A popular choice among experienced growers and breeders, regular seed produces both male and female plants. This type of cannabis is often preferred by genetic purists as it carries the original plant’s DNA.
However, growing regular seeds comes with some challenges. It’s important to consider your grower experience, location and goals before selecting this option.
Stable Genetics
In order to create genetically stable cannabis, breeders use a number of techniques over multiple generations to get the characteristics they want in their strain. These traits could be anything from colour, leaf size, root length, disease resistance or different biochemical profiles. This process is often painstaking, as it can take years to stabilize a new strain and ensure that desirable traits keep appearing in each generation.
Stabilising strains requires a high level of understanding about how the genetics of a plant work. It involves selecting the best mother and father plants for the desired traits, preserving these clones as vegetative clones, then crossing them to produce a new generation of offspring called an F1 hybrid. F1 hybrids display the traits of their parents but in a predictable way, and they can be crossed again to produce the next generation.
The process of stabilising a strain can be long and tedious, and it’s important to choose a seed bank that takes their profession seriously and is there for the long haul. Many less experienced seed banks simply cross male and female plants to make quick seeds, with little thought given to stability or optimisation of the genetics. Look for a seed bank that has a good track record, plenty of repeat customers and a few cannabis cups to see that they’re in it for the long haul.
More Stable Plant Genetics
Unlike feminised seeds which only produce female plants, regular seed has a 50/50 chance of producing male and female plants. This allows growers to use male plants to fertilise a number of females to produce a large crop of new strains. This plant breeding process is known as crossing and has been done since cultivation of cannabis began. It is a long and time-consuming process to develop stable plant genetics that yield the desired traits such as high potency, flavour, aroma and growth rate. This is why serious growers and professional breeders often only cultivate regular seeds.
Growing regular seeds does require the identification of and removal of male plants to prevent them from pollinating your females. This requires some patience and skill but can be rewarding when you are cultivating your own unique strains of cannabis. If breeding and exploration of phenotypes are your main goals then regular seeds will be the right choice for you. Dutch Passion’s collection of regular seed is rich in authentic old school genetics dating back to the 80’s and earlier. This includes classics such as White Widow, Orange Bud and Mazar. These are some of the best genetics around and are a real delight to grow. You can purchase our SSSC regular seed collection online, discreetly shipped worldwide.
Less Stable Plant Genetics
The seed industry relies on plant genetics to develop stable, high quality strains. The breeding process is long and tedious, requiring years of crossing and selection to create desirable traits. In addition, the breeders themselves need to invest in a wide array of screening equipment to ensure the traits they’re seeking will actually surface.
When a breeder finds a desirable mother plant, cuttings are taken to produce identical clones. These are then crossed with a male plant that possesses the desired characteristics. The resulting hybrid offspring are known as the filial-1, or F1, generation. F1 offspring display a large amount of heterozygosis, meaning they have a mix of alleles from the two parental plants.
If the parent plants are stable, most of the F1 hybrids will possess a number of the breeder’s desired attributes. The most favorable specimens are selected for further crossbreeding, producing the F2 generation. This F2 generation is also fairly heterozygous, so it will contain a wide array of traits from the two parental lines. Some of these F2 offspring may possess the desired parent plant traits, while others will not. It will take multiple rounds of pairing and crossbreeding to identify the F3 generation, which contains the most desirable genetics. Then, further selective breeding will be required to create the desired cultivars.
