Whether you’re new to cannabis cultivation or an expert grower, choosing regular seed is crucial to your success. It’s not necessarily the best option for everyone, but it depends on your needs and circumstances.
Unlike feminized seeds, regular seeds have a natural proportion of male and female plants. This makes it much easier to breed and create hybrids with them.
Breeding
Breeding or cross-breeding is the process of combining two plants to produce offspring with their own unique characteristics. It is an excellent way of producing higher yields, as well as improving the terpene and high profiles of strains.
In marijuana, a breeder will select male and female strains and then cross them to create new strains that combine the best traits of each parent plant. The goal of breeding is to develop a plant that has the strongest genetics possible and that is suited to its growing environment.
Regular seeds can be bred, but this requires a lot of effort and experience. Those who are novice growers are often better off using feminized seeds, which are easier to grow and produce much more yields.
Cloning
Cloning is the process of producing genetically identical offspring from a cell or an organism. It can be done artificially or naturally through asexual reproduction.
There are many different types of cloning, including bud cuttings and stem cuttings. Generally, a cutting is made from the parent plant and placed in soil horizontally or vertically, where it will eventually develop roots downward from the cutting.
Another type of cloning is plant division. This is common in flowers such as African violets, daylilies, certain orchids and ferns.
Clones can also be produced by grafting, which involves cutting the thick root of a plant and placing it on top of another. These grafts can be very large and can be used to grow new plants.
Flowering
Flowering is the most important part of the cannabis plant’s lifecycle. It is the time when female plants produce flowers or bud-like structures that contain pollen.
The genetic information of regular seeds includes both sexes, and therefore they can produce female plants or male plants depending on a variety of factors (for example: environment, stress, etc.). 50% of regular seeds will produce males, while the rest will be female plants.
During flowering, the roots of seedlings grow down and branch out to help them anchor themselves in their growing medium. Tiny hair-like rootlets also develop to draw in water and nutrients.
During flowering, workers visit a plant’s inflorescences to collect nectar and pollen from the flowers. They may also forage on the ground around the inflorescences or on nearby plants for food. This activity may be stimulated by fertilization and irrigation, especially in drier years.
Harvest
Harvesting is the process of collecting a crop that is ready for consumption. It includes preparing the soil, sowing, adding manure and fertiliser, irrigation and harvesting.
The quality of seed depends on how it is harvested and a well-managed seed production program can be a major advantage to producers. It involves specialized growers who are knowledgeable and have the facilities to produce high quality seed.
Traditionally, harvesting has been done by hand using tools such as rakes and shovels. However, with the development of mechanization and greater efficiency, harvesting has become a more efficient and cost effective process for farmers.
Harvesting is one of the most important steps in seed production and has been improved through the use of mechanization, including threshing machines and hullers (still in use). The oh so-called “magic” of harvesting is that the seeds are dried, precleansed, cleaned, graded, fumigated and packaged for shipment to market.
