In the cannabis world, regular seeds offer a variety of benefits. They are a great choice for breeders and those who appreciate the ability to duplicate a plant’s morphology, colour or flavour profile through cloning.
Many old-school strains never made the cut to become feminized, so growing these genetically intact phenotypes can be a real treat for growers.
Breeding
In recent years regular seeds have taken a back seat to feminized and autoflowering strains, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still useful. Many growers use them in breeding to ensure that their offspring will have certain characteristics. Bruce Banner regular, for example, is a powerful sativa strain with THC levels reaching 29%. This is a strain best suited for veteran cultivators who can nurture it into its full potential with the help of a greenhouse and a Mediterranean climate.
Feminized seeds are more predictable and ideal for commercial growers who want a guaranteed ratio of female plants that produce smokable buds. However, some growers prefer the natural proportion of male and female plants that regular seeds offer. This means they don’t have to spend extra time culling male plants before they begin flowering. This allows them to focus their energy and resources on the female plants that are most likely to yield large harvests of quality buds.
Cloning
Clones can be a bit trickier than seeds, especially if you’re new to growing. They take a little longer to root, and they need to be kept in the proper conditions. However, they offer a number of advantages over seeds, including the fact that they’re exact genetic copies of their mother plants.
When you’re ready to clone, start by selecting a healthy mother plant with at least two to four nodes. Then, use a sharp razor to cut a branch from the top of the mother plant, leaving a node at the bottom of the cutting.
Place the cutting into a rooting medium. This can be soil or starter cubes, and it should contain a rooting hormone. It is also important to feed the cloned plants regularly with a balanced nutrient solution. This will help them to grow stronger and faster. It is also essential to quarantine your clones for a few days to a week before introducing them to the rest of your garden.
Genetic Diversity
Genetic diversity is a key aspect of plant conservation and restoration. Adequate genetic diversity promotes adaptive evolution and mitigates inbreeding depression. It can also increase reproductive success and promote the formation of stable genotypes. However, there are a number of barriers to increasing genetic diversity in seed collections.
Using new genetic diversity-mining tools synergized with NGS techniques, it is now possible to explore all of the variation present in a seed stand. This allows for the identification of novel phenotypic traits and a more accurate estimation of the potential relatedness between trees.
Within-site average pairwise genetic distances increased with the number of maternal lines sampled in each site. The genetic diversity captured by the COLONY analysis of seedlings was higher when two or four maternal lines were analysed, compared to eight. This indicates that a high level of genetic diversity is retained when a small number of clones are used in seed orchard setups.
Price
As with anything in the cannabis industry, the price of seeds fluctuates. Certain strains have a higher demand than others, and this can influence the prices of individual seeds. For instance, a high THC strain such as Bruce Banner will generally cost more than a lower THC-level strain.
The type of seed also influences the price. Regular seeds are cheaper than feminized or autoflowering seeds. However, they are still more expensive than clones. Choosing regular seeds over other varieties may make more financial sense for growers, especially if they are planning on culling the male plants that will grow.
Dutch Passion offers a collection of regular seeds that include classic genetics from the 1980’s and earlier. Their selection includes some of the finest old-school strains available. They are popular with growers who prefer to work with plants that show both male and female sex. This allows them to cross the sexed plants and create new genetics that can produce more smokable buds and seeds.