Choosing the right seed type for your crop is essential. It depends on your growing experience and aims.
In general, regular seeds produce male and female cannabis plants in an equal ratio. This may lead to a lower yield, as growers will need to remove the male plants manually. However, it also provides interesting opportunities for breeding and preserving old-school cultivars.
Breeding
As the name suggests, regular seeds produce both male and female cannabis plants. This makes them more versatile for growers, as they can work with a mix of sexes when pheno hunting and choosing the best male plants to cross with their females.
However, this also means that they run a higher chance of going hermaphrodite during the growing process, especially when stressed through techniques like topping, fimming, lollypopping, or defoliation. This means you need to keep an eye on the sex of your plants and remove any males before they pollinate your females, which can be impractical for new growers.
On the other hand, feminized seed is much more predictable, and ensures that only female plants are produced. This makes it an ideal option for commercial growers who want to get a specific ratio of female to male plants in each crop. Feminized seeds are also better suited for novice growers, as they eliminate the need to identify and remove male plants.
Cloning
Using regular seed allows you to find new genetically diverse plants with desirable traits like height, structure, internodal spacing, aroma, and vigor. This is also important for breeders who want to work with a wide variety of phenos and bring them to market. Clones can be great but starting with seeds is the most economical way to grow cannabis.
Cloning is the process of taking a cutting from a “mother” plant and using it to produce multiple clones that are genetically identical. It’s important to use a mother plant that is free of pests, bacteria, and diseases. It’s also important to choose a location on the mother plant where there are new leaf buds. This will give you the best chance of success with your clones. Getting the rooting hormone right is critical to your cloning success. This helps the clones to grow roots and begin vegetative growth more quickly. Clones skip the germination and seedling stages that are required when growing from seeds, which can add around three weeks to the overall grow time.
Old-school genetics
Old School Genetics are a European cannabis seed company with their headquarters in Barcelona, Spain. The breeders behind this company are extremely experienced and know what it takes to create top-notch varieties. Their main breeder, Oldman Green is a well-known grower that’s probably most famous for the Peach Slush strain of the mid 90s which won quite a few ICMAG cups and still remains part of his catalogue today!
Old Man Green and his team have a library of rare and exclusive cuts from iconic seed banks and growing collectives that they then cross with contemporary strains to produce their unique hybrids. This launch drop features collaborations with Karma Genetics on the majority of these varieties and an exclusive collab with GG Strains for the beautifully-bred strain OS Glue.
Unique strains
Regular seed is prized by some growers for its ability to produce offspring with genetically diverse traits. This process is a bit more complicated than the feminizing process, so it’s not as common or easy.
Feminized seeds are more expensive than regular seed because they require more work and resources to produce. They also offer a greater guarantee of success, as only female plants will emerge from a pack of feminized seeds. However, regular seeds are more cost-effective and more versatile than feminized strains.
A classic variety for veteran cultivators, Tropic Thunder has fruity notes like a sunset cocktail and offers up to 35 oz of mellow buds. Its sativa lineage makes it trickier to cultivate, but it’ll thrive with experienced training and greenhouse conditions. It flowers in ten weeks and is ready to harvest in October. This strain is a hybrid of Freakshow and Sensi Durban. This combination creates a tropically fruity and mellow indica with THC levels up to 29%.