Choosing between the different types of cannabis seeds can be difficult. If you’re just out to buy cannabis seeds, you’ll mainly want to know that:
Feminized seeds grow female plants that flower buds and are the staple for the average grower.
Autoflower seeds grow smaller plants that are easier to grow and perfect for new growers.
If you want to learn more about regular, autoflower, feminized, and more seed types, you’ve come to the right place!
To fully understand cannabis seed types it’s good to learn a bit about cannabis plant reproduction.
A female plant grows pistils which can catch male plant pollen so the female can then grow seeds for their continued heritage.
As growers, we don’t want this because female plants that don’t get fertilized by pollen will continue to grow their flowers instead of growing seeds.
Male vs female cannabis seeds
Male vs female cannabis seeds
Female cannabis seeds grow a female cannabis plant. This is the plant that is desired by growers because only female plants generate flowers, AKA bud, that you can consume.
Male cannabis seeds grow male plants. These generate pollen that can fertilize female plants. Male plants are mainly interesting if you’re in the business of producing your own offspring seeds.
Male plants grow faster than their female counterparts. Their reproductive parts give it away, so you can tell if a plant is a male or female when it shows its sex. When it starts to flower, and the first flower pistils and oval pods appear, you can tell if a plant is female. A male plant will show small buds that look like balls around one to three weeks earlier. Not only that, male plants will grow taller than female plants due to their speedier growth.
So, are female weed seeds better? For the average grower, female seeds are desirable. Female plants grow the buds that we all love. While you can grow your own seeds using the pollination from a male plant, it’s much easier to procure female seeds, to begin with.
Can you tell if a seed is male or female?
Unfortunately, you can’t see from the seed if it will grow into a male or female plant. The only way to find out is to pop it and grow it. After a few weeks, you’ll start to see pollen sacs or female pistils. That’s when you’ll know. Be careful not to let those male plants pollinate your females!
Regular vs Feminized seeds
Next, we’ll discuss the difference between regular seeds and feminized seeds.
Regular vs feminized seeds
What are regular cannabis seeds?
Regular seeds are called so because they grow naturally (or ‘regularly’) from the plant’s reproduction process. When grown naturally, you don’t know if the offspring seed is a boy or a girl. So regular seeds can be either male or female and grow into either male or female plants.
You cannot see from the regular seed if it is a male or female seed. It is virtually impossible to tell from the look of the cannabis seed if it will turn out to grow into a male or a female plant later on. The ratio for male-to-female growth with feminized seeds is approximately 66% female. But when you start growing, it’s in your best interest to just assume that 50% of the seeds will end up being male. You should germinate a few extra seeds to make up for the males that you have to discard later on.
Regular weed seeds that have sprouted
Regular cannabis seeds are considered stronger than feminized seeds. Because they’ve grown naturally, they are more stable and possess stronger genetics. This makes them better suited for cloning than their feminized counterparts.
If you want to breed cannabis and produce new seeds, then you need both male and female plants. If you have no interest in breeding and you just want to have some outstanding bud, then feminized seeds might be a better choice.
Regulars are slightly harder to grow because you don’t know what you get. My free Grow Bible helps staying on top of your grow and prevent your males from pollinating your crop and ruining your harvest.
What are feminized cannabis seeds?
In contrast to regular seeds, feminized marijuana seeds are bred specifically to eliminate male chromosomes, effectively ensuring that every plant in the crop is going to be female.
This takes away the stress of potential male plants pollinating your females and ruining your grow. If you’re looking for fast and simple cultivation, then feminized seeds are where you want to be. For the average grower, these are the pros of choosing feminized seeds:
Feminized seeds are guaranteed to grow buds
You save on seeds as you don’t need to sprout more than you need
Feminized seeds will not pollinate and ruin your crop
You don’t have to weed out any male plants
Feminized seeds are manipulated to guarantee female plants
The process of manipulating seeds to ensure female plants is called feminizing. There are different methods to feminize budding seeds. Go here if you want to know how to make feminized cannabis seeds. All of the feminized seeds of ILGM are created with this method.
Feminizing is not the same as genetically modified, meaning that genes are neither added to nor removed from the plant. The parent plants themselves could be considered “physically modified” by silver, but the seeds themselves are produced naturally through pollination.
If you want to go deeper down the rabbit hole, read What are feminized seeds?
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Feminized vs autoflower seeds
Over time, autoflowers have become more and more popular. Even so that most beginner growers prefer autoflowers over feminized seeds. To understand why, we have to touch on photoperiod seeds.
Feminized vs autoflower seeds
What are photoperiod cannabis seeds?
Cannabis plants naturally grow over the course of a single season. They sprout in Spring, grow over the Summer, and bloom in the Fall to then die off. This process is regulated through the amount of daily light, AKA the photoperiod. Plants recognize that they need to start maturing before the onset of winter.
Regular, female, male, or feminized seeds are usually photoperiod seeds. On the other end of the spectrum, we have autoflowering seeds. They will enter the flowering stage even if they receive a full 24 hours of light.
What are autoflowering cannabis seeds?
Autoflowering seeds grow into autoflowering plants. Contrary to photoperiod seeds, autoflowers are bred specifically to bloom automatically within just a few short weeks. Regardless of the daily amount of light that it’s exposed to. The daylight hour decrease and a change in season are not necessary for these plants to flower.
Features of the plants grown from autoflower seeds:
Autoflowers grow 12 to 23 inches tall (30 to 60 centimeters)
It starts flowering automatically after around 3 weeks
From seed to harvest takes about 9 to 12 weeks
Yield between 5 to 15 oz per plant
Suitable for indoor and outdoor growth
These are the main aspects but head here to check out this full comparison between autoflowers and photoperiods.
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Autoflowering for a stress-free grow
All our autoflowers are feminized
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Feminized autoflower seeds
Feminized autoflower seeds are seeds that bloom automatically within a few weeks and are guaranteed to produce buds because they are female plants. At ILGM we want everyone to grow worry-free bud. So, all autoflowers in our seed bank are feminized.
Male autoflower seeds
Can Autoflower seeds be male? Yes!
Regular autoflower seeds grow plants that flower automatically, but they can turn out to be either male or female plants. So if you’re in the market to find male autoflower seeds, look for regular autoflowers.
Choosing your type of cannabis seeds
Choosing the best marijuana seeds to grow depends on many things, not least what type of cannabis you actually prefer to grow or smoke. Read a lot about the different types of strains and note that some marijuana seeds are engineered to be grown indoors, and some seeds outdoors.
Some marijuana cultivars (strains) are more difficult to grow than others. Similarly, some have been engineered to be easy to grow, resistant to pests, and can handle a lot more stress. If you’re new to growing marijuana, it is best to choose an easy strain to grow.
In my online seed shop, you can select marijuana seeds by type, climate, yield, and difficulty. We ship across all U.S. states, discreetly and for free, and have been doing so for over a decade.
I love to talk about marijuana, so here are some more sources if you want to learn more about cannabis seeds:
Happy growing!
Robert
PS. Go here if you want to save a dime and receive weekly seed deals from my store!
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