because im fucked off,, my 1st grow i planted up 72 lowryders
and only got 18 fems.. this time i planted up 17 i think,, so fare iv
got 8 males and 1 fem the rest im waiting to sex still ,, and im sure
iv spoted 5 more males but im hopeing im wrong , all thos plant
under thos lights for 3 weeks has given me the right DOG

Either that or choice a strain with a better male to female ratio, would imagine some strains when seeds are produced are more prone than others to be male based on genetics, some fermitized very rather hermi, mind due allot do.

couldn't ya clone the females and this way you are going to get females everytime, simpy clone the best looking females.

If you want my honest opinion,forget female seeds and forget fekkin shitryders and get yourself some proper plants

Owd

Well sometimes your the windshield, and sometimes your the bug my friend.

72 lowryders!

I looked for ages mate n decided against fem seeds reason being is i hate hermies more than i hate males n fem seeds are prone to flinging a some at ye.


It happened to my last crop 6 weeks into flower n by the 9th week when they finished it was full of seeds.

Yeah agreed, i always wondered what the deal was with so many people buying these, heard some shit results yeild wise with these as well which makes me wonder if it costs more for lighting and power than it does to buy it from the street which to me seems pointless.

Mainly as i grow to save money buying it and because dealer weed is shit.

I wouldn't touch feminized seeds again as IMHO they are a waste of time and effort. You are far better off with a proper female from regular seeds.

ya cant clone lowriders
Agree with Owderb, get some proper genetics (not autoflowering) and weed out the males.

I have had pretty good results with feminised seeds. Is it proven that feminised seeds of the same strain will produces worse results than non feminised?

Jim

Corrr thats just bad luck! sorry to hear about that mate.

Hi,

I've been using exclusively feminised seeds for the last two grows and found them great. The honest truth is that you need to give them a try. Quality is the all important factor. Buy fresh seeds from a reputable dealer and you'll be OK. Can't understand why some folk are totally arsewiping them! There's no rational reason to justify that kind of attitude.

iv got some propa seeds on the go as well but iv bin reading up on them as well
and thay say you must veg them for six weeks befor you can flower them..
and iv put a post on here ,people say thay are guna be around 6ft when
thay finsh,,
the ones iv got are 7 weeks old now and i put them in flower abought 9 days
ago ,,, so i can find out there sex ,,,, and take cuttings,, the thing is that i want
to ask is once thay have shown there sex ,, lets say it takes them 3 weeks to show
there sex,, can i swich the light back to 18/6 and can i take cuttings as soon as thay
have shown there sex, or do i have to wait for 3 or for weeks so the plant go back
in to veg properly befor i can take cuttings ,,,,,,,,

i moved on to fem seeds cuz i was sick of putting money into males. i havnt got much room and now have an 8 plant sog with 2 plants going in my flower room every 2 weeks and 2 being cropped.
i can only do this with cuttings or fem seeds and u get let down too often on cuttings. yeah i get the odd hermie and i de-ball where i can but i would sooner have my own weed with a few seeds than shite off of some dickhead street dealer.
give the fems a go.
Greenhouse is a good one

Bang on the money, as per usual me owd muckah!


Oh yes there is. Loads of folks have wasted their meagre resources on these and been rewarded with a fine crop of hermies and even full males.
Growing any plant well requires great patience. To try and skip the sexing and get sure fire quick results is just a con by the seedbanks, and does nothing at all to encourage folks to develop such patience.
I have tried femmed seeds. I grew out Femmed and Normal Mazar. The femmed were a waste of time, the worst of it being they were impossible to clone with any decent results. The clone plants simply mutated in 12/12. Plus, I found the potency better on the normal plants.
Given the price of these femmed seeds, I think there is every reason to call them what they are: a con, and a barrowload of shyte to boot.
Of course some folks have good experiences of them. IMHO, more good luck that anything else.

@ the OP: Develop patience my friend, and grow your dope as close to nature as is possible

Although some feminised seeds are becomming more stable (or seem to be) youll score high fem ratios from standard packs if you choose quality, proven products like sensi, im not saying all expensive seeds are good because theres plenty of evidence to disprove it! theres also a mountain of data on seed banks that deliver the goods and id go as far to say that even from a pkt of nivani youll find a reasonable keeper.

reg Cookie

I've used fem seeds plenty of times without encountering hermies, the only time I've had fem seed go hermie was my first grow which is hardly surprising really.


I don't get the anti fem seed sentiment on here, it seems a bit like snobbery to me, ie. you're not a real grower if you grow fems .


the only thing about fems I don't like is the price, other than that it smokes the same and grows the same as regular weed.


I've had more grief with regular seeds than I've ever had with fems - like 9 males out of 10 plants for instance, growing regular seeds can be a bad idea if you only have limited space.

sorry arn but you seem to be mostly judging by your own experience here and the sum total of that experience seems to be one pack of fem mazar.

I've never encountered any of the issues you mention except the hermies and then only once, I've grown fem mazar and regular and honestly the femmed version was better - probably just the phenotype but it was a far better smoke than the ones I grew from regular seeds and it cloned as easy as anything, sorry you had such a bad experience with fems but I can assure you they aren't all like that.

hhmm just about to order my seeds for my first indoor grow and have seen this discussion a lot on here as well as a few other that seem to keep popping up.

Surely there is only one way to find out what is best for you and that is experimenting?

I am gonna try my first grow with normal seeds thinking skunk #1 as supposed to be fairly good for a first timer indoors and havent decided my other yet but i am gonna try normal seeds n see how I get on get used to sexing etc then if it goes tits up maybe I will try feminised but they do seem expensive and seems to be more negative than positive on them.

to have a true opinion you gotta try all the different methods i suppose eh including cloning, hydro, fem seeds sheesh so much to learn.

if you don't go you won't know.

Of course I'm writing from experience, both my own and that of others both locally and here on UK420 (not just one pack of Mazar as you assume). I don't comment on anything outside of my own experience if I can help it. I am glad you have positive experiences, but let's be honest - there are loads who haven't. Maybe you're a better than average grower, maybe your grow is in better nick? But for the average John or Jane, femmed seeds represent a serious hermie risk. They'd be better advised to build up their growing skills with standard seeds, then maybe have an experiment. But to go fully "femmed" because of high male ratios is to court disaster. High male ratios could indicate some environmental issue that needs resolving. Simply jumping to femmed seeds is avoiding the issue, and in so doing is almost a guarantee of the femmed seeds throwing up hermied plants.
And where have you ever read here that those who use femmed seeds are not real growers? I aint ever read it, and suspect that you are simply making a rather snide throw away comment? Why? Folks using femmed seed are perfectly welcome here as is everypone else. What is with some folks throwing out malicious little jibes suggesting otherwise.
And "snobs", I don't know why you use such a silly word? If trying to save folks from a hermied crop and lots of wasted money makes me a snob, then I'll order up a butler and get my seat in the Upper House polished, don'tchya know.

And ill pipe up again , have grown normal sagamathra seeds last time and have to say was a right royal pain in the ass waiting to sex them then to repot them waste compost waste time and out of 10 seeds think i got 4 females and a shit load of waste to get rid off..

So back again to female seeds , and since i started i have only had 1 or 2 plants that had around 10-15 seeds in total.. now maybe i have green fingers or maybe some seed banks ain't as bad as others but either way here i am again doing Cannabiogen test grow of female destroyer and some old faithful grapefruit x maroc and grapefruit x neviles haze 3 weeks into flower and there all looking nice not a bollock anywhere.

Have to say for me there ideal , no second veg chamber just 1 tent.

With people like Cannabiogen , Ace seeds , Magnus genetics , Seedism seeds all doing fem seeds now you really cant say the genetics are shit some of these seed banks as well you know are well respected and for them to bother with fem seeds at all must show there is a market and they are viable.

Anyway just my 2 pence worth , ill go back into my corner now and watch with eagle eyes.....

Mine aren't - and I veg for 8 weeks



Take cuttings from all plants now., carefully label them and ditch the boys later.

No need to switch back to 18/6

I tried femmed seeds on my first grow - spoetnik #1 from paradise, they grew ok, bit of hermaphrodism, but hell, I'm still a L driver where growing is concerned - as me dear old granny used to say, "how do you tell the difference between an elephant's arse and a lemon? Suck it and see".

I'm only on my 3rd grow now, 2nd in muck, but I recently read (here on Uk420) about an early sexing technique, which enables you (and hopefully me) to identify males and females before putting them into flower. Sounds simple enough - all you do is label each plant, take a cutting from each, label the cuttings accordingly, then put them (the cuttings) on 12/12 - it was suggested an empty case of beer bottles would be ideal, just remember to refresh the water regularly and you should see some results within a few days or so. Unless you're planning on breeding, dump the males and clone the females.

On the subject of feminized seeds, I feel somehow that it's tampering with nature, whatever chemical processes are involved in actually feminizing the seeds, although I believe that ordinary cannabis can hermie on occasion too, particularly late in season if under stress - built-in survival of the species sort of thing, or something like that. Technically you should get more females from ordinary plants as it only takes one male to pollinate females for miles (in its natural habitat), or, in the case of an indoor grow, every girl in the room.

72 Lowryders eh? Hoping for a full Ozzie there, were ya?

I reckon I've hit on a decent strategy to make up for some of the lost productivity due to vegging males.

Veg twice as many plants as you need for 6 weeks, chuck the boys, LST, veg for 2 more weeks. (I've consistently averaged close to 50/50)

I reckon I have a pretty well-filled space.

If I was growing from cuttings I don't know how much vegging I would do .. maybe 2 weeks, then top and veg 2 more weeks ?

Doubtless I would end up with plants a foot or more shorter ...

if you ever saw my grow you'd soon eat those words.


tbh I've had more hermies in regular seeds than I have femmed ones, I've had regular blueberry,exile,bubblegum and mazar go hermie on me, the only femmed beans I've had go hermie are Skunk #11 and like I said before it was a first grow and I made lots of mistakes.

I've grown femmed powerplant, mazar, strawberry cough,passion #1 several times with no issues.


maybe some strains are more prone to going hermie than others but in my experience it's got bugger all to do with whether they were femmed or not.



no snobbery eh ?





ahem yeah of course not, now where on earth did I get that idea.

Well, let me tell you my experience.

I've been growing over a decade and decided to try some femmed seeds this time around - greenhouse femmed 5 pack, I stuck 4 in a 6 plant grow (thank fuck I put something in I knew would work).
Anyway, these fookin triffids have been stretching and stretching like someones been feeding them rubber and at 55 days 12/12 they look nowhere near done and it says 56 days on the tin.
My first ever grow looked was better than this.
I need to remove the 2 plants that are done over the weekend and then tie these femmed ones down in an attempt to get them to finish and salvage some bud.

IMO they are a cash cow for the seedbanks - taking advantage of people wanting (or in some cases needing) a short cut.

Never ever will I buy femmed seed again
I will also reinstate my practice of only placing 1 unproven plant in a grow at any one time - the one time I stray away from this and it could cost me dear.

to be honest I dont see how you can say your problems are down to using femmed seeds it seems more likely to me that they are due to using Greedhouse seeds.


if you're gonna grow femmed seeds it is at least advisable to get them from a reputable seedbank, I always grow DP femmed beans because they've been doing them for years and seem to have a pretty good rep.

Have to say id agree with the above post Greenhouse seeds are hardly a descent seedbank for normal let alone fem seeds , i have not seen one of there strains worth while growing and not many worth while smoking but each to there own i guess as it would be a fairly shitty boring world if we all smoked and grew the same things.

Rite i have read over this fourm and i gotta say there is nothing wrong with fem seeds; Well from my expeience. I have had great results from fem seeds(white rhino)! and sorry to tell you all, they are GHS too! i was unsure to grow fem seeds at first as of the hermie rate.. so for my first grow i said to myself ill grow one plant, turns hermie then it turns hermie- but atleast that will only be one lady gettin hurt. She was a full blooded indica female who turned out to be a great mother. I heard that GHS's have been known to have leafy plants, but if you view my grow diary you can see the is more buddage than plant meteral on the plant. There is also a smoke report i put up lerking around on the fourm on ghs-white rhino. And all i can say it a beautiful smoke at 1 week hang dryed! let alone its been curing for 1week and is tasteing better each day.

Although im still a noob, and only grown once with fem seeds i think i cus say there a 75% reliable, as dont forgot i used GHS, which to everyone else is a bad idea?

Sticky

Well heres my 2p,
I've grown a few strains from seed and to be honest never been happy with the results....Its nowt to do with the ratio of males to females or whether they hermied or not. Its the inconsistency of what you end up with, Rarely do you get exactly whats on the tin.

So now that i know a few growers i buy cuttings in at a fiver a time and keep a mum back, This way i know the strains are proven and will know exactly what to expect.......The same way the original cheese was kept going.


HH

not defending arjan as he does come other as a bit of a dick but theres his femmed version of the cheese on 420 front page looking quite tasty if im not mistaken ??not going to defend fem seeds either as 1 hermied on me last grow and shagged all me other plants with a definate yield loss affect,got some fems left in the fridge and thats where theyre staying for now.sexing plants and getting blokes is a bummer but finding true decent females makes up ferrit.if it bothered me that much id start cloning(no blokeish dissapointments there).

My quote "proper plants" were not at female seeds but lowryder

I just like you have an opinion and mine always was and still is that lowryder is just a freaky autoflowering dwarf plant and i wouldnt dream of growing such a plant

Owd

I can't argue with that one, did you see my lowryder 2 pics ? .....


from seed to one fucking joint in 60 days ...

Lizard, where is the "snobery" in Owd's words? He makes a comment about a strain, and that's snobbery? Fekk man, but you're a hard and judgemental fella if that's your view of snobbery.
Are we not allowed to hold views on strains now? Or is it only alright if they agree with yours, you know, the common view

I do think femmed seeds get unfairly slated on here I've seen it happen quite a lot of times I believe they have their uses just as regular seeds do and for some people they are a far more attractive and practical option, I just don't uderstand why some people are so quick to condemn them.






I may have misread owd's comments, it doesn't mean I haven't seen plenty of other posts slating femmed seeds though, they appear to get bad reputation but I've seen very little evidence personally that they are any worse than regular seeds.

I suppose it just comes down to people talking about their experience's that they have had with them. Alot of people don't like them and there are quite a few that do like them. If you grow them and they work well for you then fair enough keep on growing them and good luck to you. The one's I grew done badly and ruined a crop going hermaphrodite half way through flowering so in my experience I don't like them. Each to their own I suppose at the end of the day.

hermies are a real pain in the arse but I've honestly had more hermies from regular beans , maybe that's just shit luck I really don't know.


personally I think herminess has for more to do with a plant's genetic heritage than whether it's femmed or not.

I'm sorry to say it, but that's a daft thing to say - atleast on the lowryder front. I've grown many LR2s, and they may not give you the most bang for your buck, but when they're grown properly (and it's not hard to do so), they still deliver far better smoke than you're ever likely to get from a dealer in Britain, and are probably more resistant to our weather than many other strains. If this guy had that many males out of 72 plants, he was either incredibly unlucky, or he did something that stressed the hell out of them.

I'm getting increasingly annoyed by this 'Autoflowering sucks!' thing, especially considering that the majority of people saying this have never even grown them properly to understand their advantages and disadvantages. Fair enough if you have the space, equipment and expertise to grow a load of massive-yielding white widows, but these snobbish attitudes about smaller grows and smaller plants are entirely counter-productive to the growing scene.

No it isnt daft at all,its just my opinion like you have yours but i dont call yours daft



No snobbish attitudes to smaller grows at all mate or smaller plants

Some folk grow "white widows" very small in small spaces,and it all depends on what you call a small space

Owd

Not all opinions are equal.

How many LR/LR2/Autoflowering grows have you had under your belt? I would love to see someone inexperienced (or even something who knows a fair bit) try to reliably grow a white widow to 1 foot tall, or even shorter to fit in a small space without resorting to harmful pruning or extreme training. Not to mention do it in only 2 months with only the most basic equipment. I've never heard or read anything like this happening, though. If anyone can provide me with information and links to the contrary, I'll be happy to admit I'm wrong.

I'm sorry to snap, but considering you've not really explained any of your experience or credentials when you were bashing the lowryder/autoflowering strains (indeed the best you could manage was a rude nickname), Im not particularly inclined to take your word as gospel truth, and don't really feel anyone else should be, either. Fair enough if I'm wrong and you've had real experience of this strain, but if you are then please back up your dislike with some reasons and some evidence.

If anyone is interested, I'd be more than happy to do likewise.

Look around the site mate theres loads of folks done small or even tiny grows with plants other than the freak autoflowering dwarf,even in a pc case,and wheres the harm in training or topping

One things for sure it aint brutal



Ok

Owd

I've grown Lowryder and the smoke is of course better than anything on the street but I almost consider it an ornamental canna plant as the yields are so low and 60 odd days is plenty enough time to grow a clone of far superior genetics with a decent yield that can be trained or topped to fit the smallest of environments.

Their micro pheno's are a pain the butt,a big pot holding 5gm is not good really.

It was a passing amusement and I'd have no want need or desire to grow them again although it may make other people very happy.

Lowryders are ok but I prefer the real thing.

I switched to using fem seeds because of poor male/female ratios and i'm happy so far.

ive grow out paradise seeds 'magic bud fems' a few times and they were ok, had the odd hermie nana on 1 or 2 plants each pack but nothing catastrophic
i never kept clones though as i only used them to fill in the spaces if i didnt have enough cuttings prepared,
ive still got 2 packs and i doubt il ever crack them as i didnt really like 'magic bud' that much, but i know i wouldnt buy fems again unless it was something that really tickled my fancy and i couldnt get in normal seed form

There's nothing wrong with training or topping if you have the time, knowhow and equipment to do it - My point is that autoflowering strains almost entirely removes the need for these techniques. I've seen some of the PC case grows out there, and the ones that are genuine full growth-cycle case grows are an impressive demonstration of what can be done in a small space, but many of the easiest looking and most impressive ones I've seen have used an auto flowering variety such as an LR2 or Masterlow as it makes the entire process far, far simpler. You don't need to worry about training because they'll stay as short as you want anyway. You don't need to worry about different bulbs or lightcycles because they only need flowering suitable lights and single 18/6, 16/8 or 24/0 light cycle throughout the grow. You don't need to worry about separate vegetative and flowering areas if you want to stagger your grows to monthly or even bi-monthly harvests. You don't need somewhere to keep your cloneable mother and her cuttings. You literally need just one small area for every aspect of the grow.

Take my current setup for example. I have a super low-tech cupboard grow with less than 2' of headroom for plants and no available space anywhere else for vegetative areas or clone generation. In this single small area, I am currently running staggered grows that are more than capable of producing atleast 2 ounces of bud (dry weight) every month, all year round. However I have no need for this much gear, and no interest whatsoever in selling any of it, so I'm actually running well below the capacity that my simple LR2 grow is capable of delivering.

Yield and potency are also something that I feel are unfairly represented by people who have very little experience of the newer auto-flowering strains. Granted, the original Lowryders weren't fantastic in either department, but LR2s, Masterlows, auto-kush, auto-AK47 and the various other new strains are all far superior. My experience with Lowryder 2's has been one of absolute delight when I took a risk on this apparently low-yielding, average-potency plant only to discover that I was easily getting 1 ounce of dried bud from each plant, plus the potency was nothing short of excellent. It's no white widow, but it's twice as good as anything you can buy around here and almost as good as the purple haze and crystal strains I've tried in the past.

...and not all opinions are automatically equal. This is one of those odd little fallacies that seems to be taken as law on internet forums. An opinion's worth is still based experience and knowledge relating to the subject of the opinion. If I said that in my opinion all cats were really just giant furry insects that could yodel, it would not mean that this opinion was automatically equal to the opinion of an evolutionary biologist who believed that they were actually a carnivorous, mammalian quadruped and member of the family Felidae. Opinions are not somehow magically immune to criticism simply because they are opinions, unless they are about something entirely unmeasurable and subjective.

*cough* That's it. Rant over. I feel so much better now. *wanders off for cup of tea*

if I get what you are saying you mean these strains will start flowering even in 18/6 vegetive lighting? I am about to start my first grow and it would be good to have something that is gonna be starting to flower while the rest of my babies are vegging in the same area then when I start flowering my main crop this one wont have long to go so I will have some smoke whilst waiting for the main vain? is that right or have I caught the wrong end of the stick? cheers

ps. sorry for the thread jack I just dived right in eh

Hi Growndome,

To clarify, I mean that Lowryder 2's, and all associated auto-flowering strains (original LR, master low, powerstout, auto-ak47, etc.) will happily go through their entire life cycle under 18 hours of light a day. Unlike 'normal' cannabis strains, flowering is not triggered by a change in light cycle, rather is just happens after they reach a certain age (usually about 19 days).

So you could start off sowing, say, 4 seeds, and after they'd geminated start them under an HPS or Flourescent tube set to 18 hours on, 6 hours off. At around day 14-17 you check for males and remove (and presumably kill) them. The remaining girls will then start flowering at around day 19 without any change in the light regime.
Around day 30-32, you can then stick another 4 seeds on in the same space. 14-17 days later you remove the males from this new batch, leaving you with two more females. Assuming you got a 50/50 female/male split both times, at this point you have 2 female plants fairly late in flowering, and two just starting to flower. Once you get to day 65 for the first plants, harvest them and use the space you've got back to plant another four seeds.. And so it goes on. Without any need to change light cycle, you can have one area housing multiple plants at different stages of development.

Infact, the only separate area you need is the one for the freshly harvested buds to dry and cure. I'd also advise you not to store any of the fertilizers or other chemical solutions in the grow room under the potentially hot lights, but that's probably obvious.

I would also strongly advise you buy a calender or use a calender program (you might want to use coded phrases if you're worried about stealth) on a computer to keep track of the two different simultaneous grows, or it might get a bit confusing.

The only thing that complicates this setup is if you want seeds when you've got females at two different stages of development, as you need to separate the males or they'll pollinate both sets of females. This does require a separate area for atleast a few days so they can mature and release their pollen, but once that's done, they can be killed and the collected pollen can be applied using one of several methods to your chosen female without fear of them all becoming pollinated.

Hope that helps.

excellent that is most helpful. thanks a lot. have you any favourites of these strains you would recomend?

thanks mate well good posts.

Cheers, I'm just happy to help.

Since Lowryder2s are the ones I have the most experience with, I'd recommend them. Out of interest, what sort of setup do you have? (grow space size/type, type of lighting, etc.)

I feel really bad this is totally off topic but hope it not just me learning from it

got a 1.2 x 1.2 x 2m tent and 600w diamond with extraction, ch n intake not got it all set up yet but next 2 weeks. not got a seperate veg , mother chamber but by spunds of things I will want one shortly but wanna get a grow or 2 from seed to practise. quite interestin those auto flowering 1st I heard of them. gonna be doing white rhino and skunk # 1 too cant wait.