Month: June 2023

Choosing the right seeds is essential to any crop. Whether you choose feminized or regular seed depends on where you live, your level of experience and the purpose of your harvest.

Unlike feminized seeds, regular plants grow into male or female plants on average about half the time. This means you’ll need to weed out males to get the most out of your harvest.

Breeding

Breeding cannabis isn’t just for professional growers, many hobbyists who have a bit of experience like the challenge and the excitement of creating their own strains. Regular seeds offer plenty of opportunities to experiment with cross-breeding, as they produce both male and female plants by default.

By selecting the best of your regular sexed crop to become ‘mother’ plants, you can create clones that carry all the robust characteristics of their parents. This is also an excellent way to test for new genetics that you want to incorporate into your own strain.

Similarly, using regular seed can help you stabilise a strain by crossing it with other regular phenotypes to create F1 seeds that exhibit less variability. This can lead to a strain that has much more consistency in terms of yield, flowering time and potency, and it’s something that experienced breeders strive for.

Cloning

Cloning is a great way to get started in the grow room. The process involves taking a piece of a healthy plant and allowing it to root in a nutrient-rich growing medium such as rockwool or clay pellets. Once a clone has enough roots, it can be transferred into soil or another container where it will continue to grow.

Clones are genetically identical to their parent plant so they can be trusted to perform well in a variety of conditions. They can also be quarantined for a few days to a week before being introduced to the rest of your garden to prevent any diseases or pests from spreading.

Clones take longer to root than seeds and can be prone to failure in the wrong growing environment. They must be kept in a clean environment that is free from harmful pesticides and fungicides and can’t be exposed to excessive heat or cold. It is also a good idea to use a rooting hormone to speed up the process.

Medicinal Uses

One of the main uses of regular seed is cloning, which requires female plants with full sets of chromosomes. Many breeders will select the best females from their crop and grow them out to become’mothers’ which can then be used to create a number of identical clones.

This is done to produce a stable strain with the same genetics and robust qualities that the original parent plant had. It also allows growers to preserve the original genetics of a particular cannabis variety in case future generations need to be produced using the same phenotype.

Another reason to stock regular seeds is that male plants have their own benefits, such as producing pollen which can be used for creating new strains of marijuana. Male plants are also less likely to be hermaphrodites and can withstand a number of growing stresses such as sudden photoperiod changes and water shortages, which can cause hermaphrodite plants to become uncontrollable.

Genetics

Unlike feminized seeds that only produce female plants, regular seed produces both male and female cannabis plants. This means that there is a chance that some of the seeds will germinate and grow into male cannabis plants, so growers are advised to purchase a larger number of seeds than they want to plant to ensure that there is a balance of male and female plants.

However, the genetics underlying the natural variation of seed size and number are still relatively uncharacterized, as previous studies have primarily used mutant screens (Garcia et al. 2003; Tzafrir et al. 2004). This is partly due to the fact that seed traits are complexly influenced by both environmental and gene-environment interactions (Koornneef et al. 2012).

For this reason, some growers prefer to work with regular seeds in order to avoid any problems that may be caused by male plants. Also, working with regular seeds enables the grower to see which plants are male or female, and this can be useful when pheno hunting for potential cannabis strains for future breeding projects.

Seeds are a critical component of cannabis growth. They contain all the cells that eventually grow into a mature plant, and they are protected by an outer shell.

Seeds can be stored in a number of ways. Some people store them in the refrigerator, which mimics the seasonal change that triggers germination in the wild.

How to Germinate Cannabis Seeds

Whether you’re looking for the best seeds for indoor cultivation, or simply want to get a head start on your grow, germinating your cannabis seed is an essential first step. Germinating is the process by which a seed sprouts a small taproot that will eventually give rise to a full-fledged cannabis plant when grown.

The key to successful germination is a moist but not waterlogged environment. Cannabis seeds must imbibe water to sprout, but over-saturating will prevent them from growing.

Aim for a germination setup that replicates the conditions a seed would find in spring, when temperatures are rising and moisture is plentiful. This will help ensure your seeds are triggered to sprout by the three fundamental principles of germination: warmth, moisture, and darkness. You may also wish to add a few drops of root complexes or stimulators to your germination medium. Never disturb or disrupt a seedling during this time, as doing so may damage the young roots.

The Paper Towel Method

One of the most common ways to germinate cannabis seeds is by placing them on a damp paper towel. This method is quick, affordable, and convenient. It’s also a great way to monitor your seed germination progress.

When planting a sprout from a towel, it’s important not to touch the root with your fingers as this can damage it. If you need to move a seedling from the towel, use a popsicle stick, wooden coffee stirrer, or tweezers to avoid disturbing it.

It’s also important to keep the plate of seeds moist at all times. You can do this by misting it periodically, or by putting the plate in a warm place like a sunny windowsill. If the napkin dries out, it won’t be able to hold the water needed for the seed to sprout, so keep an eye on it and spray it whenever necessary.

The Glass of Water Method

This method involves submerging the seeds in a glass of water that is about half-full and kept at room temperature. The drenching activates the seed on both a physical and chemical level, which makes it easier for it to break through its shell. It’s important not to disturb the seeds at this stage, as they are very fragile.

This is one of the least effective methods for germination, but it is still a viable option for beginner growers. Many growers choose to lace their water with a root stimulator for better results.

Crop King Seeds is a popular Canadian seed bank that stocks high-quality marijuana strains. They offer both autoflowering and feminized seeds as well as bulk deals to help you save money. Their GSC strain produces stout buds with high levels of Caryophyllene and is great for beginners because it’s hardy and disease-resistant. It flowers in 10-14 weeks and is ideal for indoor growth as it doesn’t require changing the light cycle or a timer.

The Soil Method

For growers wanting to use a more traditional growing medium, cannabis seeds can be planted directly into soil. Soil germination can be more reliable than water germination, as it provides the opportunity to maintain ideal environmental conditions.

The seeds should be buried about half an inch or 1.25 centimeters deep. The soil should be moist but not soaked, and it should have a low to moderate drainage.

Ideally, cannabis seeds should be grown in soil that has been optimized for plant growth, such as loam. This type of soil combines clay, silt, and sand to provide an optimal environment for seedlings to develop.

After a few days, the seed will start to sprout and should be ready for its next growing medium. It’s important to remember that seedlings are fragile, and they should be handled with care. When transferring them to soil, make sure that the new growing medium is warm and dark and has an even moisture level.

Regular seeds produce male and female plants, and offer growers and breeders the opportunity to cook up unique crossbreeds. They also provide excellent cloning materials.

Feminized seeds give you a higher percentage of female plants, so you can rest easy knowing your crop won’t end up with a whole bunch of useless males that will eat all your water and nutrients.

Stable Genetics

Regular seeds work just like they should, germinating as either female or male plants and producing clones that are of high quality. They allow growers to experiment and create the strains of their dreams using a process called breeding, by crossing specimens that produce particular terpenes or highs, for example.

It is important to note that a plant’s genetic stability is character dependent, meaning it is not the case that all characters have a similar response to developmental noise. The consistent differences observed between different characters suggests that the degree of stability is related to a character’s functional importance within the plant.

Breeding is a lengthy process that requires countless generations to produce desirable traits, known as phenotypes. These phenotypes are what we recognise as the characteristics of a strain, such as growth, flowering, colour or psychoactive effects. This means that without regular seeds, cultivators would have a much more difficult time producing their dream cannabis strains.

Easy to Breed

It takes a little more work to breed regular seeds, but it’s well worth the effort for many growers. With feminized seeds, you have an equal chance of producing male plants or females, but with regular seeds it’s far more likely that you’ll end up with the desired ratio if you follow good breeding practices.

Growing a predominately female crop is easier to manage and will help you avoid the potential problems that male plants can cause, such as pollination. It also makes it easier to weed out male plants if necessary.

In addition, cloning is much more successful with regular seed. This allows you to duplicate a specific specimen with exact genetics, which can be especially helpful if you are trying to find the perfect phenotype for your purposes. This can be anything from a unique flavour profile to exceptional potency or colours. Regular seeds don’t suffer from the same kind of genital modification that feminized seeds do, so they are the better choice for breeding.

Less Expensive

Regular marijuana seeds are a great option for experienced growers looking to cultivate a variety of cannabis strains. They aren’t genetically modified, feminized, or crossed with a Ruderalis strain to enable them to flower automatically. They are also used for cloning, which allows growers to make an exact genetic copy of a specimen they like the terpene profile or colour of.

However, despite their advantages over other varieties, they do come with a price. As with all seed types, half of them will germinate as male plants, which means growers will need to weed them out.

In comparison, a pack of feminized seeds run the risk of producing male plants only about a third of the time. This makes them a better option for small-scale indoor operations or those who are legally capped on the number of plants they can grow.

More Resistant

The seeds of regular cannabis plants produce male and female weed. In most cases, a grower can expect to get about 50% female and 50% male marijuana plants. Male marijuana plants, which aren’t smokable, grow pollen sacs that will fertilize female marijuana plants during flowering. Having to cull 40% of your plants isn’t a good use of growing space or nutrients.

The genetics of regular seed mean that the plants grown from it are more resistant to diseases than feminized and other varieties. This makes them a good option if you’re planning to plant outdoors or in conditions that may be exposed to extreme temperatures, pests, or stress.

The level of resistance is defined as either resistance (restricts or slows the development of the disease compared to susceptible varieties under similar environmental conditions and pest pressure) or tolerance (shows some symptoms but no significant losses in yield). Resistance varieties have a higher yield and potency than those that aren’t resistant.