Even if you are new in the world of cannabis cultivation, you should probably know that growing female cannabis can give lots of benefits for your growth. If you know how to do things properly, you have the opportunity to grow beautiful marijuana plants that can produce amazing yields.
In this article, the focus will be on feminized Cannabis Seeds. Growing them is generally much easier – because growers will be assured that the plant will grow up as females every time. If you want to know more, keep on reading.
What Are Feminized Cannabis Seeds?
Feminized Cannabis Seeds are genetically modified by expert horticulturists in order to ensure that growers will be able to get female cannabis plants every time. Basically, this means that getting feminized seeds from a trusted and reputable seed bank will give you a guarantee of 80 to 99 percent, depending on the company that will grow old as female plants.
But, guaranteeing they are feminized does not mean that the growing process will be easy breezy. Growers can still encounter some problems while cultivating their plants.
Common Growing Problems When Using Feminized Seeds
1. Plant Stress
In the technological methods used to produce feminized seeds, some of the processes can make the seeds weak. Most of the time, this is because of the hormones or the chemicals applied by breeders and horticulturists.
The usual process involves forcing the female cannabis plants into producing the pollen sacs of the male plants so that they can generate pollen for reproduction. This means that the false male pollen from the female plant meets the pistils of another female plant with the outcome of fully feminized seeds.
Unfortunately, though the plant will be able to grow only females, the resulting seeds have the genetic weakness to become more vulnerable against stress.
What does this mean? It means that when the plant feels stressed, the female plant will produce seeds instead of buds, produce fewer trichomes which means becoming less potent, attract pests that will harm the plant, and become easily infected by plant diseases.
2. Hermaphroditic Plants
One of the things that you would never want to encounter with feminized seeds is having them end up being a hermaphrodite plant. These plants appear to be a female plant, but a closer look would show that it also possesses male reproductive organs and end up producing pollen.
According to several cannabis growers, feminized cannabis can produce hermaphrodites, and their theories have been effectively proven. In this situation, a mother plant had to be manipulated at some point for it to produce some pollen to get a female seed. So, this pollen is applied to different female cannabis plants, and fertilization occurs. Then, the breed produced will only be females because they are all coming from female origins. However, this means that every time you possess a female seed, this seed has a parent that produced male organs when you check on its hereditary information.
So, how are hermaphroditic plants produced?
First is through chemical incitement. This happens when a female cannabis plant is exposed to chemicals like colloidal silver and gibberellic acid at the beginning of its flowering phase. Because of these chemicals, the plant feels pressured to produce pollen despite being female in its sexual orientation. This method is very effective and is usually done by seed banks.
The second method is rodelization. This strategy means making the flowers mature in extended periods. When the flowers develop past their maturity time without experiencing fertilization, the female plant naturally produces some male pollen within its flowers in order to attempt doing self-fertilization and begins seed production.
The third way is through exposure to high stress. When the plant is exposed to too high temperatures, light leaks, and inconsistent lighting schedules, the exposure to extreme levels of stress can lead to even a perfectly healthy cannabis plant to produce some hermaphroditic strains.
The fourth way is through bad genes. If a plant is borne through messed up genetics that has a history of producing hermaphrodites, it also has the chance to do so despite the grower growing it under optimal conditions.
3. Seedy Buds
Another effect of hermaphroditic plants is producing seedy buds. What does this mean? In ideal conditions, cannabis cultivators are attempting to produce buds that do not have seeds. But, having a few seeds within the buds will not spoil the entire grow. However, having some seeds within the buds will hurt the amount of your harvest because the cannabis plant will use all of its energy into producing some seeds instead of producing more buds. Most of the time, buds that have seeds inside are also less efficient and less potent as well.
4. Problems with Breeding
If you are interested in breeding new strains, feminized seeds are not an option for you. Feminized can only produce feminized plants and are not viable for generating new types or variants of cannabis. If breeding new strains of cannabis, what you should invest in are regular Cannabis Seeds and not feminized cannabis.
5. Chances of Not Germinating
When you purchase feminized Cannabis Seeds, there are chances that they will not germinate at all. If your seeds do not germinate, this means that the seeds are duds, and you will not even gain access from buds. The chances of this to happen, increase when you transact with breeders, dealers, or online seed banks that are not experienced in the techniques that are used in order to create feminized Cannabis Seeds.
This is why it is very important that you only transact the purchase of your feminized Cannabis Seeds through a trusted breeder or a famous seed bank so that you will be assured that the seeds that you get will grow up to be a feminized cannabis plant that produces beautiful and potent buds.
Final Thoughts
Like other endeavors and adventures, growing feminized seeds always come with a risk. There is always a chance that you might not get results even you apply all of the techniques properly, and you provide the plant with all of its needs. It does not necessarily mean that you are a week breeder, it might mean that you need to source your raw materials, feminized Cannabis Seeds, much better.
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