Dioecious hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) plants do not express significant sexually dimorphic morphology in the seedling stage

• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-96311-w
• Publication Date: 2021-08-19T10:30:05Z
• Authors: Lesley G. Campbell; Kristen Peach; Sydney B. Wizenberg
• Keywords: Sexual dimorphism; Cannabis sativa; Anthesis

Abstract Some economically important crop species are dioecious, producing pollen and ovules on distinct, unisexual, individuals. On-the-spot diagnosis of sex is to breeders farmers for improvement maximizing yield, yet diagnostic tools at the seedling stage understudied lack a scientific basis. Understanding sexual dimorphism in juvenile plants may provide key ecological, evolutionary economic insights into dioecious plant addition improving process cultivation. To address this gap literature, we asked: can reliably differentiate males, females, co-sexual individuals based morphology Cannabis sativa, do traits used distinguish vary between genotypes? answer these questions, collected data phenotypic 112 C. sativa (50 female, 52 male, 10 co-sexuals) from two hemp cultivars (CFX-1, CFX-2) during second week vegetative growth ANOVAs compare among sexes. We found males grew significantly longer hypocotyls than females by 2, but difference depended cultivar investigated. Preliminary evidence suggests that be distinguished male female using short hypocotyl length height, although relationship requires more study since sample sizes were small. In one cultivars, two-week old tend produce other plants, which help identify prior anthesis. call increased research effort given their heavy cost industrial contexts rare mention literature. Our preliminary an indicator co-sexuality. These results first steps towards developing predicting understanding how influences phenotype preceding maturity.