Number of males in feminized seeds

Wondering what other hemp growers are noticing in their feminized seed.

I bought about 200k seeds from a well known company this year and am seeing more males than I should. Walked around my field earlier today and pulled about 8 males from a quarter acre area. This is making me nervous since most plants haven’t started flowering yet, and that seems like a lot of males in a small area for feminized seeds. I have also received some calls from people I propagated seedlings for also finding some males in their fields, again at higher than expected rates.

If I did get a bunk batch of seeds what would be a good course of action

If they are truly feminized, and showing male traits, it’s most likely a hermie or not properly feminized seeds being sold as such.

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I usually see around 1 per 1000. Like @Demontrich said though, should be a herm unless it was an out door seed run then there is no telling.

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Pollen drift is hitting a lot of farmers in MI. Maybe their seed production wasn’t isolated and had a neighbor that didn’t cull males.

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LOTS of od growers since covid. 30%+ increase vs last yr imo.

That’s like dumb money entering a financial market. Newbies would be most likely to not cull males.

I kill anything that doesn’t look right to me at the seedling stage. There are always a few runts and mutants. Whatever males I have in the fem seed I grew must be plucked then by coincidence. I planted a friend’s ten acre field with 16,000 plants and we did not find any males.

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The seeds came from Colorado, and the claimed they were produced in a greenhouse in a no pollen county. So I don’t think cross pollination should be an issue. A few I pulled were definitely hermies, but some looked like straight up males. It’s happening with both varieties we planted from the same breeder.

It’s pretty early so I guess only time will tell, all there is to do at this point is walk the fields and pull anything suspect.

There really needs to be some way to make sure seeds people are selling are actually what they claim and have been lab tested to ensure germination and feminization rates.

I had plants in veg toss balls. Talk about inferior pollen chucking! In FN veg throwing balls.
Wtf!

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Don’t buy that no pollen county terminology. I’m in CO and we defiantly have a pollen drift issue. Do you mind if I ask who the company was?

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I talked to aosca about a year ago. They are nice people, but they just don’t know much about cannabis. They do certify hemp seed, but they won’t certify feminized seed, just because they don’t understand it. My only option for certification was to produce regular seed.

Yeah we have been working on some feminized seeds to avoid this issue, they just weren’t ready for a large plot, let alone to sell to other farmers this year.

Good to know on certification through aosca, it’s to bad they won’t do feminized/ potency test and certs. Obviously that would be expensive but worth if for someone pumping out millions of seeds. Surprised there hasn’t been any grow/ labs popping up that offer that.

@JedClampet The company was cope cbd

Theres a company that test for female ratios here in CO but I forget who it is. last I heard it was $1200 for sex testing and somewhere around $500 for germination testing. I can reach out to the guys across the street and find out who it is if you like. they are a pretty big seed producer.

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As you can get single plant dna sexing for ~$10 I assume they are germinating & testing a decent number for those prices.

If I remember right it was 1000.

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That seems appropriate. And reasonably priced. A thumbs up might still mean 5 males per 1000, but it’s a whole lot better than I planting blind.

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I would accept 5 per 1000. I’ve had good luck with CS. usually one or two herms an acre. I’m a cheap basterd on the farming side so I just throw them in the field and count later lol.

But 1 or 2 hermies can destroy an entire field. This is most likely where all the seeded bud comes from.

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Thats true. you have to be diligent and check the field everyday. even if someone showed me that the fem rate was 100% I’d still walk the field daily. I’ve seen guys have hermys from clones as well. sometimes its just the growing conditions that get you or a pest that stresses the plant out.

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Speaking of hermies. This is what I’ve found in 10+yrs of growing.

A hermie from a stress issue (light leak, timer issue) can happen at any time in flower.

A genetic issue (bad pollination practices) normally happens at week 2 or week 6. Even in veg.

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Yeah this is why feminized seeds suck in my opinion. They’re never quite the same as regular seeds. Realistically a small to medium scale grower has no excuse to not be able to pull their males on time.

Of course, at an industrial level they are undeniably useful. Obviously tough to monitor sexes on such a massive scale but that comes at the cost of stability which in times like this may defeat the purpose altogether. I just think you’re bound to see less vigor and more herms with fems.

I’ve seen good results with some S1’s but for the most part every reputable grower I know says they won’t touch fems unless it’s the only option for a genetic

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