Not only do you come across different strains of cannabis, but there are different types of Cannabis seeds, regular, feminized and auto-flowering seeds. You may also be wondering why regular seeds are cheaper than feminized or autoflowering forms of the same strain. The answer is simple, feminized seeds take away a lot of the suffering in the process of cutting down the male plants from regular seeds. Let’s take a look, how they are made, how to use them, and find out what is best for you.
Regular Cannabis Seeds
Regular cannabis seeds will grow both male and female plants. People who buy regular seeds are those who want greater flexibility in their gardens and those who want to further preserve genetics through crossbreeding.
Regular cannabis seed genetics go all the way back to landrace strains found all over the world, from India to Jamaica. You’ll be able to grow cannabis with the genetic traits you like and use them to create your own hybrid cannabis seed varieties. You can modify anything—THC content, CBD content, ease of growth, and plant height.
Feminized Cannabis Seeds
The feminized cannabis seeds are seeds that produce only female plants, rather, with a guarantee of 99.9%, in very rare cases may be a hermaphrodite. The feminized seeds are produced without the use of male Cannabis plants. Because under extreme conditions, female Cannabis plants can become hermaphrodites. This can be done by changing the environment of the female plants. When an environment is generated that stimulates the end of summer and the beginning of winter, the female plant realizes that her life is over and the urge to change something appears.
Hermaphrodite cannabis can also be induced chemically with feminization sprays. In this state the Cannabis plant female grows male pollen sacs as well, presenting the characteristics of male and female plants. In short, that means that the female plant fertilizes itself. This means that only the genetics of female Cannabis plants are available in the production of seeds. These plants will only be capable of generating new female Cannabis plants.
Auto-Flowering Cannabis Seeds
To create Auto-Flowering Seeds, the strain contains a cross with Cannabis Ruderalis. As Cannabis Ruderalis lives in harsh climates, it begins to flower after a certain time. Whereas other cannabis plants begin to bloom when the daylight hours change. That means that the grower does not have to change daylight hours. You can give your plant full light all the time. This has a good influence on the resin production and thus also on the content of active components.
Now it is clear why specialized Cannabis seeds are somewhat expensive. The plants are often used only to produce seeds, so the profit made from the flowers is eliminated. And so the seeds have to make up for lost money. For beginners, choosing a feminized, autoflowering strain can be especially interesting. That way you don’t have to check for male Cannabis plants or worry about daylight hours. All you have to do is fertilize your cannabis plants and keep pests out.
Your final choice of what seed type to buy will be influenced by many factors such as growing space, growing climate( if you are growing outdoors), budget, grow room setup. etc. If you want to use a perpetual grow room setup that is super easy to maintain then we recommend buying autoflowering cannabis seeds. Also if you are in a northern climate like Dagg Seeds then autoflowers are great to plant in late June for a late summer early fall harvest.
Growing information of seed types
Growing with Feminized seeds or regular cannabis seeds indoors will require the use of a light timer to induce the flowering stage of the plant. These seeds are the photoperiod type and require a change in the light cycle for you to be able to harvest buds. Regular seeds can lead to disappointment for the new grower if you are only growing for smokable buds. There is a chance that regular seeds will produce more male plants than female ones and that leaves you with a seedy mess if you do not chop the males at first indicating they are males. Also, remember if you do choose to grow regular seeds then be a considerate grower and control your plant’s pollen if you can, you could ruin your neighbour’s plants as well.