”Feminized” or “Regular” seeds....and why?

[Tim1987]

Hi Everyone,

I've been thinking about something regarding feminized seeds, and the context of GMO marijuana.....

If we bred them the same, as if selectively breeding fields in the wild. Would that be GMO?

Analogy-

A field of 10000 feminized seeds.
5 thousand feminized.
5 thousand feminized, but forced again.
Chose the traits we liked.
Kulled the rest.
Pollenate the whole field with itself. (Or huge grow houses).

Would this be GMO marijuana?

 

[socaljoe]

Came across this video and when doing a related search. Maybe you can take something from it.

 

[Aladdin.khalifa]

AK,

Please correct me if im wrong here. Because i'm a hobbyist chucker, and have only ever used or grown regular seed.
I'm by no means claiming to know it all. I'm trying to learn.

Personally,

This is where i feel its a very grey area. We have sexual female clone#1, and sexual clone#2 right. Synthetically force female#1 to express male traits. Harvest its pollen. Destroy female#1.
Put female#2 into flower. Dust with female#1's pollen. Harvest the seeds.

Wouldn't the seed from female#2 be more feminized than, if just letting female#1 seed itself?

Why isn't either genetic engineering?

Peace,

Tim.

Hey Tim,

I'm also eager to learn more. It is just impossible to know it all.

If you have already flowered both females (1 and 2) and know that they are pure females then your feminized seeds will be 100% female.

The seeds you'll find on female#1 (The reversed female) will be the result of a selfing whereas the seeds from female#2 will be the result of a cross between female#1 and female#2. Both groups of seeds will only give you female plants.

However, the seeds from female#1 should be less vigorous because of the inbreeding (Selfing).

Breeding and genetic engineering are two different things. It takes many generation to create a new variety that will breed true for the traits that you are after. For instance, humans created dogs by breeding wolves and it took hundreds of years.

However, with genetic engineering, after manipulating the genetic material of an individual in a lab, the results are instantaneous. It is like entering a cheat code that will alter the DNA forever.

I don't know much about genetic engineering as it is completely different from plant breeding...

 

[Tim1987]

Hey Tim,

I'm also eager to learn more. It is just impossible to know it all.

If you have already flowered both females (1 and 2) and know that they are pure females then your feminized seeds will be 100% female.

The seeds you'll find on female#1 (The reversed female) will be the result of a selfing whereas the seeds from female#2 will be the result of a cross between female#1 and female#2. Both groups of seeds will only give you female plants.

However, the seeds from female#1 should be less vigorous because of the inbreeding (Selfing).

Breeding and genetic engineering are two different things. It takes many generation to create a new variety that will breed true for the traits that you are after. For instance, humans created dogs by breeding wolves and it took hundreds of years.

However, with genetic engineering, after manipulating the genetic material of an individual in a lab, the results are instantaneous. It is like entering a cheat code that will alter the DNA forever.

I don't know much about genetic engineering as it is completely different from plant breeding...

Thanks AK,
That makes a lot of sense now.
Cheers,

Tim.

 

[blake9999]

Would this be GMO marijuana?

No. We are not going into the DNA and making changes, only controlling the hormones.

 

[Tim1987]

No. We are not going into the DNA and making changes, only controlling the hormones.

Not in this case, i believe.
Think about the potential mix.
Its mixing them all, thats GMO. Its impossible to replicate in the wild. But as pointed out. It would take many generations to become "propper GMO".
As explained in the video just above?
Care to a elaborate, on what you say?
As i say. Im extremely keen to learn this. So educate me a little.



P.S.
This still doesn't mean i have to support feminized seeds either, as i stated.
Still doesn't mean, it isn't a bad practice.....

 

[blake9999]

It's Not GMO. GMO is when you manipulate the genes at the DNA level. You are only manipulating the plants hormones. It's the same as if a Bull Dike woman would start to take testosterone. Her DNA is not changed but her hormone level has. She will start to grow facial hair.

 

[Tim1987]

It's Not GMO. GMO is when you manipulate the genes at the DNA level. You are only manipulating the plants hormones. It's the same as if a Bull Dike woman would start to take testosterone. Her DNA is not changed but her hormone level has. She will start to grow facial hair.

EXACTLY!

Don't you realize the plants are breeding with themselves 3 times over, in 1 season?
Not to even mention there's potentially 10000 variations of this, in the field.
Not even to mention selectively kulling phenotypes you didn't want.
Then letting the whole field pollenate itself.
Thousands of potential parents in one set of seeds, remember.
Now repeat this process many times.
Would you call this "splicing DNA", or "hormonal manipulation"?
Tread carefully. We're talking about chromosomes here. We're already at the cell level.

Cheers,

Tim.

 

[blake9999]

Maybe will can get @Dr. Who to chime in on this one and put it to bed. He's very knowledgeable on the subject.

 

[Tim1987]

Maybe will can get @Dr Who to chime in on this one and put it to bed. He's very knowledgeable on the subject.

Please. I want to be informed.
I need to know the "why", to be able to grasp all this.....
For my own sake. I can't just accept that something "is what it is" without the fine details.
I'll be trying to think "why" for decades to come.

 

[blake9999]

Femanized seeds are Not GMO. They are produced by having the hormonal receptors on the doner plant blocked from making female flowers. The result is male flowers that carry the female gene only. There is no gene splicing or DNA manipulation involved. If that's the case then EVERY strain of seeds are GMO. They have all been crossed with other plants that carry different genes. You need to watch that video again. Around the middle somewhere where he starts to explain about hermaphrodite's

 

[Tim1987]

Femanized seeds are Not GMO. They are produced by having the hormonal receptors on the doner plant blocked from making female flowers. The result is male flowers that carry the female gene only. There is no gene splicing or DNA manipulation involved. If that's the case then EVERY strain of seeds are GMO. They have all been crossed with other plants that carry different genes. You need to watch that video again. Around the middle somewhere where he starts to explain about hermaphrodite's

We're not just talking about hormones here....
We're talking about the potential, and variation in every seed. Potentially within an entire region.
We're essentially creating our own "landrace" strain. But every speck of pollen has been the result of selfing selected females.
Sexual organisms can't reproduce with themselves remember.
It's physically impossible for mother nature to replicate this process, in a feminized field.

 

[blake9999]

Yeah, you may create a landrace strain, but it's still not GMO. You not going into the lab and splicing and altering the genes. You simply crossing two varieties with each other, and yes a plant can self itself. It's like if a white man were to have a baby with an asian woman. Is the resulting baby GMO? No. It's just a mix of the genes of the parents. So when you self a plant it may loose a little diversity, and potentincy, because you limiting the genes that are shared. But in no way is it considered GMO.

 

[Tim1987]

Yeah, you may create a landrace strain, but it's still not GMO. You not going into the lab and splicing and altering the genes. You simply crossing two varieties with each other, and yes a plant can self itself. It's like if a white man were to have a baby with an asian woman. Is the resulting baby GMO? No. It's just a mix of the genes of the parents. So when you self a plant it may loose a little diversity, and potentincy, because you limiting the genes that are shared. But in no way is it considered GMO.

What process would be GMO Marijuana then?
Please explain.
What is GMO technically?
How is my theory fundamentally flawed?
What if we could view the dna of each plant under a microscope?
Selecting "traits" at the cellular level.

 

[Reverend Jim]

I’m just now getting back into growing after 25+ years and I’m wondering about the difference between regular seeds and feminized, aside from the obvious? There weren’t any “feminized” or “auto- flower” seeds when I last grew. I’ve read a couple of articles claiming that plants from feminized seeds are more susceptible to stress/shock and could become hermaphroditic or even male after being stressed. Is this the case or BS?

I’ll be growing exclusively outside (besides possibly setting up indoors to start seeds and/or clones) and I’m wondering whether I’d be better off buying regular seeds and sexing them or are the feminized seeds just fine. We get some pretty extreme heat in the summer (it’s been 100-104° every day for 3 weeks) and I don’t want the stress to effect my girls detrimentally and unnecessarily.

Which seed type do you prefer and why

Personally, I would go feminized only. You get girls only (under satisfactory conditions) -- no wasting time, energy, money, nutes, etc. on males. However, it not BS that feminized seed CAN go hermy or even male when stressed out. If you're growing outdoors in high temps (and other stressers -- insects, too much rain, humidity variations, etc.), this is more likely to happen -- but even so, with feminized seed you'll get more girls than boys/herms.

As a matter of fact, stressing a female to force it to turn male is how feminized seed is produced.

I grow indoors, and have never had a girl go male before -- and have never tried to force it, so I don't know how much stress is needed. It may be super rare. For now, I've just been happy growing and cloning. One day, I'll give breeding a go and see what sort mutant horror I can conjure up.

 

[whitebb2727]

I’m just now getting back into growing after 25+ years and I’m wondering about the difference between regular seeds and feminized, aside from the obvious? There weren’t any “feminized” or “auto- flower” seeds when I last grew. I’ve read a couple of articles claiming that plants from feminized seeds are more susceptible to stress/shock and could become hermaphroditic or even male after being stressed. Is this the case or BS?

I’ll be growing exclusively outside (besides possibly setting up indoors to start seeds and/or clones) and I’m wondering whether I’d be better off buying regular seeds and sexing them or are the feminized seeds just fine. We get some pretty extreme heat in the summer (it’s been 100-104° every day for 3 weeks) and I don’t want the stress to effect my girls detrimentally and unnecessarily.

Which seed type do you prefer and why

If properly done fem seeds are not more prone to herm.

Thing is what you plan to do. If you want to further a line by breeding then get regular seeds. If just for growing then get fem seeds. It's not hard to make them.

 

[whitebb2727]

G'day DarkStar,

Way i see it, is ultimately it comes down to practicality.
Want seeds to grow plants to choose male, and female phenotypes to set seed. Then you're absolutely mad not to choose regular seeds in my opinion.
Want females every time, with very little variation. Or growing in a National Park. Choose feminized seeds.

One thing i will say, is feminized seeds don't sit very well with my own morals at all. It's GMO marijuana imo. The forced self pollenated plant isn't GMO. But the seeds that come from the parent female of the same plant are. Because all the chromosomes come from a single parent. Instead of mother and father. We're physically altering the plants own dna.

I like to say no to GMO food. For various reasons.
I personally like to say no to GMO marijuana as well.



Edit: Yes, hermaphodite cannabis plants exist naturally. But this is true hermaphrodism.
Also these hermaphodites are usually pollenated by other resident males as well.
The way feminized seeds are made, the gene pool is so much smaller. For every 'Fwhatever' batch of seeds the gene pool is becoming more inbred every time.
If there were F100 feminized seeds by now. Then exactly the same plant is essentially breeding with itself 100 times over.
A good analogy for me is to compare it to human beings, and Dolly the sheep clone. I'll try to make this as politically correct as i can lol. So here we go.
Imagine for a second that human females could have a functioning penis as well. With viable semen to produce their own offspring. Who would the dad be? Now hold that question in your mind for a second.
Imagine if Dolly the sheep was a marijuana plant, and we could force Dolly to grow a penis too. So before we force hermaphodite Dolly, we clone her. So we have 2 Dolly's.
Then we force hermaphodite one Dolly. Collect a sperm sample, and shoot Dolly 1 in the head.
Then take Dolly 2 and fertilize her ovaries with Dolly 1's semen.
Dolly 2 has babies. They're all females, and so genetically similar to Dolly, and each other.
Now we repeat this process with the new Dollys'. Once the new Dollys' are deemed "stable" Dolly 2 gets the bullet in the head.

Hahaha.
Thats so messed up. But hopefully it explains it a little.

Fems are absolutely not gmo. Thier dna or genes are not modified in any way.

You use colloidal silver or silver thiosulfate to spray the plants to block ethylene which is responsible for flowering. When you block ethylene you cause the plant to express male parts.

They are not gmo.

 

[Tim1987]

Personally, I would go feminized only. You get girls only (under satisfactory conditions) -- no wasting time, energy, money, nutes, etc. on males. However, it not BS that feminized seed CAN go hermy or even male when stressed out. If you're growing outdoors in high temps (and other stressers -- insects, too much rain, humidity variations, etc.), this is more likely to happen -- but even so, with feminized seed you'll get more girls than boys/herms.

As a matter of fact, stressing a female to force it to turn male is how feminized seed is produced.

I grow indoors, and have never had a girl go male before -- and have never tried to force it, so I don't know how much stress is needed. It may be super rare. For now, I've just been happy growing and cloning. One day, I'll give breeding a go and see what sort mutant horror I can conjure up.

There is one fact to contradict this statement though.....

Sexual organisms, and asexual organisms are biologically entirely different.

 

[blake9999]

GMO is when you go into the lab and ALTER the plants genes by splicing it's DNA. You usually make changes at the molicular level by removing code and adding new code in it's place. Like GMO corn that is disease resistant. It had it's code changed to resists disease. You can modify it's code to make bigger ears of corn. But crossing two types with pollen only only results in a hybrid cross. That's why there are so many different F1 hybrid crosses of cannabis. And femanized seeds are made by manipulating the hormones. HORMONES, not DNA. Femanized seeds are completely safe to use and a good choice for anyone limited on grow space that don't have room for males that will need to be culled.

 

[Tim1987]

Fems are absolutely not gmo. Thier dna or genes are not modified in any way.

You use colloidal silver or silver thiosulfate to spray the plants to block ethylene which is responsible for flowering. When you block ethylene you cause the plant to express male parts.

They are not gmo.

WBB,

This process naturally doesn't sit well with me.
As explained in the video above as well, i believe this can be manipulated.

I dont need the "is", or "isn't" to understand all this.
I need to know the "why".

It's all very well and good to say something is or isn't. But why?
I need to understand this process. So i stop questioning the matter.

Please dude. Im not trying to oppose you either. Im trying to learn.