Does the legal male hemp plant have any uses or is it systematically discarded?
Is it possible somehow not to eliminate it?
Let’s see it together in the course of the article.
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Legal male hemp: useful or useless?
Legal male cannabis is often feared by growers as it is capable of pollinating the female gender plant. From this fertilization the inflorescences would begin to produce legal hemp seeds, while we know well that the product that light marijuana growers aim for are unfertilized flowers rich in THC.
Consequently, we try to prefer feminized marijuana crops, starting from seeds that have almost 100% of the possibility of generating female seedlings (as they come from plants treated at the hormonal level for this purpose).
Male seedlings are usually discarded, unless you aim to grow legal hemp to produce and then trade the seeds.
But that’s not all: the large producers of light marijuana cross various species to obtain new strains with unique characteristics. In this regard, male legal hemp plants are indispensable, as they must pollinate a female cannabis strain in order to generate the seeds of the new species.
Male cannabis can also be used in the following areas:
- In the textile industry to produce fibers, as male plants are more flexible than female ones.
- In herbal medicine the roots and leaves of male hemp are in great demand for the production of herbal teas, lotions and other products.
- Discarded hemp seedlings can be used as excellent natural fertilizers and for mulching in organic crops. Not only that: a macerate of leaves and stems is very useful as a 100% natural pesticide, as it works as a repellent for parasites especially in crops of grasses, cotton, tubers and cabbage.
At this point you are probably wondering how you can grow legal hemp by distinguishing the plants of the female gender from those of the male gender. Read on and you will find out!
How to recognize female legal hemp plants
Light (and non) marijuana plants start showing signs of their sex within the first two weeks of the flowering period; precisely they begin to reach sexual maturity around 6 or 8 weeks after germination.
At this point the signals at which sex become visible around the internodes of the branches.
Seasonally growing indica and sativa strains typically start flowering when the nighttime periods begin to get longer or the photoperiod gets shorter. If a plant contains autoflowering genes, the buds will automatically start sprouting a few weeks after germination, regardless of the amount of light received.
Female plants are the favorite of growers as their flowers are covered with a thick layer of resin rich in cannabinoids , where in the case of light marijuana CBD prevails while in traditional cannabis THC prevails. The resin is produced by mushroom-shaped glands called trichomes, from tiny cannabinoid factories.
This resinous substance is extremely important for the reproduction and evolution of the cannabis plant. It allows female plants to capture male pollen and thus be fertilized. After fertilization, the female plant produces seeds, ensuring the survival of the species.
If female plants are kept away from pollen produced by males, they begin to produce far more valuable resin in a desperate attempt to capture pollen and fertilize themselves.
If no pollen is found, the end result will be flowers covered with a thick layer of trichomes. This is due to the fact that the available resources are exploited for the production of resin, rather than for the production of seeds.
A definite way to find out if a plant is female is to check the appearance of its sexual organs, called pistils. These small white or orange hairs are the sexual organs of female plants.
The pistils begin to emerge at the internodes, sections where the branches intersect with the main stem, after about 10 days from the beginning of the flowering phase.
At this stage the female flowers produce small, drop-shaped calyxes with two pistils, which eventually grow and fuse together into what are commonly called buds.
How to recognize male legal hemp plants
Male cannabis plants are not too difficult to distinguish from female ones.
During the planting and vegetative phases of the growth cycle, however, it is virtually impossible to tell whether the one in front of you is a male or a female plant.
In these early stages, the plants are simply pumping out fan leaves to photosynthesize as much as possible in order to achieve significant size.
Male traits begin to manifest during the initial period of the flowering phase. Some varieties show what are called ‘preflowers’, which are mini versions of the mature structures.
Males produce small spherical preflowers , as opposed to the threadlike pistils produced by female plants.
If the plants show no preflowers but no pistils, then it is necessary to wait another couple of weeks for the photoperiod to change.
One of the first signs you notice is that male plants have significantly thicker stems than females and that such stems have fewer fan leaves than female specimens.
The larger diameter supports the male plants, which are decidedly taller than those of the female gender.
Once the flowering phase has begun, it is necessary to constantly observe the nodes of the plants, that is, the point where the branches merge with the main stem.
This is the place where the reproductive organs of each sex emerge. In the case of males, groups of balls are noted that form about 2 weeks after the start of flowering. These structures are the pollen sacs that produce and hold the reproductive material until the plant has reached a certain level of maturity.
In conclusion
Pints of legal male hemp are not evil, quite the opposite. They are essential for the conservation of the species , the creation of new crosses and consequently of new strains, and can also be used in various industrial sectors such as textiles, herbal medicine and many more.
Distinguishing a male cannabis plant from a female one is very simple, but to do so you must carefully observe each stage of development after the onset of flowering.
In any case, whether it is male or female, the light marijuana plant is one of the most studied products of recent times and certainly there is no lack of its applications.