Year: 2023

Regular seed is a popular choice for experienced growers and breeders. They produce a mix of male and female plants, and require more work to weed out the males to get a harvest of bud-capable plants.

Growers who prefer regular seeds are often dedicated to breeding, or enjoy old school strains that cannot be feminized. Dutch Passion has a large collection of regular seed varieties, including legends such as Skunk #1.

Breeding

Regular seeds give growers the opportunity to cross and produce strains with their own unique characteristics. They are prized for their ability to create hybrids through the process of crossing, or pollinating, two different parent plants. This can create new cultivars with desirable traits, such as high THC content or resistance to pests and diseases.

For the discerning gardener, producing their own marijuana seeds is one of the most fun aspects of cultivation. With feminized seed, however, this is no longer possible. Regular seeds are essential for breeding because they will grow male plants that can be separated from the females and used to produce their own seeds.

Many experienced breeders still choose to work with regular seeds. It allows them to explore the full range of cannabis genetics and create the strains they have always dreamed of growing. Dutch Passion’s collection of regular seeds features some of the most legendary classics that are perfect for experimentation.

Indoor vs Outdoor

Some growers prefer regular seeds as they allow you to breed your plants and create new strains. However, they can have male plants that need to be culls which reduces the overall yield. This can be problematic for indoor grows as you may need to remove half of your plant population to achieve your desired results, especially if you’re growing high THC sativas and hybrids at mediterranean latitudes where the flowering period will be cut short by early frosts.

However, if you are experienced with sexing plants and don’t mind the extra effort involved in carefully monitoring for hermaphrodite development, then regular seed can be a great choice for your garden. They tend to be more resilient and tolerate stressors better than feminized seeds as well. Just make sure you have plenty of space in your indoor grow area and keep an eye on the moisture level to avoid oxidation, which can be detrimental to your plants.

Price

Although they only account for 2-3% of seed sales, regular seeds are still very popular among serious growers and professional breeders. Their genetics retain more of their natural characteristics and produce both male and female plants. This is invaluable for cannabis breeders who need both of these to create new strains.

The amount of time, money, and labor it takes to make stable feminized and autoflowering seeds also drives up the price of regular seeds. This is why a lot of budget-conscious growers choose to buy cheap regular marijuana seeds.

ILGM has a great selection of regular seeds including Dutch Passion’s legendary collection of old school classics like White Widow, Orange Bud, Mazar, Blueberry, and Power Plant. For those who want a mellow indica high with fruity tones and tropical vibes check out Tropic Thunder regular. This sativa grows tall and requires an experienced cultivator, but produces thick yields of up to 35 oz. during the ten week flowering period.

Stability

Feminized seeds offer many advantages to the grower, but they have one major flaw: genetic instability. They have undergone significant genetic tampering, and that causes them to produce inconsistent offspring. That’s why feminized plants are so challenging to clone.

Stable seeds, on the other hand, don’t undergo the same tampering, so they produce robust descendants that are consistent with their parents. That’s why cloning from regular seeds is so much easier and more reliable.

For those who want to experience the full potential of a strain, regular seeds are the way to go. They also provide the opportunity to create new phenotypes that may not be available in feminized seeds. And for some, that’s enough to justify the extra effort needed to cultivate them. If you’re not convinced, try a few of our classics like Chemdawg or Stardawg. They’ll prove that stable seed is worth the extra work!

In the cannabis world, regular seeds offer a variety of benefits. They are a great choice for breeders and those who appreciate the ability to duplicate a plant’s morphology, colour or flavour profile through cloning.

Many old-school strains never made the cut to become feminized, so growing these genetically intact phenotypes can be a real treat for growers.

Breeding

In recent years regular seeds have taken a back seat to feminized and autoflowering strains, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still useful. Many growers use them in breeding to ensure that their offspring will have certain characteristics. Bruce Banner regular, for example, is a powerful sativa strain with THC levels reaching 29%. This is a strain best suited for veteran cultivators who can nurture it into its full potential with the help of a greenhouse and a Mediterranean climate.

Feminized seeds are more predictable and ideal for commercial growers who want a guaranteed ratio of female plants that produce smokable buds. However, some growers prefer the natural proportion of male and female plants that regular seeds offer. This means they don’t have to spend extra time culling male plants before they begin flowering. This allows them to focus their energy and resources on the female plants that are most likely to yield large harvests of quality buds.

Cloning

Clones can be a bit trickier than seeds, especially if you’re new to growing. They take a little longer to root, and they need to be kept in the proper conditions. However, they offer a number of advantages over seeds, including the fact that they’re exact genetic copies of their mother plants.

When you’re ready to clone, start by selecting a healthy mother plant with at least two to four nodes. Then, use a sharp razor to cut a branch from the top of the mother plant, leaving a node at the bottom of the cutting.

Place the cutting into a rooting medium. This can be soil or starter cubes, and it should contain a rooting hormone. It is also important to feed the cloned plants regularly with a balanced nutrient solution. This will help them to grow stronger and faster. It is also essential to quarantine your clones for a few days to a week before introducing them to the rest of your garden.

Genetic Diversity

Genetic diversity is a key aspect of plant conservation and restoration. Adequate genetic diversity promotes adaptive evolution and mitigates inbreeding depression. It can also increase reproductive success and promote the formation of stable genotypes. However, there are a number of barriers to increasing genetic diversity in seed collections.

Using new genetic diversity-mining tools synergized with NGS techniques, it is now possible to explore all of the variation present in a seed stand. This allows for the identification of novel phenotypic traits and a more accurate estimation of the potential relatedness between trees.

Within-site average pairwise genetic distances increased with the number of maternal lines sampled in each site. The genetic diversity captured by the COLONY analysis of seedlings was higher when two or four maternal lines were analysed, compared to eight. This indicates that a high level of genetic diversity is retained when a small number of clones are used in seed orchard setups.

Price

As with anything in the cannabis industry, the price of seeds fluctuates. Certain strains have a higher demand than others, and this can influence the prices of individual seeds. For instance, a high THC strain such as Bruce Banner will generally cost more than a lower THC-level strain.

The type of seed also influences the price. Regular seeds are cheaper than feminized or autoflowering seeds. However, they are still more expensive than clones. Choosing regular seeds over other varieties may make more financial sense for growers, especially if they are planning on culling the male plants that will grow.

Dutch Passion offers a collection of regular seeds that include classic genetics from the 1980’s and earlier. Their selection includes some of the finest old-school strains available. They are popular with growers who prefer to work with plants that show both male and female sex. This allows them to cross the sexed plants and create new genetics that can produce more smokable buds and seeds.

Seed is the characteristic reproductive body of flowering plants (angiosperms) and gymnosperms. It consists of a miniature undeveloped plant embryo and stored food reserves enclosed in a protective outer coating called the testa.

Using seeds to grow your own plants allows you to choose from many more varieties than are available at garden centers. However, seeds must first germinate to become seedlings.

Embryonic Development

In plants, embryonic development can mean anything from the forming egg-cell framed after fertilization in angiosperms or the buds that structure on stems in gymnosperms. It additionally alludes to the underdeveloped state of a plant, which is found in seeds of angiosperms and gymnosperms.

Embryonic development happens as an asymmetric transverse cell division in the zygote. This produces two cells – a small apical cell resting on top of a large basal cell. These two cells give rise to different structures, establishing polarity in the embryo.

During embryogenesis, the concentration of IAA, cytokinin, gibberellins, and abscisic acid (ABA) is high. These hormones encourage cell growth, pattern formation, and polarity establishment in the embryo. However, at the torpedo stage, they trigger embryo maturation, in which a reduction in cell division occurs and H3.1 is replaced by H3.3. H3.3 is critical in embryo maturation because it reprograms the embryo epigenome for the acquisition of post-embryonic developmental potentials.

Endosperm Development

The endosperm is the nutritive tissue surrounding the embryo. It provides nourishment during the dormant period of the seed and is the primary source of energy for seeds in Angiosperms and Gynosperms. It also controls embryo development and reserves.

Cellular endosperm development involves a series of syncytial cell divisions. The first divisions result in eight endosperm nuclei evenly distributed along a curved region of the micropylar-chalazal (MC) axis. Cellular division continues in this manner until the MC reaches its destination at the chalazal pole, where the syncytial endosperm becomes cellular (Fig. 1).

At the beginning of syncytial cell division, a DNA methylation pattern is established that is largely maintained through subsequent mitosis. A genome-wide profiling study of H3K27me3 in wild-type endosperm revealed that the FIS PcG complex represses a specific set of genes around the site of cellularization, which is consistent with the idea that the FIS complex prevents somatic traits from being acquired during syncytial endosperm development (Weinhofer et al., 2010).

Seed Coat

Seed coats are complex structures that control a number of processes including germination, development and nutrient flow. The structure and composition of the seed coat are determined by specialized tissues that differentiate to serve various functions. Nutrients passing from the embryo and endosperm through the seed coat determine the rate of imbibition which in turn controls germination. The seed coat also provides an effective barrier against pathogen penetration.

The heritable trait of seed coat hardness, a major factor determining water permeability, is linked to the lignin content and morphological characteristics of the testa (Agrawal & Menon 1974). Nonetheless, the impermeability of the seed coat does not depend solely on its thickness since seeds that can withstand mechanical damage tend to have thinner testas.

In diploid seeds such as legumes, the seed coat is further protected by a pericarp and the plumule and radicle. Monocots have additional structures known as the coleoptile and coleorhiza which act as sheaths that enclose the plumule, radicle and hypocotyl.

Germination

Seeds require the right conditions to germinate and grow into seedlings. These include water, temperature and oxygen. Germination also requires the right triggers. These may be physical (the action of light falling on the seed) or biological (the activity of a plant DNA ligase).

The first step is called imbibition, which is the uptake of water by the seed. This makes the seed swell and split its seed coat, and also breaks down some of its food reserve, which gives it energy.

The swollen embryo then starts growing, and the radicle emerges from the plumule, creating an anchoring root and completing germination. The cotyledons then develop leaves. Oxygen is required for respiration, which will be the seedling’s main source of energy until it grows its own leaves. If the cotyledons can’t access oxygen, they will die. The ability to access oxygen is controlled by the permeability of the seed coating and soil pore space. Seeds that have been buried too deeply in the soil are starved for oxygen.