Month: May 2023

When choosing your cannabis seeds it is essential to know what type you are buying. Feminized and regular seeds both have their advantages and disadvantages, depending on the purpose of your crop.

Growers who enjoy breeding their own strains will most likely purchase regular seed. This is because male plants can be distinguished from female plants and pollen is removed.

Stable Genetics

Typically, breeders produce regular seeds by backcrossing a clone several times. This technique creates offspring that are as close to the clone as possible. It also produces a diverse range of phenotypes for growers to experiment with.

Another method to obtain regular seed is by reversing the plant sex. This involves spraying a female plant with chemicals that make it grow male pollen sacs.

This method makes it much easier to produce feminized seeds. However, it can be more difficult to get reliable genetic stability without mutation. It can take up to twelve generations to achieve stable, desirable cannabis traits. This is why you should only buy from reputable, experienced breeders with great customer service and lots of awards (like cannabis cups) to prove it.

More Economical

While feminised seeds are all the rage, many cannabis cultivators still choose regular seed. This is because growing regulars gives the grower the opportunity to experience the entire genetic lineage of a particular cultivar. It also means that the cultivator can see how male plants can influence the female plants and how this impacts on a harvest.

As a result of this, growers who opt for regular seed often find that they are saving money when it comes to purchasing seeds. It is worth noting, however, that growers that select regular seeds will have to spend more time and resources weeding out hermaphrodites. This is because approximately 50% of regular seeds will grow into male plants. This is why it is important to separate male and female plants when working with regular seeds.

Stable Pollination Rates

Pollination rates can be unstable, which can make it hard to achieve consistent results. Using regular seeds eliminates this problem.

The relative contributions of pollen quantity and quality to seed production have rarely been evaluated in tree species. This study investigates both factors in a naturally pollinated population of M. stellata in Burkina Faso. The large floral display of this dichogamous species is expected to facilitate efficient beetle-pollination, but the automimicry system and asynchronous flowering lead to frequent geitonogamy and a high level of pollen shortage (up to 80*8 %).

Ovule survival rate, seed set per fruit and seed weight were significantly lower after self-pollination than hand cross-pollination. These values indicate that selfing reduces fitness up to seed maturation by a combination of insufficient pollen quantity and increased embryo mortality rate due to poor pollen quality.

Unaltered Genetics

Regular seeds operate exactly as nature intended. They have a 50% chance of producing male or female plants. Male plants produce pollen sacks while female plants grow buds.

This makes sex determination quick and easy, even for first-time growers. This also gives growers the option to cross strains and create their own cultivars. You could for instance try crossing a fruity indica with an earthy sativa to develop the perfect balanced hybrid.

Cannabis breeding is not a new invention and many experienced growers still prefer to use regular seed. Cloning is also a good way of making an exact genetic copy of a desired plant. This allows for a quicker and easier growing process and is more stable than feminized seed. It is less likely that clones produced from regular seed will turn into hermaphrodites, even when subjected to stress from pruning techniques such as topping, fimming and lollypopping.

Stable Growth

A key benefit of regular seed is that it allows growers to make clones. This is important because clones are genetically identical to the parent plant and therefore can be used to reproduce the same characteristics in future plants, such as morphology, colour or potency.

While feminized seeds are incredibly popular, many breeders prefer to work with regular seeds to develop new and interesting strains. The process of creating a new hybrid takes time and requires the careful selection of male and female specimens to create offspring that express the desired characteristics.

Although working with regulars can be a bit of a gamble in terms of male to female ratios and requires the grower to spend some time eliminating male plants, the reward is the potential for a unique, never-before-seen phenotype. This is especially valuable for breeders who seek to create a specific flavour profile or morphology.

Seeds are tiny, but they contain everything a plant needs to grow into a new plant. This process is called germination.

All seeds need water, the right temperature and light to start growing into a seedling (embryonic plant). The embryo also has a food supply inside it – stored in a tissue called endosperm.

Germination

Germination is the first stage in seed development. The embryo within a seed begins to grow, first by hydration of the raphe or micropyle in the seed coat, then through the formation of the hilum and the emergence of the embryonic axis from the seed coat (also called radicle).

The germination process is driven by temperature and nutrients. Seeds contain a food reserve, called endosperm, which provides the energy required for embryonic growth until the plant can develop its own source of nutrition through photosynthesis.

The length of time required for germination can be influenced by genetic background, the physical environment and climatic conditions. For example, many species that are dormant in winter have evolved to require a certain amount of cold stratification in order to break their physiological dormancy. In addition, a longer winter stratification period may result in a higher percentage of seeds that germinate. Consequently, studies of germination can help to inform our understanding of climate change impacts on plants.

Seed Development

Seeds provide the majority of human food, including cereal grains, legumes, nuts and spices. Each fully developed seed contains an embryo and a store of food reserves wrapped in a hard shell or seed coat. They “wake up” and germinate when environmental conditions like moisture and temperature are right for them.

In seed production, abiotic stress caused by high temperatures or water deficits significantly reduces yield and quality. Research into cultivars that are better adapted to future climate change is needed [104].

The global seed industry is a cornerstone of global food security and is dependent on the ability to produce viable seeds. Currently, developing countries rely heavily on imports for their domestic seed needs. Moving seed production to higher latitudes or producing cultivars adapted to future climate changes will not be feasible for some regions, leaving them even more dependent on international markets [109]. The Millennium Seed Bank is working with partners to preserve and make available the wild relatives of major crops in a form that can be used to produce new crop varieties suited to changing climates.

Seed Dispersal

Plants need to disperse their seeds in order to ensure that they produce more plants and expand their geographic range. Seeds can be dispersed through wind, animals, water or other means.

Most often, plants are unable to choose where their seeds will be dispersed and therefore have little control over the outcome of the process. However, the structure of a seed and its environment can influence dispersal patterns. For example, shorter trees are more likely to drop their seeds near the parent plant, while taller trees can rely on updrafts and other atmospheric conditions that allow for dispersal over longer distances.

Similarly, frugivorous animals may carry seeds to distant locations through either endozoochory or ectozoochory. In this way, animals can play an important role in determining the genetic diversity of local plant populations. However, in modern times, the relationship between many animal-seed dispersal systems has been disrupted by habitat loss and human development.

Seed Design

Designed to support the design research of UW students, SEED serves as a world, asset library, and research sandbox. Teams of 2D and 3D artists, narrative, systems, and level designers, music composers and audio engineers, user researchers, interface and interaction designers, software engineers, and project managers work together in the lab to evolve the world and bring it to life through music, story, gameplay, and interaction.

Respondents most often identified past personal experience as the tool they use to guide their seed mix design processes, followed by consultation with other practitioners and species composition at high quality reference sites (both rated as important or very important by 95% of respondents). They were less likely to identify scientific literature as a useful tool in seed mix design, but this may be due to the fact that these journals are only accessed by those involved in applied restoration and management. Further research into the role of scientific literature in guiding seed mix design is warranted.

Cannabis seeds come in a variety of shapes and sizes. But most healthy seeds feature a consistent tear-drop shape.

Soak the seed in a glass of water at room temperature. Then move it (carefully) into soil pots. The best growing medium for this stage is a high-quality, premium-grade soil mix that has been soaked in water and laced with root stimulator.

Male and Female

As cannabis is a dioecious plant, female plants must be pollinated by male plants to produce seeds. This is why many growers choose feminized seeds.

Feminized seeds are derived from cannabis plants that have been genetically altered to only produce female flowers. This is done by exposing the plant to light at certain times during the dark flowering period or spraying it with Colloidal Silver, among other techniques.

In order to tell if a cannabis seed is male or female, look for pistils growing out of the small buds tucked into the crux of each branch. The pistils will appear wispy and white in color. Male plants produce pollen sacs that look rounded and distinct splits running lengthwise, much like a tiny crab claw.

Checking your cannabis crop to see if it is a male or female is important for a high-quality harvest. Male plants will waste energy producing buds and seeds and can severely limit the yield of a harvested crop.

Feminized

Feminized seeds were developed as a solution to the difficulty growers faced with regular cannabis plants. They have a 99% chance of growing as female plants and eliminate the need to throw out male plants when cultivating.

Feminized cannabis plants can be made by spraying a regular female plant with a chemical that induces hermaphroditism, such as gibberellic acid, to produce pollen that only has female chromosomes. This pollen can then be used to pollinate flowers on another female plant, producing feminized seeds.

Growers who use feminized seeds can expect to have a predominately female crop, which is easier to manage and more likely to produce the highest quality buds. Also, with a female-only harvest, there is less risk of male plants attracting pests and spreading disease to the rest of the crop. This makes feminized seeds a great option for beginner and veteran growers alike. They are also a more cost-effective way to get the same quality of marijuana as regular seeds.

Regular

Unlike feminized cannabis seeds, regular strains are not subject to any kind of genetic manipulation. Therefore, they produce robust descendants that are easy to work with. It’s also possible to clone plants that grow from regular seeds.

Theoretically, a batch of 10 regular seeds should yield a ratio of about 50% females and males. However, this depends on luck and the growing environment.

Regular seeds are perfect for seasoned growers who want to cultivate superior quality weed. These plants are characterized by their unique characteristics, such as flowering time, strength and resistance to pests. Growers can select the best phenotypes to cultivate as mother plants or use them for hybridisation. By doing so, they can create new cultivars with desirable characteristics such as aroma, terpene profile and high THC levels. These cultivars can then be bred with their female counterparts to produce even more excellent marijuana. This is the essence of selective breeding. This process has been practised by humans since the beginnings of agriculture.

Auto-flower

Autoflowering strains are the fastest to reach harvest, with some varieties ready in ten weeks from seed. They are a good choice for new growers who want to cultivate in the spring and aren’t sure how long the growing season will be.

i49’s autoflower strains are a mix of modern cannabis varieties and Ruderalis plants. Ruderalis is a wildflower that grows closer to the north and south poles than cannabis, and its genes give our auto-flowering cultivars a greater resistance to harsher climates as well as common pests and diseases.

Germination of autoflowering seeds occurs much the same as it does for regular or feminized marijuana seeds. Place the seeds on one of the plates in your makeshift germination station, and cover with the second plate. The seeds will sprout and pull their small embryonic leaves (cotyledons) out of the seed shell within a week. They will require less veg nutrients than other cannabis strains, but more bloom nutrients in their flowering phase.