Cannabis Grow Guide by Royal Queen Seeds

By Luke Sumpter Reviewed by: Micaela Landeira


There is a good reason why most growers keep male plants away from their females: Pollination from males causes the females to develop seeds. As a result, females focus their energy on seed production, rather than on growing you some fine-quality bud. This seedy and unfortunate final product can be avoided by implementing a few basic techniques.

Obviously, no one wants to smoke seedy weed. When you grow cannabis and learn how to identify male plants and signs of pollination, you can remove these plants to save your remaining females. Likewise, recognising a pollinated female early allows you to start again before it’s too late, rather than finishing a grow that will only result in a poor-quality harvest.

Never underestimate just how far cannabis pollen can travel. This microscopic genetic material can spread within a radius of 3–7.5 miles (~4.8–12.1 kilometres). However, during rough weather, it can ride the wind over distances of 30 miles (48km). When growing outside, you have more to think about than males on your own property. Growers in the next town that aren’t paying attention to sexing could put your plants at risk if you don’t put additional measures in place.

How To Tell That A Female Plant Has Been Pollinated

How To Tell That A Female Plant Has Been Pollinated

Among the early signs that your female has been pollinated is that her bracts become larger. Bracts are small, leaf-like structures that protect the female’s reproductive parts. These are the sites from which the flowering buds appear. Do not confuse the bracts with calyxes.

A good test to see whether the bracts have swollen is to take a pair of tweezers, grab one bract, and open it up. If there is a seed inside, you have a pollinated plant.

Another indication of pollination can be the colour of her pistil hairs. When a female has been pollinated, the previously white hairs will soon shrivel and become darker.

You can also tell if pollen has fertilised a female plant by paying close attention to the pistils—the flowers' reproductive organs. These hair-like structures change in colour over the course of the normal flowering phase from white to dark orange or red. In unfertilised flowers, the entire pistil will undergo this change. However, following exposure to pollen, only the tips of the pistils turn dark, whereas the “stalk” remains white.

How To Tell That A Female Plant Has Been Pollinated

How To Avoid Pollination Of Your Female Plants

Pollination requires the presence of males or intersex (hermaphrodite) plants, which are females that will also produce pollen. The first thing you want to do to keep the risk of pollination low is to remove as many males or “hermies” as as you can. Especially during the first three weeks of flowering, it’s important to frequently check for possible male specimens in your garden.

The typical cannabis grower normally doesn’t have a reason to keep males, and will want to get rid of them as soon as they are spotted. Cannabis breeders, on the other hand, may want to keep males along with their crop of female plants. In such cases, the breeder will normally separate the sexes to avoid any accidental pollination. They may grow females in one tent and males in another. When grown outdoors, such as in a garden, the males are often kept in the most remote corner of their growing area, as far from the females as possible. Even then, because of the wind carrying around the pollen, there is always some risk of accidental pollination.

How To Tell That A Female Plant Has Been Pollinated

How To Spot Male Cannabis Plants

To determine the sex of your cannabis plants, you will have to wait until the pre-flowering stage when plants begin to put their energy into reproduction. Female cannabis plants show their gender signs later than males. At the location where they will soon grow their buds (the nodes between the stalk and the stem), females will show wispy white hairs.

Male plants won’t show hairs at these nodes, but will develop little sacs of pollen. These pollen sacs will look like little balls. These balls can appear on their own or in clusters, depending how far into the pre-flowering stage the plant is. At some later stage of growth, the pollen sacs will burst open, spilling the pollen and possibly pollinating your females.

How To Spot Male Cannabis Plants

How Did Your Indoor Weed Plants Become Pollinated?

You grew cannabis in the isolation of an indoor grow tent. You played it safe, and routinely checked each of your plants for signs of pollen sacs. Yet, somehow, your female plants still became fertilised and started to produce seeds. How, how on Earth did this happen?

Well, there are multiple causes to consider. First, you may have served as a vector for pollen enter the growing space. These microscopic particles can easily cling to the fibres of clothes and nestle themselves into your hair. If you deal with male plants in a separate growing space, you may have brought pollen into your female-only grow tent.

Second, your plants might be stressed! Environmental factors that induce stress can force female plants to develop sex organs colloquially known as “bananas”. These are essentially pollen sacs on female plants. They form mostly as a result of stress from light leaks, which causes plants to go into survival mode and pollinate themselves.

These pollinating structures are hard to spot, and growers often miss them. Unlike mixed-sex plants, or "true" hermaphrodites, that display obvious female and male organs separately, bananas occur on female buds. Additionally, bananas aren't entire pollen sacs. They are only the inner portion, or anther. From a distance, growers could easily mistake the shape and colour for pistils. Because they lack the external sac, bananas immediately start spilling pollen onto the flower and cause rapid fertilisation.

What To Do When Your Females Get Pollinated?

Spotting male cannabis plants and pollinated females early can save you from investing further time and effort into an entire growing season that will be for naught. Most of the time, the best course of action is to get rid of the males along with your pollinated females and just start a new grow.

Can You Smoke Pollinated Females?

Absolutely! While you wouldn’t welcome the sight of seedy buds in a dispensary, you can indeed smoke fertilised flowers. Although a last resort, you certainly don’t have to discard your seedy bud. You’ll still get to enjoy some tasty terpenes and mind-altering cannabinoids; it just takes a bit more work.

After harvesting seedy buds, you’ll need to remove them from the flowers. You can do this by hand or with a pair of tweezers, making sure not to miss any. Alternatively, you can lightly grind your flowers, enough to shred away flower tissue but without breaking up any seeds. Then, remove the seeds as they become dislodged.

You can also slice up your flowers to remove the seeds. Use some trimming scissors to chop your buds into smaller pieces, removing the seeds as you go. You can smoke this material, or perhaps combine it with your trim and make some dry ice hash.

However, keep in mind that some people are sensitive to cannabis pollen, just like people react to the pollen of other species. If you experience pollen allergies, you might want to give smoking fertilised buds a miss.

Of course, you should always aim to protect your flowers from pollen in order to produce the finest sinsemilla possible. Seedy buds just don’t compare to unfertilised flowers. Check out the main reasons why it doesn’t rank as high below.

Poor Taste Fertilised flowers divert their attention away from pumping out sticky resin and toward seed production. This results in fewer tasty terpenes, which underpin the unique flavour and aroma of each cultivar.
Lower THC Levels A reduction in resin also means lower amounts of cannabinoids such as THC. You’ll experience less potency from seedy buds than those that churn out resin all the way up until harvest time.
It Can Cause Discomfort Seeds can ruin the smoking experience. For one, they make the smoke extremely harsh and can irritate the throat when combusted. Seeds also have a tendency to pop when exposed to heat, which can leave the end of your joint blown out.

How To Avoid The Issue Of Pollination

Close-up of a male cannabis plant with pollen sacs, illustrating how to avoid pollination issues on a dark green background, ideal for cannabis cultivation tips.

There is, of course, a way to avoid the issue of pollination altogether for the home grower. As a result of innovation in the modern cannabis industry, feminized seeds are now available in a wide variety of new and legendary strains. Unlike with regular seeds, you won’t need to even worry about identifying or separating males during your grow. As long as your feminized seeds are sourced from a reputable retailer, all seeds will grow into plants with smokable bud. With this knowledge, it is up to you to decide what kind of seeds will suit your growing parameters and personal goals as a cultivator.

Can You Grow the Resulting Seeds?

Your flowers went to seed, so why not make the best out of the situation by germinating them and growing more plants? You can certainly do this, but it might not end well. Good cultivars are created through intentional breeding. This allows growers to lock in desirable traits and rule out bad characteristics. The resulting seeds from these operations are genetically stable and consistent.

If your plants become accidentally pollinated, however, growing the progeny will be a gamble. You’ll likely end up with an unreliable variety with poor productivity, inferior flavours, and undesirable effects. However, if you have the time and resources to spare, you can always give it a go. You might end up with something special!

However, you should avoid growing seeds from a plant that self-pollinated. Specimens that developed hermaphrodite traits will pass this on to the progeny, so you'll experience the same situation again.

Why You Should Avoid Buying Seedy Weed

As stated, you should avoid buying seedy weed because of the inferior taste and effects, as well as the harsh smoke. Bottom line—spending money on seedy buds means you’re getting ripped off. Just as you wouldn’t be too pleased to receive a bag filled with stalks, seeds also add to the total weight of the bag, meaning you're getting less cannabis for the price you’d normally pay.

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Privacy Policy - Royal Queen Seeds

To ensure a safe online environment and guarantee adequate data protection, we strictly comply with all legal requirements. In this privacy statement, we provide information about how and for what purpose data is collected, safety measures, storage periods and contact details.


COMPANY NAME: SNORKEL SPAIN, SL (hereinafter ROYAL QUEEN SEEDS)

C/ Vilar d'Abdelà, 5 (nave 1) CP: 08170 de Montornès del Vallès

+34 937 379 846

support@royalqueenseeds.com


The present Privacy Policy sets out the terms on which we will treat personal data at ROYAL QUEEN SEEDS; this includes any personal data collected through our website https://www.royalqueenseeds.com/ as well as any other data we process in the course of our business activities.

ROYAL QUEEN SEEDS collects the following personal data for the purposes listed below:

SECTION 1 – PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT

1.1 Account purchases

Account purchases can only be made if you are in possession of a personal account. When you create an account or purchase something from our shop, as part of the buying and selling process we collect the following personal information that you provide to us:

This information is required for delivery. In addition, when you browse our shop, we automatically receive the Internet Protocol (IP) address of your computer. Based on this information, we can optimise your online experience and at the same time protect our online environment.

Purpose of data collection

We collect and store account-related data for the following purposes:

(a) to carry out obligations arising from any contracts between you and us, and to provide you with information, products and services that you may request from us;

(b) to set up, manage and communicate with you about your account and your orders;

(c) to conduct market research and analysis;

(d) to confirm your age and identity, and to detect and prevent fraud.

1.2 Newsletters

With your explicit permission, we may send you newsletters about our shop, new products and other updates. We send newsletters based on your explicit consent. In the event that you purchase a product, and in accordance with current regulations, we may send you commercial communications in accordance with the legitimate interest of our company, always about products or services similar to those you have purchased or contracted. In any case, you may exercise your right of opposition through the channels announced in this Privacy Policy. The following information is collected in relation to the newsletter:

We do not need to know the sex of the person in order to send the newsletter (data minimisation: by law we must ask for data that is strictly necessary to provide the service, and in this case knowing the sex is not necessary to send the newsletter).

Purpose of data collection

The data collected is used to:

(a) personalise our emails, including your name and gender;

(b) provide gender-specific content.

You can withdraw your consent at any time by using the link provided in the newsletter or the contact information provided in section 2.

1.3 Customer service and contact form

In order to provide appropriate support, our customer service employees have access to information related to the account. Consequently, their support will be highly effective and friendly. The data provided in our contact form is used by our CRM provider, SuperOffice. We will only use your details to respond to your message.

SECTION 2 – LEGITIMATE INTEREST

If you have purchased any of our products, please note that we may process your personal data for promotional purposes, based on Royal Queen Seeds' legitimate interest only to offer you products or services from our company and about products or services similar to those you have purchased. You may exercise your right to opt out of future messages by the means set out in this Privacy Policy or through any notification you receive.

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SECTION 3 – DISCLOSURE

We may disclose your personal information if we are required to do so by law or if you breach our Terms of Service.

SECTION 4 – HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR DATA?

At Royal Queen Seeds, we will not retain your data for longer than is necessary for the purposes described in this Policy. Different retention periods apply for different types of data; however, the longest period we will normally hold any personal data is 10 years.

4.1 Account information

Data relating to the account remains relevant for as long as the consumer is in possession of an account. Therefore, the data remains documented for as long as the account exists. When our customers delete an account, the associated data will be deleted within a reasonable period of time. Requests regarding the inspection or correction of stored personal data or the deletion of an account can be sent to support@royalqueenseeds.com.

4.2 Newsletters

In the event that you give us your consent to inform you about our products or services, we will keep your data until you express your wish not to receive any further communications from us. However, we regularly (every month) carry out a relevance check. Registered customers (and their personal information) will be deleted whenever customers do not reply to our request. In addition, our newsletter mailing has an opt-out feature. Consumers can withdraw their consent by using this opt-out feature.

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Third-party services are required to conduct transactions and provide our services. In general, the third-party providers we use will only collect, use and disclose your information to the extent necessary to enable them to perform the services they provide to us.

However, certain third-party service providers, such as payment gateways and other payment transaction processors, have their own privacy policies regarding the information we must provide to them for your transactions.

We encourage you to read the privacy policies of these providers so that you can understand how these providers will handle your personal information.

In particular, certain suppliers may be located or have facilities located in a different jurisdiction than yours or ours. Therefore, if you choose to proceed with a transaction involving the services of a third party, your information may be subject to the laws of the jurisdiction in which that service provider or its facilities are located.

Once you leave our website or are redirected to a third-party website or application, you are no longer governed by this Privacy Policy or the Terms of Service of our website.

Web analytics service (anonymous data)

On this website we have integrated an element of a web analytics service (with anonymisation functionality). Web analytics can be defined as the gathering, processing and analysis of data about the behaviour of visitors to websites. An analytics service collects, among other things, data about which website a person came from (the so-called referrer), which sub-pages they visited or how often and for how long they visited a sub-page. Web analytics is mainly used for website optimisation and for a cost–benefit analysis of internet advertising.

Courier service

To complete deliveries we use a courier service. This courier service carries out the delivery between our company and the consumer's home. To complete these logistics, the company requires access to the consumer's name and address information.

Mailing service

Royal Queen Seeds uses a third-party mail service provider to send its newsletter. This provider has access to limited account information related to opt-in consent (e.g. email address).

Marketing services

Royal Queen Seeds has the support of a company that specialises in marketing and communication activities. Their access to personal information is very limited and mostly anonymous.

Payment services

At Royal Queen Seeds we use external payment services to handle our transactions (e.g. credit card payments).

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To protect your personal information, we take reasonable precautions and follow industry standard best practices to ensure that it is not inappropriately lost, misused, accessed, disclosed, altered or destroyed.

If you provide us with your credit card information, the information is encrypted using secure socket layer technology (SSL) and stored using AES-256 encryption. Although no method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is 100% secure, we follow all PCI-DSS requirements and implement additional industry standards that are commonly accepted. Information related to the account is protected with a hashing method. This method transforms the information into a generated hash. As a result, confidential information is protected and invisible, even to us. In addition, our databases are exceptionally protected against unauthorised access. For example, access to the database is only possible and permitted via approved IP addresses (e.g. from Royal Queen Seeds headquarters). Other attempts and addresses are rejected at all times.

Furthermore, data is anonymised as much as possible, so it cannot be directly linked to a specific consumer. With this data, however, we may be able to carry out market research and analysis. In addition, the third parties concerned (e.g. mailing service) are examined prior to our collaboration, comply with the GDPR from the EU and receive a processing agreement. Within Royal Queen Seeds, employees are assigned different access permissions. Specific permission provides access only to information that is strictly required to perform a task. Digital security measures are subject to change and must meet high requirements to ensure the safety of online customers. That is why, at Royal Queen Seeds, we appoint a security officer. Regular verification and improvement of security measures (where necessary) are part of the role.

SECTION 7 – CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time, so please check back regularly. Changes and clarifications will be effective immediately upon being published on the Website. If we make substantial changes to this policy, we will notify you here that it has been updated so you will know what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances, if any, we use and/or disclose it.

SECTION 8 – YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO: