by Nebula Haze
Cannabis plants can be male or female, but only female cannabis plants make buds. Female cannabis flowers are buds, and male cannabis flowers are pollen sacs, which contain low THC and are poor to smoke. Male pollen sacs eventually open and release pollen, which pollinates the female cannabis plants, and causes buds to grow seeds, which also results in smaller buds with lower THC levels.
These days, most home cannabis growers start with feminized cannabis seeds because they grow only female plants, which means every plant will make buds. Other growers watch their cannabis plants as flowers start developing, then identify and remove male cannabis plants.
Feminized cannabis seeds are the best way to ensure that every plant is female. This way you don’t need to worry about identifying the sex of plants!
But if you can’t buy cannabis seeds online, and must start with another source of seeds, there is a strong chance that about half the plants will be male and half will be female.
With standard, non-feminized cannabis seeds, plants grow 50/50 male vs female plants. That means half of the plants won’t make buds and, even worse, cause the buds you do have to make seeds.
If you’re worried some of your plants may be male, here is the easiest way to determine the sex of your cannabis plants while they’re still in the vegetative stagae.
How to Identify the Sex of a Cannabis Plant
Here’s how to identify the sex of your cannabis plants even if they’re still in the vegetative stage.
1.) Take a cutting (clone) from the unverified cannabis plant and put it in a glass of water.
I take stems off the plant and put them in a cup of water. You don’t need your cuttings to make roots before identifying the sex. As long as you give light and make sure the cup always has water, the cutting should stay alive long enough to identify the sex.
If you have extra stems, you can take multiple cuttings and put them in the same cup. Some cuttings will show their sex sooner than others, so taking multiple cuttings may speed up the process by a few days in some cases.
2.) Label both the clone and the mother plant with the name of the strain so you know which clone came from which corresponding mother plant.
I use disposable cups and write the name on the cup. You could also put a piece of tape on a cup and write the name on that. You should do this step if you’re identifying the sex of more than one marijuana plant at a time. If you don’t label your clones, then all your effort will be for naught because you won’t know which clone is which!
3.) Give clones a light schedule with 12+ hours of darkness every day to initiate flowering and get the cuttings to reveal their sex.
Again, you don’t need to wait for the clones to establish roots before changing the light schedule. You can start this immediately after you take the cutting. The cuttings will start flowering even if their roots haven’t formed yet. However, you should make sure they get at least some direct light during their “day” to keep them healthy long enough to reveal their sex.
4.) Clones will reveal their sex in 1-3 weeks.
Look to the joints where leaves meet the stem. Males develop balls and females develop white hairs. Click here for more information and pictures about how to sex a cannabis plant.
Female cannabis plant – The first flowers of a female cannabis plant looks like this. You will see white hairs coming where leaves meet the stem.
Notice the white wispy hairs at the “joints” where the leaves meet the stem. You can see from my fingers at the top, for scale.
This is what female cannabis flowers look like at the top of the plant. You will notice white hairs emerging from the leaves.
Male cannabis plant – The first flowers of a male cannabis plant look like this. You will see little balls, like grapes, that appear in the same place as female plants. Male pollen sacs often also appear at the top of the cutting.
Male pollen sacs are tiny and hard to see at first, but pollen sacs quickly start growing in bunches that are easy to identify. Look how tiny this pollen sac is compared to my finger.
Here are male pollen sacs after they start growing in bunches. You know for sure this is a male plant when you see bunches of balls without any white hairs.
5.) Remove male cannabis plants.
Once you have determined the sex of your clones, you should make sure you throw away any corresponding male plants. Or at least move them to somewhere safe so their pollen can’t get to the buds of your female cannabis plants by accident.
Now you can grow your known-female cannabis plants with confidence. Once they start flowering, they will make the same type of flowers as the cuttings you took. Continue to care for your female cannabis plants with a ton of light, no nutrient deficiencies, and consistent 12-hour dark periods, and don’t let them get hot during the last 2-3 weeks before harvest.
Mission Complete: You know the sex of your cannabis plants and have only bud-making plants left.
It’s bud time!
Click here for a list of recommended beginner cannabis strains (all-female seeds unless otherwise indicated)
