In this age of feminized seeds, regular seed has become cannabis’ forgotten seed. Unlike feminized seeds that only produce female plants, regular seeds have a 50% chance of emerging as either male or female.
Some growers choose to use regular seed because it costs less than feminized seeds. However, other factors come into play, like cultivation experience and primary goals for a harvest.
Breeding
The breeding process allows cannabis cultivators to create new seeds. Breeding is a genetic selection between a male and female plant, to produce offspring with desirable traits. Breeding is a key component of the cultivation process and it can have a significant impact on yield, effects and flavour.
The use of regular seed is an essential part of the breeding process, allowing a grower to select and produce F1 hybrids. However, if you want to ensure that those desirable traits are dominant, it is necessary to continue crossbreeding and backcrossing, to produce stable genetics.
Feminised seeds were developed in the 90s as a response to the demand for plants that guarantee the development of female specimens. This eliminates the need to sift through many plants, discarding male specimens, or grow them in a second tent, which is not cost effective and limits the yield per crop. In addition, autoflowering seeds have emerged. These are suitable for less experienced growers as they do not require changing the photoperiod.
Cloning
Cannabis clones are created by taking a piece of a healthy plant (usually the tip or a rootless branch) and growing it in a nutrient-rich growing medium. The clone will then need to be rooted, which is done in water. Once the clone is rooted, it can be transplanted into your garden or grown in a container.
Clones offer an advantage over seeds because they are exact genetic copies of their mother plant. This guarantees that your clones will grow to the same size, taste, and phenotype as their mother. Clones also eliminate the rolling of the dice that occurs with seeds, which produce varying results in terms of cannabinoid and terpene content.
Growing clones is easier than growing from seed. Clones do not need to go through the germination and seedling stages, which can take up to three weeks longer than a rooted vegetative plant. Clones are easy to find if you have a well-connected network of growers, but it can be challenging to purchase them online because of marijuana’s legal status in many countries and the fact that home growers keep a low profile.
Seed Saving
Seed saving is a way for gardeners to keep their favorite plants alive. Gardeners and farmers are reclaiming this ancient tradition of growing and saving their own seeds for their crops, including vegetables and flowers.
It’s important to understand that a plant must grow and mature before the seeds can be saved. If seeds are saved from a mature plant that is not yet genetically stable, the resulting offspring may be different from the parent.
It’s also important to choose easy-to-save plants that self-pollinate or don’t require cross-pollination to produce offspring. This will prevent unwanted cross-pollination and make it easier for beginners to start. It is also important to dry seeds out before storing them. This can be done in a number of ways, including using cardboard canisters that are used for certain snack foods, or old pill bottles washed out and dried. Seeds should be stored in a cool, dry place. Ideally, they should be refrigerated.
Genetic Stability
Genetic instability occurs when there is a high frequency of mutations or chromosomal rearrangements in a cellular lineage. It can cause a variety of pathological disorders including cancer and neurodegenerative diseases such as myotonic dystrophy. There are two types of elements that contribute to genomic instability: those that act in trans to prevent instability, known as suppressors, and those that function in cis as hotspots for instability, such as fragile sites and highly transcribed DNA sequences.
Inbreeding plants over numerous generations helps breeders achieve stability of desired traits in their seed. They may also back-cross their plant to a previous generation to speed up the stabilisation process.
For transgenes introduced into a plant genome using biotechnology, stability of the inserted gene at the DNA and mRNA level is required as part of the risk assessment carried out by regulatory authorities to enable commercial product release. Typically, this is demonstrated by Southern blot analysis (GHB811 cotton and MS11 B. napus).
