Girl or Boy?

[lostblackdog]

How does one tell if it's a girl or a boy? At what stage (number of days or nodes) can one tell, and what are some characteristics of females/males in early stages of development?

[nesta]

once you look at a couple plants in person, you can tell in a split second if its male or female if it's far along enough in the development. i haven't really grown pot myself successfully, so i don't know exactly -when- it begins to show, but once it does there are dead giveaways.

the females flowers will have a long hair coming out of it, usually starting white, i believe. the male flowers will have oddly shaped pollen sacs hanging here and there. here are some close up pics i found at erowid to help better illustrate it....



male:
http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/images/archive/cannabis_male5.jpg
http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/images/archive/cannabis_male3.jpg
note that the pollen sacs tend to resemble something like footballs or bananas.

female:
http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/images/archive/cannabis_female11.jpg
http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/images/archive/cannabis_female2.jpg

if it shows characteristics of both male and female plants, it's a hermaphrodite. i know they are undesirable, but i'm unsure if it can self-pollinate or not (in other words, if you only have one plant growing and its a hermie, i'm not sure if you can grow out some decent female buds on part of it without it going to seed city....) but i'm pretty sure its going to give inferior crop and if you have other ladies around you want to chop that fucker down.

hope this helps. like i said, i'm no expert on marijuana growing, but this is one thing i do know at least a little bit about. i'm sure someone more experienced can explain it to you better and with more authority, though.