Month: August 2023

If you are a grower or breeder, regular seeds may be the right choice for your next grow. They allow you to work with different phenotypes and understand the full growth cycle of your plants.

With this knowledge, you can select the best specimens for breeding. This is how new strains with desirable traits are created!

Stable Genetics

A big reason that many cannabis cultivators prefer regular seeds is because they are more consistent and reliable than feminized ones. The process of creating stable seeds is a long and time-consuming one, requiring patience, investment capital and the ability to grow for several generations.

To stabilise a strain, breeders select a stable mother plant that displays the traits they want in their new creation and then cross her with a stable father that also possesses these desirable properties. The resulting hybrid offspring (called the filial-1, or f1, generation) will still have a fair amount of variation, but over several generations of selecting and backcrossing plants on the basis of desired characteristics, these variations should reduce until they become virtually eliminated.

Seed companies that specialize in developing and patenting these stable genetic lines could be an attractive business model for agtech companies interested in investing in the cannabis industry. This may open up a profitable avenue for these companies to produce and sell stable seeds to cultivators, much like they do with other crops such as corn and soybeans.

Less Expensive

A common way to save money on seeds is by buying a seed blend. While this can save on some cost, it also limits the genetic variety you have available. This type of seed usually comes with a treatment which protects it from diseases and pests. However, these chemicals can have side effects on humans.

Many growers and breeders enjoy working with regular seed to produce a strain of their own choosing. While it can be a bit of a gamble when it comes to male plants and female ones, most agree that the reward is worth it.

Some growers also like to toss regular seeds into the wild in the hopes of re-establishing cannabis in its natural habitat. Planting these seeds allows for cross pollination and the emergence of new seeds, establishing a wild cannabis ecosystem once again. This practice is known as “reefing”. Those who take on this task often have to go on a pheno hunt, separating male and female plants well before flowering.

Easy to Grow

Regular seeds are best for beginner growers because they give you a more realistic view of how the plant will behave. As they don’t become hermaphrodites, growers will have to spend some time removing male plants from their crop (although there are ways to reduce this effort, such as by using certain fertilizers).

With the majority of your crop being female, you can be confident that all of your water and nutrients will be going to the desired buds. This is a great way to increase your yields and quality.

It’s important to buy a few more seeds than the number of plants you want, so that you can account for any male plants that will need to be culled. Similarly, it’s recommended to purchase some seeds that have been treated with pesticides and fungicides, as these will be better protected from diseases and improve the germination process. These treatments can also be used to help protect against harsh weather conditions, such as drought.

Easy to Breed

When cultivating regular seed, it’s vital that you identify male plants and eliminate them before they pollinate. This ensures that your female plants have the energy they need to grow large buds and achieve high yields. Otherwise, they’ll spend that energy producing seeds instead of focusing on growing larger colas.

With a little effort, identifying sexed Cannabis plants is surprisingly easy. This can be especially helpful if you’re breeding your own strains. Crossing two different strains can create new cultivars with improved traits, such as higher yields, more complex terpene profiles, and faster trichome development.

Ultimately, it’s up to the individual grower and breeder to decide whether feminized or regular seed is the best choice for their needs. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but many seasoned growers still choose to cultivate regular seed for its genetic stability and reliability. They also find that working with regular seed gives them a better understanding of the plant’s full life cycle.

Regular seed is the best choice for growers and breeders who want to work with a strain’s full genetic lineage. It allows for the discovery of new phenotypes that are not possible with feminized seeds.

Growing regular seeds requires careful inspection of plants during the flowering stage to identify male plants and remove them. This saves time and resources such as water and nutrients that could be wasted on producing male plants.

Breeding

For gardeners who are interested in breeding their own cultivars, regular seeds allow for a much larger number of male and female plants to be produced. This can be important for achieving the desired ratio of plants needed for a specific cross.

When a grower has the ability to work with a large number of phenos, they are able to separate male and female plants early and select for the ones that meet their requirements in terms of height, structure, internodal spacing, aroma, and more. This can save the grower a lot of wasted hydro system space, use of nutrients and growing medium as well as the time and effort of manually sexing 40% of their crop.

The biggest difference between feminized and regular seeds is found within their chromosomes. Feminized seeds only contain female chromosomes (XX) while regular seeds can produce either male or female specimens, or even hermaphrodites. This makes it very difficult to create a pure female plant from a regular seed without the use of artificial methods like stressing.

Cloning

Clones are a great option for new growers or for those who want a specific strain for a particular harvest. However, clones lack variety. If you work with a particular mother plant, the clones will produce phenotypes of that parent, but they won’t be as varied as the thousands of seeds that are available to order from seedbanks online. Additionally, clones will often become male plants (hermaphrodites) and this can put you over legal plant count limits or leave you with fewer female plants than expected.

Finally, clones can be a bit more difficult to work with than seeds, especially when they’re collected from sick or stressed mothers. Clones require the right growing medium and need a constant supply of a balanced nutrient solution for proper root development. They can also be easily exposed to pests and diseases if not handled properly. Fortunately, most of these challenges can be avoided by using healthy mother plants to collect clones.

Genetic Stability

Genetic stability refers to the ability of a virus to maintain its genome over time. It is critical for successful production because it allows for replication without disruption. This is important because any mutations in the viral genome could affect vaccine production and lead to inconsistent results. To minimize genetic instability, vaccine manufacturers must test their master cell banks and extended cell bank stock for stability throughout production.

To test for genetic stability, scientists use random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) or methylation sensitive amplified polymorphism (MSAP) markers to analyze seed germination and seedlings produced from them. This study compared non-stored seeds to seedlings produced from stored rye seeds that had been imbibed for either 35 degC and 15% water content or 29 days under air or vacuum conditions. It was found that RAPD markers were significantly different between the two groups, indicating a change in genetic stability and cytosine methylation. This is likely due to the degradation of seed germination through storage and imbibition.

Price

As a result of the popularity of feminized and autoflower seeds, there are less regular seed growers today. However, regular seeds can still be a great choice for those looking to cultivate quality plants.

Unlike feminized seeds, which guarantee female plants, regular cannabis seeds produce both male and female plants. This means that a grower must identify the sex of each plant prior to flowering in order to remove the male plants. This is a time-consuming process, especially for new growers.

Many growers prefer regular seeds for their potency. They believe that regular strains can be just as potent, if not more, than feminized and autoflowering seeds. Dutch Passion’s collection of regular marijuana seeds includes a wide range of legendary classics from the 1980s and earlier. These are some of the best old school genetics that have never been made into a feminized variety and are available to all growers who choose to try their hand at growing regular cannabis seeds.

Although feminized seeds are growing in popularity, regular seeds have their own set of advantages. Growers choose regular seeds because they produce both male and female cannabis plants. Male plants can be separated from the female plants and used to fertilize the female plants, creating new strains.

Additionally, regular seeds are less prone to hermaphrodites than feminized plants. However, there are some drawbacks to growing regular seeds.

Breeding

Regular seeds are a good choice for breeders who want to create a new strain. They give growers the opportunity to work with male and female plants, which allows them to determine sex from an early stage. This makes it possible for growers to eliminate any male plants before they pollinate the females.

However, it takes more time and effort to separate male and female plants with regular seeds than feminized ones. This can lead to a lower yield than if you had used feminized seeds.

Another advantage of using regular seeds is that they have a higher chance of becoming hermaphrodites than feminized ones. This means that they are less prone to stress throughout the growing process and can produce more viable buds. This can be beneficial for growers who want a larger harvest. However, they must be careful to remove any male plants as soon as they start producing pollen sacs. Otherwise, they will ruin the crop.

Cloning

Cloning regular seeds enables growers to take cuttings from existing plants, or mother plants, and recreate them as a new specimen. This process is essential for anyone who wants to preserve specific traits in a strain, such as flavour, colour or morphology.

However, growing from clones requires careful attention to the growing environment. The clone must be kept in water until it roots, and the medium must contain enough nutrients to support growth. Clones also need high humidity and fresh air, so it is important to open up the propagator and remove the clone from time to time to allow fresh air in.

The main drawback of cloning is that male plants can pollinate the female plant, so growers need to carefully separate male and female plants until they are in the flowering stage. This is easier to do with feminized seeds as they don’t have the potential for male plants. However, this can result in smaller yields for some growers.

Genetic Diversity

A high level of genetic diversity is important to a plant’s survival and adaptation. However, this genetic diversity can be compromised by a variety of factors. One such factor is small population sizes, which can lead to increased selfing rates and inbreeding depression. These factors may also reduce seedling vitality and survival. A study by Wojacki et al. found that the number of maternal lines in a sample influences the effective allele numbers of offspring trees.

The analysis used COLONY to compensate for null alleles and allele dropouts during marker genotyping of parental plants and their offspring. This resulted in higher estimates of observed and expected heterozygosity than would be predicted by a random mating model alone. However, these estimates are likely inflated by the presence of biparental inbreeding among close relatives, especially when allele frequencies are low. This effect is especially noticeable in H. sericea and H. teretifolia, which have high sM and sC estimates.

Price

The price of regular seeds varies, but they are generally one of the most affordable categories of cannabis seed. This makes them a great option for beginners who are looking to get started with growing. However, prices have been steadily increasing because of a number of factors including intellectual property, regulation, and funding.

In contrast to feminized seeds, which operate as designed, regular seeds have a 50% chance of producing male plants and a 50% chance of growing flowering females. This is perfect for breeders because it allows them to create new cultivars and superior clones.

Herbies has a vast selection of regular marijuana seeds to choose from. Their expert team can help you find the perfect strain to suit your needs, from high THC content and potency to fast flowering times and rich terpene profiles. They also offer stealth shipping to keep your purchase discreet and private. Check out their website for more information.