Female and Male Marijuana Plants

Telling a female marijuana plant from a male one can be tricky for the inexperienced grower. It
is, however, essential to get a knack for doing this as early as possible. Unless you’re breeding
or cross-breeding marijuana, there is no reason to have male plants in the grow room. Find out
how to tell the difference between males and females and what to do with each of them.

Female and Male Marijuana Plants

Telling a female marijuana plant from a male one can be tricky for the inexperienced grower. It
is, however, essential to get a knack for doing this as early as possible. Unless you’re breeding
or cross-breeding marijuana, there is no reason to have male plants in the grow room. In actual
fact, having a male marijuana plant in the grow room does way more harm than good.

If a male is kept in a grow room, it will eventually release a pollen which pollenates the female
flower. Once this has happened the female bud will have seeds, the plant is less potent and
now also full of seeds. If you have any males in the grow room, rip them out as soon as you see
them. If you manage to do this, your buds will be ‘sinsemilla’ (literally meaning without seeds).
Check the description below and also have a look at some marijuana pictures. This is the best
way to easily tell a male marijuana plant from a female one.
For a complete guide to marijuana sexing click here.
Female Marijuana Plant Pictures
Male Marijuana Plant Pictures

Female marijuana plants

Clusters of flowers known as buds or colas only occur on female or hermaphrodite plants.
Hermaphrodites are plants that are part male, part female. If you want sinsemilla buds, make
sure you only have pure females.

Plants in constant light can sometimes start to show some pre-flowers after only a few weeks of
growth. Usually though it takes a change in light cycle to trigger the plants into full reproductive
mode.

Most varieties of marijuana require 12 hours of darkness per day to induce their flowering
cycles. Sativa varieties sometimes need more. Indica varieties can sometimes take less.
Ruderalis varieties can flower whatever.

Early female marijuana flowers look like little furry hairs, usually white, but they can be other
colors. Early male flowers look a bit like small bunches of mini green bananas. Look near the
leaf joins on your plants to see them emerging.

Even pure female plants have the potential to turn male or hermaphrodite. This can happen if
the plant is stressed too much through bad treatment or if chemicals are applied to the plant to
induce male flowering.

Male marijuana plants

Unless you have plans to breed or to produce lots of seeds, always  separate male and female
plants as soon as their sex becomes  apparent. Remember one or two male marijuana plants
can turn a  whole crop to seed and you just don’t want that happening.
Once you have a good female plant that you would like to keep you can place it in constant light
to stop it from flowering. This plant can then be a “mother” for you to take cuttings from
whenever you wish. See the cloning marijuana section for more info.