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How to easily identify a male cannabis plant
You can usually identify a male cannabis plant in about one to two weeks into the cannabis plant’s flowering cycle. Make sure you check your plants daily for signs of flowering when the seasons start to change or after you switch the light to 12/12. If you’re checking daily, you won’t have to worry about ruining your crop with seeds due to pollination from the males.
Male cannabis plants have what look like ball sacks filled with pollen that develop between spots where buds would normally grow on a female plant.
Female cannabis plants will look noticeably different and have pistils sticking out from the internodes instead of ball sacks. These pistils are what reach out into the air and try to grab the pollen, which will result in seedy buds that you don’t want unless you’re breeding plants.
These pictures below will show you some examples of male and female plants that I had in my outdoor crop last summer. I decided to test my luck with a single healthy looking bag seed from a very delectable ounce of hydroponically grown girl scout cookies that I purchased locally. It was one seed in the ounce bag, so I had to try it. Welp, it turned out to be a male and I just threw it away after I took these photos. I no longer grow bag seeds or regular seeds due to my grow limitations. Ending up with a male after a couple months of vegetation is a waste of time and money for me.
Photos of a male girl scout cookies plant that I grew from a local dispensary bag seed
You can see the ballsacks growing in between the internodes of the plant below. I trashed it the same day I discovered it. I actually ended up getting a couple seeds in my bud anyway, but it was most likely due to outside sources from other local cannabis farms. The wind is extreme here and can carry cannabis pollen very far. While seedy bud is disappointing, it is not surprising to get one or two seeds in an isolated outdoor crop because a lot of people are growing weed here within a few mile radius.
The little ball sacks are filled with pollen and this will absolutely make you have a seedy crop!
This is a male cannabis plant, identified by its pollen sacs.
How to identify a female cannabis plant
Female plants are easy to spot, and if you’re growing with female seeds, you shouldn’t have to worry about a thing. The pistils will start poking out of the internodes and will be a white-ish color to start.
Conclusion
This is a female cannabis plant, identified by its white pistils.
Identifying the sex of cannabis plants is one of the easiest parts of growing them. Many growers choose to only grow feminized cannabis seeds so they never have to deal with male plants. I recommend this route if you have grow constraints such as space or time. If you’re breeding plants, then that’s a different story.
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