After feminized seeds came on the market most growers have forgotten about regular seed. But they are still popular with breeders and for those who want to take cuttings/clones.
They require more effort from the grower, but offer several advantages that feminized seeds do not. Depending on your growing experience and goals, regular seeds can be worth the extra work.
Breeding
Breeding regular seeds is easy enough for home growers, but more advanced cultivators might prefer to seek out a professional breeder for assistance. It requires identifying parents and following a tried-and-tested method that will produce seeds ready for cultivation.
The biggest drawback of breeding regular seed is that it’s not guaranteed to produce female plants. While feminized seeds have been genetically altered to ensure that they only contain female chromosomes, non-feminized regular seeds still run the risk of producing hermaphrodite plants if they encounter stressors like pruning techniques, topping, lollypopping, or defoliation.
Feminized seeds are better suited for commercial growers who need to guarantee that their crop is 99% female. However, crossing feminized and regular seeds can lead to new strains with desirable traits – such as increased yield or resistance to diseases and pests – that aren’t available with either type of seed on their own.
Cloning
Cloning regular seeds works just like feminized ones, with growers taking cuttings from the mother plant and then rooting them before placing them into soil. This speeds up the cultivation process a lot, as a rooted cutting is already several weeks ahead of a seed that has yet to sprout.
The main benefit of cloning is that it ensures growers get a female plant every time. This is a big deal, since only female plants produce smokable buds. Cloning also allows growers to revert back to the original genetics of their preferred strain, which is ideal for experienced growers who are seeking the perfect phenotype for their next harvest.
Critics of cloning say it commodifies human beings, turning them into things that can be bought and sold (Deech 1999; Savulescu 2005). They also argue that this view could lead to discriminatory attitudes towards those who have children that differ from others in non-morally significant ways.
Pollination
The process of transferring pollen from an anther to the stigma of another flower, eventually leading to fertilization and seed production. In nature, animals such as insects and birds often act as pollinating agents; however, growers may also use artificial methods to encourage cross-pollination in their breeding work.
Flowers are highly adapted for the business of collecting and dispersing pollen. Petals are often shaped and colored in ways that will attract bees and other pollinators, while the anther and stigma of a flower are often situated very close together.
Once pollen from the anther of a flower lands on the stigma, it germinates and gives rise to a pollen tube that grows down through the pistil toward one of its ovules. If a fertilized ovule is found, the two gametophytes — male and female — fuse to produce seeds and fruit. The pollen tube then falls off the stigma, where it can eventually pollinate other flowers or be carried by wind to distant locations.
Yield
The overall yield from regular marijuana seeds is a matter of luck. Some growers will get mostly female plants that produce buds that can be smoked, while others may find more male plants. It all depends on the germination rate and quality of the seed.
As opposed to feminized seeds, regular ones haven’t undergone any genetic tampering. That’s why they don’t produce a high ratio of female plants like their feminized counterparts do.
That makes them a good choice for growers who are willing to risk their crop in the wild or want to try out old-school strains that didn’t make the cut to be modified into feminized weed seeds. They also work well for growers who are experimenting with different strains and cloning methods. Some regular seeds are autoflowering, which means they don’t need a reduction in the number of light hours to switch from vegetative to flowering. This allows growers to maximize the amount of time they have to harvest their weed.
