Quickest way to tell sex of a plant.

[Kev.k]

Has anyone ever put cuttings into water and under 12/12, to sex plants?
 

Started 2 “mothers” a few months ago and I need to sex them. This seems easiest if it works. 
 

Thanks. 

[ratdog]

Just now, Kev.k said:

Has anyone ever put cuttings into water and under 12/12, to sex plants?

 

 

i think people can sex unrooted cuts, never tried it though

[Kev.k]

Just now, ratdog said:

 

 

i think people can sex unrooted cuts, never tried it though

Im gonna give it a go tonight. Can’t see why it wouldn’t work. 

I will change the water daily. 

[ratdog]

Just now, Kev.k said:

I will change the water daily. 

 

i wouldn't do that, it may shock it, just top up when it evaporates i reckon

 

i've rooted sweet potatoes in a jar of water without issues and takes longer that it takes for weed to show

 

 

[Kev.k]

15 minutes ago, ratdog said:

 

i wouldn't do that, it may shock it, just top up when it evaporates i reckon

 

i've rooted sweet potatoes in a jar of water without issues and takes longer that it takes for weed to show

 

 

I took 3 off each. Gonna leave them in dark for 36 hours then 12/12.

 

Not bothered about roots. As soon as they show sex (if they do), I’ll chuck them. 

Edited October 12, 2021 by Kev.k

[Owderb]

Why would anyone need to know what sex cuttings are

 

They should be took from either a male or female and surely after "a few months" the donor plant should have shown sex anyway?

 

Owd

[Keye]

I have done this, yes. Took a load of cuttings from seeds and bunged them in to a flowering space. We found out which were female and dumped the males in veg, the other cuts we took that were in veg rooted out. We probably only save 2 weeks or so, really; but it gave us a lot of space and the opportunity to run 10 seeds of a pack in one go.

 

 

[Kev.k]

2 hours ago, Owderb said:

Why would anyone need to know what sex cuttings are

 

They should be took from either a male or female and surely after "a few months" the donor plant should have shown sex anyway?

 

Owd

How do I sex plants in veg? That is the whole point of these cuttings. 
 

They have been grown slowly under low watt LEDs in bio biz. I did wanna try “bonsai” style, but they got off to a rough start because I’ve never used soil before and over watered. I didn’t want to stress them anymore so I didn’t top them. They are about 2.5’ tall. 
 

Def can’t see any balls. 

[DeltaMelter]

If they are over 6 weeks old they should show sex anyway. I did this (took clones and put them under 12/12) and they did show sex - but at pretty much the same time the donor/mother plants did.

 

 

[blackpoolbouncer]

6 hours ago, Kev.k said:

How do I sex plants in veg

By looking at them and seeing if they have boy or girl bits for preflowers.

 

If your struggling a Google or a search here will have you covered. Its not a new question belive it or not and pics will help. 

[buddy13]

buy fems...

[Keye]

@Kev.k I really don't think slowly growing plants is the way to go, that's for another thread perhaps. Basically, when plants start growing from seed, they become mature and this shows in various ways. At some point around this time, you can begin to see the start of their adult flowers, be they male or female, around the plant and this is normally a 100% sure fire way to make a decision to cull what you have and take the rest in to flower. Under good conditions, this might be week 4 or 5 onwards, perhaps. Good lashing of caveat poured over that. Then, you just move to the next step.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Owderb]

And you surely can't call a seed plant a mother plant. You need to grow that seed plant out to see if its any good. If its shit then all your clones will be shit too and no one wants a shit mother

 

Owd

[NezA]

I always wondered if keeping the seed plant as the mother over a clone of it has any benefit. But people keep clones of clones going for decades, so any benefit to keeping the original seed plant instead of a clone of it as a mother must be negligible.

 

One of my friends swears blind that the 3rd generation of clones make the best mothers... 

 

Personally I don't think it matters what way round you do it other than the extra time. If you want to retain the seed plant as a mum and run a clone of it to see if it's worth keeping, then you're looking at a few extra weeks to root and then veg the clone up to a decent size before you can flower it, all that time can be saved if you just flower the seed plant and keep the clone, the other benefit to flowering the seed plant is it saves you quite a bit of space in your veg/mum space perhaps not a massive issue for some but for me keeping several clones in tiny pots is way easier than keeping several mature plants.

 

To each their own and all that.

[DeltaMelter]

I think all the OP meant was  - 'can I take a clone of an unsexed plant and force it to flower under 12/12 to find out the sex of the (hopefully female) 'donor' plant. Just maybe the OP didn't use exactly the right terms.

 

This is useful if you don't want to pot-up a bunch of plants grown from seed before you sex them or don't have much space.

 

So the answer is "yes" you can sex unrooted clones by putting them under 12/12 - mine took about 10-12 days to show, by which point the "donor" plants were showing sex anyway. At most you might save a week or two but it's probably just easier to leave them in smaller pots until they show sex.