If you’re new to cultivating your marijuana plants, it can be a little difficult and daunting to choose the right cannabis seeds for you. With so many factors involved, choosing the right seeds and understanding how to grow them are crucial to the success of your harvest.
After assessing the properties of different types of seeds such as their pros, cons, and limitations, it’s essential to choose quality marijuana seeds to ensure the yield you produce is of the highest caliber.
Don’t worry if you’re a little confused and overwhelmed; we’re going to break it all down for you and help you make an informed decision to choose the ideal marijuana seed for your harvest.
Feminized Cannabis Seeds
Feminized seeds can only be produced by hermaphrodite or monoecious female cannabis plants. Cannabis cultivators and growers have accomplished this through methods such as:
- A technique called Rodelization
- Spraying the plant with colloidal silver
- Repeatedly spraying the plant with gibberellic acid for several days
When growing feminized seeds, there will only be a single set of genes present, meaning the plants that are produced from the feminized seeds will be almost identical to the self-pollinated parent plant.
Growers and cultivators of marijuana plants take advantage of the many benefits of feminized seeds. They provide a guarantee to the grower because they ensure that there won’t be any male plants. The seeds from the male plant have the ability to ruin the entire harvest if they’re not detected and removed promptly.
For growers that have limited space and quantity restrictions, the feminized seeds provide a clear way to save space by not having the harvest overpopulated with a mixture of male and female plants. Furthermore, using feminized seeds allows the grower to perform less work, maintenance of the plants and still have the potential to produce high yielding plants.
Autoflowering Seeds
Autoflowering strains are the product of years of heavy research, experimenting and careful breeding. Unlike feminized seeds, they’re not the result of genetic modification but have taken cannabis cultivation to the next level. Auto-flowering seeds require minimal effort and still produce an extremely high yield when grown correctly.
To create potent auto-flowering seeds that produce high yields, regular strains of Sativa and Indica are cross-bred with Ruderalis. The Ruderalis strain originated in the colder parts of the world such as Siberia and China. This environment allowed Ruderalis to evolve and become less dependent on light and more resilient to harsh conditions and terrain.
Auto-flowering seeds have many benefits, making them the number one choice for beginner and expert cannabis growers.
The advantages of auto-flowering seeds:
- Harvest all year round: auto-flowering seeds don’t depend on heavy light cycles to produce flowers. This provides a big benefit to growers as they can grow their crops all year round without having to worry about the seasons affecting the success of their plants. Beginners will find this very useful, as they can become more acquainted with cultivating cannabis crops without worrying that their harvest will be unsuccessful.
- Faster growth: auto-flowering seeds produce plants and flowers very quickly in comparison to other seeds. Consistent production of fresh plants and yields can be done in as little as 10 weeks and still produce the same level of yield as a conventional strain.
- Discretion: if you’re lacking open space or worried that someone might spot your plants, don’t worry. Auto-flowering seeds don’t grow above 1.2 meters, making them ideal for tighter spaces, stealth and discretion.
- Resilient: auto-flowering seeds can be grown indoors and outdoors, due to their resilience to the cold and pests. When growing auto-flowering strains indoors, it’s as simple as putting the plants under an 18/6 light cycle.
The Bottom Line
Choosing the right marijuana seeds for your harvest will depend on several factors such as your skill level, the amount of space you have and whether you’re growing indoors or outdoors.
It’s a good idea to assess the type of environment that you’ll be growing your plants in prior to purchasing any seeds, that way, you can ensure the best outcome for your harvest.