Before feminized seeds emerged regular seeds were the only option for growers. They give rise to roughly 50% male and 50% female offspring.
This means that a few of your plants will be male and will reduce the yield of your crop. Luckily, there are several ways to overcome this.
Stable Genetics
Regular seeds enable growers to take cuttings/clones (asexual reproduction) from plants that express desirable phenotypes such as colour, terpene profiles and growth patterns. While this requires extra work on the part of the grower (weeding out male plants), it is often worth it in terms of quality of harvest and genetic preservation.
Stabilising a strain through plant breeding is a lengthy process that requires patience, capital and time to grow several generations of plants to ensure their genetic stability. Once stable, breeders can then create seed varieties that are uniform in growth, flowering and psychoactive properties. They can also use backcrossing to further stabilise a particular trait by crossing a hybrid of an existing parent with its stable clone and then repeating this process. Examples of this include Apollo 13Bx (TGA Subcool) and Tropimango (Philosopher Seeds). Stabilised strains can then be patented by seed companies and licensed to other growers. This is known as agritech.
No Genetic Modification
If you’re looking for a completely organic growing experience, regular seeds are the way to go. Unlike feminized or autoflowering cannabis seeds, regular seeds have not been genetically modified in any way. They also don’t require a change in the light cycle to shift from vegetation to flowering, like some strains of ruderalis that are used to create feminized seeds.
While feminized cannabis seeds have become increasingly popular, there are still plenty of growers who prefer working with regular seeds. They’re more natural and offer a wider range of possibilities for breeding and discovery.
Typically, a batch of regular seeds will produce a mix of male and female plants. This is what has always happened when cultivating weed with seeds, and is the way that most cannabis has been cultivated for centuries. With a mix of male and female plants, growers can select the strongest, most productive flowers for further breeding. They can also try out blending opposing terpene profiles to create unique cultivars.
Unaltered Plants
While feminized seeds are the preferred option of many growers, regular cannabis seeds still have a significant part of the market. They are the perfect choice for professional breeders who work with a large number of plants to create new strains. As regular seeds produce both male and female plants, they can be used to pollinate hermaphrodite plants to create a wide range of hybrids.
This type of breeding requires a great deal of patience and care. However, it offers the potential to create a completely unique and potent cultivar.
If you choose to use regular seeds, you will need to ensure that all of your plants are female before they flower. This will require a great deal of monitoring and removal of any male plants that develop. This is impractical for a large crop as it will mean wasting some of your growing space, nutrients and light. It is also less efficient than using a feminized seed, as you will have to wait until the plant is fully mature before starting the sexing process.
Lower Price
Some growers choose to work with regular seeds from a financial perspective. If you are a breeder who works with male plants, and collecting their pollen, in order to make cross seeds, the process will be cheaper and more reliable using regular seeds.
Regular seed strains are also preferred by some traditional gardeners who dislike the idea of their crop being feminised. In fact, many old school cultivars that existed prior to the feminisation of cannabis seeds still exist as regular seeds and are very popular with experienced gardeners.
Growing a large number of regular seeds and working through them to find the best mother plant for your next crop is an enjoyable challenge for some. This is often cheaper than a similar sized purchase of feminised seeds and the expense associated with removing 40% of your crop after sexing it. This equates to wasted hydro system space, nutrients and light. It is a cost that can add up when doing a large pheno hunt.
