Choosing to work with regular seeds can be an excellent choice for the grower. However, it is important to understand the challenges involved in growing this variety. This includes sexing and removing male plants from the grow.
This is an important factor because a large percentage of the plants produced are males, resulting in wasted space and nutrients.
Breeding
Regular seeds allow growers to breed their plants and produce their own strains. However, this process is not easy and requires extensive knowledge of sex determination. It also involves identifying and eliminating male plants before they pollinate. This is necessary because a male plant can ruin the entire crop and cause the female plants to produce fewer buds.
Feminized seeds, on the other hand, make it easier to manage a cannabis crop. These seeds are bred to be predominately female, and they eliminate the need for manual identification of and removal of male plants. This can result in higher yields and better quality buds.
Regular seeds are also useful for cloning. This process allows growers to duplicate a particular specimen, whether it’s for extreme potency or specific colours. This is a popular activity for breeders and home growers, as it gives them the flexibility to experiment with different genetics. Cloning can also help you learn more about the traits of a specific strain, including how it handles stress, internodal spacing, leaf patterns, and the length of the stretch once flowering begins.
Cloning
Cloning regular seeds is a great way to save time and money on your marijuana garden. It’s also more reliable than feminized seeds, which can have unpredictable sex ratios. Cloning can also give you a larger harvest in a shorter time frame, as it skips the germination process and produces more plants at once.
It is important to use good growing conditions for your clones to root. You will need a large container to grow them in, and some sort of growing medium. You can choose from a variety of options, such as rockwool and soil. You should also consider using a rooting hormone to encourage the growth of your clones.
Cloning your marijuana plant can be a difficult task, but it is worth the effort. Clones are more resilient and less prone to stress than their mother plants, which can make them easier to manage. They are also less prone to problems like hermaphrodites, which can ruin a whole crop.
Genetic purity
A variety’s genetic purity is important for its maintenance and the preservation of genebank seeds. It can be determined by DNA fingerprinting of parental lines and their putative hybrids using a set of 17 nuclear SSR markers. This technique is more reliable and accurate than morphological analysis, which can be influenced by a number of factors, including environmental conditions, ripening stages, and phenotypes.
The quality of seed is a significant concern for the seed industry. It is necessary to ensure that the seed has a high germination percentage, is free from disease and has a low admixture of weeds and other crop seeds. Seed that meets these requirements is called certified seed.
Genetic impurities are also a major concern in hybrid seed production. Contamination can occur in the field due to natural crossing or during sowing, harvesting, threshing, and handling. These contaminations can be difficult to detect, and they require a more precise molecular approach for their identification.
Price
Since regular seeds produce both male and female cannabis plants, they’re cheaper than feminized ones. They’re also easy to grow, making them an excellent choice for novice or first-time growers. This is because they don’t require the extra step of removing male plants from the growing process.
However, the initial cost of buying regular seeds can be higher than feminized varieties. This is because the growing cycle requires more energy, as a result, the yield can be lower.
While many seed companies have a large section dedicated to feminized seeds, Dutch Passion maintains a selection of regular seeds to preserve the original genetics and encourage experimentation by growers. Regular seeds are ideal for novice growers because they can be used to create hybrids and crosses. They can be grown as clones or harvested as buds. A grower can also use them to pollinate other strains or their own. This can be an exciting experience, and it’s one of the most effective ways to produce new phenotypes.