Regular Seeds

Why choose regular seeds? Before the invention of feminized cannabis seeds, growers had to go through the laborious task of sexing their plants. This means determining which plant is male and which is female. They then had to separate the males from the precious, weed-producing females. With feminized seeds, this process became unnecessary. However, considering growing old-fashioned, regular seeds is still essential in some cases. This is why:

Feminized seeds have one task which is to flower. They are designed to be grown seed-to-weed and then harvested. Although this is, obviously, great news for most growers, this feature makes them less suitable to be kept as so-called mother plants.

Mother plants

Mother plants are female cannabis plants held in perpetual growth. This means they never change from the vegetative stage to the flowering stage. By cutting the shoots from these plants and growing them back, they provide a regular supply of cuttings. These cuttings then can be rooted and used for actual weed production. This form of propagation is a daunting task for these mother plants. This way they namely never flower themselves. Moreover, they usually live much longer than they would live in nature.

Because feminized seeds are created to be grown from seed to harvest, mother plants grown from these feminized seeds tend to start protesting after a while. They then begin showing minor signs of flowering, even when they are kept faithfully under 18+ hours of light per day. This (hormonal) instability can hurt the process of taking cuttings and the quality of the cuttings themselves. It also drastically shortens the time such a plant can still function as a mother plant.

Reliable cuttings

Thus, growers recommend that you select the strongest and most stable plants to keep as mother plants. This way you ensure that they are able to provide healthy cuttings of your favorite phenotype for a long time. Using the female plants selected from regular seeds appear to have a more balanced and stable hormonal household. This then allows them to successfully remain in the vegetative stage and grow back new shoots more reliably. Moreover, rooting and growing the cuttings taken from regular-female plants is often easier, quicker, and more reliable than the cuttings taken from feminized-female plants.

Making your own seeds and varieties

Another reason to choose regular seeds can be to make your own seeds, or better yet, create your own new cannabis variety! Even though it takes patience and time to do right, crossbreeding different variants of cannabis and making new F2 (crossbreed x crossbreed) or even F1 (landrace x landrace or landrace x crossbreed) varieties can be lots of fun! Who knows, you may even win a Cannabis Cup one day.

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