care of the plant. Does the cannabis plant drop seeds and start again next year naturally?
If it does, does this mean cannabis is invasive?
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If you have a female plant it shouldn’t be dropping seeds, it would just wither depending on your climate region or if you have a subtle area it could continue to veg, you can harvest down to your 3rd node on the plant & still reveg the same plant.
Males on the other hand could drop seeds into the medium & then proceed with a new crop next year but then you have other problems with males sprouting up all over.
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Yes. And yes. Nebraska has “Ditch weed” literally weed growing wild in the ditches.
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Isn’t there always the off chance of a hermaphrodite
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Just keep a close eye for stress induced nanners, if taking proper care of a female you shouldn’t be stressing it to the point of herming. Just take all precautions, shade, nutes needed, & light source. If time doesn’t allow for proper light to not cause stress then apply it.
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Males dropping seeds? Males produce pollen, not seeds. The only way this will happen is if a male throws female parts and self pollinates itself, which sometimes happens if left long enough. The same applies to females. Some will revert to a vegetative state, some might express male parts and self-pollinate before doing so, while some might just wither away. The ones that might wither away are the same plants that are a bitch to re-veg.
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If you leave a female in flower long enough they’re known to herm just as a last ditch effort to reproduce. That’s one of the reasons late flowering sativas can really suck to grow. Ive never actually seen someone grow cannabis plant until it flat out died though so I couldn’t say. I’ve always been curious to see it. I’d love to see someone do this for science.
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I’ve left plants to die, some of them died while atleast one did not express any intersex traits but reverted to a vegetative state. I do live in a region where I can grow year round so that may play a role. Its very hard to speak with absolute certainty when it comes to cannabis plants.
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I think part of the equation is amount of NPK in soil, which could extend the life some if you keep feeding, but with an indica pheno, or sativa if wait long enough, the plant will just stop growing and die on its own. All plant matter will begin to dry and I assume root uptake stops. A practical example would be if you try to reveg a plant and it does not work. The buds you leave will be crispy and brown, even if you change light schedule and give some nutes.
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@Lrus007 posted a picture in the ‘why is there so little variety in curing cannabis’ thread (sorry, I’m too inept to link) where they put a ‘nail pointing north’ through the stalk, and left it to dry as it stood. It’s as close to ‘letting a plant die’ as I’ve ever seen
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Word about the “nail thru the stalk” is they were trying to force the plant into stress, therefore more trichomes or potent thc. Bro-science 100% or all my plants would have a PA and a Jacob’s ladder. Do NOT google pa or Jacob’s ladder, I warned ya.
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If you kept a plant alive indefinitely, it would go through Rhodelization trying to create male flowers and reproduce before it dies. It’s a good way to lock in intersex genetics into all the future beans that come out of that plant.
Cannabis naturally tries to revert back to seed based hemp. It’s through selection that humans have created drug-type cannabis. If you want to see more about this, read Michael Pollan’s “Botany of Desire”.
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I get premature seeds after day 70 in flower. No nanners, just white small premature seeds (sporadically).
Those are ovules and should be sterile. Just cannabis trying to preserve itself. It’s why a lot of the early sativas that take 12-14 weeks to finish were intersex.
It’s also why the early hybrids like NL #5x Haze and Indiana Bubblegum (Jamaican x Afghani) changed the breeding game. Because they were pure sativa mixed with pure indica, they were the first ones with hybrid vigor and the first step towards potency and stability.
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Thank You. That’s exactly what I needed to know.
So theoretically, cannabis can become invasive. Like let’s say the wind blows the seeds as they’re falling, would this assure cannabis to be spread?
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Technically, yes. The pollen drift is much more invasive. It’s a huge problem in MI with careless hemp farmers here.
Interesting side note, colonial Americans had to back cross their hemp with Chinese hemp every few years to boost the drug content. The Chinese had a better selection program than open pollinated American varieties.
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Can cannabis kill invasive plants and become the dominant?
Not if you have wild blackberries or nutsedge. Haha.
I have a plant growing in my backyard, I forget the name of but I have to chop it and then drill holes in the stump and fill the holes with salt or invasive plant killer because I know everything it has on and in it will kill you if you’re not the right bird 
It came from the neighbors behind me. They fucking cursed my yard.
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Bad neighbors suck. Unfortunately, I’m the bad neighbor because there must be a huge skunk den in my yard.
If salt doesn’t work, you can try potassium nitrate with the stump. It will rot it naturally. If you torch your farm for weeds, it’s helps burn the stump and rebuild the surrounding soil more quickly.
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