Regular seeds are the best choice for growers who value genetic diversity and want to experiment with breeding. However, they require vigilance in the sexing of plants since male plants can pollinate females and produce seeds.
They also offer an opportunity to learn the growing process as nature intended, requiring more attention to nutrient management and environmental conditions.
Breeding
To a grower who values genetic purity and stability, regular seeds are the only way to go. Even with a careful selection process, feminized seeds have a risky tendency to produce hermaphrodite plants. This means that they develop pollen sacs, which can fertilize other plants and produce seeds in their budding colas.
Because of this, a grower must closely monitor and remove any hermaphrodite plants. This can be time consuming and inconvenient.
While this can make for a lower harvest, it preserves the original plant’s genetics and provides more opportunities for breeders to create new strains. It also allows for more phenotype exploration, which is important for many growers who seek out specific terpenes, effects, and aromas. It is also important for growers who value the natural growth characteristics of their cultivars. These include wood characters such as specific gravity and tracheid and fiber dimensions. In general, trees grown from regular seed tend to be less stable than those produced from feminized seeds.
Cloning
Clones are cuttings from a mature plant, making them an exact copy of the parent. They take less time to mature because they skip the seedling stage, but they also tend to have lower yields. They are often grown indoors because of their delicate nature and sensitivity to shock.
Researchers have used cloning to build populations of endangered animals, such as the Asian ox known as the guar. These clones have, however, been found to be less healthy than their natural counterparts.
In a lab setting, clones can be bred to produce haploid embryos that are fertilized by sperm. This is a step toward artificial apomixis, in which hybrid plants retain their favorable traits without sexual reproduction. However, this is a costly process because sterile environments and specialized equipment are required. This limits its availability to larger commercial growers. Clones may also be susceptible to the same diseases as their parents, especially if they have been sourced from external sources such as nurseries.
Genetic Diversity
The genetic diversity of a crop species is an important factor in its ability to adapt to environmental changes. Moreover, crop breeders need diverse genotypes for the development of modern varieties with superior quality traits. To this end, they utilize a variety of methods to characterize germplasm, including phenotypic and molecular approaches.
However, the diversity of a plant’s genetic base may be affected by the mating system and other environmental factors. The present study aims to examine how different collection methodologies affect the diversity of a cultivated linseed cultivar and its wild relative in a single growing region.
The results from our multi-environmental phenotyping and diversity analysis show that a wide range of trait-specific, superior accessions are available for agro-morphological and seed quality traits in the evaluated germplasm. In particular, we found that sampling a larger number of mothers resulted in higher genetic diversity in within-site seedling subsamples (within-subsample average genetic distance), which is consistent with previous estimates based on landscape-scale genomics.
Price
While feminized seeds are highly popular because of the time savings they offer, growing regular seed can also be an excellent way to learn about plant sexing and selective breeding. This knowledge is valuable for any cultivator who wishes to grow their own unique strains and expand their cannabis-related horizons.
Another great thing about regular seed is that it can produce a high percentage of female plants without the risk of hermaphrodite production, which can be a major headache for growers who are using techniques like topping, fimming and lollypopping. Hermaphrodites can pollinate the female plants and create seeds, which will reduce the yield and potency of the resulting buds.
Our SSSC regular collection features some of our finest original 1980’s genetics in a seed format that will allow you to explore a world of possibilities in terms of creating your own hybrids and crossings. The price of our regular seed varies depending on the genetics, but it is one of the most affordable categories we carry.
