by Nebula Haze
What Happens if You Grow Hermie Seeds?
Did you find seeds in your buds even though no male plants were around? “Hermie seeds” refer to seeds you find in your cannabis buds without the presence of male plants. When you get seeds without male plants, it means a female plant “hermed” (showed hermaphrodite tendencies). The herm plant released pollen onto nearby buds, causing seeds to grow. But what happens if you grow the seeds from a hermie plant? Will it cause problems? Keep reading to find out!
Can you grow seeds from a hermie cannabis plant? Yes, but there are pros and cons.
Here is what cannabis growers can expect when growing hermie seeds:
Pros
- Free Seeds – These are seeds you find in your buds. Cannabis seeds cost money, and getting free seeds without any effort is appealing.
- All Female Plants – If both parents were female (at least mostly female), as is the case with herm seeds, all resulting cannabis plants will be at least mostly female and grow buds. In a way, herm seeds are “feminized” seeds.
Cons
- More Likely to Herm – Unlike professionally feminized seeds (which are created using a different process), hermie seeds come with more uncertainty. Although the resulting plants may or may not show any signs of herming, unfortunately the chances are higher because herming is in its genetics.
- Higher Chance of Seedy Buds – Again, it is possible your buds won’t grow seeds, but seedy buds are more likely. This is because the genetics came from cannabis plants that produced seeds without the presence of a male plant. Even if you don’t see evidence of plants herming, like pollen sacs or yellow hermie bananas on the buds, the buds may have seeds in them after harvest.
- Possibly Worse Yields & Bud Quality – If buds get a few seeds, it won’t affect your yields or bud potency much. But seeds take energy to grow. If your plant grows tons of seeds because it herms, you’ll end up with smaller buds that may have lower potency or smell than expected. Sadly, when growing hermie seeds, it’s impossible to know ahead of time what you may end up with.
- Unknown Genetics – Just like starting with any other bag seeds (seeds you find), hermie or not, you don’t know how the plants will grow. Unlike with seeds from a trustworthy breeder, you can’t know what to expect as far as how the plant grows, how long until it’s ready to harvest, the bud structure, smell, potency, etc. It’s really the luck of the draw.
Hermie plants grow yellow bananas or pollen sacs where buds should be. Hermie seeds come from buds pollinated from a hermie plant.
It’s clear to see why growers would want to grow herm seeds, they’re essentially free seeds that appear out of no where and grow all-female plants. That’s appealing.
The main downside to growing herm seeds is that you’re more likely to end up with more hermie plants and seeds in your buds. If it’s just a few seeds in your buds, most home growers wouldn’t care. But seeds take away from the size and potency of buds. If your buds produce tons of seeds, you’ll end up with very little bud to smoke, and it will be less potent than it could be. On top of that, you won’t know what to expect as far as how the plant grows or bud quality until the grow is over.
Related Article: What causes cannabis plants to herm?
Hermie seeds look the same as regular cannabis seeds, but they’re more unpredictable.
What happens when cannabis growers use herm seeds anyway?
If you’re wondering what happens when growers try to grow hermie seeds, you’re not alone. Lots of growers have given it a shot. Let’s explore what happens!
First off, there are plenty of fans. I’ve talked to growers who only use hermie seeds and never buy new ones. They aim to breed a line of plants that always herms just a bit. Enough to make a few seeds each generation. That way they get a steady supply of free seeds without having to deal with male plants. The downside is every generation always has at least some seeds in their buds. A few seeds is probably not a big deal for most home growers. But if things go wrong, you may end up with tons of seeds. Buds that are very seedy can be a pain because they drop seeds everywhere, and seedy buds tend to be smaller with lower bud potency.
Pollen, pictured here, is what causes seedy buds. Pollen can come from a male plant or a hermie plant.
So what can happen from growing herm seeds? The main risk is the offspring herming like its parent.
Notice how there are little yellow growths in between the white hairs in these buds? This is a common type of cannabis herm. Each of these yellow “bananas” releases pollen. If your buds grow tons of bananas while buds are early in the flowering stage like this, you could end up with hundreds or thousands of seeds in the surrounding buds.
This next bud is absolutely stuffed with seeds, due to a major herm in the grow room that went unnoticed. There’s little bud left after all the seeds are shaken out. No cannabis grower wants this to happen by accident!
However, if a herm plant only grows only a few bananas or pollen sacs that release only a little pollen, you may only get a few seeds or no seeds. If the herm happens late in the flowering stage, you may not get any seeds. That’s because seeds need several weeks to form. You typically only get fully formed seeds if a cannabis plant herms relatively early in the flowering stage.
A single lone banana won’t make many seeds, especially this late in the cannabis flowering stage.
If your hermie seeds grow buds like the first examples with tons of pollen sacs or bananas, you’ll likely end up with tons of seeds. If a hermie plant grows buds like the second example, you may end up with good buds that have very few seeds. Or the buds may not herm at all and you get perfectly seedless buds. It’s all a part of the genetic lottery you’re playing when growing the offspring of herm plants.
The main takeaway is this: good results are possible with hermie seeds, but you’re increasing your risk of running into problems.
If you want to read an example of a grower getting good results with hermie seeds, check this out.
Fascinating Experience from a Reader
Greg, a grower from Australia, recently wrote about his experience growing hermie seeds.
He grew 8 feminized seeds indoors. In his words, “Unfortunately, the grow room underwent some heat stress early in the flowering stage, which resulted in one of the eight plants herming. Naturally, this seeded up most of the rest of them.”
He decided to try germinating 14 of the resulting hermie seeds. To his surprise, all 14 plants grew into healthy females without any signs of hermaphroditism or seedy buds. He stated, “They have all grown out quite nicely. I have not come across a single seed. The buds are dense, so dense you could hammer a nail into them. And trichome production has been excellent, they are sticky like nothing else.”
His hermie seeds grew these beautiful plants.
Greg said, “I had hypothesized that they would not be feminized and that they would all be hermaphrodites, I’m quite pleased to learn that I was wrong on both counts.”
He mentioned that in the past he had a different experience, “All my previous experience with hermies and the resulting seeds has only been more banana throwing hermies. Those genetics were all bagseed from the shallow gene pool here in Australia though. This last one was the first hermie I have seen since I started purchasing seeds from Seedsman.” He promises to let us know what happens if he tries stressing out a plant on purpose with heat to cause it to herm on purpose.
Here are the plants from Greg’s experiment at harvest.
Greg had different results with these hermie seeds compared to his past experiences, which ended in disaster. It seems he may have found a set of genetics that only herms in stressful conditions. Or perhaps the tendency to herm under stress was not passed down to these particular seeds at all.
These plants are an example of when growing hermie seeds goes “right”. The resulting plants grew dense and frosty buds without any seeds or other problems.
Greg’s experience shows that hermie seeds don’t always produce seedy or banana-filled buds. With the right genetics and stress-free conditions, it’s possible to get quality female plants from seeds made by a hermie mom plant. It just goes to show there can be a lot of variation when it comes to the hermie trait being passed down.
Related Article: Do Feminized Cannabis Seeds Make ‘Hermie’ Plants? [Sometimes]
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are they called “Hermie” cannabis plants?
“Herm” or “hermie” is a common nickname for “hemaphrodite”, and hermie seeds come from a plant that grew buds like a female plant, but also pollen like a male plant. Whether it comes from a male or herm plant, pollen gets on nearby buds and causes seeds to grow.
Learn more about hermie plants.
What causes hermie plants?
Cannabis plants become hermies in 3 ways:
- Genetics – Some plants herm no matter what you do, due to their genetics. There’s nothing growers can do about this kind of herming.
- Stress – Some plants may only herm if they experience a lot of stress. That could include irregular light schedules, heat, high humidity, certain flowering supplements, and other stressful conditions. However, the best cannabis strains are ironclad and won’t herm no matter what.
- Chemicals – Spraying healthy young cannabis plants with certain chemicals like colloidal silver or gibberellic acid forces them to grow pollen sacs instead of buds. The resulting pollen is used to make commercial feminized seeds.
How do I prevent hermie plants?
The best way to avoid growing hermie cannabis plants is to start with good genetics from a trustworthy breeder. Good feminized seeds don’t herm no matter way. On top of starting with good genetics, you should take care of your plants and try not to stress them. Lastly, take a second to look at your buds every day, and keep an eye out for signs of herming so you catch it early and quickly dispose of the offending plants.
How do breeders make feminized cannabis seeds?
The feminized seeds you buy from breeders are created when growers use chemical means to force a female plant to herm. They use that resulting pollen to make the seeds. Since each “parent” plant is a female, and without a male in the mix, all the resulting seeds are all female. As long as the breeders are careful to only choose plants that never herm in natural conditions, the resulting seeds are unlikely to herm.
Conclusion
Should you grow hermie seeds? It depends on you and your situation.
I personally don’t, but I understand why a grower might do it, especially if money is tight. That being said, even expensive cannabis seeds don’t cost much in the grand scheme of a cannabis grow. If you’re going to spend 3-4 months growing a plant, the $100 it costs to buy a bunch of great seeds will reward you with plants that grow as expected and produce good yields of beautiful seedless buds. You deserve the best!
Let me know what you think. Have you grown hermie seeds? What happened? Fill out our contact form and let us hear your experience!
~Nebula Haze, co-founder of GrowWeedEasy.com
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