While feminized and autoflowering seeds are growing in popularity, some growers and breeders still prefer regular photoperiod seed. It often comes down to cultivation experience and the primary goal for the harvest.
Feminized seeds produce only female plants, while regular seeds have a 50/50 chance of producing male or female offspring. Breeders use regular seeds to create strains with specific terpene profiles, flavour, or colours.
Stable Genetics
The genes a grower’s plants inherit determine a huge number of characteristics, including harvest amounts and quality, yields, aroma and flavour. It is therefore essential that any grower starts with a high-quality, stable source of genetics.
Stable genetics are achieved through multiple generations of crossing together brothers and sisters from the same parent strain – selecting for desirable traits to recur over time. This process of stabilisation allows desirable phenotypes to become dominant and ensures that desired characteristics are expressed consistently in the offspring, in accordance with Mendelian inheritance.
As you might imagine, this is a very time-consuming and expensive process that takes a great deal of patience and capital to get right. This is one of the main reasons why regular seeds are generally cheaper than feminized or autoflowering options. The price difference is offset by the fact that growing regular seeds means you will only end up with female plants 99% of the time.
Better Flowering Time
When choosing seeds for cultivation, the grower is faced with options like autoflower, feminized or old-fashioned photoperiod (regular). While many choose to go with autoflower and feminized cannabis seeds, there are some advantages of working with regular seed.
Whether you are growing for yourself or to sell, the quality of your buds depends on the timing of harvest. The flowering stage in marijuana is a crucial time for maturation, and you need to know how long to allow the plant to stretch out before harvesting.
With a pack of 10 regular seeds, you are guaranteed to get some male plants until flowering starts and the plants reveal their sex. These are perfect for breeding and backcrossing as they contain the original genetics and can be used to produce a new generation of cultivar. They are also a good choice for beginner growers as they are not dependent on light schedules and can be kept for future cultivation.
Better Yields
Unlike feminized seeds, which have been engineered to produce only female plants, regular seeds operate how nature intended. They have a 50% chance of germinating as either male or female, and they’re perfect for cultivators who want to get creative with their breeding projects.
Since growers don’t have to worry about weed seeds becoming hermaphrodites, they can focus more of their attention on the buds themselves. This produces higher-quality bud with a more consistent potency and flavor.
Plus, a predominately female crop is easier to manage, especially for rookie growers who may still be learning how to identify and remove male plants before they pollinate the females. This saves valuable time and energy that would otherwise be spent weeding out male plants. It also increases the overall yield of a weed harvest. This is great news for any cannabis enthusiast who enjoys smoking and sharing their favorite strains with friends. Whether you’re looking for something sweet and citrusy like Grapefruit or intensely psychoactive like Moby Dick, you can find the strain to match your preference in our vast selection of regular seed.
Less Expensive
The process of producing feminized seeds is more labor intensive, which is why they are more expensive than regular cannabis seed. The cost difference can be an incentive for growers to opt for a predominately female crop. With a predominately female harvest, the grower won’t have to worry about male plants that may reduce the overall yield and quality of the buds.
Regular seeds run the risk of producing a male plant approximately a third of the time, which can be an inconvenience for small-scale indoor operations or for those that are legally capped at a specific number of plants. However, growing from a batch of regular seeds gives the grower the opportunity to select and cultivate the strongest and healthiest plants, which can lead to a higher quality harvest. SSSC’s collection of regular seeds includes some of the finest original 1980’s genetics. They operate just as nature intended. Whether a grower chooses Feminized, Autoflowering or Photoperiod seeds will come down to their cultivation expectations, space restrictions and personal preference.
