Blimburn Seeds offers a wide selection of regular seeds. They’re ideal for growers who enjoy the natural experience of sexing their cannabis plants.
Regular cannabis seeds contain a 50/50 chance of producing male or female specimens. Consequently, you’ll need to remove any males as soon as they become apparent around the pre-flowering stage.
Breeding
Cannabis breeding has been around since the beginning of cultivation, and is a key component to cultivating the strains that we know and love today. With a little experimentation, growers of all skill levels can create their own unique strains and customize them for maximum potency, yield, and flavor.
Regular seeds operate as nature intended, giving each seed a 50% chance of emerging as male or female. This gives breeders the ability to produce new cultivars and superior-quality clones.
Feminized seed eliminates the 50/50 genetic gamble, and offers a higher guarantee of producing all-female plants. This makes it easier to manage a large crop, and allows growers to harvest at a convenient time. It also eliminates the need to sift out male plants during the early vegetative stage, and reduces accidental pollination. This can result in a healthier, more vigorous crop and higher yields. It is more expensive than growing regular seed, but it is worth the investment for many growers.
Cloning
Clones are exact genetic copies of their parent plant, which makes them ideal for commercial growers who need a consistent product. They also root faster than seeds and require less nutrient-rich growing medium to thrive.
Cloning requires a sterile environment, expensive equipment and specialist knowledge to create the tissue cultures that clones are grown from. This can add weeks to the growing time compared with growing from seeds.
However, clones are not as reliable as seeds. If a female clone produces seeds, it may have been pollinated by a male and produce hermie plants (hermaphrodites that have both male and female parts). Also, because they are exact copies of their parent plant, clones can pass on pests or diseases from their parents. This can be a problem if the original plant was not healthy or resistant to pests and disease. This can also lead to a lower yield than seeds.
Pollination
As a dioecious species regular seed plants have a 50/50 chance of growing into male or female flowers. Pollination occurs when pollen from a male flower moves to the stigma of a female plant of the same species. The stigma is the receptive tip of the flower’s anther (male part). Once pollen lands on the stigma it grows into a tiny tube, all the way down to the ovary and fertilizes an egg cell in an ovule. This fertilization process produces seeds and fruits.
Unwanted cross-pollination may come from other varieties of the same species being grown in close proximity-as in neighboring gardens or large stands of nearby agricultural crops. It may also be caused by wind or water-borne pollen from wild plants of the same species or from a cross-compatible plant.
Seed savers practice isolation to limit unwanted cross-pollination during the critical flowering period. Isolation is one of three key facets of saving seeds that are true to type.
Storage
If you’re storing regular seeds to plant later, you’ll need to take care of them. They need to be kept in a cool, dry location where they won’t be subjected to temperature fluctuations.
Temperature is a big factor in seed longevity. A refrigerator can be a great place to store seeds long-term, but the frequent opening and closing of the door can cause them to experience some dramatic temperature fluctuations.
Another option is to store your seeds in a cooler. These are easy to find second-hand, and can be bought with temperature controls that allow you to optimize them for long-term storage. The key is keeping them cool, dark and dry. You can add silica gel sachets or dried rice to absorb any excess moisture and keep the humidity at an optimal level. This will also prevent any fungus from growing that would otherwise spoil the seeds.
