Have you decided to grow your own cannabis? Do you know now if you prefer growing cannabis indoors or outdoors? If yes, then it is time to decide about the cannabis seeds that you will use to grow your cannabis. Many cannabis growers use feminized cannabis seeds as they are designed to produce only female plants. This is important because female plants are the ones that produce buds. On the other hand, male plants develop pollen sacs to spread seeds. Furthermore, male plants are mainly useful to produce fiber and fabric, but not as a source of cannabinoids as male plants have only small amounts of them.

Cannabis Feminized Seeds: Male vs Female

Cannabis belongs to the group of plants known as dioicous, which are plants that produce eggs or sperm but never both in the gametophyte phase (the sexual phase of both plants and algae).

Usually, cannabis growers isolate female plants to prevent pollination. The pollination process will cause female plants to produce seeds, which are important for cannabis growers. However, buds with seeds are not as rich in resin as seedless buds, which are the buds that you will use to obtain cannabis oil. These seedless buds are called “sinsemilla” which originates from Spanish “sin semilla” and it means “seedless”. Sinsemilla are very rich in resin with higher concentrations of cannabinoids.

Cannabis feminized seeds are obtained from female plants that have received a special hormone treatment. This treatment will produce feminized cannabis seeds by inducing a monoicous phase in the female plant. In other words, a plant that bears both eggs and sperm in the gametophyte phase. The result of this process is the presence of only feminized cannabis seeds.

Cannabis seeds can be either male or female, but only the female ones will produce cannabis buds. Nonetheless, you will still need male plants to pollinate female plants, so the female plant can produce seeds.

Feminization Process and Methods

There are a few methods to do this feminization process. The most common methods are:

  • Spraying colloidal silver on the female plant. For some reason, colloidal silver will cause that the female plant produces female pollen that could be used to pollinate other female plants. This process ensures that the resulted seeds are feminized cannabis seeds.
  • The other method is called rodelization. This process happens when unpollinated female plants try to pollinate herself. These stressed plants will produce female pollen. As both parents are female, then the resulted seeds are female as well. This process is considered a natural way of producing feminized cannabis seeds. Nonetheless, this process has higher probabilities of producing hermaphrodite cannabis plants. In addition, hermaphrodite cannabis plants can pollinate your entire garden, which can ruin your cannabis buds. Consequently, many cannabis growers tend to remove hermaphrodite plants to prevent pollination.
  • The other method is spraying gibberellic acid. However, this method is uncommon.

Feminized cannabis seeds are suitable for beginners as most of advanced cannabis growers prefer seeds that are suitable for breeding purposes.

Cannabis Seeds and Quality

Genetics is very important to obtain good quality cannabis seeds. The process of stabilizing the best cannabis traits is arduous and time-consuming. In short if you want to obtain good quality cannabis seeds then you need to be patient and take time to get cannabis seeds with the best traits.

Besides genetics, it is important to store cannabis seeds in places with the right humidity to avoid that the seeds acquire mold. In addition, it’s important to allow the seeds to fully mature and use them within 16 months.

Cannabis Feminized Seeds: Conclusion

If you are a beginner in the cannabis growing process, then cannabis feminized seeds are suitable for you. However, experts prefer a combination of male and female seeds.

There are three ways to obtain cannabis feminized seeds: spraying colloidal silver, rodelization and spraying gibberellic acid. From these three methods, gibberellic acid is not as common as spraying colloidal silver and rodelization has high probabilities of producing hermaphrodite plants. Hermaphrodite plants can ruin your entire garden, which means that this method is a bit risky.

If you want to obtain feminized seeds, then colloidal silver is the most recommended method.