Are Feminised seeds as good as Regular female seeds?

[Gardenseed]

What are your thoughts on the matter. From your knowledge and experience. I would imagine that if the "feminized" seed comes from a "natural" (regular seed mother plant) it would still be hardy and somewhat normal. But if a feminized seed is grown and feminized again wouldn't that affect the plant in a negative way. I'm pretty sure that after 10 generations of "fucking" itself, the strain will look quiet different and be very hard to get a healthy individual from the seeds. Anyhow, I wonder??

 

[DoctorGonzo]

No, they're not. Nothing beats photoperiod, natural, m/f seeds for vigor, yield & quality.
Especially "self'd" (a plant reversed specifically into (onto) itself) seeds. Self'd cannabis seeds tend to run 1/3 female, 1/3 male, and 1/3 intersex (hermaphrodite) by percentage. There are reasons to do this, but they're not to make "female" seeds to sell commercially.
A natural female, chemically reversed onto copies of itself, but excluding the seeds from the pollen donor itself, are what are typical "feminized" seeds produced today. IF the person making them knows what they're doing. Which most don't. Which is why the majority of them are garbage.
A naturally female plant that's reversed by chemicals, most often STS (silver thiosulfate) and used to pollinate other, "naturally" female plants, doesn't suffer this "percentage roulette" to the same degree due to the natural female on one side of the cross. These seeds can be decent.
"By propagating plants easily induced to hermaphroditism by environmental stressors, the frequency of genetic elements contributing to this trait is increased by artificial selection following traditional genetic models of inheritance." - Wiki
Mother Nature knows best: Natural seeds are superior.

 

[Conradino23]

The whole scene is divided on the subject. On one hand you have 99% chances of ending up with a female from a feminised seed, but on the other hand you don't always get what you get from a regular seed.

Most of the growers point to narrowing gene pool with reverting sex as these seeds are produced by reverting a clone and pollinating another one from the same mother. In terms of vigour and health these will be the same most of the time, but phenotypes will carry alleles inherited only from the female line. Recessive genes might be pronounced strongly as in straight F2 if the line is polyhybrid.

Theoretically feminised seeds are also more prone to show intersex traits in flower (in veg they always do), however it's not statistical truth it's just broad possibility.

Keeping the mother from regular seed is a much better idea in long term though, cause these plants won't hermie as easy as feminised seed ones, but in short term you won't feel a difference. I sometimes hear that cloning is easier with regular line, but take it with a grain of salt cause I'm not a cloner.

Feminised seeds can save you some headaches though if you have space issues. Often outdoor growers prefer regular ones over feminised ones cause they have mire space and are looking for the strongest plants. I've had some fems of praised lines that were absolute runt of the bunch, but I couldn't say for sure if it was due to indoor environment that produced them or due to feminising itself.

 

[Gardenseed]

The whole scene is divided on the subject. On one hand you have 99% chances of ending up with a female from a feminised seed, but on the other hand you don't always get what you get from a regular seed.

Most of the growers point to narrowing gene pool with reverting sex as these seeds are produced by reverting a clone and pollinating another one from the same mother. In terms of vigour and health these will be the same most of the time, but phenotypes will carry alleles inherited only from the female line. Recessive genes might be pronounced strongly as in straight F2 if the line is polyhybrid.

Theoretically feminised seeds are also more prone to show intersex traits in flower (in veg they always do), however it's not statistical truth it's just broad possibility.

Keeping the mother from regular seed is a much better idea in long term though, cause these plants won't hermie as easy as feminised seed ones, but in short term you won't feel a difference. I sometimes hear that cloning is easier with regular line, but take it with a grain of salt cause I'm not a cloner.

Feminised seeds can save you some headaches though if you have space issues. Often outdoor growers prefer regular ones over feminised ones cause they have mire space and are looking for the strongest plants. I've had some fems of praised lines that were absolute runt of the bunch, but I couldn't say for sure if it was due to indoor environment that produced them or due to feminising itself.

I thank you for your feed back. Your quote from *Ken Kesey is one of my favorites. Life is but a mystery. Once you stop seeking the mystery, you start dying.

 

[XobeMan]

Having Regular Female Seeds is better for higher yield that matches very close to the Mother, problem is you never know what you got until you start to grow them and there is that 1/3 that will be Male and if you reallt Unlucky its 6 out of ten lmao.. but in most cases out of 10 seeds it can be 3 or for that are male.

Now as for feminized seeds that are purposily made you have a 50/50 chance of being male or female which is a greater risk and these seeds if Female will not produce the same yield rate as the Original Mom it may have been cloned from as it carries genetics of both the Male/Female, so you get what ya get and same for the height of it to, you may get lucky have a monster and a huge yield too.

For Indoors i rather have the Feminized Seeds as height restrictions come into play and take the chances of it being male or female once in Early Veg or in Flower so have a chancd to remove the males.

Nice thing is to get a Good Clone or a Few from a known Feminized Plant that way less chances of a Hermie (Male).

 

[DoctorGonzo]

Also, when a seed (any, photoperiod or not) is grown for a month, then thrown into forced flower, it is not genetically mature, & the results won't be fully indicative of the plant's potential. If you want the full potential of your plants, take clones & run a generation of them after the from-seed plant is finished, to see the true potential of the plant.

 

[Gardenseed]

So if I get a male from feminized seed, can I, and should I use it to pollinate a different or the same strain?

 

[DoctorGonzo]

So if I get a male from feminized seed, can I, and should I use it?

No.

 

[Gardenseed]

No.

Right on. Do you care to elaborate?

 

[DoctorGonzo]

As an aside... When I started reading here, a certain member was advocating to noobs that growing seeds from hermaphrodite plants was a good thing, and even got super pissed & tried to argue the point (then resorted to ad hominem attacks, which was super funny) after being presented with empirical data about how wrong that idea was. Then they wiped their posts & shut up. Point being, if you have an idea, share it as an idea. But don't present toilet theories as factual without strong data to back it up, it can ruin someone's grow super quick.

 

[DoctorGonzo]

Right on. Do you care to elaborate?

No.


Just kidding! ......

"By propagating plants easily induced to hermaphroditism by environmental stressors, the frequency of genetic elements contributing to this trait is increased by artificial selection following traditional genetic models of inheritance." - Wiki

 

[Conradino23]

So if I get a male from feminized seed, can I, and should I use it to pollinate a different or the same strain?

Definitely not! If this male presents himself as an intersex individual, you're dealing with polluting your whole genetic poll that way. If you're to pollinate, get a healthy male from a stabilised regular line.

 

[Gardenseed]

My Bagseed lemon haze grows well but tends to have seeds that grow into hermie, but I kill them as soon as I see the signs. I wonder if I mix it with a good male original Afghan could I get that gene out of my strain. Id like to keep this Haze going though. Its the bomb. Smooth as silk ans smells of fruity lemon. How many generations can I go. Out of 7 plants last time one would have been full hermi and one had obvious signs. 2 turned out awesome with no seed and a few produced maybe 6 to 10 seeds per plant. I just found them when I was breaking it up to smoke.
I guess my question is should I keep growing it the same way, or mix it with another strain?

 

[DoctorGonzo]

My Bagseed lemon haze grows well but tends to have seeds that grow into hermie, but I kill them as soon as I see the signs. I wonder if I mix it with a good male original Afghan could I get that gene out of my strain. Id like to keep this Haze going though. Its the bomb. Smooth as silk ans smells of fruity lemon. How many generations can I go. Out of 7 plants last time one would have been full hermi and one had obvious signs. 2 turned out awesome with no seed and a few produced maybe 6 to 10 seeds per plant. I just found them when I was breaking it up to smoke.
I guess my question is should I keep growing it the same way, or mix it with another strain?

"By propagating plants easily induced to hermaphroditism by environmental stressors, the frequency of genetic elements contributing to this trait is increased by artificial selection following traditional genetic models of inheritance." - Wiki

It's a shit shoot, trying to delete that trait from a line that in your instance seems fairly shot through with that sensitivity. You could spend a lot of time trying, only to learn that that's a dominant characteristic & not going anywhere. If you had lots of space & time, maybe. But on a limited scale it's not leaving enough scale for large group for trait selection. So, I'd not do it. However... If you really like lemon haze, and not just *that* lemon haze, it might be worth exploring further using better, more solid genetics. Maybe get Greenhouse's Lemon Haze, m/f seeds, (if available) and go through the selection process to find a good mom, then either select a good father, or play around with STS/CS.

 

[Conradino23]

My Bagseed lemon haze grows well but tends to have seeds that grow into hermie, but I kill them as soon as I see the signs. I wonder if I mix it with a good male original Afghan could I get that gene out of my strain. Id like to keep this Haze going though. Its the bomb. Smooth as silk ans smells of fruity lemon. How many generations can I go. Out of 7 plants last time one would have been full hermi and one had obvious signs. 2 turned out awesome with no seed and a few produced maybe 6 to 10 seeds per plant. I just found them when I was breaking it up to smoke.
I guess my question is should I keep growing it the same way, or mix it with another strain?

Most likely these seeds came from a hermie, which means the risk of passing a gene to a next generation is statistically higher. If you use it, you may find your bloom room full of pollen when you grow F1 and this means wasted time and resources. Also with crossing two polyhybrids that share the same lineage weird things might happen and your F1 will look much more like F2. Many phenos that won't be better than their parents. You want your own strain? Get two regular lines that are stabilised, but which are very different from each other and then play with them in your little space. Even better find an excellent strain and select a mother.

 

[Gardenseed]

Thanks for the knowledge.

Most likely these seeds came from a hermie, which means the risk of passing a gene to a next generation is statistically higher. If you use it, you may find your bloom room full of pollen when you grow F1 and this means wasted time and resources. Also with crossing two polyhybrids that share the same lineage weird things might happen and your F1 will look much more like F2. Many phenos that won't be better than their parents. You want your own strain? Get two regular lines that are stabilised, but which are very different from each other and then play with them in your little space. Even better find an excellent strain and select a mother.

 

[Parrot99]

what an interesting read

 

[Jackalope]

I would have to say yes the regular are better. All their genetics are there. That being said you can't always just cross 1 male to 1 female and get what you had. Most strains are f-1 hybrids. crossing them gives you f-2 seeds. F-2's can have all kinds of phenos.
With the Jack the Ripper I'm doing I saved the 2 best females. Using the frosty one as the male after spaying to make it produce pollen. Hopefully that will help them carry more of the Jack the Ripper genetics.
Personally I'm using more females seeds these days. No Auto just female seeds.

 

[jimihendrix58]

I don't like Fem seeds.

All of them I tried, I also tried the Regular version of.

The Fems were ALL a let down, and some even complete garbage. Calling it Hay, would be insulting to hay.

I tried no less than 10 strains.

 

[Parrot99]

Sorry if i sound ignorant here but don't regular seeds usually or quite commonly grow males? or significantly increase the chances of? If not then why al the fuss with feminised? or are you guys saying its better to have seeds produced by your original plants?

Very tired, much confused :3