Regular seeds?

[Beateo]

I'm wondering what possible reason I would have to buy "regular" seeds as opposed to feminized or auto flowering? Isn't it probable that half of any batch of regular seeds will be males? I understand that males are pretty much useless so I can't figure out any advantage to buying regular instead of auto or fem? Thanks.

 

[PeytonManning]

They are cheaper, and males are good if you want to crossbreed strains. Plus the females you do get are supposed to be a little hardier

 

[theengineer]

well, I don't know how you'd go about breeding without them...

 

[Beateo]

Thanks...If the females are hardier it may be an ok deal. As far as messing around with strains and breeding, I'm not even close to being there yet! I'll be happy just to see a first leaf out of this entire seed batch! Maybe there will be lessons learned?

 

[Peter Green]

You could let the male and the female do their thing and then you can have many babies to look after

 

[Dwight Monk]

Similar to Photo's or Auto's, kind of a personal preference kind of thing or for a variety of reasons depending on what you believe as a lot of "unproven not real science" along with flat out propaganda out there and sometime it's hard to see the fine line between them . Some say/feel you need both male and female genes for the high to be the same or have a lasting effect, others like to be more "natural" and feel chemically altered/unnatural is like a GMO, etc... etc... how much or if any of it is true is hard to say and more of a "to each their own" in my mind. I mostly use Regular beans and have yet to grow an Auto in the two years I have been in this "hobby".

 

[Carcass]

Feminized seeds aren't really more expensive if you figure in that it will probably take 8 regular seeds to get 4 females (if you're lucky)

Plus,you'll need to grow them till they show their sex,so you need to figure in the cost of soil, nutes, pots,etc.
that will be wasted unless you want the males for breeding.

Auto flowering or photoperiod is up to you and your growing style-if you want to control when they start flowering (longer veg=larger plants) go with photos.

If you want the plant to decide when to flower, go with autos- sometimes they get pretty big, sometimes not so much.

 

[TorturedSoul]

8 regular seeds to get 4 females (if you're lucky)

That's lucky? I guess... bad luck is still luck .

Try this:

From literature and our own findings it appears that the growth of a male or female plant from seed, except for the predisposition in the gender chromosomes, also depends on various environmental factors. The environmental factors that influence gender are:

• a higher nitrogen concentration will give more females.
• a higher potassium concentration will give more males.
• a higher humidity will give more females.
• a lower temperature will give more females.
• more blue light will give more females.
• Fewer hours of light will give more females.

It is important to start these changes at the three-pairs-of-leaves stage and continue for two or three weeks, before reverting to standard conditions.

 

[Captain goodvibes]

In my experience as an outdoor grower with normal seeds the ratio of females to males is always much higher, on average 4 or 5 females to every male. That make sense in nature if you consider the fact that 1 male can fertilise quite a few females. Not that you will always get this ratio due to random chance but it has pretty well held true for me for around 40 years. And just to throw this out there, last year I germinated a number of seeds and had 4x 3 leafed plants pop up, this trait is called whorled phyllotaxy, Ive had these before and always tossed them. This time I grew these for the heck of it and they were all male. I found out later that with this trait they always are male. Very bushy though.