Before Dutch Passion gave the world feminized seeds, regular seed was the only way to go. Many serious growers still prefer regular seeds as they are characterised by an equal chance of male and female plants.
This means that you will have to watch out for any male plants and discard them to ensure that only female plants will develop. This can take some time and effort but is definitely worth it if you love breeding.
Breeding
The most basic method of seed improvement is traditional breeding. This involves crossing two plants that display desirable traits and shuffling their genes. The offspring seeds will inherit these traits and hopefully become superior to the parent plants. For example, a grower could cross a regular male plant with a female plant that produces early blooming flowers to create a fast-flowering strain. Similarly, a grower could breed an indica-dominant strain with a sativa-dominant strain to boost cannabinoid levels.
This process can be incredibly tedious, but it can yield great results. The most important thing is to take full advantage of good seed years. These are years when a high percentage of well-filled viable seed are produced. To maximize the number of good seed, it is crucial to improve seed collection methods. This includes improving thinning and isolation techniques, as well as protecting the crowns of the seed trees from climatic dangers and seed-destroying animals, birds and fungi.
Cloning
Cloning allows researchers to create organisms that are exact genetic copies of other specimens. It has been used to reproduce plants, bacteria and fungi. Scientists also use cloning to study genes and manipulate them.
Many people worry that if reproductive cloning were allowed, parents would seek children with the right genome for them to have certain desirable characteristics (Kass 1998). They believe this is a form of commodification of human life and could lead to a decrease in genetic variation (AMA 1999, 6).
In cloning by nuclear transfer, scientists add the nucleus from an adult somatic cell, such as the skin cells in Dolly the sheep, to an empty egg cell or an unfertilized oocyte. This makes a near-identical genetic copy of the donor animal. This type of cloning is also used in the study of genes and to produce vaccines. Researchers can also clone animals for biomedical research to reduce the number of test animals needed to answer a given scientific question.
Genetic Stability
A requisite assessment point for genetically modified plants is to evaluate the stability of the inserted transgene and its intended trait(s). This includes an assessment at the transcript and protein levels. Regulatory agencies around the world have comparable guidance for such assessments.
Some regulatory authorities require that the inserted gene and its flanking plant genomic regions be sequenced at the nucleotide level. Some of these same regulatory bodies have also begun to require mRNA expression stability data in support of dietary exposure assessments for biotech products.
Another important consideration is the balance of female and male strobili production between clones. This has been shown to affect the synchronization index (POij) for pollen shedding and female receptivity in Chinese fir seed orchards1.
Price
In contrast to feminized seeds, regulars are male- and female-producing plants. When not separated during flowering, the pollen sacs of the males will erupt and fertilize the females, causing them to produce a new generation of seeds. This process is a vital part of cannabis cultivation, especially for growers who produce their own seed stock.
Regular seeds also tend to cost less than feminized and autoflowering strains. This is because the production of feminized and autoflowering seeds requires more care, time, and resources than the production of regular strains.
With so many options available, choosing the best marijuana seeds for you is a matter of preference and growing conditions. Choose feminized seeds if you prefer not to deal with the hassle of removing male plants from your crop, or if you’re looking for a high-yielding, low-maintenance grow. If you’re a connoisseur who enjoys the full genetic lineage of a cultivar, however, regular seeds are the way to go.