Month: July 2023

Seeds play a critical role in the health and yield of a marijuana plant. High-quality seeds produce strong plants with exceptional terpene and cannabinoid profiles.

Choose seeds from professional seed banks that are known for their quality genetics. These seeds will have a high germination rate and offer the best potential for healthy growth.

Feminized

Feminized marijuana seeds are bred to produce only female plants. These seeds are not as common as regular cannabis seeds, but they offer a few benefits that make them worth seeking out. Female cannabis plants are responsible for producing buds that contain high levels of THC and fragrant terpenes. Male flowers, on the other hand, only produce seeds, which are not smoked.

A predominately female crop is easier to manage than a mixed crop. It eliminates the need to prune and watch for male plants, which can pollinate female cannabis plants. Additionally, feminized crops are more consistent, with better quality and higher yields.

Before purchasing feminized seeds, growers should research the strain’s genetics and history. Many feminized strains are hybrids of successful other strains, which will bring qualities from both parents to the new plant. The best online seed banks also provide growing information, so consumers can choose a strain that will thrive in their specific environment and overall goals.

Autoflowering

Autoflowering strains are easy to grow and produce good yields, but they do require careful attention and more nutrients than photoperiod strains. They also don’t respond as well to over fertilization, so it’s important to know how much nutrient they need and when to apply it.

Because they are derived from the cannabis subspecies ruderalis, autoflowers have a shorter growing season than their photoperiod sativa and indica counterparts. This makes them ideal for covert growers who want to maintain discretion and commercial cultivators who need a fast harvest. Moreover, their strong genetics make them resistant to pest infestations and are better equipped to fight off yield-ruining mold. Furthermore, they can be planted in bulk, reducing packaging waste. This is especially beneficial for growers who live in an area with a strict environmental code of conduct, as it helps them adhere to local rules. They also help to save money in the long run, as buying in bulk means a lower price per unit of seeds.

Photoperiod

Photoperiod cannabis cultivars shift into flowering mode as their day-to-night light cycle changes. Outdoors, this happens when summer turns to autumn and the days get shorter. Indoors, growers manipulate this natural response by lowering the lighting.

If a photoperiod strain doesn’t receive enough hours of undisturbed darkness, it may revert to vegetative growth or exhibit hermaphroditic traits and produce lower yields. To prevent this, choose a growing location that’s far from street lights and other light pollution.

Growers also love that photoperiod plants can be re-vegged for multiple rounds of harvest. This is a key benefit over autoflowering cultivars, which require a new batch of seeds to start producing. For this reason, they’re ideal for growers with a limited plant count and those who love to experiment with different cultivars. However, there are a number of reasons why many growers choose to go with feminized or autoflowering seeds instead. These include cultivation experience, space constraints and other factors.

Hybrid

F1 hybrids have the highest disease resistance out of all seed types. They also have a stronger genetic advantage over individual strains in terms of yield, secondary metabolite production, and flavor.

Regular seeds produce a crop of female plants that must be fertilized by a male plant in order to grow. Traditionally, the best females are selected from each harvest and become ‘mothers’ to produce hundreds of clones over the course of several years.

Despite their differences in size, healthy cannabis seeds display a consistent shape, with one end round and the other pointed like a teardrop. Seeds that stray from this shape may exhibit issues with germination or have a genetic flaw. Seeds that are too flat can even develop mold problems, while seeds that point too far can be susceptible to heat and moisture damage. This can result in germination problems, poor growth, or low yields. This is why it’s important to store your seeds in a cool, dark place when not using them.

While feminized and autoflowering seeds are growing in popularity, some growers and breeders still prefer regular photoperiod seed. It often comes down to cultivation experience and the primary goal for the harvest.

Feminized seeds produce only female plants, while regular seeds have a 50/50 chance of producing male or female offspring. Breeders use regular seeds to create strains with specific terpene profiles, flavour, or colours.

Stable Genetics

The genes a grower’s plants inherit determine a huge number of characteristics, including harvest amounts and quality, yields, aroma and flavour. It is therefore essential that any grower starts with a high-quality, stable source of genetics.

Stable genetics are achieved through multiple generations of crossing together brothers and sisters from the same parent strain – selecting for desirable traits to recur over time. This process of stabilisation allows desirable phenotypes to become dominant and ensures that desired characteristics are expressed consistently in the offspring, in accordance with Mendelian inheritance.

As you might imagine, this is a very time-consuming and expensive process that takes a great deal of patience and capital to get right. This is one of the main reasons why regular seeds are generally cheaper than feminized or autoflowering options. The price difference is offset by the fact that growing regular seeds means you will only end up with female plants 99% of the time.

Better Flowering Time

When choosing seeds for cultivation, the grower is faced with options like autoflower, feminized or old-fashioned photoperiod (regular). While many choose to go with autoflower and feminized cannabis seeds, there are some advantages of working with regular seed.

Whether you are growing for yourself or to sell, the quality of your buds depends on the timing of harvest. The flowering stage in marijuana is a crucial time for maturation, and you need to know how long to allow the plant to stretch out before harvesting.

With a pack of 10 regular seeds, you are guaranteed to get some male plants until flowering starts and the plants reveal their sex. These are perfect for breeding and backcrossing as they contain the original genetics and can be used to produce a new generation of cultivar. They are also a good choice for beginner growers as they are not dependent on light schedules and can be kept for future cultivation.

Better Yields

Unlike feminized seeds, which have been engineered to produce only female plants, regular seeds operate how nature intended. They have a 50% chance of germinating as either male or female, and they’re perfect for cultivators who want to get creative with their breeding projects.

Since growers don’t have to worry about weed seeds becoming hermaphrodites, they can focus more of their attention on the buds themselves. This produces higher-quality bud with a more consistent potency and flavor.

Plus, a predominately female crop is easier to manage, especially for rookie growers who may still be learning how to identify and remove male plants before they pollinate the females. This saves valuable time and energy that would otherwise be spent weeding out male plants. It also increases the overall yield of a weed harvest. This is great news for any cannabis enthusiast who enjoys smoking and sharing their favorite strains with friends. Whether you’re looking for something sweet and citrusy like Grapefruit or intensely psychoactive like Moby Dick, you can find the strain to match your preference in our vast selection of regular seed.

Less Expensive

The process of producing feminized seeds is more labor intensive, which is why they are more expensive than regular cannabis seed. The cost difference can be an incentive for growers to opt for a predominately female crop. With a predominately female harvest, the grower won’t have to worry about male plants that may reduce the overall yield and quality of the buds.

Regular seeds run the risk of producing a male plant approximately a third of the time, which can be an inconvenience for small-scale indoor operations or for those that are legally capped at a specific number of plants. However, growing from a batch of regular seeds gives the grower the opportunity to select and cultivate the strongest and healthiest plants, which can lead to a higher quality harvest. SSSC’s collection of regular seeds includes some of the finest original 1980’s genetics. They operate just as nature intended. Whether a grower chooses Feminized, Autoflowering or Photoperiod seeds will come down to their cultivation expectations, space restrictions and personal preference.

For growers that want to breed, regular seed is ideal as it has not undergone any genetic tampering. Those that prefer to be more practical may choose feminized seeds instead, though.

Feminized seeds produce only female plants so growers can save time on removing males. However, many still find working with regular seed more exciting and rewarding.

Stability

Many growers prefer to work with regular seeds due to the ability to create new strains by cross breeding. This is because cannabis plants are dioecious, meaning they produce both male and female plants. The female plants must be pollinated to create the seeds from which a new cultivar can be created. Regular seeds allow this process to take place without the risk of producing any unwanted male plants.

The genetics of regular seed are also more stable than feminized seeds. This is because feminized seeds are produced through a process that causes stress on the plant. This can lead to the creation of unstable offspring. Regular seeds are the result of natural breeding and do not experience this type of instability.

Finally, regular seeds can be used to produce clones and cuttings of the plants in your garden. This means that you can use all of your growing space and save on products such as nutrient solutions.

Genetic Diversity

In addition to its role in reducing genetic erosion, diversity provides the plant with an extra buffer against environmental stresses. For example, if an insect or disease attacks a population, the variety of alleles present in the plant can help it resist this attack.

Genetic diversity can be improved by ensuring that more individuals are included in breeding programs, as well as by introducing new alleles into the gene pool through genetic crossing. This can be done by selecting plants that exhibit desirable traits, such as disease resistance or increased tolerance to drought and pests.

The quality of regular seed is also impacted by the genetic diversity of the crops used to produce it. It is important that crop landrace and wild-relative genetic diversity be preserved in ex situ collections and that these collections are designed to meet conservation targets. We demonstrate that species mating systems profoundly influence genetic representation in seed collections and can be leveraged to improve the quality of ex situ conservation.

Affordability

Seed prices matter because high prices lead to narrow margins for farmers and expensive food for consumers. The underlying problem is a complex set of factors, including intellectual property protections, complicated regulation and public research funding.

Growers and breeders require regular seeds to create the strains they love — specimens with desirable terpene profiles, flavours and colours. They also need to produce clones — genetically identical versions of a particular plant that can be grown indoors or outdoors and replicate a specific strain’s unique qualities.

Using regular seeds, growers can work with large selections of male plants to find the perfect phenotype for an upcoming breeding project. This allows them to save time and money by eliminating the need to remove male plants and reduce the amount of growing space and nutrients used on unneeded plants. This is an advantage that feminized and autoflower seeds cannot provide.

Ease of Breeding

Breeding regular seed is an essential part of growing cannabis. This allows cultivators to create their own strains by crossing different specimens in order to bring out the best traits of each. For example, if one strain has exceptional potency and the other is known for its terpene profile, you can produce offspring that exhibits the best qualities of both parents. This can also be useful when it comes to determining the optimal morphology and colour of a particular cultivar.

While sexing plants is often something of a lottery, it’s a necessary process in creating new seeds. This is because male flowers provide pollen, which can be used to fertilise female flowers and produce the next generation of seeds. This method is favoured by breeders who are trying to improve the variety of their strains. They may also be looking for specific characteristics, such as flowering speed or terpene profiles. This is a very natural way to grow, and it can lead to some truly unique strains.