Girl power in Cannabis sativa

I am going to try to write a fun article about Cannabis cultivation by introducing the sexes. It is quite possible I will fail at the fun part, so I will recommend you grab your Spleeff vape device and screw on the Spleeff Vanilla Butternut hemp vape cartridge. That will keep your fun meter from dipping below the “don’t fall asleep” threshold. The vape would guarantee that at least one thing will be fun in the next 3 minutes or however long it will take you to finish reading this article.  Farmers, botanists and horticulturalists are probably wondering why the idea of different sexes in plants is not interesting to everyone. If you are part of those groups, I still recommend you grab your Spleeff Vanilla Butternut hemp vape cartridge because, well, why not?

In elementary school, we were taught that plants are not animals because they are not capable of movement and they create their own food out of inorganic materials by the process of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is essentially the creation of new organic molecules, carbohydrates and oxygen, elemental nutrients and carbon dioxide. Animals, on the other hand, do not produce their own food, but instead eat other organisms for nutrition.

At this point you probably want to take 2 puffs of that Spleeff vape.

Of course, life forms are far more complex. Some life forms like bacteria cannot move by themselves. Some organisms can photosynthesize AND have their own means of locomotion. Then there are also things that are not quite alive, but have characteristics of living things. Things like, you know Corona virus.

2 puffs. Do not worry, it gets easier reading from here.

Essentially, plants and animals are different. I hope you exhaled before saying “Duh!”. The reason for the long-winded explanation of the differences was to highlight some similarities a lot of people do not actually know about. One similarity in particular is the existence of male and female in the plant world.

That is right. Some plants are unisexual and are essentially only male and female. No prize for guessing a plant that is unisexual, but a clue is in your hands right now. That is right. The hemp (Cannabis Sativa) is most often either male or female. Some smart kids will now interject and point out that Cannabis Sativa can also be hermaphrodites and indeed their sexual expression can be altered, but reality remains that Cannabis Sativa can be male or female.

Another interesting similarity is the existence of races with the Cannabis Sativa plant. Cannabis Sativa that originate closer to the equator usually are higher in psychointoxicant than races originating further north. That is an article for a different day. For now, I want to write more on the sexes of the Cannabis Sativa.

The male plant is usually taller and less robust than the female. The male structures produce pollen which contain sperm and the female structures have one or more ovaries which contain eggs. I’ll leave it to your imagination how those two come together, but remember, plants can’t move by themselves so try not to go too wild with that imagination.

The male plant dies several weeks before the seeds ripen on the female plant. Tragic to be sure, but the reality is the male plant never produces buds, only the female plants. The male plants only produce pollen sacs. In fact, most growers will throw away any male plants they encounter to keep them from fertilizing the female plants. The reason being when the male plants pollen sacs burst and their pollen is released, those pollens can fertilize the female plants and once fertilized, the female plant will spend most of their energy to produce seeds instead of making buds. Buds are where the good stuff (Cannabinoids) are.  So much so that a lot of farmers typically only buy feminized seeds from artificially hermaphroditic females that lack the male gene.

In the human world, sometime in mid-1990s, a British quintet girl band broke unto the pop scene with melodic and very catchy songs. They popularized the slogan “Girl power” to celebrate women empowerment, strength, confidence and independence.  

In the plant world, sometime in…, well, really beginning of time, Girl power has always existed because it is all about the buds.

Yeah, in the Cannabis Sativa world, it sucks to be a male plant. But they do not produce what we want and well, you know, “Tell me what you want what you really really want”.

Feel free to take two puffs of the Spleeff vape (made from the female plant) to moan the fate of the male plant.