If you’re lucky to live in one of the states where home cultivation is legal, and you grow marijuana often, you’d know that female plants are the most desired type of marijuana. But, that doesn’t mean male weed plants don’t have uses, too.
They may not flower, but you can use your male marijuana plants in a few different ways. So, before you throw out those males, keep on reading to see how you could save them.
Understanding Male Weed Plants
Without question, female plants are preferred over male plants because they contain more of the active ingredients that make weed unique.
However, male plants are just as crucial in the overall process of weed cultivation and production.
Do male weed plants bud? No, they don’t, but that doesn’t make them useless.
Male plants have pollen sacs instead of buds, which are just as important because that’s how they fertilize female plants.
These pollen sacs make male weed plants indispensable in breeding programs because they supply 50% of the genetic material in marijuana seeds.
Can You Grow Female and Male Cannabis Plants Together?
We’ve mentioned that the weed male plants have several uses, but when it comes to marijuana cultivation, it’s best to keep female and male marijuana plants apart.
If you grow them together, the male plants will pollinate and fertilize females, and you don’t want that.
Fertilized female plants spend more energy and nutrients producing seeds instead of rich buds, leading to a poor harvest. As soon as you can identify male marijuana plants, remove them so they won’t ruin your harvest.
If you want to grow male plants in a breeding program, grow them in a separate room and maintain strict procedures to ensure you don’t accidentally track pollen from the male plants into the room where you grow the female plants.
Male vs. Female Weed Plants
Do you know how to tell a male weed plant from a female?
Well, it’s not easy to tell the difference between male vs. female weed plant straightaway because they are almost identical when they sprout.
Once a cannabis plant ends the vegetative state and enters the flowering cycle, you can then tell whether it’s a male or female. After all, males don’t flower.
How to Tell a Male Plant from a Female
After about three weeks of growth, male weed plants develop telltale signs that give them away.
The differences between male vs. female plants are as follows:
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- Buds: Do male weed plants bud? No. When it comes to how to tell a male weed plant from a female, the first thing to note is that only female plants produce buds. Male plants have pollen sacs instead of buds.
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- Hairs: If you look closely at a female marijuana plant, you’ll see delicate white and orange hairs on the stalk and branches. Male marijuana plants don’t have these hairs.
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- Stalks: Male marijuana plants develop thick, sturdy stalks because they grow longer and need thick stalks to support their height and weight. By contrast, female weed plants have slender stalks.
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- Height and Leaves: If you want to know how to tell a male weed plant from a female, one of the most straightforward indicators is how bushy the plant is. Male plants have fewer leaves on their thick stalks than female weed plants that have abundant leaves on their slender stalks. Also, these plants are usually taller than females, which are short and bushy.
Can You Smoke Male Weed Plants?
To answer this question, we must first ask, what makes smoking marijuana worthwhile? It’s the cannabinoids and terpenes that combine to give an incredible entourage effect that you experience as a high.
Male weed plants lack enough cannabinoids and terpenes to give you that effect.
Fortunately, that does not mean you’ve wasted effort growing male marijuana plants. If you read on, you’ll see that weed male plants are pretty useful even though they don’t match the potency of female weed plants.
Smoking may be the most popular method of consuming marijuana, but it’s not the only one. Male plants may not be great for smoking, but they come in handy for other forms of consumption.
You Accidentally Grew a Male Marijuana Plant – Now What?
Accidentally growing male marijuana plants doesn’t mean you’ve wasted your time and resources.
In fact, you can use male plants to make cannabis juice, enrich your soil, and breed custom unique strains, amongst other uses.
Make Some Cannabis Juice or Tea!
Cannabis juice is trendy among health-conscious consumers, and this popularity is accelerated by the reported benefits they gain from the juice.
We know male plants contain the same cannabinoids and compounds as female plants but in lower concentrations.
Still, the low concentrations contain enough nutrients to do you plenty of good if you make nutritious cannabis juice or tea.
One cool benefit of cannabis juice is that it delivers the healthy benefits of the plant without the attendant psychoactivity.
Raw cannabis juice contains THCA and CBDA, which have various health benefits.
Another advantage of using male weed plants for cannabis juice is that you can juice the whole plant and avoid wastage. Just toss it into your blender or juicer and make yourself a healthy brew.
However, it’s advisable to omit the toughest stalks and huge leaves because they can give your juice a bitter taste.
Enrich Your Soil
Your soil can always do with more nutrients. Rich soil means top-quality marijuana, complete with all the cannabinoids and terpenes needed for a heightened experience.
You can use weed male plants to enrich your soil because they are organic and contain essential nutrients like carbon, nitrogen, and micronutrients.
Look at it this way: male plants absorb nutrition from the soil to grow, so when you use them as fertilizer, you return those nutrients to the soil.
You can chop the plants and toss them into the soil or add them to your compost pile to create a more nutrient-dense pile.
Make Hashish and Concentrates
When comparing the THC content in male vs. female weed plants, female plants come out on top, but that’s not to say male weed plants have no THC.
Male plants don’t have buds, but other parts of the plant, like the leaves and stem, contain some THC.
Male weed plants may not be as potent as female weed plants, but you can use them to make hash and concentrates. Of course, having a low-potency hash is much better than wasting male weed plants by throwing them away.
After all, not everyone wants heavily potent weed, so if you want a milder experience, you’ll enjoy hash and concentrates made from male weed plants.
You can spin off your concentrates from male weed plants to other products like cannabutter and edibles.
Breed Unique Strains
It takes two to tango, and for growing cannabis, that means male and female plants.
Despite the differences between male vs. female weed plants, they make a great pair when creating unique cannabis strains.
Growers have created top-quality hybrid strains like Gelato, Blue Dream, OG Kush, and GSC by crossing different cannabis strains.
This creation is not possible without the use of quality male weed plants.
Male weed plants allow you to get creative and breed unique weed strains.
Make Edibles
We’ve mentioned that you can use male weed plants to make nutritious cannabis juice and tea, but that’s not all.
When it comes to male weed plants, they are versatile, and you can use them to make several products.
You can use your male weed plants when creating cannabis edibles like cannabutter and cookies.
Mastering Cannabis Cultivation With Elevate Holistics
Cannabis cultivation brings the dispensary to your doorstep and makes it easier for you to access this wholesome medicine. Now that you understand the difference between male vs. female weed plants, feel free to grow your own if you have the means.
Cannabis cultivation is a delicate yet very rewarding process. You can’t just throw the seeds in the soil and hope for a bounty harvest.
If you’d like to grow marijuana, but don’t know where to begin and how to go about it, just follow our guide here.
In states where home cultivation is legal, you need an MMJ card before you start growing cannabis. Fortunately for you, we can help with that.
At Elevate Holistics, we’ve made it our mission to simplify access to medical marijuana. We have qualified marijuana doctors willing to assess your condition and give you a recommendation.
Click here or the button below to book an appointment with us today, and we’ll ensure you enjoy unrivaled cannabis access.
