sexing plants in dwc

[waveburglar]

Hello! So Im following the top fed DWC method here, which seems much simpler if im using feminized seeds, as its just a matter of growing a few and keeping the strongest looking which is done pretty early on in the veg cycle.

What if I use regular seeds and need to sex the plants? I only have two reservoirs like in the tutorial, with six sites each. If I plant a seed in each site, knowing that ill need to cull some of them, is there any concern of the roots getting too big / tangled / crowded by the time the plants are old enough to determine sex? Do you just rip them right out with no worries?

[DW2]

Howdy waveburgler and welcome to the forum. I grow using DWC, top feed, system and I have finished five successful grows now. I have only used 'bag' seeds for my grows and understand Your concern about the roots. I have not had too much trouble separating out the male plants, I just use a steady firm pull and remove as much of the root as I can. I was worried about the 'left behind' root material causing problems as it decomposed. I keep the water very well aerated and I use 2 ml per gallon of GH Florashield to control the bacterial, algae, and mold growth. I have not had any bad smells in the reservoirs and only some 'sludge' at the bottom of the reservoir when I clean it after the grow (I do drain the reservoirs weekly, but some just does not drain out). The roots can get to be a rather large mass and do get tangled up, especially when the plants get large.
Ideally, sexting the plants early on would be great, but I have not found or heard of any reliable method to determine their gender before the go into the bloom cycle. For my next grow (#6), I am going to germinate 12 seeds from a 'hermied' plant, to see if the hermied seeds will give a better male to female ratio than 50%.
Good luck with Your grow!

[waveburglar]

Good info thanks DW2!! I have some hydroguard which I think is similar to florashield.

I just read another post where someone said they will flip it to 12/12 after three weeks just until they show sex, then pull the males while theyre still small, then go back to 24 or 18/6. Is it okay to go from veg to flower back to veg? it won't mess with the plants?

[DW2]

waveburglar, I have not ever re-vegged a plant before, I have seen photos of OPP (calm down! Other Peoples' Plants (lol)) that were re-vegged. The last grow, the plants were left in the 18/6 light schedule of seven weeks before I switched them to 12/12. I am only using 220 watts of CFL lamps for each reservoir, so the plants take a little longer to grow. Here are photos at three weeks and at seven weeks to show the difference.

[waveburglar]

Ok I just ordered a 4 seedling sex test kit from phylos bioscience! http://www.phylosbioscience.com

according to the site all I do is send the tiny first round leaves a week after germination, they do a lab test for sex and post the results online within 48 hrs!

[Joker]

My last dwc grow I used reg seeds and I won't do it again. By the time sex was known the roots were too tangled to separate, so I cut the males and had to leave the roots. It didn't cause any problems but I'm sure the potential was there.

[waveburglar]

yeah thats exactly what im trying to avoid