Until now I've never seen a cannabis plant divide into identical halves on its own. Bifurcation is a natural process that splits or forks something into two branches, and can be seen in both plants and animals. I've split cannabis stems into two before, by topping them (removing the actively-growing tip), but this is different. I just noticed one of my 9-week-old indoor Reclining Buddha plants has bifurcated completely by itself, and I'd like to share it with the blockchain!
The split seems to have happened at a node, resulting in 2 identical stems, and 2 identical sets of leaves! Each of the new tops is fully-formed and healthy.
Normally, this is what a topped stem looks like after regrowing for a while:
And the resulting canopy would look like this:
Also from another part of the same plant, here's what a regular single stem looks like from above:
Now the self-split stem, from above:
That's pretty bushy, which is how I spotted the anomaly in the first place. "What's this really lush and overgrown section?..."
The plant itself is doing very well, along with the other 6 reclining buddhas in my small garden.
Here's a schematic of the plant structure, with the self-bifurcated section circled:
What caused this?
I don't know. Like I said, I've never seen it in cannabis plants before.
One thing I notice is the plants (especially this one) are very happy lately. I think they're loving the warm weather we're having here in BC. Even though I'm indoors and the temperature is fairly controlled, they feel it's warmer than normal, they sense all the extra sunlight spilling into the room from outside. They know it's Midsummer, and they're in heavy vegetative mode right now!
But that doesn't explain why this stem decided to basically clone itself.
The plant seems no worse for wear (although I wonder if the increased density might increase the chances of mold later on).
Have you seen this before? If so, did you remove one of the tops, or just let the plant double up?
What am I feeding it?
Could a surge in nutrients, or an interaction with a product I'm using, be responsible?
No, because I'm not feeding it anything, and I'm not using any products. This plant is 200% organic! It has had nothing (and I mean nothing) but plain water since it was a seed 67 days ago.
So what's in the dirt? It's half dry moss (inert filler), and half worm castings (earthworm poop). In other words, it's dirt.
So I have no idea why this otherwise normal and healthy plant decided to split this branch in half and form an ultra-dense canopy. And no explanation for why it's just on one side of the plant - the other side branch is totally normal.
And I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it, either. I'm trying to grow medicine here, and don't need any freak anomalies interfering with my flow! But then again, I'm a big believer in the "life will find a way" philosophy, and this unexpected bifurcation might prove to be adaptive, rather than a source of problems. Maybe I should wait and see?
Either way, I hope you enjoyed the photographs of this uncommon phenomenon.
Grow in peace.
DRutter
