Although feminized plants significantly reduce the risk of male pollen contamination, walking the fields and scouting for rogue males or hermaphrodites is a necessary part of the process if you want to maximize the yield and value produced in your field. In the purest feminized seed available, the likelihood of a male is around 1 in 4000. So if you plant 2000 plants per acre, and have 10 acres, you may find 5 males in the field. The likelihood of hermaphrodite plants should be around 1 in 1500. This number can increase, however, in the event that the plants are stressed out from factors such as excessive heat, cold, drought, overwatering, unexpected changes in light spectrum (i.e. smoke), pests, diseases. The female plant has an innate ability to create pollen sacs to self pollinate in order to survive if it senses it is going to die. The pollen from hermaphrodite plants won’t seed the field as much as a true male would and sometimes the pollen is sterile, but it’s still always best to pull them out if you do find them. Aside from protecting your own crop from pollen contamination, it’s always good to respect the neighboring farms as well.
