Thoughts on sprouting bag seeds from certified strains?

[greaze]

I am getting lots of different perspectives. To be fair I have had good success in the past, but am I missing anything? I have had better yield from plants that hermied and gave seeds compared to seeds sourced from bank - following the exact same grow papath. The bag seeds I have are the basis of my Seedbank, and I am only sourcing Fem seeds when I find a strain I am overwhelmed by.

Would love to hear this perspective..
Love from West Syd - Cone smoking capital of the world.

 

[Phytoplankton]

There may be a difference between better yield and better quality. Buds with seeds are fine, just sometimes a PITA, and they tend to have slightly lower quality since the plant is putting it's energy into making seeds. If it works for you, then it's good. I like trying different feminized strains, sometimes it's good, sometimes not so much, but that's how you learn. This year I have seeds for some Purple Urkel, Peyote, Gorilla Glue, and my two favorite stand by's, for outdoors, Mimosa, and indoor/outdoor Northern Lights. I tend to grow Auto's indoors, where space is limited, and Photos outdoors, where they can really fill out and stretch their limbs. Greetings from Sunny California!

 

[nivek]

i can only add one thing,, don't let anyone tell you they are ok because they are possibly from 'late in flower nanners'..

a seed needs approx six weeks or so to form, so if you have seeds in the weed, it was pollinated perhaps half way thru flower, not 'late'

 

[greaze]

to be fair - is this how it would have all started? The bag seeds etc?

 

[Phytoplankton]

My first few grows were a mixture of bag seeds and Indica clones from Humboldt Co (I lived in HumboCo for several years). This was in the mid 70's when Humboldt Co. was the front runner for sinsemilla, and known for "skunkweed". Back then growers were getting up to 5K/Lb, and 2-4K was pretty common. Some of the bag seeds did very well though, some of that may have been due to the incredible growing conditions we had, plus I had some excellent soil. I had a seed, said to be a "Columbian" seed, that turned out great, one of the biggest, best, plants I've ever grown, full on sativa. Other bag seed was often not as successful, quality wise (it grew great). Back then they didn't have "certified strains". Nowadays, I like to know what I'm going to spend my time and energy on, and want to have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to get, hence I purchase feminized seeds with proven genetics, or clones of a favored strain. Got a lot of stories about growing in HumboCo in the 70's. Even had a college Botany professor that was called as an expert witness in a species defense case.

 

[DonkeyDick]

Hi Greaze.
There are mixed opinions about running selfed seeds.
As @Phytoplankton said seeded flower is sometimes less potent than unseeded. This makes accidental seeds undesirable to some people. I think they are more exciting than that.
Regular male or female seeds made from regular pollen grow plants that are measured in filial generations: F1, F2, etc.
Generations of female seeds made from accidental nanners or by reversing a female plant so it produces feminised pollen are counted as selfed: S1, S2, etc.

If you buy either regular or feminised seeds from a reputable breeder you can rightly expect some predictability from that seed stock. A breeder selects for desired traits and these typically get more exaggerated with each generation.

Purchased seeds if regs are usually at least F3, F4 and feminised seeds might be similarly S3 or more.

A plant may resemble either of its parents or a combination of expressions from both. This is more likely in worked (selected) filial lines or IBL (in bred lines) from selfed stock. Of course the F2 and S1 might also resemble the parent stock to some extent, but interesting things happen at F2 and at S1 you get the expression of recessive genes.

This is where unicorns happen. And duds, lots of duds too. Without testing we’ll never know whether how many rare things we miss here in the chemistry of things as we discard the ones that aren’t absolute bangers.

The Chems all came from bagseeds. One of the reasons they have remained “clone only” since the early 90’s is the random nature of S1s. It’s very difficult to get seed stock that gives a good representation of itself (apparently!)

I’m running a from-seed version of the Chemdog’91 and even though it isn’t necessarily the bee’s knees I have to say I’m grateful someone popped those bagseeds all those years ago. It and a couple of Chem crosses (sour bubba and bubba’s sis) are the only things I’ve found that do for pain for me.

I too have a bunch of selfed seeds from these and can’t wait to hunt through and see if anything stands out.

I hope you’re having a good day out west or wherever you are reading this from.

 

[JoetheChro]

I’ve had good results and some absolute shockers using bag seed when times have been tough. But then I’ve had a couple of seeds from reputable breeders that have true hermied for no good reason and have felt more annoyed.

Bag seed is bag seed, it is what it is, if it comes off you’re laughing, you’ll see pretty early on if it won’t so not a massive loss.

Experiment and go forth. All the best to you