Getting seeds in your cannabis crop is difficult for any grower to see.
You’ve put in weeks of care and consideration for your cannabis garden only to find out that you have seeds or little banana-shaped flowers coming out of your bud.
For the beginner grower, this could mean a little bit of a panic. However, keeping a cool head and investigating the reasons why your cannabis buds are developing seeds could potentially mitigate any disastrous crop loss.
Green seeds in your cannabis buds are a signal that something is wrong with your plant. Common causes include hermaphroditism, poor genetics, or underlying disease.
If the seeds are localized you could try and get rid of the area but if it’s throughout the plant then culling is best.
If the seeds are brown and spotted that means they are viable but if they are green that means they are underdeveloped seeds.
If you try to grow plants from seeds that are a result of hermaphroditism you will more than likely have the same issue with the new seeds. It is always best to use feminized seeds for growing.
What causes seeds to appear in cannabis buds?
Most growers will blame themselves if they see seeds growing in their cannabis buds when in fact, it could be happening for a few reasons.
There are a few things you can troubleshoot to get to the root of the cause.
The most common cause of seeds in your cannabis plants would be hermaphroditism. The only other cause of seeds in your garden is if you had a male plant hidden amongst the females and caused them all to be pollinated.
Once you understand that the causes of seeds in your plant can be that limited it becomes really easy to diagnose.
If you’ve eliminated the possibility of males in your crop then we can start to look at what would cause your plant to become hermaphroditic.
Causes of hermaphrodite cannabis plants can include:
- Environmental stresses such as too much heat and thermal issues from feeding with unusually cold water.
- Physical issues like broken branches or root exposure that are hard to heal.
- Harvesting your crop too late often will show yellow banana-like flowers called “nanners”.
- Irrigation issues mean either too little or too much water.
- Abrupt changes to the photoperiod.
- The shock from pests, disease, or pesticide use.
As you can probably tell, avoiding the development of seeds falls right in line with the control you have over your environment in the grow room.
You can see why growers will blame themselves before anything else, as the causes of seeds in cannabis are generally caused by undoing stress.
One thing you’ll want to remember is not to plant seeds from a cannabis hermaphrodite. The generics within the seed will more than likely cause the new plants to have the same issue.
It’s always best to start over when it comes to genetics if your strains are prone to this condition.
Keep your plants healthy and balanced
In the end, seeing seeds in your cannabis buds is a sign that your plant is not happy or healthy.
If the seeds are isolated then sometimes you might be able to salvage the plant by eliminating the seedy bud but more than likely once you’ve seen seeds the damage to the garden is done.
Be sure to remove any or all of the plants so that the remainder of your crop doesn’t get affected.
