The truth behind Feminized Seeds

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.

My take on it is you want a female plant that resists the hermi trait. Meaning it is a real bitch to turn into a hermi by stressing it. So you have to resort to using cemicals that will turn it. I used Colloidal Silver for this. Lets say you have a plant that turned real easy. Like the one your dealer had happen. That plant wouldn't be a good plant to use the pollin from sence it turned so easy. He might not even have stressed it out. Now it pollinated all those other females. The seeds from it now pass on that trait of turning into a hermi real easy. The key is to find a plant that resists turning into a hermi. Thats a plant you want to use cause it is less likly to have offspring that will be hermi. Thats my take on it. I did turn one female and seeded another. I haven't tried the seeds yet. I am hoping I don't have your problem with a crop full of hermi's

I bought feminized seeds from BC bud depot and grew them for 6 weeks before switching over to 12/12. After one week I noticed a male flower on one of the plants. Two days later 3 more plants developed male flowers. Not hermies, strait up males. I wasted my fucking time and money on these pieces of shit for nothing. Don't waste your time and money on feminized seeds, if you do get females, they are likely to go hermie too. Do not buy feminized seeds, its a crock of shit. I'm so pissed, they told me they can't gauantee 100% female, but I got almost all males, I've had better luck with regular seeds. Just get normal seeds and clone them.

first off if you get fem'd seeds of a strain that is known to resist the hermie trait, you are very unlikely to get hermies... most fem'd seeds that turn hermie are from strains that have hermie tendencies... if you get fem'd seeds from a friend chances are the genetics, even tho they may have come from strong plants, are still weak in that area.. or the plants they come from are not hermie resistant... basically whether or not your fem'd seeds will turn hermie has more to do with the genetics of the strain you are growing than the fact that they are fem'd seeds...

although it has taken some time for them to get it down, fem'd seeds are getting much more female stable than they have been in the past.. when they were first introduced they were not very stable at all... but the more and more breeders have played with them the better the female rate and the less the hermie tendencies...

no matter how you look at it you are better off starting with female seeds.. and here is why.. when you start with mixed seeds you can get females, males, or hermies... with fem'd seeds you either get a female or a hermie.. you take one entire sex out of it... and also fem'd seeds, even if they do go hermie, are usually not near as bad as a stressed into hermie plant would be.. a fem'd seed to hermie plant, even if it does release pollen, will not pollinate near as bad/much as a stressed into hermie or male would/could.... so no matter how you slice it your still better off..

on the comment about BCBUDDEPOT... a good friend of mine got some seeds from there.. fem'd blueberries... he had a few end up as males also.. i have a few of them from him.. and im worried that they might end up as males also.. point is apparently bcbuddepot has shitty fem'd seeds...

simpsonsampson420 said:

first off if you get fem'd seeds of a strain that is known to resist the hermie trait, you are very unlikely to get hermies... most fem'd seeds that turn hermie are from strains that have hermie tendencies... if you get fem'd seeds from a friend chances are the genetics, even tho they may have come from strong plants, are still weak in that area.. or the plants they come from are not hermie resistant... basically whether or not your fem'd seeds will turn hermie has more to do with the genetics of the strain you are growing than the fact that they are fem'd seeds...

although it has taken some time for them to get it down, fem'd seeds are getting much more female stable than they have been in the past.. when they were first introduced they were not very stable at all... but the more and more breeders have played with them the better the female rate and the less the hermie tendencies...

no matter how you look at it you are better off starting with female seeds.. and here is why.. when you start with mixed seeds you can get females, males, or hermies... with fem'd seeds you either get a female or a hermie.. you take one entire sex out of it... and also fem'd seeds, even if they do go hermie, are usually not near as bad as a stressed into hermie plant would be.. a fem'd seed to hermie plant, even if it does release pollen, will not pollinate near as bad/much as a stressed into hermie or male would/could.... so no matter how you slice it your still better off..

on the comment about BCBUDDEPOT... a good friend of mine got some seeds from there.. fem'd blueberries... he had a few end up as males also.. i have a few of them from him.. and im worried that they might end up as males also.. point is apparently bcbuddepot has shitty fem'd seeds...

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Yeah, what he said...

I'll keep using feminized seed whenever posible, and crossing my hermies with select females when I want free seed.

simpsonsampson420 said:

first off if you get fem'd seeds of a strain that is known to resist the hermie trait, you are very unlikely to get hermies... most fem'd seeds that turn hermie are from strains that have hermie tendencies... if you get fem'd seeds from a friend chances are the genetics, even tho they may have come from strong plants, are still weak in that area.. or the plants they come from are not hermie resistant... basically whether or not your fem'd seeds will turn hermie has more to do with the genetics of the strain you are growing than the fact that they are fem'd seeds...

although it has taken some time for them to get it down, fem'd seeds are getting much more female stable than they have been in the past.. when they were first introduced they were not very stable at all... but the more and more breeders have played with them the better the female rate and the less the hermie tendencies...

no matter how you look at it you are better off starting with female seeds.. and here is why.. when you start with mixed seeds you can get females, males, or hermies... with fem'd seeds you either get a female or a hermie.. you take one entire sex out of it... and also fem'd seeds, even if they do go hermie, are usually not near as bad as a stressed into hermie plant would be.. a fem'd seed to hermie plant, even if it does release pollen, will not pollinate near as bad/much as a stressed into hermie or male would/could.... so no matter how you slice it your still better off..

on the comment about BCBUDDEPOT... a good friend of mine got some seeds from there.. fem'd blueberries... he had a few end up as males also.. i have a few of them from him.. and im worried that they might end up as males also.. point is apparently bcbuddepot has shitty fem'd seeds...

Click to expand...

sounds about right bro. shit i took bag seed i had 10 of them and all of them germinated and then i took the thickest stalk 1 out and what do i get a female and the rest was shitty lol. so i have my luck either way it is lol and i was doing fucked up light schedules n shit man .

Taking one whole sex out of the equation is fine and dandy but that doesn't relieve the problem of having a hermie plant that won't get you nearly as high as a female And not to mention makes you very sleepy afterwards. I don't want any kind of low grade smoke so I'll keep taking my chances and buying regular seeds for good female smoke.

I also don't buy into the idea that fem seeds are more stable today then years ago. I 100% believe companies like nirvana don't really take the time to breed or put effort into the future outcome of their seeds.

its almost impossible to take hermies out of the situation tho.. even with mixed seeds.. there is always a chance for a female to go hermie... some strains are notorious for going hermie in the last few weeks of flowering.. in nature if there is a large group of females together it is not uncommon for one or more of them to turn hermie to ensure seed production and thus survival... you can stress a female into hermie.. sadly hermies are one of those things you cant get away from.. it is always present in varrying degrees.. your chances of a female are only as strong as the genetics the plant comes from... fem'd seeds dont increase your chance of getting a hermie over mixed seeds... your chances are a lot less in fact... as long as the strain your are getting has good solid genetics you should get all female seeds.. but as with mixed seeds there is still a chance, even tho its a lot less, that you can end up with a hermie...