5 Amazing Ways To Determine The Differences Between Male vs. Female Cannabis Plants

Are you planning to cultivate your cannabis for the first time, but you are not sure whether they are male or female? Have no worries, this article will put you through 5 easy ways to determine the differences between male vs. female cannabis plants.

Reproduction in plants can take place in several ways. Being well informed on the sex of your cannabis plant plays a huge role in determining the success of your grow operation. Understanding the differences between male and female species can help you know how best to go about your cultivation activities to get maximum yield. The female plants produce the buds while the male plants produce seed pods. However, it should be noted that it is possible to take the uncertainty out of the equation altogether by cultivating feminized seeds.

When growing your plants from feminized seeds, you do not have to bother so much about the sex of your cannabis plant because they are female. About 1% will produce a male plant, and this is rare. Feminized seeds are coveted by growers because of their efficiency. The chances of growers wasting their energy and resources is grossly limited.

Why grow regular cannabis seeds? It is quite possible that the particular strain you wish to try, or the seedbank you wish to get it from, only carries regular seeds. Also, some organic growers are of the opinion that the feminization process is not natural and thus prefer using the old school method of using regular seeds for their cultivation process. No matter what the reason might be, when you grow cannabis from regular seeds, you are likely going to have some males. This, among many other reasons make it important for cannabis growers to be well informed on how to sex cannabis plants! Let’s look at 5 ways to know if your cannabis plant is male or female.

1. The male plant is thicker than the female plant
   Male cannabis plants are thicker than the female plants. They have stronger stalks with less leaves. Male plants grown under the same conditions as female plants will be a lot thicker and stronger compared to the female plant. The major reason for this is that male cannabis plants have the potential to grow really tall, so it needs a stronger, thicker structure.
2. Female plants have fuller leaves than male plants
   Compared to males, female cannabis plants produce fuller leaves. Male plants have fewer leaves with thick stalks while the female ones possess more leaves, especially close to the top of the plant. This indicator is arguably the most straightforward of the different means to identify the sex of your grown cannabis plants.
3. Female plants grow ‘pistils’ on their stalk
   A female will likely begin flowering once it has achieved maturity and this can be seen with the emergence of the pistils. The pistils are small translucent hairs that can be found at the joints of the branches and the primary stalk. They usually seem to be protruding out of a small, tear-shaped bud carefully placed within the joint. You can separate them using a visual trait: hairs. Female pre-flowers possess tear-drop shaped calyxes. These structures have tiny hairs growing from the edges. The hairs are referred to as pistils, they are the reproductive organs of the female flowers. Male plants typically have these pollen sacs although they don’t have the pistils coming out of the small buds.
4. Female plant grows flowers while the male plant doesn’t
   Regardless of the differences amongst female cannabis plants, they all share a pivotal trait, the production of flowers. Male plants, on the other hand, are unable to produce flowers; a factor that makes them to be not as desirable as the female plants. Canna-growers who only need buds don’t need male cannabis plants despite the fact that they form pollen-sacs. Pollen sacs which are small vessels help produce the much-needed genetic material necessary to fertilize the female flowers. They are also very important in the creation of hybrids which are important to the breeding of new strains. Another fact to know is that flowers and pollen sacs grow from the same region on a cannabis plant. The structures originate from nodes (where branches attach to the stem).
5. The difference in the shape of the flower
   Marijuana males flower and produce small bell-shaped clusters, which hang down while open thus releasing the pollen, while females have tear-shaped calyxes with two pistils – typically white – that are grouped together to form what we call buds.

Bottom line

This article should have helped you in understanding the differences between male and female cannabis plants. Every cannabis grower wants a bountiful harvest and the female cannabis plant is the goal of most growers. This is because the female plant produces robust buds that help growers achieve high yield. Spotting a male cannabis plant from a mile away is one of the basics of learning how to become a successful cannabis grower. Although a lot comes in play to achieve success in cannabis cultivation, the knowledge and ability to distinguish between the gender of cannabis plants is definitely a step in the right direction.

What do you think of feminized seeds? Are you in support of taking the doubt out of the equation or are you in favor of the old school regular seeds? Drop your opinion in the comments section below.