Apomixis / Agamospermy and Hermaphrodistism

I believe I have encountered apomixis via agamospermy in a particular strain.

Three strains growing in same sealed environment, a 4' x 8' tent.

Approaching 6th week of flower, and one of the plants has suddenly exploded with seeds. I have culled the plant, and can find no sign of male flowers. Furthermore, none of the plants in the same tent seem to have been pollinated.

I'd like to know if others have experienced agamospermy in cannabis. If so, then I think it is very important to delineate between what is a "herm which produces pollen", and a "herm which is completely asexual".

BTW, the strain which seeded itself was Sweet Tooth.

Okay, maybe I shouldn't have been so technical.

What I'm saying is this...whenever someone gets a herm plant, someone will invariably say "get it out of your grow area, it's going to pollinate your other plants".

And the theory goes like this...a plant herms out, produces a male flower, pollinates itself, then pollinates everything around it.

What I am suggesting is that a herm cannabis plant does not ALWAYS have to have produced a male flower or have been pollinated to produce seeds. There are documented circumstances in other flowering plant species where a plant reproduces asexually, by producing seed, without ever having been pollinated.

It's called, as I have recently learned, "Apomixis". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apomixis

I am not a botanist, I'm not claiming to be an expert here. It would be really cool if there were some botanists around, though, because I'd like to know if this is possible in cannabis.

If it is, then the next step in the conversation might be "Are modern cannabis breeding techniques, including the widespread proliferation of feminized seeds, contaminating the cannabis gene pool with apomixtic traits?"

This is getting a little over my head, but I'll share one experience I've had (fairly recently).

About six months ago I acquired a sour diesel clone, (or it was supposed to be SD but I think it's actually an OG) vegged it for about a month, and threw it into my flowering room with the cycle I had underway. The existing cycle was on week six, so it was just starting to show pistils (slow bloomer) as the rest of the plants were finishing up. I harvested the other plants and moved in a new crop, at this point the SD/OG was in its third week of flowering. Fast forward three weeks and I'm doing some undergrowth trimming when I discover two seeds developing, on at the very bottom of the plant, one a little higher up. I thoroughly inspected the entire plant top to bottom looking for nanners, but not a one. When I chopped the SD/OG I carefully removed the two seeds and checked the plant again, no nanners.

None of the other strains I had going in there in the first grow are prone to herm on me, and there were no visible male flowers that I saw when trimming. I have no idea how these two seeds formed, and why there were only two on the entire plant (I grow them large). I won't speculate, but thought it was worth sharing.

So if it was Sour D, would that make it something from the "Reservoir Seeds" catalog?
And if it was OG, we're talking about a clone only strain?

Gotta admit, I'm a little rusty on the lore, but I find that very interesting. Thanks for contributing!

asmithee said:

So if it was Sour D, would that make it something from the "Reservoir Seeds" catalog?
And if it was OG, we're talking about a clone only strain?

Gotta admit, I'm a little rusty on the lore, but I find that very interesting. Thanks for contributing!

Click to expand...

There are many versions of both floating around now, though all of the seed forms are just back crosses. I have no idea whose genetics they are, I got it in clone form.

Hey whats up, i joined to post on this thread. We have a strawberry desiel that is an intense strain. Iv experienced this same thing. Seeds are produced randomly within the buds with no male parts on the plant or any other plant. No pollen whatsoever. I havnt popped any of the seeds from them yet but like soon probably.

My pk seeds did this last round I found about two seeds per main cola and niwhere else. No manners and only three of the nine had seeds