Three (3) months ago, my ex-dealer (and good friend) gave me a ziplock full of seeds. He told me that in one of his gardens, a plant turned into a hermie and pollinated some of the other plants, so he had thousands of seeds to spare.
I germinated 10 seeds. To my surprise, all of them were female! So I kept the best looking ones (7 total) and started my first grow.
The plants (my 7 and about 50 of my dealer's clones) were put at the same time on 12/12, in a room with close to ideal conditions (air cond., sealed, co2, 4 x 1,000 HPS). My plants always looked better than his clones, but on day ~40 while I was inspecting them I noticed that 3 of them were hermies! I was like, how can this be? They are healthier than his clones, fed the same thing and kept in the same room, yet 3 of my 7 plants were hermies and none of his 50 had any problems.
So then I read a little about feminized seeds and to my surprise, they consist of female plants pollinated with the pollen of a hermie. What the fuck?!
These fuckers say that "by the method we found, we are able to have these female clones produce abundant male flowers and pollen."
Yeah? What does the method consist of... stressing the plant to the point of making her think she's gonna die then taking pollen. Complete bull shit if you ask me.
IMO, buying a feminized seed is not such a good idea. For starters, it's one thing to buy a regular seed and discard any males early in the flowering process, so there's no chance for your whole crop to get pollinated. But if you have a female that will turn into a hermie, then you're fucked because you'll have to pay close attention to your plants to see if they are turning into hermies. Then, if you discover that one of your plants turned into a hermie, you have the dilemma of deciding what you're gonna do with the plant (should I keep it in the room, should I kill it... but what about all that bud?).
Finally, since this feminized thing is kind of new, there's no studies showing the genetic implications of breeding such a seed. I mean, suppose your fem. seed mother turns out fine (not hermie)... does that mean that the clones are safe from turning into hermies? What if the mother turns out to be a hermie... will her clones be hermies as well? Some of them? All of them?
I will be honest, the buds of my 7 plants were awesome. Luckily, none of the other plants were pollinated (we left the hermies in the same room), so my experience was not all that bad. But these seeds were free, and it was my first grow.
If you plan on buying some seeds to keep a mother plant, my suggestion would be to buy regular seeds. Why pay more for feminized seeds?
If I'm missing something, please be my guest and make me look like an idiot.
I germinated 10 seeds. To my surprise, all of them were female! So I kept the best looking ones (7 total) and started my first grow.
The plants (my 7 and about 50 of my dealer's clones) were put at the same time on 12/12, in a room with close to ideal conditions (air cond., sealed, co2, 4 x 1,000 HPS). My plants always looked better than his clones, but on day ~40 while I was inspecting them I noticed that 3 of them were hermies! I was like, how can this be? They are healthier than his clones, fed the same thing and kept in the same room, yet 3 of my 7 plants were hermies and none of his 50 had any problems.
So then I read a little about feminized seeds and to my surprise, they consist of female plants pollinated with the pollen of a hermie. What the fuck?!
These fuckers say that "by the method we found, we are able to have these female clones produce abundant male flowers and pollen."
Yeah? What does the method consist of... stressing the plant to the point of making her think she's gonna die then taking pollen. Complete bull shit if you ask me.
IMO, buying a feminized seed is not such a good idea. For starters, it's one thing to buy a regular seed and discard any males early in the flowering process, so there's no chance for your whole crop to get pollinated. But if you have a female that will turn into a hermie, then you're fucked because you'll have to pay close attention to your plants to see if they are turning into hermies. Then, if you discover that one of your plants turned into a hermie, you have the dilemma of deciding what you're gonna do with the plant (should I keep it in the room, should I kill it... but what about all that bud?).
Finally, since this feminized thing is kind of new, there's no studies showing the genetic implications of breeding such a seed. I mean, suppose your fem. seed mother turns out fine (not hermie)... does that mean that the clones are safe from turning into hermies? What if the mother turns out to be a hermie... will her clones be hermies as well? Some of them? All of them?
I will be honest, the buds of my 7 plants were awesome. Luckily, none of the other plants were pollinated (we left the hermies in the same room), so my experience was not all that bad. But these seeds were free, and it was my first grow.
If you plan on buying some seeds to keep a mother plant, my suggestion would be to buy regular seeds. Why pay more for feminized seeds?
If I'm missing something, please be my guest and make me look like an idiot.
