Are there signs of hermaphrodite plants in your grow room? Or have you overlooked the early signs of hermie plant and now have a room filled with hermies?
If you have not been able to save your hermie plants, you are most probably sending them to the compost. However, what if you still have some chance to get something better than compost from your hermie plant?
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Can Seeds of a Hermie Plant be Feminized?
Theoretically, the seeds of any plant are replicas of their parents. Therefore, based on solid science, hermie seeds are 99% going to generate hermie plants unless you get lucky.
If you are dejected by this point and have decided to fill your compost bin, notice that we mentioned 99% chances. You can choose to try your luck with some technical hardwork and attempt to feminize the seeds from your hermie plants.
Why is There a 1% Chance to Feminize Hermie Seeds?
The 1% probability isn’t entirely your luck. In fact, there is reasonable scientific backing to it. The environment forces some female plants to pollinate themselves, which generates hermie plants and hence hermie seeds.
This forced self-pollination can be due to many reasons. The most common reason probably is excessive or prolonged exposure to light. You can pluck out male parts and take other measures to save your hermie plant.
Once you rule out male parts and take care of the originally feminine plant, the seeds are most likely to generate female seeds.
Feminized seeds are also artificially generated through self-pollinating female flowers. This process is repeated to decrease male chromosomes in seeds and hence male plants.
Have the Experiments Been Successful?
Many growers have cultivated seeds of a hermie plant. They turn out lush female plants with a few male parts.
The harvest is not perfectly seedless. However, it has a considerably lesser amount of seed than the first generation of hermie plants.
If you don’t mind some fancy experiments in your grow room, you can try the 1% chance of feminizing your hermie seeds. Hermie plants are, in fact, never feminized completely. You will still see small nanners, which might keep reducing in number and size in later generations.
The Rodelization Process:
To create feminized seeds, you may also try what High Times magazine calls the “Rodelization Process”. This process uses environmental control for self-pollination. It alters the nutritional input through light control to force a female plant to pollinate herself.
For experimenting with the Rodelization process, we recommend that you take out a sample from your grow room. Trying the process on one female plant reduces the risk of destroying your crop.
Remember, a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. Stay prudent and try the technique on a small sample of female plants placed away from your grow room or in a separate one.
Step 1: Tuning the Environment
For the Rodelization process to begin, you must place the female sample plant under 12/12 for around 10 to 14 days. The 12/12 lighting means giving your plant 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark each day.
Expose your female plant to this routine for around two weeks after its prime harvest day. If you follow the process religiously, you will see small male bananas developing in your plant.
What happens in the background is that you are prolonging the blooming cycle of your female plant. The prolonged light exposure stresses the plant to pollinate itself. When the female is not pollinated for a prolonged time, it tries to do that asexually and develops some male pollen sacks.
Step 2: Pollinating Females with Feminine Pollen
The next step is to preserve these pollen sacks and pollinate the lower branches of your next female generation with them. This way, you are pollinating a female plant with female pollen.
This process drastically reduces the probability of male plant growth from seeds. You can repeat the process to reduce the male chromosomes from your feminized seeds further.
The Rodelization process can be started from scratch, or (you got it right) can be the last ray of hope for your hermie plants, which are about to become compost.
Summary
There’s no harm in betting on the 1% chances if you can afford to experiment with some plants away from your healthy crop.
Now that you know the science behind the process, you need to abide by the rules and monitor the process closely. This might give you healthy feminized seeds.
However, it’s a considerable amount of time investment and whether it is worth it or not depends on the 1% probability and a lot of luck.
