How do you determine if an asparagus crown is a female or male?

Both our asparagus crowns and potted seedling plants are a mixture of unknown male and female plants.  Female plants can be identified by the berries that you will see in Autumn when they are mature enough to flower.  They may produce fruit quite young depending on the nutrient profile of the soil.  You can plant both seedlings and crowns at 30 cm intervals.

I am assuming you are wanting to know because there is some literature that feels that male Asparagus is more productive.  The ones I’ve read are generally for commercial environments where Hybrids are used to ensure male plants.  

Male plants in a commercial environment are neater as they don’t self sow and thus require less maintenance as seedlings don’t need to be thinned out and removed as they self sow.  On a commercial scale, this would be a huge consideration. 

Don’t forget, commercial operations are growing for uniformity and generally thin, long spears that store well.  Diggers grow asparagus with flavour and biodiversity with our heirloom varieties in mind.  This is why we grow from seed and thus have a combination of male and female plants.

Opinions abound about which plants are more prolific.  Various study papers have found female asparagus to have tighter heads and to be more prolific producers in Spring.  

I have both male and female plants growing and do not notice terribly much difference in their productivity.  In a domestic situation, variation is healthy and I don’t think the yield is going to be different enough to warrant avoiding growing a healthy female plant.  

You also have the added bonus of producing your own seed that can be potted up and gifted or increase your own supplies.