With this being our inaugural grow. We have been very pleased with the quality of the seeds as well as the growing equipment. We unfortunately learned that one of our best plants had turned into a hermie. This most likely occurred sometime between weeks 2 and 3.
"Hermie" short for hermaphrodite. Meaning that the plant has both male and female flowers. This has both genetic and environmental origins.
Genetic - meaning your seeds or clone came from a plant that was a hermie as well.
Environmental - there are many see below
- changes in the photoperiod. Such as exposing the plants to light during the dark period of flowering
- too much heat
- harvesting too late
- mechanical stress from over training and pruning during vegetative and flowering stages
- over-fertilization
We definitely did not control against all of these factors and are lucky that only one plant went hermie.
Now what to do with a plant that expresses male flowers on only a small area of the entire plant. Most people would suggest tossing the plant because the pollen from a single plant could pollenate the entire crop. We decided to remove the pollen sacks and isolate the plant to the smaller vegetation tent. We are hopeful that the pollen sacks were removed early enough that the other plants were not seeded. And by isolating it to a separate tent the plant will be able to grow without seeding in the future. That tent was currently housing early flower clones that we are attempting to re-veg for the next round. More on monster-vegging at another time.
The isolated plant is now on a 12/12 cycle under 108 watts (12 9w 60w equivalent uncapped LED bulbs). It's interesting to note that the solitary plant appears to be progressing through the flowering cycle more quickly than those under a 600w HPS bulb.
Below are photos of all the plants at Day 33 of flowering. This is day 108 from seed.
Hermie plant photos (under 108w LED system):
Plant photos under 600w HPS system:
Comparison between the two plant set-ups:
Again 600w HPS tent:
Thoughts about the HPS tent.
We are having a little issue with the plants on the right side of the tent. Notice the light green color in the leaves. We aren't sure if this is a natural occurrence as the plants progress through the flowering phase, or if they are low on Nitrogen. We have been pH balancing the water and nutrients. So we aren't sure why only a portion of the crop is experiencing this nutrient deficiency.
And the 108w LED tent:
Thoughts on the LED tent.
This plant appears to be very healthy. It also has a number of hairs turning from white to red/brown. We are using a jeweler's loupe to look at the trichomes. But we aren't very good at telling if they are cloudy. With cloudy being the ideal level of THC.
MM's
