QUOTE (Sir_Galahad @ Apr 21 2009, 11:47 AM)

I read almost all the topics in this section and it turns out that those landraces seems to have monoic tendencies but it's not really clear. That's why i wanted to have your opininon on that issue. Will my plant developp male flowers if they get stressed or even in normal conditions ? Did you or some growers have noticed this traits among their plants ?
Hi
Thanks for the question: I have been wanting to clarify this issue, as I believe there is a great deal of misunderstanding about it
I don't think any of our Himalayan lines are monoic/monoecious/"hermaphroditic"
in fact, to the best of my knowledge none of our lines --- and that includes our ganja cultivars from SEAsia etc. --- show any true "hermaphroditism"
the Himalayan lines would be very, very, very unlikely to show any monoecious plants whatsoever
allow me to explain why:
a truly monoic/monoecious/hermaphroditic plant is one which shows both male and female flowers on the same plant because it is in its genetic makeup to do so, independent of conditions
cannabis is a dioecious species --- it has seperate male and female plants --- monoic plants in cannabis are unusual: there are modern western hemp cultivars with monoecious genes; and it is said that monoic plants can be found in sensi ganja genepools
Sam Skunkman claims that truly monoecious plants can be found in regions with a long tradition of cultivating seedless ("sensimilla") ganja, such as Thailand... he claims such plants would have manifested due to bad farming practises: i.e. farmers collecting seed from the flowers of a ganja crop which was grown to be seedless i.e. a crop in which the male plants were cut down prior to shedding pollen.... any seeds found would in all probability be a result of a "hermi" plant pollinating the plants around it... so, many genertations of careless "sensi" ganja growing can be a strong selective pressure for monoic/monoecious/hermi plants
but let's be clear on this: cultivars from charas/hashish producing region are very unlikely to produce monoecious plants
because charas/hashish crops are always deliberately seeded... charas/hashish crops are always a seeded crop... i.e. male plants are not cut down until they have shed their pollen and pollinated the female plants
this makes it extremely unlikely that monoecious plants will ever appear in a charas/hashish genepool
the phenomenon you are describing is not "hermaphroditism"
what you are describing is a stress response in the genes of dioecious plant --- i.e. a geneticly female plant which has a geneticly encoded survival response to adverse conditions i.e. an intersex stress response
it is not the same thing as hermaphroditism
and the distinction between these two things is real and significant
the significance is:
if you get the grow conditions right you will not see male flowers appearing on female plantsfor example: the Himalayan plants you are interested in typical grow on high nutrient poor soils in the Himalaya, a region which has been washed with vast quantities of monsoon rain from May until September for thousands and thousands of years
in such low nutrient soils these cultivars will still grow to 3m or 4m high and produce large yields of flowers
if you grow such Himalayan varieties in soil which has very high levels of N, P and K then large quantities of nutrient crystals will accumulate in their leaves, causing their leaves to curl ---- eventually, if you persist in throwing P and K on them, then male flowers may appear on some of female flowers
my advice: do not use modern nutrient formulas
dig in small quantities of slow release nutrients: something similar to bonemeal... this will not shock the plant with sudden influxes of minerals