I am always looking for ways to improve our “A Friend Indeed” program, and as mentioned in this article about Rimrock Analytical, our A Friend Indeed program now has the ability to offer free plant sex testing to Veterans and those battling cancer, as well as free shipping for anyone who uses promo code ILNJ. To help better understand the process of sex testing cannabis plants, I joined a fellow medical patient in testing the seedlings in each of our tents.

For those who do not grow, feminized seeds produce female plants, while regular seeds (on average) produce 50% male and 50% female plants. With Illinois’ limit to grow five plants, most patients can’t waste time, effort, and resources to grow a plant for weeks just to realize it’s a male trying to ruin the party.

Testing the sex of plants in the seedling stage not only saves time but also expands strain choice to regular seeds. Before the ability to test the sex of my seedlings, I popped female seeds almost exclusively. Now, I have the ability to run regular seeds and “weed out” the males early in the grow cycle, which allows better grow-schedule management for Illinois’ five-plant limit.

For this batch of testing, I chose to add another medical patient, Granny, to give a better sample size than the four Sowah Grapefruit regular seeds I had popped. Granny’s story about obtaining a medical card and growing her own medicine can be read here. Granny and I ordered from our partners at Rimrock Analytical, a plant tissue analysis laboratory in Colorado, the sex testing kits from its sex testing page.

ILNJ photo: Sowah Grapefruit by Tonygreen’s Tortured Beans

Once the kits arrived, we followed the included instructions, and wer each took samples of our seedlings and placed them in numbered vials. As mentioned, I popped four Sowah Grapefruit regular seeds from Tonygreen’s Tortured Beans because I wanted to grow one or two really large plants with long flowering times in my 4×4 indoor tent. D.C. Seed Exchange gifted the 20-pack of Sowah Grapefruit regular seeds to our A Friend Indeed program.

Sowah Grapefruit is a hybrid cross of New York Candy Orange and Gorilla Bubble and Sowah (Sour Diesel BX4). Flowering time takes between 70-77 days for a medium to heavy yield. If I had my druthers, I would pheno hunt the 20-pack pack and keep a my favorite mother, but Illinois does not allow for that yet.  So to add more plants to the test sample, granny added samples from her five seedlings.

ILNJ photo: Chicago Blue Line by Secret Squirrel Seeds

Granny, who has been growing for her specific medical needs “ratio” strains, such as THC/CBD 1:1s (more about that in future publications). Granny took samples of the five newly created Chicago Blue Line regular seeds from Secret Squirrel Seeds (available at Aroma Grow Store). Chicago Blue Line is a cross of Trainwreck (23% THC) and Blueberry CBD 1:1 (7% THC/5% CBD).

ILNJ photo

We marked our samples and matched them to the form. We mailed off the test sample vials. In less than five days, we received our results via email. Granny netted five-out-of-five female (and maybe needs to take a trip to Vegas). With this knowledge, Granny can run out all five plants knowing they’re females.

Secret Squirrel Seeds logo

I hit the 50/50 average with two males and two females. Now that I can trash the male seedlings, I will be able to start another plant or maybe sneak in an auto while over-vegetating the two female Sowah Grapefruit strains. Without testing the plants, I would have had to wait weeks to know the sex of the plants and lost valuable growing time, space, and money.

Rimrock Analytical test results

Within a few months, Rimrock Analytical plans to have prepackaged kits for sale in retails grow shops in Illinois. Please check back soon for more information on where. For free shipping on your sex test samples, use promo code ILNJ.

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