Often overlooked by growers, regular seeds are a staple in any cannabis breeder’s seed bank. They provide the essential tools for breeders to create their own strains and genetic crosses.
As a beginner, you may wonder why you should purchase regular seed if the majority of strains on the market are feminized. But it’s important to understand the differences between the two types of seed, so you can make an informed decision and get the most out of your growing experience.
Genetic Stability
Genetic stability is the ability of a strain to consistently express desirable traits in the next generation, allowing the breeder to create new strains with the desired qualities. These traits include flowering pattern, growth rate and psychoactive properties like taste and scent.
Regular seeds come from a parent that is often a variety, meaning that the strain has a specific set of traits (genotype) and how those traits are expressed can be affected by the environment in which the plant was raised. For example, if the parents were kept in poor conditions, this can affect how the plants will breed.
Seeds can be stored for long periods of time, and this process can cause significant deterioration in the quality of the seed. This deterioration can result in structural damage, single and double strand DNA breaks or accumulation of point mutations.
Better Yields
Regular seeds are a breeding line of Cannabis plants that express an equal balance of male and female chromosomes. They are the original type of seed used in the European cannabis seed industry and remain a popular choice for growers and breeders alike.
In terms of yield, these seeds produce heavy crops for their first harvest but can also be used to cultivate and grow subsequent harvests. This makes them a highly versatile option for both novice and experienced growers looking to increase their production potential.
The main advantage of regular seed over feminized seeds is that it’s easier to determine whether your plants are male or female, giving you a better chance of success when pheno hunting for upcoming strains. This also gives you a larger pool of genetic options to experiment with and combine in order to create new hybrids.
Less Expensive
Most cannabis seed breeders specialize in feminized or autoflowering seeds, but there are also some who offer regular seed varieties. These seeds are less expensive than feminized or autoflowering seed varieties, and they’re suitable for growers with a wide range of needs.
They’re also much less likely to carry disease than feminized or autoflowering seeds. They also tend to be more vigorous, which can help them to handle stress better and survive in the long run.
The price of seed varies from company to company, and depends on the type, quality, and strain desired. It can also be influenced by supply and demand in the market.
Some high-quality seed companies have occasional sales that allow buyers to get a great discount on their seeds. Some of these sales focus on specific themes, such as fruity varieties or outdoor cannabis seed strains, so it’s a good idea to keep an eye out for such offers. You can usually find these on the websites of some of the top seed banks.
More Genetic Variation
Regular seed packs contain both male and female seeds, allowing you to choose from a much greater variety of cannabis genetics. Feminized seeds, on the other hand, only contain 99.9% females.
However, a lot of the genetic variation in regular seed is not related to sex. For example, the genetic architecture of testa traits is complex and can have a strong influence on phenotype.
In addition, there are a number of genetic loci affecting the abundance of many metabolites in the plant, which may interact with each other to regulate the onset or amount of a phenotype (Kover et al. 2009b).
We performed QTL analysis using recombinant inbred lines (RILs) derived from MAGIC lines containing two accessions of A. thaliana. We identified eight QTL distributed across chromosomes 1, 3, 4, and 5. For seed size, the largest QTL was located on chromosome 1 and explained 15% of the phenotypic variation. The other three QTL were found on chromosomes 4 and 5 and explained 9 and 8%, respectively.
