When choosing cannabis seeds, there are two main types to choose from – regular and feminized. Understanding the difference between these two varieties is crucial to your success as a cultivator.
Feminized seeds are a great option for growers because they eliminate the need to identify and remove hermaphrodite plants from your crop. However, regular seed still has many advantages that should not be overlooked.
They Are Unaltered Genetics
When you plant regular seeds, you are growing the way nature intended. They do not contain hermaphrodite plants, like feminized seeds do. Feminized seeds have been genetically modified to only produce female plants. Regular seeds, on the other hand, have a 50% chance of emerging as either male or female specimens.
Many growers use regular seeds to create hybrids for their breeding programs. The sex of the marijuana plant is important to breeders because they need male plants to pollinate female flowers with their pollen. This produces new strains that exhibit the desired phenotypes of their parents.
Without the need for hermaphrodite plants, regular seeds allow breeders to work with superior clones that are strong and vigorous. Clones are ideal for growers who want to reproduce specific phenotypes that showcase unique flavours, aromas and colours of their parent. Cloning is a process that requires patience, but is well worth it when you want to recreate a specific cultivar that has impressed you.
They Are More Vigorous
Regular seeds produce male plants a much lower rate, making them far easier to cultivate. The elimination of the need to separate and weed out all the male plants will save growers time and money.
Many old-school strains are only available in regular form. This is because they were never feminized and have retained their strength, aroma, and flavor as the result of years of natural selection.
Breeding is a big part of growing marijuana and can be a rewarding experience for those who have the time and resources. Using regular seeds will allow growers to preserve phenotypes that they like in their grow room and take clones from them for further cultivation.
Feminized seed is an excellent option for those who want to focus on yield, but breeding is more of a challenge for beginners and requires regular seeds. It is also more difficult to preserve the genetics in a feminized plant as it must be sexed each time a harvest is made.
They Are Better for Breeding
One of the primary reasons that growers prefer regular seed is because it allows them to breed their own plants and create new strains. Feminized seeds must be pollinated by male plants in order to produce a female plant, and this process can sometimes introduce instability into the genetics of feminized plants.
On the other hand, with regular seeds, growers can work through a large selection of male and female plants to determine which ones are keepers. This process is ideal for experimenting with different phenotypes in the breeding process and can help to produce some of the most sought-after strains available today.
For the experienced cultivator, working with regular seeds is a great way to hone their skills and develop their own unique cannabis strains. This is the same reason that many professional farmers choose to plant regular seeds over feminized seeds in their gardens. Feminized seeds make it easier for them to focus on production and minimize the amount of time they have to spend on weed maintenance.
They Are More Affordable
Many growers that prefer regular seeds find that they are more affordable to work with. This is especially true for larger growers that are used to working with a larger sample size of plants. Using regular seeds can eliminate the need to cull 40% of your harvest which saves on wasted hydro system space, nutrients, growing medium and light.
For those that are experimenting with breeding and creating new strains, regular seed is a must. It can be a long process to create the perfect hybrid, but the joy of discovering a brand-new genotype and phenotype that has never been seen before is hard to beat!
In the end it comes down to cultivation experience, the primary goal of a harvest and time or space constraints. For small-scale indoor operations that are limited to a specific number of plants and those who love the classic, traditional approach, regular photoperiod seeds make sense. For the rest, feminized makes more sense.
