When you decide to grow cannabis, you either start germinating cannabis seeds or clones. Seeds carry the genetic characteristics of their two-parent plants, manifesting their different features. If you are a typical cannabis home grower, beginning your journey of growing marijuana from cannabis seeds can be suitable to give you stable cannabis genetics. When buying cannabis seeds, your supplier will ask you to select the type of cannabis seed you want from either of the three cannabis strains (Cannabis Sativa, Indica, and Ruderalis). There are three types of cannabis seeds, namely feminized seeds, regular seeds, and auto-flowering seeds. Each seed type has its benefits and drawbacks, and the type you choose depends on your growing experience of cannabis.
Cannabis seeds in a nutshell
Cannabis seeds come either as a male or female. In most cases, the female cannabis plants produce the most lovable buds, which have psychoactive effects. However, like other plants, the female cannabis plant needs pollination from a male plant to produce seeds. After the produced seeds mature, the female plant gradually dies, and the seeds fall off to the ground, where they germinate to form new cannabis plants for the next spring. However, the seeds can be harvested to manufacture cannabis seed oil and cannabis edibles or grown as the next generation of cannabis plants. To get cannabis buds for medical and recreational use, you grow the female cannabis plant in an environment without the male plants. You can also remove the male plants from the area earlier before they produce pollens. This is so that the female plants do not form seeds to develop into the high potency marijuana.
Let’s look at the three different types of cannabis seeds.
Regular cannabis seeds
The regular cannabis seeds result from the pollination between a female plant and a male plant. These seeds could give a female or a male plant and carry both parent plants’ traits. In most cannabis growing, the grower induces the pollination by hand-pollinating the female plant from pollen grains collected from a then-male plant—the seeds produced always come out similar to the ones made by wild pollination of cannabis plants. Regular cannabis seeds are easy to find in almost every location and are relatively cheap. For first-time cannabis growers, regular seeds are easy to manage, and even if you make a mistake, they are readily available for replacements. They also benefit growers who want to experiment with both male and female cannabis plants for selective breeding.
A drawback of these seeds is that it can be challenging to differentiate between a male and a female plant until they are 3 to 4 weeks old. The high chances are that the seeds will produce a high percentage of male plants. Unless you are collecting male plant pollen for future use, male cannabis plants are not so useful.
Feminized cannabis seeds
The feminized cannabis seeds from Homegrown Cannabis Co result in female cannabis plants; therefore, you don’t have to worry about male plants’ pollination. However, when the female cannabis plants are exposed to stressful conditions, such as an inadequate supply of water or excess UV light, they can produce pollen grains. So, growers always use this natural phenomenon to create feminized seeds.
For instance, if you expose the female plant to stressful or harmful conditions (others use chemicals to mimic the stressful situations), the female plant can produce pollen near flowers. Then, the grower collects the pollen and pollinates the same female plant, resulting in only feminized seeds. That is known as self-pollination, which gives way to cannabis seeds that only grow up to be females. If you do not want male cannabis plants in your greenhouse, it is advisable to use feminized seeds. However, they are slightly more expensive than regular cannabis seeds and would not be suitable for collecting pollen for breeding purposes.
Autoflowering cannabis seeds
Naturally, cannabis plants start auto-flowering when the amount of daily light exposure reduces to 12 hours. This is similar to when the sun goes down in the sky as we approach autumn. However, there is a species of cannabis strains known as cannabis ruderalis. It is mostly grown in the northern parts without much sunlight. These plants will start flowering when they reach a certain age regardless of the amount of the sun, hence auto-flowering cannabis seeds. They are mostly found in the long winter climates of Russia and Europe. In these regions, summer and spring are usually short, so cannabis plants adapt to less light requirements to trigger flowering. When growing auto-flowering seeds, you don’t need to change the plants’ light cycle to begin flowering; they auto-flower by themselves when the time is right.
Autoflower cannabis seeds are advantageous if you don’t have a large growing space or are growing indoors since they produce small plants that flower quickly. If you are worried about your cannabis plants getting past a certain height, auto-flowering seeds are the best bet since they have short stature. Plus, you do not need complicated lighting conditions or a cultivation plan. The auto-flowering cannabis seeds give birth to cannabis buds with high CBD levels but lower THC levels, making them suitable for medicinal marijuana. However, they may not be perfect if you want many buds since they are small in stature. Another drawback is that they have low THC content.
How to come up with quality cannabis seeds
To produce good-quality cannabis, you need good-quality cannabis genetics. Some breeders choose a nice female seed, cross it with random male seeds, and sell the resulting seeds. That is wrong. An experienced cross-breeder takes time to cross different strains and tests to establish the best traits. Again, cannabis seeds should be adequately mature before harvest and stored correctly in a cool, dark place without molds to avoid spoilage.
Wrap up
If you want to grow quality cannabis, consider the genetics of the seeds you choose. You can only get quality genetic cannabis seeds by buying from a reputable cannabis company. Whether regular, feminized, or auto-flowering, you can develop quality cannabis if you invest your time and energy into the process.
