Regular seeds are the type of cannabis seed that growers use to breed their own strains. These seeds have an equal balance of male and female chromosomes.
Using regular seeds is not only an excellent way to start breeding but also a great way to develop your growing skills and discover new varieties. This is important to keep the diversity of marijuana in the world alive.
Breeding
Regular cannabis seeds are the preferred seed option for many old-school growers and those conducting their own breeding experiments. These seeds have a 50/50% chance of emerging as male or female plants, allowing breeders to create new cultivars and produce better-quality clones.
They’re also cheaper than feminized seeds and can provide the same THC-rich flowers. However, they do require a bit more work and attention from the grower, which can be a drawback for those just starting out.
Breeding is a technique that has been used since the beginning of cultivation. Sometimes it’s to create a strain with a specific phenotype or cultivar, other times it’s to improve plant traits such as yield or cannabinoid profile.
Breeding techniques can include cloning, backcrossing, and rodelization. Breeders often use backcrossing to stabilize a parent’s desired trait (such as a higher level of cannabinoid content or a particular colour).
Cloning
Cloning regular seeds is a great way to reproduce favorable traits for a plant or a strain. It’s a good option for those who want to keep the same genetics and maintain consistency in their garden, or growers who are experimenting with new strains.
To clone a regular seed, simply take a cutting from the mother plant and place it into some sort of rooting medium like starter cubes or soil. Then, apply some rooting hormone and nutrients.
It’s normal for cuttings to take a few days, but some may need a few weeks. Once the roots show, you should be able to remove them from their medium and begin growing.
It’s important to make sure you keep your cuttings properly moist and dry while they’re in their medium, especially if you’re using a humidity dome. Too much moisture will encourage mold growth, so keep an eye on your clones every day and make sure there aren’t any signs of it.
Experimentation
Regular seeds can be a great way to introduce kids to the science of growing plants. They can also be used as part of a more advanced experiment for older kids to learn about seed germination and how water affects the emergence of new leaves.
Experimentation is an important discipline in the modern day scientific method, which combines repeatable observations with deduction to answer questions about the world. The 17th century English philosopher Francis Bacon praised the practice of experimentation and wanted it to be a key component of the scientific method.
In April, researchers at Michigan State University dug up a bottle of seeds from a long-term experiment conducted by botanist William Beal in 1879. The researchers are now testing the seeds to see if they can grow almost 150 years later.
Stability
Stable seed strains have the same traits and phenotypes as their parents, and new generations of plants that are produced from them will also exhibit similar traits. Genetic stability is a long-term process that requires breeding several generations of plants to achieve consistent results.
During that process, breeders fight against inbreeding depression. They need to select and cross parents that have very similar genetic information, ensuring that no two plants have different chromosomes.
This technique is called homozygous crossing, and it produces less variations in phenotypes. However, it can lead to unpredictable results.
If a plant is unstable in this way, it will produce new seeds that don’t look much like their parents. In addition, the resulting seeds will not yield nearly as much as their first-generation counterparts.
