Why you shouldn't buy feminized seeds....

Someone sent me a note asking why I do not like feminized seeds and I thought I would just post the response....

I stay away from feminized seeds, they are created by stressing a female plant into producing her own pollen, pollinating herself and creating copies of herself. This stress can cause her seeds to be hermaphroditic depending on the way the stress is induced, it is not common and breeders swear it is safe but to me I prefer the natural approach. There are a lot of people who will not ever buy feminized seeds because they feel they are inferior. To be honest I have never used them so I can not say. However, if you breed plant A with plant B, all of their children (seeds) will be slightly different and display different traits. This way you can breed plants and create offspring that are random combinations of the parents traits. Some of these children will be for lack of a better word, undesirable. They will have poor traits that you do not like such as poor yield, color, taste, etc... While others will have a combination of the best traits from both parents, this is what breeders look for. If you buy feminized seeds, you are buying the same genetics in each seed because they are all copies of the mother. They will all be identical in their genetics just as if you cloned a mother plant (assuming they came from the same feminized plant which is typical). There will be no variation and therefore less interesting prospects and you will not have a range of different phenos.

Currently I am growing out two NYC Diesel plants that came from the same pack of seeds but they look nothing alike. One has huge fan leaves and is thin, it will be a poor plant for indoor. Another has small fan leaves (much smaller, like half the size), is a darker color and more vigorous, it doesn't even look like the same type of plant at all. The growth is more dense and the smell is amazing. It is definitely going to be the one I clone and continue to grow. If I had bought feminized seeds, what if I got ten copies of plant A pheno, the one with the big fan leaves and the other less desirable traits? I would be pissed and think that strain sucked.

This is why I prefer non-feminized seeds, because in purchasing them you are purchasing more genetic variation.

Here are pics of the two vastly different NYC Diesel phenos I have. You can see in the first pic this plant has HUGE fan leaves, the largest are wider than a Sharpie. But on the other plant with the more desirable traits, the fan leaves are much smaller, much smaller than the Sharpie (the largest fan leaf on the plant is just below the sharpie in pic #2)

Yes, if you buy feminized seeds you will end up with 99% females, but you are buying ONE plant and copies of it. It is the same as buying one seed, growing it, and then taking clones from it. if that one plant isn't a great one, you are S.O.L. because all your other seeds are identical and carry the exact same pheno (again, assuming the seeds all came from the same donor mother).

Ive read that the major companies use stuff like aspirin.
Force feed it to the males.
Changes the hormones in them.
Then pollinate a female with what still is a male.

But that is just hearsay Ive read other places.

SPEARCHUCKER said:

Ive read that the major companies use stuff like aspirin.
Force feed it to the males.
Changes the hormones in them.
Then pollinate a female with what still is a male.

But that is just hearsay Ive read other places.

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Really? That would be much better then. I was under the impression that they almost all did it by chemicly stressing the mother into producing flowers.

I think its still stressing the males though.
Might be worth a try to actually see if its true since people usually just kill the males anyway. Nothing to lose.

Some companies. Like World of Seeds seem to only want to sell Fem seeds.
Hate to think all of theirs come from herms.

hmm. this is kinda on topic with something I've been wondering about lately. If say you have an established female thats a strain you like, and you clone her, and that those clones are successful in becoming healthy females in veg....and then say you let them go on to flower, clone, etc etc.

Would the genetics of said females deteriorate? I was discussing this with a bio teacher of mine. She seems to think that over time the genetics would deteriorate. And I agree to an extent, in that if new threats came upon them they have no variation in there genetics aka mutations that could allow the probability of a stronger offspring. But thats in nature, and would simply lower or eliminate the "weaker" species.

BUT, being that its a controlled environment, the genes of said female aren't ever really "deteriorating". We're just eliminating the chance of survival in nature. So would there be any negative effects (aside from it being boring) from following that process? If its a plant you just think is the bee's knees, then why not?

Ties in with what you're saying. I agree with you if the situation is unknown.

But if the feminized seeds are known to be females almost 100%, and grow healthy. Then whats the possible downside?

If its an establish seed, the genetics are there for 99.xx% females that grow healthy in a controlled environment. so unless a new threat is to potentially be introduced to the environment of the plant, those genes are plenty substantial. With simply doing home grows, the genetics of these fem seeds are already established.

In a more natural setting where the plant would have a reason to adapt, I agree. Its interesting that plants in nature, at least some, are known to reject pollen from a male thats similar genetically. A chemical is in the female thats introduced to pollen, and will supposedly destroy pollen that is identical or similar to the female.

I would be verrrry interested to know if cannabis plants had that trait. I would think that like other plants I've read about that are usually cultivated, that trait has disappeared over time since its mostly controlled environments they're grown in like how vestigial processes and structures are in other critters.

to tie back in with what you were saying about purchasing non-fem seeds, I just kind of see that as a work load. You're controlling the plants environment, so having a pheno of said strain like you do that is less suitable for indoor growing, you'll adapt to it rather than it dying off, eliminating the weaker genetics.

maybe I'm running in circles here, its 5 something in the a.m. here and I'm still pretty buzzed. I seem to fall into your threads because they have intellectual value though. sorry if this is a thread jack, let me know an I'll delete it. haha.

I'm sorry that's incorrect about femmed seeds being the cloned equivalent of one plant.

If that were so I'd just reverse my Cheese clone(for perfect Cheese seeds) and sell S1's whilst the world beats a path to my door,na,it don't work that way I'm afraid.

Most femmed seeds are from unstabilised hybrids and selfing produces F2 differentiation so you will get huge phenotypic variety and not the uniformity of an F1 generation.

Big buddha has just started selling G-force,a clone from up north he's selfed but all that will do is produce a population of that clones sisters but with the G-force pheno among them,being that it's a hybrid,if not then the clones will be true to the mother,but again,there will be some variation.

I'm no big fan of femmed seeds but have done quite a few testers for Gerrit of Magus Genetics,well,I could'nt tell any difference,nobody can,but there is variation exhibited just like the regular seeds.

@Hypcodiihop. Listen to teacher as she is perfectly correct and again,the Cheese clone is a good example as due to serial cloning(cloning of clones over and over)it has lost it's vigour over 20 years of being 'out there'.It roots up poorly compared to other strains and vegetative growth is a lot slower and this is due to what teacher speaks of, so hope you brought her an apple.

Rockster said:

I'm sorry that's incorrect about femmed seeds being the cloned equivalent of one plant.

Most femmed seeds are from unstabilised hybrids and selfing produces F2 differentiation so you will get phenotypic variety and not the uniformity of an F1 generation.

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I think I understand you. So what you are saying is that the feminized seeds, even though they only contain the genetics of the mother, may be carrying traits that were recessive in the mother but dominant in her self-pollinated offspring and you would therefore still have genetic variance?

Thank you for explaining this to me, I obviously misunderstood the process if that is the case. However, I still do not see how it is possible for a group of self-pollinated seeds to display the same amount of genetic variation as seeds produced by two host plants. Since there are more genetic traits being shared in the mating of two plants there would be more characteristics that could be brought to the forefront, as opposed to a feminized seed in which you are still only dealing with one set of genes from the mother. So how is it possible that, " there is variation exhibited just like the regular seeds"? Wouldn't there still be variation if this is the case, but not as much?

Rockster is right about the genetics deteriorating over time. If you take a person, and replace all of their organs, they are not the age of their new organs, they are still the age of their born date. The same is for seeds and plants. When you clone a plant you are not starting a new plant from seed, you are taking that same plant and dividing her, so if you take a clone and it produces roots, it is not simply one day old the day it produces roots, it is as old as the host plant, even if that host plant was cloned recloned recloned etc.

Man you guys are picky. For me, if it's a female, I grow it. And if it's bud, I smoke it. It's like puppies, you get a litter of pups, some are perfect little specimens an then you get a runt or one with a curly tail or something. Either way I'm still going to pat the mongrels as much as the perfect ones. There was a guy one time that did exactely like you folks, only he did it with people. His name was Hitler.

SherwoodForest said:

Man you guys are picky. For me, if it's a female, I grow it. And if it's bud, I smoke it. It's like puppies, you get a litter of pups, some are perfect little specimens an then you get a runt or one with a curly tail or something. Either way I'm still going to pat the mongrels as much as the perfect ones. There was a guy one time that did exactely like you folks, only he did it with people. His name was Hitler.

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HAHA, yea I guess that is one way to look at it. I am a marijuana Nazi trying to build a master race of buds lol....

SherwoodForest said:

Man you guys are picky. For me, if it's a female, I grow it. And if it's bud, I smoke it. It's like puppies, you get a litter of pups, some are perfect little specimens an then you get a runt or one with a curly tail or something. Either way I'm still going to pat the mongrels as much as the perfect ones. There was a guy one time that did exactely like you folks, only he did it with people. His name was Hitler.

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:yeahthat: Hehe, BTW, never been a fan of fem seeds...remember Hitler also killed himself...

The other factor is that a plant's gender is not random. If you provide seeds with a benign environment, you'll get more females; a stressful environment will produce more males. If you coddle your little ones, you can get a 70/30 ratio, maybe better.

All my freebies from my bean orders are femmed and I have them all growing side by side with everything else in my greenhouse. And btw, everything looks incredible! I know something is gonna end up female in that batch. Hopefully I get some wicked feenose kneegrows.

i too have two plants from seed that come from same one huge bud i got while back and they both look totally diff like ya first post was sayin NYC.
didnt understand y until week ago. same thing i read else where as well

im kinda a newbie so if im wrong sorry.But from what Ive read its the male that is chemically treated so that it still carys but only produce y chromosomes.it is then introduced to the female whitch has only y chromsomes in turn will only produce YY this is your fem seed (and yes there will b phenos) thay are sisters not exiact genitic coppies

I really only know three ways to chang the sex of a plant. None of them im told is really harmful.

!. Light stress. changing your **** up when there in flower or light leaks.
2. if you let a flowering female to wait long enough she will eventually produce male sacks.
3. STS solution to reverse a known female to male. she will be a hermie and give you female seeds....but her pollen will to so you can cross with others from what I understand and still get all female. I have the chemicals to do this with. Just havent had a seperate veg room yet to do it. But iirc its more like fooling the plant than altering it. And yes i understand that there is a small chance with hermies but you always will. Id definatley want to try some but im only going to buy the best from the best like Barneys farm or Serious

Exarmy said:

... And yes i understand that there is a small chance with hermies but you always will...

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There is a HUGE chance of hermies with all of these methods. And as we all know, hermies procreate hermies.

interesting. verrrrrry interesting. :bongin:

The Hemp Goddess said:

There is a HUGE chance of hermies with all of these methods. And as we all know, hermies procreate hermies.

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That's not borne out by my experiences THG.

I've grown multiple lots of Magus Genetics femmed strains when I did a load of testers for them and not one hermied,so saying there is a huge chance is a bit of an exaggeration methinks?

So is basing your assumption on one breeders genetics and Feminizing method She was refering to the feminizing methods described above, perhaps Magus uses a better method?
No offense, just a point

Any increased chance of a hermie is too much IMO.

Hey Rockseter, any chance you could read my response to your post above? You obviously know a lot on the subject so I was wondering if my response to your initial post was correct or if my thinking is off again.
Thank you.

Rockster said:

That's not borne out by my experiences THG.

I've grown multiple lots of Magus Genetics femmed strains when I did a load of testers for them and not one hermied,so saying there is a huge chance is a bit of an exaggeration methinks?

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I'm no pro,but have been hittin the "club"scene in L.A. 4 a couple years.Amongst those years I have found a dozen or so seeds( maby 1 seed every few months,have grow out such seeds and not recieved 1 "hermi".I guess its possible to produce hermis from hermies,but its never happened to me!