Understanding the Differences Between Male and Female Cannabis Plants

MALE VS. FEMALE CANNABIS PLANTS Melinda Atkins

Cannabis plants are primarily male or female and are a dioecious plant, meaning both male and female plants produce flowers. Each sex has different characteristics and begins to reflect signs of their specific sex within the first two weeks of the flowering period. After germination occurs, plants begin to reach their sexual maturity at around six to eight weeks when noticeable signals to which sex they are become visible around branch internodes.1 1. The difference between male and female cannabis plants - Cannaconnection.com. Cannaconnection.com. https://www.cannaconnection.com/blog/1172-difference-male- female-plants. Published 2019. Accessed June 19, 2020.

Cannabis from the female species has long skinny stems and large fan leaves and contains both terpenes and cannabinoids which enhance the medical properties of cannabis.2Female plants have tiny white or orange hairs which are called pistils and are the sex organs of female plants. Pistils emerge at internodes, sections where branches intersect with main stem, at around 1.5 weeks into the flowering stage. Female flowers produce small tear-like calyxes with two pistils at this stage which eventually grow and form together into buds. Female flowers are coated in a thick layer of cannabinoid rich resin which determines medicinal potential. The resin is produced by mushroom shaped glands on the plant called trichomes. This resinous substance is important for the evolution of the cannabis plant as it enables female plants to seize male pollen resulting in the plant s fertilization. After fertilization has taken place, the female plant will go into seed, ensuring the survival of the species. 2. Desjardins J. The Anatomy of a Cannabis Plant, and its Lifecycle. Visual Capitalist. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/anatomy-cannabis-plant/. Published 2018. Accessed June 19, 2020.

To optimize the quality and quantity of yields, female plants are kept away from the pollen produced by their male counterparts to encourage more resin production to capture pollen and become fertilized. If no pollen is to be found, the end result will be flowers covered in a dense layer of trichomes as available resources are harnessed for resin production rather than seed production. Pistillate Female Species

Around 2 weeks after flowering has begun, male plants will produce small, ball-like preflowers as opposed to the thread-like pistils produced by female plants. This process appears at the plant node where the branches fuse with the main stem. These structures are pollen sacs that produce and hold this reproductive material until the plant has reached a certain level of maturity. Male plants have significantly thicker stalks and fewer fan leaves than female specimens and this increased diameter serves the evolutionary purpose of supporting the taller heights of male plants.

Male plants contain low levels of cannabinoids and produce terpenes, the molecules responsible for the signature smell of the cannabis plant. Terpenes have been proposed to act synergistically with cannabinoids to elicit the pharmacological effects of cannabis consumption.3 Once the male pollen touches a female flower, they will stop developing resin, lose their sinsemilla status, and start producing seeds. To produce almost exclusively female plants, male plants are kept away from female plants and most growers start with feminized seeds which have been specially bred to ensure to produce almost exclusively female plants.4 3. Livingston S, Quilichini T, Booth J, Wong D. Cannabis glandular trichomes alter morphology and metabolite content during flower maturation. The Plant Journal. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/tpj.14516. Published 2019. Accessed June 19, 2020. 4. Seeds T. Top 10 Feminized Cannabis Seeds - Zamnesia. Zamnesia.com. https://www.zamnesia.com/400-top- 10-feminized-cannabis-seeds. Published 2020. Accessed June 19, 2020.