web420
09-10-2005, 04:53 AM
Preflowers:
Experienced growers can sometimes recognize the sex of their plants earlier than the flowering period. When propagated from seeds, plants will begin to show preflowers after a month or so of vegetative growth. These appear in the middle of the joint or node where individual branches leave the main stem. Use a loupe or magnifying glass to examine the node. Keep in mind both sexes will show stipules, the leafy spikes that protrude from each node. Above the stipule is where tiny preflowers emerge. Females indicate themselves with stigmas, or fuzzy white hairs, that extend outward from a teardrop-shaped bract (also known as a calyx). Male preflowers don't have pistils: they resemble a closed fist at the end of a veryshort arm. Some liken them to mushrooms or to a ball-on-a-stick shape. If you're not sure about the preflowers, wait it out-there won't be any damage done at this point. You have plenty of time to become certain before doing anything drastic, like killing off suspected males.
http://www.420genetics.com/gallery/files/3/f-1.JPG
http://www.420genetics.com/gallery/files/3/f-2.JPG
http://www.420genetics.com/gallery/files/3/f-3.JPG
Females:
Female flowers begin to show as bracts at the various bud sites that occur at branch nodes and tips. Two whaite hairs (stigmas) will emerge from the end of the pear-shaped bracts, looking very much like their precursor female preflowers. The bracts gradually swell, becoming covered in a "resin" made up of glandular trichomes-tiny THC-containing crystals that glisten like diamonds in the light. As the female flowers mature, thousands of these bracts form into clusters known as buds, eventually filling branches to form long colas. Kept free of male pollen and fed with the finest in phosphorous-rich nutrients, females will swell in size, producing trichome-laden buds just begging to be consumed.
Experienced growers can sometimes recognize the sex of their plants earlier than the flowering period. When propagated from seeds, plants will begin to show preflowers after a month or so of vegetative growth. These appear in the middle of the joint or node where individual branches leave the main stem. Use a loupe or magnifying glass to examine the node. Keep in mind both sexes will show stipules, the leafy spikes that protrude from each node. Above the stipule is where tiny preflowers emerge. Females indicate themselves with stigmas, or fuzzy white hairs, that extend outward from a teardrop-shaped bract (also known as a calyx). Male preflowers don't have pistils: they resemble a closed fist at the end of a veryshort arm. Some liken them to mushrooms or to a ball-on-a-stick shape. If you're not sure about the preflowers, wait it out-there won't be any damage done at this point. You have plenty of time to become certain before doing anything drastic, like killing off suspected males.
http://www.420genetics.com/gallery/files/3/f-1.JPG
http://www.420genetics.com/gallery/files/3/f-2.JPG
http://www.420genetics.com/gallery/files/3/f-3.JPG
Females:
Female flowers begin to show as bracts at the various bud sites that occur at branch nodes and tips. Two whaite hairs (stigmas) will emerge from the end of the pear-shaped bracts, looking very much like their precursor female preflowers. The bracts gradually swell, becoming covered in a "resin" made up of glandular trichomes-tiny THC-containing crystals that glisten like diamonds in the light. As the female flowers mature, thousands of these bracts form into clusters known as buds, eventually filling branches to form long colas. Kept free of male pollen and fed with the finest in phosphorous-rich nutrients, females will swell in size, producing trichome-laden buds just begging to be consumed.