Feminized Seed ?

[scottbr]

I have read that if i buy feminized seeds they have a greater chance of being hermpahrodites,what about a single seed that was in a good bud from a dispensary, would these seeds be good for growing, i have a friend that saves these when he finds them and labels what they are, is it good to use these seeds to start growing. Thanks for any help

[LongHairBri]

some of my best strains have come to me as a lone seed found in some chronics.

 

some of my worst failures have come to me as a hermie seed found in some chronics.

 

good luck

[avgjoe]

Like someone here said earlier

Hermies begat hermies

[mrd]

You cannot make assumptions about unknown seeds. You might know which plant was the mother, but that's it.

[BubbleBerryKush]

the only reason that so many companies are making femed seeds is because they dont want you making your own seads. You get a 10 pack of a strain keep the best male and best female and you have seeds forever. Femed seeds do have an occasional hermi problem, but they also give the breaders the advantage of making you pass along clones to keep a strain going.

 

 

they want your money, over and over and over....

[tricloud]

You cannot make assumptions about unknown seeds. You might know which plant was the mother, but that's it.

 

Exactly.....if there is a father.......

[porcupine]

the only reason that so many companies are making femed seeds is because they dont want you making your own seads. You get a 10 pack of a strain keep the best male and best female and you have seeds forever. Femed seeds do have an occasional hermi problem, but they also give the breaders the advantage of making you pass along clones to keep a strain going.

 

 

they want your money, over and over and over....

There are also a few other reasons for feminized seeds. When a breeder is crossing two clone only strains there is no other option, and then there are the S1 clone only strains that breeders are trying to bring to the masses of which I have a mixed view on and I'll explain later. People also need to understand as Bri pointed out above, some of the most famous and elite strains have been the result of an accidental hermaphrodite happening. They are great strains in and of them self, but most are not easy to work with and grow, unless you prepare and handle the strain with care. Think of East Coast Sour Diesel. It is a phenomenal strain to breed with, but isn't an easy or forgiving strain to properly grow and get the best out of unless you have a perfectly stable growing environment. Arcata Trainwreck is also a good example of that type of Cannabis strain.

What my personal experience with feminized seeds was pretty much said above, EXCEPT with a VERY FEW breeders who actually care about the product and reputation they have and wish to retain. If a breeder puts out feminized seeds that go hermaphrodite on you and others early and midway in the flowering cycle, then they will be called out and soon be out of business, unless you happen to be one of a couple VERY RICH Dutch persons claiming to be breeders, who have bought several Cannabis Cups and can afford the advertising and spammers to help with the cover up. There is also the fact that they are perpetuating a myth, and that most people don't know or realize that the true originals have actually been built off of others hard work and sweat, and are actually offered by them under other names because of a VERY RICH scam artist who bought a company and trademarked the names (think of some White strains). If you want the original real White Widow then you need to buy Black Widow, and if you want the original real White Rhino it's actually called Medicine Man now. Not by their original names (along with several other strains) which are now weak, watered down, feminized crap offered by rich boy, and doesn't even compare to the real originals.

There are a few companies I would not hesitate to use, who shall remain nameless as some people think I am tied to just one seed company, but in reality I do have many different breeders strains (mostly regulars) and elite clones. In all honesty, I choose to journal for one the company because I am intimately familiar with their work over my decades of experience with their products, and have developed a trust that I don't have with some other companies because of past bad product. I'm not a fan that this particular company is feminizing many of their original strains, but I also recognize why it is being done. At least they are still offering many regulars, but I also fear that those will soon go away as they have to compete with other companies and stay up to date to stay alive in todays global market. I can say I have not had a bad experience yet with their feminized product but I would prefer the regulars, as a lot good breeding males are now gone, same as most other companies in today's world. It is another example and result of the mentality of the masses in today's "must have now culture" who don't realize the breeding potential of males, because they have no interest in breeding and only want quick females. What generally ends up happening is that they choose one of the unscrupulous, cheap, companies, and get horrible results and hermaphrodites because that breeder has not taken the time to isolate and breed out the gene frequency for the hermaphroditic trait. There are strains this may not even be possible with, but the breeder still chooses releases it which is sad for all of us. All it takes is one time for me, and if it doesn't perform as advertised, or at least closely, the breeder is then written off of my good list, unless I know I was in over my head at the time and that there was a problem that was MY fault and couldn't deal with properly. Then I would give them another chance, because the strain may have performed close to the advertisement and I may just have to observe, learn, and dial it in. I know a lot of people would say "crap happens" and chalk it up, but I personally don't have the time or patience to keep messing around with a breeders gear and keep getting poor results.

Hermaphroditic plants are not necessarily a bad thing. It's something that growers really need to study and understand, not just the breeders. Hermaphroditic traits are an unavoidable gene that the species as a whole possesses. It is a built in mechanism for the last ditch survival of the species or a particular population. It is unavoidable in a lot of pure land race strains, particularly equatorial Sativa's, which any new, uninformed, growers will soon find out if you are growing those type of plants without the experience or ability to provide for what their needs are, or unless they have been bred and backcrossed repeatedly and acclimatized to the particular environment that you are able to provide. If you try pruning an equatorial Sativa during it's long flower cycle the plant thinks that it is being attacked by pests or disease, and the survival gene mechanism is triggered and kicks in automatically, then you have full blown hermy which would not have happened if the person growing it would have had a full understanding of how a plant that he or she is trying to work with and or just grow out. The same thing can happen if your equatorial Sativa throws only one, or a very few male flowers and you pick them off. I don't know why this happens, but it does and is something I have learned over the years. Hemaphrodism is actually a fascinating subject which applies to many plant and animal species. Many fish species and some amphibians change sex during their normal life cycle or when a last ditch survival of the population is threatened. Just the same as many plants!

As I said, ALL Cannabis strains have this gene. It is something that will happen with ANY strain if the growing conditions are out of the strains genetic tolerance, or you severely stress the plant somehow. A good, honest breeder will try and breed this gene down to a gene frequency so that it just won't happen unless the stress is overbearing, and will not release the strain until that is the case whether dioecious or feminized.

What everyone really needs to worry about is the genetic modification and manipulation that the Dutch and European companies are starting to practice, not the feminizing of seeds, as there will always be stellar males of one strain or another. The true greed where they want your money over and over again is twofold. The first rests with the Europeans who are just about ready to release upon us feminized strains that can not be cloned, hence you must come back and purchase over and over again. This is the truly scary and mostly unmentioned part of the industry. I can't say that it is only the Europeans doing this as I'm quite positive the big agricultural companies in North America are more than likely doing the same thing with tomatoes and the rest of our food supply. Monsanto is the perfect example, just think of the product Round UP, Google it and see what it's done to the corn industry.

The second example is this stupid auto-flower craziness that people are buying into because of the myth being perpetuated through advertising. They serve NO purpose other than their intended natural one, to beat the quick and harsh weather that they naturally occur in. Strains that are intentionally bred with Ruderalis for the commercial market are only poor, watered down, terrible yielding plants, that have no comparison to the strain they are crossed with. The feminized ones are even worse, and are just an advertisement ploy telling you that you need to come back and purchase from them over and over again. There are a very few Indica's and Sativa's that have auto-flower tendencies, but generally only auto-flower under certain circumstances such as stress.

I mentioned earlier that I have a contrasting view on the elite clone only S'1 strains being offered by many breeders. People need to realize that there WILL be some variation in the product and many breeders won't admit this to the public. In my experience, with a few reputable breeders that I've tried S1's from, usually the variation is very small in structural ways. The most variation I have noticed is in the end product of each separate plant. There will be some variation in the odor, flavor, and potency between the plants, and you need to carefully select the one that most resembles the original clone. Generally you will get a pretty spot on representation of the original clone mother plant, but it will take selection AND keeping a clone going of each plant until you know for sure. Even then, you want to run them twice just to make sure that your initial results can be repeated or bettered. I have also noticed that there is a slim chance of bringing out what I believe are dormant genes, but that is only a hypothesis as I have seen no literature on this subject as of yet, and have no way to prove it myself. I have yet to have a hermaphrodite show up, but I use who I feel are reputable breeders (any one Else's views may vary from mine and that's fine as you may have had great experience with other breeders) and I also provide a pretty stable environment.

My true beef with clone only S1's is the unscrupulous farmers who are polluting the gene pool by selling clones and representing them as the real deal. What happens is that either uninformed, ignorant, or new people who buy these clones then self these or cross them into a great dioecious strain and unknowingly perpetuate a fake. Unscrupulous caregivers also sell inferior S1 product as the real thing and can give the real strain a bad reputation in localities.

I have personally seen my particular cut and final product of a STELLAR Bubba Kush (Katsu Cut) grown from seed, represented as the real Pre-98 Bubba Kush. That should show you how money hungry people are and what lengths some people are willing to sink to.

[BlackMesa]

How in the heck can they produce a feminized plant that can not be cloned? I wouldn't think that would be possible but if it is for some strange reason, creating your own feminized seeds is pretty simple.

[tricloud]

When a breeder is crossing two clone only strains there is no other option, and then there are the S1 clone only strains that breeders are trying to bring to the masses of which I have a mixed view on and I'll explain later.

 

There are other more creative methods to do this without making a plant dump hermaphrodite pollen on itself or another plant.

 

Of course these methods take time and patience and are not conducive for making instant profits.......

 

Also as you mentioned a lot of these clone only's are born from accidental hermaphroditic pollination. Not a good plan to use a female plant with strong hermie genes as a pollen donor, it almost always strengthens the trait.

[porcupine]

There are other more creative methods to do this without making a plant dump hermaphrodite pollen on itself or another plant.

 

Of course these methods take time and patience and are not conducive for making instant profits.......

 

Also as you mentioned a lot of these clone only's are born from accidental hermaphroditic pollination. Not a good plan to use a female plant with strong hermie genes as a pollen donor, it almost always strengthens the trait.

 

 

If you are referring to cubing, that's just a myth, although a long intensive breeding program will get you what you eventually are seeking.

 

So East Coast Sour Diesel isn't a good strain to start a proper breeding project with?

A lot of those elite's are from accidental herms that wouldn't have happened under normal growing conditions. I can make any strain strain herm with a poor lighting regimen and lack of light protection.

[porcupine]

How in the heck can they produce a feminized plant that can not be cloned? I wouldn't think that would be possible

Genetic modification is how they are doing it.

[tricloud]

If you are referring to cubing, that's just a myth, although a long intensive breeding program will get you what you eventually are seeking.

 

So East Coast Sour Diesel isn't a good strain to start a proper breeding project with?

A lot of those elite's are from accidental herms that wouldn't have happened under normal growing conditions. I can make any strain strain herm with a poor lighting regimen and lack of light protection.

 

NO, I was not referring to the cubing process, it is NOT a myth though.

 

The real myth is that you can get cloned from seeds, or that you can get stable genetics from a hermie breeding project. Do you really know what "fnding the hermie frequency" means? I'm quite sure it means hermie x hermie = non hermie for ONE generation. This means they don't hermie much the first cross but will hermie to beat the band the next time you try breeding with those offspring. Sure they are fun to grow and clone but pure trash as far as genetic breeding material goes.

 

Do you know the actual background of sat ECSD? Cause if you do you are one of the very few who do. I highly doubt the original "breeder" even does. So it could have had a female pollen donor but maybe not........

 

Also there are people who have made plenty of crosses with ECSD that turned out to be hermie central.

 

I know of a cubed plant that you would play serious hell trying to make hermie with a bad light schedule or even light leaks. You might succeed but it will take a while.....

[wingdings]

Lots of good info in this thread. I hope to make some seeds for a rainy day with regular (non-fem) chem valley kush (chem D x sfv og) seeds and this has me worried about hermies. I guess its all dependent upon the breeding process?

[avgjoe]

Lots of good info in this thread. I hope to make some seeds for a rainy day with regular (non-fem) chem valley kush (chem D x sfv og) seeds and this has me worried about hermies. I guess its all dependent upon the breeding process?

It more depends on the strains being used for breeding.If either strain has a tendency to hermie,then the off spring are very likely to as well.Even some strains that dont hermie, might when crossed.

[mrd]

I think this website needs, a separate breeding area where some methodologies might be exchanged and reported on.