My girls went to seed

RE; November-January grow. I started 9 plants indoors under first florescent lights (4 weeks) then moved to bigger pots to veg under 300 w LED lights (4 weeks). I wanted to keep the plants in vegetative state for another 2 weeks but I needed to have hip surgery and therefore moved the plants outdoors at age 8 weeks. I reduced the hours of light from 18 to 14 over their last week under the lights as the amount of daylight in December here in Hawaii is about 11 hours. The plants flowered outside and I harvested them 7 weeks later. After drying the buds (Girl Scout Cookies Extreme & White Widow), I found several of them full of seeds.

Before we go there, no one is growing cannabis or hemp nearby. And I’ve been growing for the last 30+ years and know what a male plant looks like. My license allows me to grow 10 plants but I do 9 because that is the number that fits in my nursery. Also, I grow organic, feeding the ladies a light mix of compost tea, seaweed and fish emulsion — like a teaspoon per gallon every 3 days then only rain water before harvest — about 2 quarts every other day. And the winters in Hawaii are 75 degrees in the day dropping to 60 at night. Certainly warm enough. And we get frequent gentle misting rains. In other words, I try to keep the plants in a stress free natural environment.

We call the winters here in Hawaii “the short season” because the plants rarely get bigger than 2 1/2 to 3 feet tall and only produce a few ounces of bud each. Daylight ranges from 11 to 12 hours in the short season where it ranges from 12-14 in the summer. Tropics and all that.

So why did these plants go to seed? I can only think of three possibilities. First is that I probably waited a week too long to harvest. I was waiting for the main colas to get bigger. The second was maybe I should have gradually reduced the amount of light during veg over a longer period before putting the plants outside — like maybe subtracting 1/2 hour every other day over a period of 2 weeks. The third possibility is the seeds themselves. Maybe one of these strains has a tendency to go hermaphrodite. I didn’t see any signs of “cannabis balls” but with my hip slowly knitting itself back together, I couldn’t get in close enough to inspect all of the girl’s flowers.

I’ve just moved my next crop of 9 (2 GSCE, 3 WW & 4 BB) into bigger pots under 16 hours of LED light. They are just over 4 weeks old and doing nicely. I plan to move them outdoors around the middle of March when there should be 12 hours of daylight each day for the flowering period. Should be a stress-free grow. I am concerned about the new girls turning into hermaphrodites. Do you have any suggestions?

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As long as they don’t get to stressed out they should be fine they will be some big girls only down fall I can possibly see is any pollen blowing in your area

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