If you’re thinking of growing your own cannabis crops, it’s important to understand all the factors involved in the growing process. To grow healthy plants that produce high yields of potent buds, you’ll have to make sure your crop has all the elements it needs to thrive. These include sunlight, nutrients, water, ventilation, and the right type of soil.
One of the biggest problems growers face is determining the genders of their plants at the proper times. Failing to overlook this one, seemingly minor, detail can mean the difference between enjoying a bountiful bud harvest and being extremely disappointed at the end of the growing season. Feminized seeds help mitigate this problem. Before you start shopping for feminized seeds, though, you’ll probably want to understand just what they are and why they’re so desirable.
Why Do I Need to Know If My Plants Are Guys or Girls?
Plants come in one of two broad categories: monoecious and dioecious. Monoecious plants are essentially both male and female. They can produce both pollen and flowers, and the offspring they create can do the same. Dioecious plants, like cannabis, can be either male or female. Females produce flowers, and males grow pollen sacs. From there, the males send their pollen to the females. Once the females have been pollinated, they produce seeds rather than the buds many growers are looking for.
When pollination takes place, the female plants direct their energy to make seeds instead of using them to develop buds. This greatly reduces the plants’ yields and detracts from their potency. You can prevent pollination by separating the male plants from the females at just the right time. Of course, determining which ones are guys and which ones are girls isn’t an easy feat, especially if you’re not sure what to look for. Besides, by the time they make their genders known, it’s often already too late to keep pollination from taking place.
What Are Feminized Cannabis Seeds?
As the name indicates, feminized cannabis seeds are seeds that only produce female plants. They’ve been genetically altered to remove all traces of male DNA from their internal makeup, so they can’t possibly develop into male plants. That means you don’t have to worry about figuring out which plants are males and separating them from the herd before they have a chance to pollinate and destroy your harvest plans. You’ll have plenty of juicy, potent buds that aren’t riddled with undesirable seeds.
Are There Any Drawbacks to Using Feminized Seeds?
In most cases, there really aren’t any drawbacks to using feminized seeds. They’re no more challenging to grow than standard seeds, and the plants they produce have the same requirements as their regular counterparts. One exception to the rule would be if you actually want the plants to pollinate. This might be the case if you’re trying to create your own unique hybrids to blend the traits of different cannabis strains. Otherwise, it’s just simpler and less precarious to work with feminized seeds.
Taking the Guesswork out of Growing Cannabis
For some highly experienced growers, determining the gender of regular cannabis plants and weeding out the males may be a fairly straightforward process. That’s not necessarily true for newcomers, and there’s always room for error. Why not take the guesswork out of the equation and take a surefire route to produce a satisfactory harvest of compound-rich buds? With feminized seeds, you can do just that.
