Regular cannabis seeds offer endless possibilities for budding cultivators to experiment. In the beginning of Sensi Seeds (and the European cannabis seed market), a seed was simply a regular seed soaked in water and left to germinate. Today, many use the term regular cannabis seeds to distinguish the original “regular” seeds from feminized or autoflowering seeds. Autoflowering seeds are normally used as organic fertilizers in indoor gardens, because they do not require the extra time needed to complete the germination cycle of regular seeds, and they produce a larger yield.
Cultivating cannabis with regular seeds is a simple process of soaking, removing the top of the seed, leaving the remainder on the bottom and allowing it to soak some more. Germination is completed when the top of the seed starts to soak up water from the soil. Some of the easiest and quickest ways to cultivate regular cannabis seeds is through clones. Creating clones requires nothing more than patience, some sterile media and access to your mother plants.
The simplest way to create a clone is to remove a normal female plant from your garden and cut off the peduncle – that area just above the seeds. Then take that cut and stick into a jar containing some sterile media, such as a bag of seeds. Put that into a plastic container and cover the container with some artificial soil, like potting soil. Just wait and watch your female plants grow!
Another way to clone your regular cannabis seeds is through sexual means. This method is not recommended unless you plan to keep the clones as just that: miniature plants. In this case, the buds are considered to be regular cannabis seeds, and all you really have to do is produce feminized seeds through sexual intercourse. However, if producing mini-growths is what you want, then it is recommended that you buy feminized seeds, as opposed to crossbred or feminized buds.
Many strains have been created by crossbreeding certain strains together to create a super-strain. Super-strains can be crossbred to create a new ‘hybrid’ strain – or, put another way, a new variety. Hybrid strains can also be bred to increase their yields. In most cases, this is not desirable, as increasing the yield is usually for ‘medical’ purposes – as opposed to creating a new ‘style’ of cannabis. If you do not want to breed your regular seeds with other kinds of cannabis, then there are many great indoor gardening books out there that show you how to start your own breeding system. Just make sure you do not end up with something that is highly hybrid and highly demanding on the environment!
One great way to get feminized seeds is to buy plants that have already been grown in organic growing conditions – such as hydroponics. Hydroponics is where plants are grown in water, without soil. It is a highly effective and very environmentally friendly way to grow cannabis. As such, hydroponics is often used as a way to breed certain types of plants that will then be feminized. The plants grown in hydroponics are usually extremely resilient, meaning that many different types of plants can be grown in one small growing room. You can use hydroponics as a breeding method to produce regular cannabis seeds, or to get feminized plants from another kind of cannabis.
Another great way to get feminized seeds is to collect female plants from somewhere else and then take them to a greenhouse. In a greenhouse, the heat of the sun can actually heat up the water contained within the female plants’ roots. This allows the seeds to germinate faster than they would in a traditional greenhouse. As such, hydroponic collecting female plants is highly beneficial – particularly if you want regular seeds made with feminized seeds, rather than ones that grow randomly.
Of course, it is also possible to collect regular cannabis seeds from males. But this method is much more challenging for reasons which will become clear. Collecting males from anywhere other than female plants can actually be dangerous. And since the male plant‘s ph levels are not yet adjusted to meet up with the females’, this can end in some of the most unlikely hybrid offspring ever created. Therefore, unless you are willing to risk having your gardens and lives ruined, it is best to collect females from other sources.