regular seeds vs feminized

[DankHobbyist]

Until now I have just been into feminized seeds. Is there much difference between feminized and regular as far as area is concerned.

I have 5x5 tent. Starting seeds under 400 mh. After they sprout and get some leaves for the light I will switch to plasma. Then add another plasma. Then add the 400 in between them. After that taking out the mh and introducing either gavita 600 or 750 and hardening them off before final transplant. After that another week or so before flip. What will be the difference between 10 regular seeds or 5 feminized. Will I run out of room? There are some breeders like Escobar that have caught my attention and am interested in possibly pursuing regular seeds and sexing em myself. Any feedback welcomed.

 

[DankHobbyist]

Will I have enough room to sex 10 plants under a 600?

 

[zem]

feminized or not, this has nothing to do with plant size. i have tried to sex regular seeds before and back-crossed them and was successful, but requires time and dedication to complete

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Whether you have room for 10 plants or not depends on how large you let them get before you flower them and the strain you are running. I recently had a Boy Scout Cookie that took up about 4 sq ft just by herself. Sometimes though, I have smaller indica dominant that just never really get huge--little Christmas trees that take up a sq ft or so. Strain has a lot to do with how big something gets. Look at it this way--each plant will have a space that is 2.5 sq ft.--that is a space about 16" x 16". Do you believe that is enough space? Overcrowding plants will result in poor results.

 

[DankHobbyist]

Enough room to sex the plants is what I am asking

 

[Dman1234]

Yes u will, not enough to grow them all out but enough room to sex them.

 

[blowinthatloud]

I just vegged 10 to maturity under a 600 mh with no prob, all strong an healthy!

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

feminized or not, this has nothing to do with plant size. i have tried to sex regular seeds before and back-crossed them and was successful, but requires time and dedication to complete

Zem, I am not understanding what you are saying here? Regular seeds all show sex eventually and I don't understand the back-cross and the dedication it takes? Are you talking about crossing a fem and a non fem?

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Enough room to sex the plants is what I am asking

Probably yes, but my point was that some plants can get huge before they show sex. So, you may or may not have room. You probably could not get 10 strains that had a whole lot of sativa in them, while if growing indicas you could probably sex twice as many. With this growing thing, when not growing clones, so much is strain dependent. The problem would be the size of the space, not the size of the light--dank's got plenty of light going on.

 

[zem]

Zem, I am not understanding what you are saying here? Regular seeds all show sex eventually and I don't understand the back-cross and the dedication it takes? Are you talking about crossing a fem and a non fem?

I meant that I have back-crossed regular seeds from a F1 strain. that is I crossed a male with a mother then the resulting seeds planted to obtain a male that again is crossed with the mother, after repeating it several times I got seeds that are very consistent in phenotype. I never tried crossing fem with non-fem. I am not very knowledgeable in breeding, but have read somewhere that fem plants are useless for breeding, but I don't really know why...

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Got it. Thanks for clarifying. I just couldn't figure out what you were talking about. I think this is something that a lot people who want to cross strains don't realize--that it takes several generations to get something stable.

 

[Wetdog]

I meant that I have back-crossed regular seeds from a F1 strain. that is I crossed a male with a mother then the resulting seeds planted to obtain a male that again is crossed with the mother, after repeating it several times I got seeds that are very consistent in phenotype. I never tried crossing fem with non-fem. I am not very knowledgeable in breeding, but have read somewhere that fem plants are useless for breeding, but I don't really know why...

Supposedly, properly femmed seeds have no Y (male) chromosome thus making them unfit for breeding. Pretty much the same deal with a hermie, or at least a female hermie. I've never messed with femmed seeds either.

I'm doing very much the same thing you are, crossed a very nice male with clones from a strain I've been running for years. Took males from that F1 and crossed back to the same mother and repeated.

I'm on the F4 cross now. Had some problems with the clones so the F5 cross might have to wait till spring, but I did cross the F4 males with F4 female siblings and seeds seem to be developing nicely. I didn't bother crossing earlier siblings. Not much room and I didn't see a point to it till at least the F4 cross. Still going to do a F5 cross because I want as nearly pure to the mother (pure indica), as I can get before going for phenotype and crossing siblings.

This has taken 3 years because I haven't been able to get 2 seed crops in every year. The second crop is a race with cold and it looks like cold wins again this year.:hairpull: We'll see.

Wet

 

[DankHobbyist]

Does this inbreeding Hurt plants at all?

 

[zem]

Supposedly, properly femmed seeds have no Y (male) chromosome thus making them unfit for breeding. Pretty much the same deal with a hermie, or at least a female hermie. I've never messed with femmed seeds either.

I'm doing very much the same thing you are, crossed a very nice male with clones from a strain I've been running for years. Took males from that F1 and crossed back to the same mother and repeated.

I'm on the F4 cross now. Had some problems with the clones so the F5 cross might have to wait till spring, but I did cross the F4 males with F4 female siblings and seeds seem to be developing nicely. I didn't bother crossing earlier siblings. Not much room and I didn't see a point to it till at least the F4 cross. Still going to do a F5 cross because I want as nearly pure to the mother (pure indica), as I can get before going for phenotype and crossing siblings.

This has taken 3 years because I haven't been able to get 2 seed crops in every year. The second crop is a race with cold and it looks like cold wins again this year.:hairpull: We'll see.

Wet

I did that years back with no regrets at all, I only got to the third cross that results in like 87.5% so they are not considered real F1 before the 4th cross when they get to the 93% but i had grown them several times now and they are great in similarity to the main mother plant.
what i did to speed up the process was that i got a male in some closed chamber, took pollen from it, then separated one plant, pollinated just a small portion like a couple of buds, then put the plant back to flowering. you don't have to do an entire seed crop, in order to get some seeds. you can even place a small clone from the mother under a cfl and let it bud and pollinate it

 

[zem]

Does this inbreeding Hurt plants at all?

this is the only way that a breeder can make F1 seeds. it doesn't seem to harm plants' offspring like it does in humans

 

[DankHobbyist]

Thanks real interesting stuff.... So recap 10 under 600 sexing plants no biggie if indica. awesome. I understand f1 etc thing better. What would you call f1 f2 etc and what is a s1 s2 etc etc. thanks. Breeding seems easy now. Thought I would need huge room etc etc. this is reason people 12/12 from seed yes basically breeders?

 

[Wetdog]

I did that years back with no regrets at all, I only got to the third cross that results in like 87.5% so they are not considered real F1 before the 4th cross when they get to the 93% but i had grown them several times now and they are great in similarity to the main mother plant.
what i did to speed up the process was that i got a male in some closed chamber, took pollen from it, then separated one plant, pollinated just a small portion like a couple of buds, then put the plant back to flowering. you don't have to do an entire seed crop, in order to get some seeds. you can even place a small clone from the mother under a cfl and let it bud and pollinate it

Even easier, start some clones when you plant the seeds, 5 or 6 weeks later when the seedlings are showing sex the clones are well rooted. Then, *I* just pollinate the pre flowers on the clones. The pre flowers seem to give me the most viable seeds and the seeds develop quite nicely under veg lights (T-5 HO, 18/6).

The pollinated pre flowers was an experiment. The seeds developing under the 18/6 was part of that same experiment. Half the clones were brought in under the lights, the other half were left outside. I noticed no difference in seed viability from either batch.

Wet

 

[Wetdog]

Thanks real interesting stuff.... So recap 10 under 600 sexing plants no biggie if indica. awesome. I understand f1 etc thing better. What would you call f1 f2 etc and what is a s1 s2 etc etc. thanks. Breeding seems easy now. Thought I would need huge room etc etc. this is reason people 12/12 from seed yes basically breeders?

No, 12/12 from seed are not breeders.

*I* am not a breeder, but simply trying to get seeds as close as I can to my now 'clone only' mother plant in case something happens to those mothers. I'll never get to 100%, but can get to 99%+with enough backcrossing.

Just be aware that there are a lot of *pollen chuckers* on the net calling themselves breeders and not all that many real deal serious breeders. Breeding isn't all that simple and crossing one named strain with another named strain is just pollen chucking. Developing a strain from various land races is breeding.

F1 stands for first filial generation. Never saw the S1 thing before mj forums, so IDK. Sibling crosses????? If so, then my crossing of the F4 males and females would be a S1 cross. Really not sure though.

Wet

 

[zem]

It is my understanding that above 90% is considered F1, IME 87.5% is surprisingly close to the original mother. I avoided pollinating preflowers in an effort to prevent hermie traits or undesirable traits, and always aimed at pollinating in mid flowering, but that was never based on real knoledge, just to stay safe....

 

[DankHobbyist]

That's awesome stuff. Basically breeding you have to have large plant count yes?