super new

Will be starting first grow this weekend and using bag seeds until I get the hang of it. My question is, without knowing the gender of the seeds, how many should I germinate? I’m starting small, but hoping to be able to fit 3 plants into my 2x2 tent. My instincts say to germinate 6 seeds (assuming 50/50 chance at getting female) but the possibility of getting more than 3 females is making me rethink this approach. Should I start at 3 at a time and keep the plants in veg stage until I get 3 females? I will eventually start getting seeds from a bank but don’t want to waste my tester seeds before then. New to the community so thanks for any advice!

I am also fairly new and on my 3rd grow. I did the same thing as you, started with bag seed so i didnt waste my money on fems til I got the hang of it.

I was hoping for 4 plants for my 4x4. I germinated 12, assuming 50/50 ratio might not be in my favor and that all might not germinate.

In the end only 7 fully geminated and they were ALL females. I kept them all even though I had lack of space because, during my first grow, I couldn't bear killing 1. Lol. Good luck and happy growing. Welcome to the community!

Welcome to RIU. So a lot of plants won’t show gender until they are under 12/12 Lighting. Normally in a 2x2 I’d put 1 or 2 plants max but In your situation with the 2x2 I might be tempted to drop 8 seeds,Veg and top them at the 3rd node and flip them to 12/12. Then cull them to 4 females. Planning to have 4-6 colas per plant.

Thanks for the replies. My supplies don’t come in till later this week but I’m hoping to be able to fit 3 3 gallon pots in my tent (9” diameter) staggered. Is it safe to put more than one plant in these pots? My research says no but I haven’t really spoken with experienced growers. I intent on germinating in solo cups with jiffy peat pellets and transplanting to 3 gallon smart pots in a coco coir/perlite medium.

I think you’d be better off with individual smaller pots. You really don’t know what to expect from bag seed. They all could be really different from each other growth wise. Also if you cull out a male in a pot with other plants there are the dying decaying roots to consider. Once you find the keepers maybe bump those up a size. In order to keep things manageable in 2x2 you’re not going to want to Veg for very long. You might want to consider individual 2 gallon pots to keep the plants smaller.