Feminized x Regular sex crosses.

SmoochieBoochies

Well-Known Member
My question to all of you who have crossed strains before: What if I have a feminized plant and a regular male plant of two different strains and I cross them, will the resulting offspring sex normally or will I get some that are feminized? Is feminization a recessive trait that is hidden in the resulting F1's? I have been trying to find info but so far nothing conclusive. I have bred many times before but this year is my first using feminized seeds. (I also noticed that the feminized seedlings are smaller and less vigorous than their regular cousins). Please advise or send me to a thread that can.
 

SmoochieBoochies

Well-Known Member
I've heard you will get hermie genes, but does it really pass a feminized trait onto it's offspring? Here is a summation of what I know. I am still working on finding a better explanation and actual experience with fem x reg crosses. I'll post more as I find it... in the meantime anyone out there want to comment? Thanks!

Feminized seeds

"Instability of gender is a desirable trait in the wild, where reproduction is the most urgent goal. In cultivation, gender predictability is more helpful, because female plants that have not been pollinated are the most productive. It is possible to use a combination of cloning and "shocking" plants to get them to produce feminized seeds that reliably produce female offspring. A clone retains the same sex throughout its life, so the clone of a female plant is also female.
Environmental stresses sometimes create pollen bearing male flowers on female plants—known as hermaphroditism or 'hermying'.
A method used by organic growers and promulgated by the Cannabis breeder Soma, is called 'Rodelization', or letting un-pollinated female plants live several weeks longer than the normal harvest time. In such plants a hermaphroditic trait self-expresses in an effort to continue the genetic line.
Some vendors of feminized seeds assert that hermaphroditic "parents" do not create reliable feminized seeds, since the offspring may retain this tendency. Others believe the fact that this method utilizes auto hermaphroditic traits is offset by grower observations that the tendency to auto-switch sex is not great in plants grown from seeds made this way, and the fact that it occurs naturally without effort on the part of the cultivator.
Colloidal silver suppresses ethylene production in bud sites, stimulating male characteristics. Spraying selected leaves, branches and – in cases where a large amount of seed is desired – whole plants with colloidal silver solution has become a preferred method of obtaining feminized seeds. Gibberellic acid has also been used for the same purpose, but it is harder to find than colloidal silver.

Some cultivators claim that the genes responsible for hermaphroditism are present and may be expressed under stress from any of the above methods and that once expressed, this characteristic passes to seeds regardless of what activated it. This view, in large part, is incorrect, as a random half of the genes present in each of the parental plants passes to the next generation, regardless of whether the genes that contribute to hermaphroditism were induced by stressors or not. This widely accepted Mendelian model of inheritance (Mendelian inheritance) does allow for genetic mutations that have occurred in the germline (Germline) of an organism to be passed on to any offspring, but this process applies to all DNA sequences, not just those contributing to hermaphroditism. The inheritance of acquired characteristics (Lamarckism) that are not directly coded in the DNA sequence (Epigenetics) has recently received much attention in the area of genetic research and could possibly explain any anecdotal evidence for increased hermaphroditism in the offspring of plants induced to a hermaphroditic state. However, a more likely explanation is that by propagating plants easily induced to hermaphroditism by environmental stressors, the frequency of genetic elements contributing to this trait is increased by artificial selection following traditional genetic models of inheritance. Some theories suggest it is possible to selectively breed hermaphroditic cannabis to express the female flowering before the male flowering occurs, though this kind of selective breeding is beyond the capabilities of most cultivators."

<edit> This bold statement makes more sense to me as an explanation on hermying in feminized seeds...
 

SmoochieBoochies

Well-Known Member
Ok, so I'm getting deeper into this fem x reg crossing and here is something encouraging, but I still don't know if their is a recessive gene that will appear in F2 crosses or a cross with another feminized plant...:


Making Feminised Seed

"To make feminized seed you must induce male flowers in a female plant. There is all sorts of information on the internet about doing this with light stress (light interruptions during flowering) and other forms of stress. The best of the stress techniques is to simply keep the plant in the flowering stage well past ripeness and it will produce a flower.
Stress techniques will work but whatever genetic weakness caused the plants to produce a male flower under stress will be carried on to the seeds. This means the resulting seeds have a known tendency to produce hermaphrodites. Fortunately, environmental stress is not the only way to produce male flowers in a female plant.
The ideal way to produce feminized seed through hormonal alteration of the plant. By adding or inhibiting plant hormones you can cause the plant to produce male flowers. Because you did not select a plant that produces male flowers under stress there is no genetic predisposition to hermaphroditism in the seed vs plants bred between a male and female parent. There are actually a few ways to do this, the easiest I will list here."
 

racerboy71

bud bootlegger
i don't buy the recessive hermie trait being a part of fem seeds if the seeds are created with a chem like colludial (sp?) silver or another.. when using these chems, it's the chem that causes the plant to make a male flower, not genetics, so the only reason the plant hermied to begin with was the introduction of a chemical..

so, i'm my eyes, there shouldn't be any hermie prone seeds that come from these plants, unless one were to introduce a chemical again and force a hermie, much in the way that they fem seed was created to begin wtih..

no, if people make fem seeds using a different method other then using a chemical like cs or another, then all bets are off, lol..

just my $.02 ... take if for what it's worth..
 

mccumcumber

Well-Known Member
You are crossing a XX with an XY, because the hermie (feminized bean) has no father. So you get:
XX XX
XX XY
Not quite sure how hermie genetics work or are passed down. I've personally never tried breeding with feminized beans.

Edit: I wonder how a hermied male would do cross with a hermied female... that would be interesting. Would it be a regular bean that will always herm out on you?
 

themanwiththeplan

Well-Known Member
a feminized seed and a male will make reg seeds. its when you breed two females that you will get feminized seeds.

female (xx) + male (xy) = xx or xy. It doesnt matter if your xx (female) is feminized or not.

xx + xx = xx. so the only way you can get feminized beans it to mate a female...with a female because if there is no male in the equation you can't end up with a male a later on. sure you can get hermies but thats usually because the strain was hermie prone to begin with not because it was a feminized seed.

people complain of fems being hermies because they light poison them until they hermie...then breed them. that (imo) is incorrect. if you can stress a plant into going hermie then its probably not a good candidate to breed with if having a strain thats not hermie prone is important to you.

if you can stress a plant and it stays female then its a good choice for breeding and you shouldn't see hermies in the offspring.

how can this be done? (ie two females mating without light poisoning?) colloidal silver (the kind in the store isnt strong enough you gotta make your own). if you spray it on part of the female plant during the beginning of flowering (once pistils start showing) male pollen sacs will develop where you spray. use that pollen either on the same plant for S1's or spray the whole thing and let it knock up a fellow female plant for a feminized F1 cross.

this way you have feminized beans but no hermie.
 

hazey grapes

Well-Known Member
it's better to use regular seeds for breeding. a lot of growers don't even like growing femmed strains to begin with, much less breeding with them.

the chances also depends on what you're growing. so far, the ONLY hermie i've seen was in a highland thai regular as that's a natural trait, butnot in the half dozen or so fems & freebies i've tested, but there are MANY reports of greenhouse beans turning hermie, so i'd say their gear is more likely to pass the trait on than breeders who don't have as bad a rep with their fems.
 

Dizzle Frost

Well-Known Member
it's better to use regular seeds for breeding. a lot of growers don't even like growing femmed strains to begin with, much less breeding with them.

the chances also depends on what you're growing. so far, the ONLY hermie i've seen was in a highland thai regular as that's a natural trait, butnot in the half dozen or so fems & freebies i've tested, but there are MANY reports of greenhouse beans turning hermie, so i'd say their gear is more likely to pass the trait on than breeders who don't have as bad a rep with their fems.
and you know this from all the breeding youve done right? Which grow did you see hermies in the Highland Thai? was it your first grow or your last grow?
 

Toolage 87

Well-Known Member
If you can't get your hands on a regular seed of the Feminized strain you want you might want to go the method of crossing a male from regular seeds with the feminized strain to get your F1 strain then take the male of the F1 and backcross it with the female. If you cross the new F strain with the feminized female strain you can turn that feminized strain into a almost 100% pure strain but it will take a very long time to you want to get it to almost 100% but you can never get it to 100%
 
If you can't get your hands on a regular seed of the Feminized strain you want you might want to go the method of crossing a male from regular seeds with the feminized strain to get your F1 strain then take the male of the F1 and backcross it with the female. If you cross the new F strain with the feminized female strain you can turn that feminized strain into a almost 100% pure strain but it will take a very long time to you want to get it to almost 100% but you can never get it to 100%
What do you mean turn it into a pure strain?
 
I’m wondering the same thing. Thought maybe I could resurrect it. I made some fem seeds. The guy at the local grow store said if I grow two and use then use them as parents for next years seeds I’ll get herms. This didn’t seem logical but I’m curious if it’s true.
 

Emeraldo

Member
hey all great thread -- noyeaoyea the guy at the grow store... it was a great thread with a good topic, I just was looking for this.

i'm going to seed an early-flowering (mid-July) female Purple Maroc (from feminized seed) with pollen from a late flowering purple haze male from regular seed. This cross will generate regular seed, producing F1 male and female "purple maze" plants which I will grow out and select. I'll use pollen from the males, back-crossing to the original Purple Maroc female and getting F2 seeds. Purple Maze, with an enhanced haze side and tending to flower a bit earlier, maybe finishing in late November, than the extreme tropical haze strains (usually finishing late December or January). Thinking of taking another purple strain just for fun, like Oldtimer's Haze, if I could get that pheno.

anyone ever try do that? cross an early-flowering female (from feminized) with pollen from a regular male from a later flowering strain?

what do you think the outcome might be regarding the onset of flowering? PM supposedly has an auto somewhere in its genetics, hence the early flowering sativa/haze to begin with.

So... where's lesson number two?
 
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Emeraldo

Member
My question to all of you who have crossed strains before: (1) What if I have a feminized plant and a regular male plant of two different strains and I cross them, will the resulting offspring sex normally or will I get some that are feminized? (2) Is feminization a recessive trait that is hidden in the resulting F1's?
Actually, that's two questions and the answers from this thread are: (1) The offspring will be regular seed, about 50/50 male and female. (2) None will be feminized, and will reproduce regular seed.
 
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