Hello all! I am a commercial grower in Oregon and have been growing for over a decade on the recreational market.
I’m currently dealing with one of the weirdest problems I’ve ever seen. Between day 7 and 17 of flower I will see confirmed female plants start to put off male parts/herm. The issue will continue for 5-10 days and then the plants will seemingly revert back to full female and flower relatively normal the rest of the cycle.
The problem is that these nanners will pop and drop pollen if I don’t pluck them off individually and throughly inspect every plant every day for that ten day period. Plus it stalls the plant out and messes with the even nature of my canopy, effecting yield and quality.
We are losing our minds trying to figure this out. I’ve already removed all bleach and potential sources of chlorine gas as I’ve heard that this could potentially cause this issue.
And just to be clear, when I say confirmed female plants I mean that I’ve grown some of these plants in another facility for 5+ years and never seen a herm. We are 5 cycles in since moving to this facility.
Is there some kind of light glowing at dark period I’d get inside and fully inspect or stick a cam in the room and see if at any period a light comes on or a light glows in the room to cause this. Is it on every plant or just a certain one here or there. If certain ones and always in the same area I’d fully inspect that area at lights out also maybe even remove the plants and disinfect the room to make sure there is nothing in the room to cause the issue and to make sure all pollen is gone. I’ve had one herm on me here I know shouldn’t have but I have had issues with it from the start. Stunted growth and all and I believe it caused it to herm on me. If it is a natural herm it’s worthless seeds if it was brought on by stress somehow u may be able to have a fair amount of seeds pop and be good and some be herm.
I thought it was light leak related at first so I removed all potential sources of light during the night cycle. Including taping up the lights on all the 24 hour cameras that are required on site. I’ve even checked all the cameras to see if there was a malfunction and the lights were coming on at night, yet nothing.
It’s not even consistent in an area of the room. One strain did it this round in our upstairs room and that same strain had zero herms the round before in the downstairs room
Hola, podrías describir si usas las mismas luces LED en el otro cultivo? Es el Mismo sistema de control climático ? Que parámetros tienen de humedad/temperatura? utilizas el mismo metodo de cultuvoen la parti de arriba qu abajo? Son desde semillas o esquejes?
Great questions. All things are the same in both rooms. Temperature and humidity within 2-3 degrees of each other. Hps and cmh combo rooms. 1000-1400ppm of CO2 in both rooms throughout the flowering cycle. 850-1100 ppfd depending on strain and their preferences. All plants are from clones either purchased from a local and highly trusted nursery or hunted years ago by us and been running from clone since
Has there been any new crosses within the timeframe of your move? Maybe a rouge gene has entered your garden? Is there any similarities in the type of cross and the ones that herm?
I would tend to agree with you but it’s happening on strains that I’ve been running from clone over and over again in multiple buildings for the past seven years without seeing this happen. The Blue Zkittlez and Slurricrasher we have are the only ones I haven’t found a single banner on yet so matter which room I run them in. However I can’t survive off two strains in the Rec market and risk seeds in every other strain I run. Plus if I don’t pluck all the nanners I find then those two strains could still get pollinated.
The weird thing is it’s not in one spot like a light leak would be. And it’s not all over like a like controller malfunction would do. And it only happens during like day 7-17 of flower. It’s during that transition phase almost like it doesn’t have enough ethylene to fully transition to female flower. I don’t know why that would be though. I have a VOC meter in the room and everything else is the same way I’ve grown before except for a brand new building I purchased from a grower that moved to a bigger facility. Reached out to him and he claims to have never had that issue.
