Do Not Buy Feminized Seed!

kushkilla said:

This explains a lot. What methods are YOUR favorite breeder using to achieve feminized seed?

Early feminized marijuana seeds usually were made with two female marijuana plants, one of which had been identified as having hermaphrodite tendencies, i.e. prone to produce male marijuana flowers when it was stressed. The intersexual-prone marijuana plant would be stressed with light cycle interruption or pruning and encouraged to produce male marijuana flowers, the pollen from which would be applied to the ‘true’ female (i.e. a plant that did not easily display intersexuality when stressed). The downside of this method was that the female marijuana ‘pollen donors’ were individuals which had quite a strong tendency to turn intersexual, and that this tendency was very likely to be inherited by the feminized seeds produced in this way.

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That's interesting...I never heard of using two females as you described. Two years ago, I had traveled across the pond and visited a well known breeder. Very strict standards were used in every single step of their process. I was only allowed to look thru a glass window on two of the rooms. They did AI (pollen painting) and physical breeding. I also learned how to look at beans and have a fairly high female/male identification rate. That's where I also learned to be selective on the male and/or female to use. I do not have any where near the equipment or room setup like they did, but I improvise and seem to still do great for my purpose. It's also interesting to try different things in the grow season.

sherman420 said:

Awesome thread!

Nice to hear from fellow anglers and hunters. Had a shifty night at work. It's a breath of fresh air to correspond with intellectual folks.

Keep it up.

Sherman420

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Sorry to hear that you had a bad day at work. Load that pipe and coast for a bit (lol). Tomorrow is going to be a great day for you! Peace

Thanks Brother,

Just came off a two week vacation. First day back always sucks! I took you're advice. I'm chillin in bed with my Blue Tick Beagle. I think she's dreaming of squirrels. She hates them.

Sherman420

kushkilla said:

Not really , just an attention grabber. So heres my gripe about feminized seed. I know this will ignite a flame under someones ass but here goes. I'm not a fan of fem seeds because> Lots of seed breeders use manipulation to create them, resulting in unstable seeds-Herms. I hear people bitch and bitch about how there fem seeds are weak, hermies, or didn't germinate. Now from my experience, I have had some great, vigorous fems, and I have had some terrible, weakly, hermy prone fems. But know that some strains are hermie prone. A ten pack of regular seeds I usually get about a 100 to 90% germination, and some strains 80% female rate, and in a ten pack of seeds I have never had more males than females. Never. And the benefit of a big musty male to breed with is priceless, backcross him to your best lady and you have a ton of dank ass seeds. Really what is the fuss and benefit of fem seeds? Once you have a keeper mother you have her feminized or regular. and regular seeds are cheaper for twice the amount of seeds. you pay 100$ get 5 seed four sprout two are hermie now u have two plants to chose from one is so -so now you have to go with the remaining lady. I pay 100$ get 9 sprouts five are female two are exceptional I probably keep both and one male is stallone. or maybe van dam in his prime. The rock? Im just saying I prefer regular seeds. Comments? Opinions?

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I don't have trouble with fem seeds herming . I don't have room to grow a crop where I will have to cull half on average because they are males.

Understood Red. Some strains weather regular or feminized seeds are just prone to herming under minimal stress. But a plant need not be a giant, one month into growth to determine if it is male of female. I can see the advantages of fem seeds for some. I too am in the deep south and marijuana advocacy, legalization and regulation sucks! thinking its about time to move out west!

If you're a strait outdoor guerrilla grower then fem seeds are a blessing and a half.
I've ran reg seeds.
You start em in April. They veg til August and then start throwing pistils or balls. After you chop your males your patch of 10 is now a patch of 5 (at a 50/50 sex ratio) All of your patches were just cut in half. Maybe you luck out and get more females? But that's still a huge loss.
That's MONTHS of good grow time flushed right down the toilet.
With fem seeds there's no worry of chop chop chop on half of them.
Hermies and runts?
I've never had a hermie.
I've had a runt or 3 in my time.....from both ends.
That's all in individual genetics and care/environment.
Even the best locked down genetics have slight variations here and there.

I did indoor grows before I did things outdoors. Same thing there. My indoor grows were done with regular seeds because I was learning from a guy with several under his belt. He preached the same thing about feminized seeds. Now that I know better I have to shake my head all the misinformation I was being bombarded with.
He still sticks to his guns no matter how much he's shown otherwise now. And honestly I get a chuckle now when he bitches about having to chop down 7-8 out of 15 plants in his setup.
If I up and decide to do some indoor stuff again I won't be wasting space with regular seeds. The whole "breeder gimmick" is a payoff in the end. If I'm paying a little bit more $ for beans and NOT having to do the chop chop chop on half my setup that's money, space and time well spent.
With regular seeds I'd be putting in twice as much time, space and work as I would be doing with feminized seeds.
Back in the day when I was put into the real world befriended a dude who was in my work trade and had been doing it for 20 years. He threw one sentence at me that's stuck with me until this day. I even repeat it to people to this day.
Work smart not hard.

"Work Smarter Not Harder" is eternal wisdom. I know we didn't learn it from the same person, so it brings to mind another phrase i really like: "Each One Teach One."

i just finished my first fem run....few nanners late in flower, just as i expected from the strain i was running, had nothing to do with being fems. i'm ordering another pack of the same strain and a few others from that breeder.

rob333 said:

yeah i dont use fem seeds as u cant get 100% fem anyways just a myth i have tryed femmed seeds from attitude seeds and 3 others the chance of them being female still was the same of the bag seeds i droped in bout 50 50 so why pay extra if the chances are the same and if u read the fine print from attitude seeds it does tell u that they cant guarantee 100% female i just do 12 each run some times i get six females this year i got 10 from bag seeds

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i got 20 from Amsterdam and 20 pop 20 grown 20 made me money. your getting your seeds from someone shit brother

An internationally respected magazine did side by side testing of Reg. vs Fem seeds. Guess what? The Fems had larger yields !
With that said. In all the years I've been growing. I can count on my fingers from ONE hand all the times I've had TRUE, repetitive herming of a strain. That has happened from BOTH reg and fem seeds.
The breeding practice's of MOST breeders is legit. I've done it (the right way) and simply do not have the time or space any more to dedicate to proper breeding practice. HUNDREDS of plants should be started to pick as few as 25 for the project.....and 25 is a low end number for good results!
The thing that makes me laugh is how I see posts here that state, "I crossed 1x with 1y and I've got this killer plant."
Yeah, right. No backcross, no nothing to stabilize, just 2 plants and they call it a success.....FAH. THIS practice is DE-STABILIZING the gene pool! What if this unstable plant is shared with friends and gets out to the public...What if it is grown out doors and a male is missed spilling pollen out for miles on the wind?...What if it slipped into some important breeding? I know, whats the real chance? But what if?

As far as bad seeds from breeders? Seller sites like the TUDE and HERBIE'S are RESELLERS, not the breeders. They get the seeds from the breeders and re-sell them. Do you know what your really getting is the right thing?
Sure, quality re-sellers are out there.....BUT, most of us old timers know of very BULLSHIT re-sellers too.
In the end. I hear of Arjon's "House" getting a bad rap. I've never had a problem from him. I here Doc Greenthumb getting blasted from time to time. Even The old white rasta, my friend Soma, gets some bad lip once in a while. How about Doggies Nuts (don't pop, weak, herms)?
If you run a re-selling op. What do you do with the non selling stuff on hand? Lets look at this problem with Doggies as the example. Their prices are,,well,,stupid! How many do you think they actually sell fresh? If the re-seller pays x dollars for x amount of Doggies seed packs and has trouble selling them. How many actually get rid of them after their prime has passed and get good fresh ones? This is not a grocery store where food has to be thrown out after it's freshness date has passed, because they have very careful oversight by State and Federal gov. agencies! Who oversees the resellers? GETTING MY POINT NOW?

Yes, there is some slipping in of "less" then the best quality seeds by almost every breeder, BUT those numbers are LOW and if you knew the numbers they have to produce. You would understand the minor slip.

Most breeders want to supply NOTHING but the best. If you have a problem with some seeds. By all means, REPORT it to the re-seller and document the contact. If they respond in an unsatisfactory way,,,,,then contact the breeder directly by HIS/HER web site and tell THEM what happened (include the contacting the seller story).
I'll bet the breeder will help clear up the problem.....They have for me, several times. From these contacts (They'll ask about how you grow, what you use and how long you've been doing this) I've been doing some test growing for several breeders over the years and we still stay in contact.

To make any such broad statement as "Fems suck" or "don't work" or "herm to much". Is simply ignorant ...... Your expressing opinion based on personal experience of what? One grow? How much experience is involved?

Sativied's

Sativied said:

Sure, blame it on feminized seeds.

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IS quite correct!!!

kushkilla said:

feminized seeds are a gimmick to get into your pockets

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Why do I have 99.9% success rate with feminized then?!

Every time someone gets a herm in a their journal, out of curiousity I ask them if they used fem or regular.

They always say fem.

I only use regular. I've grow for 2 years and never had a herm, I reveg plants all the time.

Unless you're only growing one plant ever at the location, why would you risk it? Just get regs, cull or breed the males and clone the bitches.

There is nothing wrong with buying feminized seed, just make sure you get seed from reputable dealers who know how to make feminized seed without including the hermie trait.

It is entirely possible to do this, it's called Selfing.

BenFranklin said:

There is nothing wrong with buying feminized seed, just make sure you get seed from reputable dealers who know how to make feminized seed without including the hermie trait.

It is entirely possible to do this, it's called Selfing.

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Yes feminized seeds can be made correctly with colloidal silver, but unless you do this yourself you really have no way of knowing if it's gona herm, no matter how 'reputable' the seed dealer may seem. And if you are going to the effort of making fem seeds yourself, you will need to start from reg seeds anyway to be safe so it's pointless in most scenarios.

alright, where to begin with this mess of a thread..
first of all, most all feminzed seeds today are made using a chemical such as collodial silver, which simply tells the plant to stop producing the hormone that creates female flowers, and instead, it now creates male flowers.. this chemical does absolutely nothing to the dna of the plant.. so, if you don't spray the plant with cs or w/e, the plant won't grow balls.. plan and simple, if the parent plant was stable, which all breeding plants should be, and doesn't show signs of intersex, then the only reason it grow balls was the introduction of a chemical..
feminized plants are no more likely to show intersex traits then regular seeds... it's all in the genetics you start with.. if the parents were stable, then guess what? so will the offspring.. if the parents where crazy loons and like to wear dresses, then guess what? more then likely the offspring will be the same, ie, parents that show intersex will usually pass that off to the offspring, but this goes for regular seeds, or feminized..
secondly, feminized seeds are about 99.9% sure to be female.. i've grown numerous fem'ed seeds from various breeders, and i've yet to get a male plant out of a pack of fem'ed beans.. i've also never had a hermie either, knock on wood, either from a fem'ed seed or a regular seed..
thirdly, some strains are just hermie prone as they came from hermie parents.. some of these strains are things like east coast sour diesel, trainwreck, og kush, girl scout cookies, and a few others i'm forgetting atm.. being that these plants were results of a hermie plant making seeds, usually when you run crosses of these plants, you will have a higher risk of plants showing intersex traits.. but, if you run plants that come from stable parents, then more then likely, you'll have stable offspring.. pretty much the same as people.. you know the old saying the apple don't fall far from the tree right? well, same with plants... yay, science is fun..

kushkilla said:

sorry bro but the sad truth is that every club and breeder does not practice good breeding to get feminized seed. Fem widow from a club dispensary may not be produced in the same manner that the breeder themselves achieve feminized seed. Read my post above. So true Zeddd, that's just horrible

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How about you do a search and read my posts in feminized seed discussions and get a clue about what 'so true' is? You're not the first to blame it on feminized seeds, won't be the last. You're just parroting the same old nonsense and I'm not going to refute that with facts, science and experience every frigging time another clown blames his failures on fem seeds or the fem process.

All you hermaphobists are going to get from me is "Sure blame it on feminized seeds", as it kind of says it all. It's also a nice way to weed out the useless nitwits not worthy of debating with. Anyone who claims fem seed has a higher chance of hermie because it's fem simply doesn't know at all what he/she is talking about. You'll find plenty of support though, plenty of people who flat out choose to remain ignorant. Baffling but "so true Zeddd, that's just horrible".

Northern Lights Grower said:

Yes feminized seeds can be made correctly with colloidal silver, but unless you do this yourself you really have no way of knowing if it's gona herm, no matter how 'reputable' the seed dealer may seem.

And if you are going to the effort of making fem seeds yourself, you will need to start from reg seeds anyway to be safe so it's pointless in most scenarios.

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Incorrect my man. You have no way of knowing if ANYTHING is going to herm without growing it out seeing for yourself, fem or reg. You could use cs yourself and if wouldn't increase or decrease your chances of herms in the offspring, because it's all on the parents. Not whether its from feminized seed or regular. Herm prone parents = herm prone offspring. How bad depends on the dna. Some plants don't pass on the herm trait to all it's offspring. And you can reverse plants that came from feminized seed without a problem, not pointless at all.

You know, internet weed forums weren't around when I was 2 years into growing. But if they were, you wouldn't catch me in a conversation dropping knowledge about shit I didn't understand very well.

I dunno, some of the best plants I've ever grown have been from the result of self pollination. In fact, any plant I've ever grown that was the result of a self pollination has been female, lol.

I've never noticed a difference in fem or reg seeds in the vigor department. Eitherway as a grower it's up to us to find the keepers. I think some people just have unrealistic expectations. They buy a ten pack of fem seeds and expect ten females with no variation in phenotype. They want/expect everything to be a keeper.

If you want to buy 10 seeds and have the majority of them be female, I would suggest buying fem seeds. If you don't mind the possibility of only getting a couple females in a ten pack, or you want/need a male, go regular. Genetically speaking there is no basis that fem seeds are less vigorous or more prone to hermie then regular seeds. They each have their place in growing.

i grew femmed autos from nirvana sees for two years. every single seed was female. 5 out of 5 every time. never had a herm.

GHS only sells fems, why do they seem to get such a bad rap for hermies and weak plants if the practice of feminized seeds doesn't lead to herm prone plants?

Serious question, I don't know enough about this subject to start making claims.

RQS does fems only as well and they have a page on their site that addresses hermies with fems.
http://www.royalqueenseeds.com/content/51-male-and-hermaphrodite-plants