Fem seeds ???

ace720

Active Member
I just wanted to know why some ppl dont like fem seeds? Can someone help me out with a little knowledge. Are reg seeds better? I read on one post this guy say with the same strand from the same breeder the fem seeds showed more sativa, and the regular seeds showed more indica. Whats up with that? Any ideas?
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
From my reading I've gathered a couple of things:
- Feminized plants can be more prone to herming with or without stress.
- This makes them less suitable for cloning and maintaining a cultivar.
- Depending on breeder, some feminized strains will give you significant (or even mostly) herms and even some outright males.
- Reg. seeds were never subjected to the artificial stresses needed to produce feminized seeds in the first place. On the first grow, you have to sort out the males, but once you've selected a keeper pheno, you are ahead of the game. All my 2¢ ... cn

As for the sativa/indica thing - it depends on strain and breeder. So mny of today's seed merchants don't stabilize their strains the way the old school, like Bros. Grimm, did. So that sort of variation will show up in the half-assed "breeders' " offerings.
 

ace720

Active Member
From my reading I've gathered a couple of things:
- Feminized plants can be more prone to herming with or without stress.
- This makes them less suitable for cloning and maintaining a cultivar.
- Depending on breeder, some feminized strains will give you significant (or even mostly) herms and even some outright males.
- Reg. seeds were never subjected to the artificial stresses needed to produce feminized seeds in the first place. On the first grow, you have to sort out the males, but once you've selected a keeper pheno, you are ahead of the game. All my 2¢ ... cn

As for the sativa/indica thing - it depends on strain and breeder. So mny of today's seed merchants don't stabilize their strains the way the old school, like Bros. Grimm, did. So that sort of variation will show up in the half-assed "breeders' " offerings.
wow thanks man you got some 411 rep for you
 

GenePerfect

Active Member
U can feminize your own seeds with colloidial silver, which is distilled water with ionised silver. Can be bought from some health/ natural online shops, or make it. Fem seeds are your way of knowing you wont have to pull males, unless something else happens.
 

ace720

Active Member
U can feminize your own seeds with colloidial silver, which is distilled water with ionised silver. Can be bought from some health/ natural online shops, or make it. Fem seeds are your way of knowing you wont have to pull males, unless something else happens.
oh thanks buddy
 

althor

Well-Known Member
Ok I have a problem with the first response right off.

First thing said is "From my reading"

Now I will try to make this abit more helpful...


FROM MY EXPERIENCE

I have never had a feminized seed hermie. Not once, not ever.

Those who I have "read" complaining about feminized seeds being hermie prone after abit of questioning admit to 1 of 3 things..
1. They havent grown them, only read what others have said about them.
2. They have had hermie problems throughout their grows, regardless of type of seeds/strains/genetics.
3. The seeds came from breeders with KNOWN hermie problems, not just in the feminized seeds, throughout their genetic stables.


Moral to the story is, the internet is FULL of false information and propoganda.
Truth is, if the breeder knows what they are doing, and does it right, with the right genetics, female seeds are terrific.
At this point, most breeders know exactly how to do it right.
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
You could give that post some real authority by listing the known good/ known bad/ not determined breeders by name. A voracious reader (as I am) would consider that a valuable service.

I was up front and qualified my post. I am currently having my first flirtation with feminized seeds, but with two plants growing I won't pretend to having meaningful experience. cn
 

edsthreads

Well-Known Member
I have found regular seeds to be more stable & true & fem seeds can be very hit & miss at least with regs you have a 50/50 chance of it being a female & usually a good one at that. With female you have a higher rate of getting a female but the genetics can be a bit off.. that's why many people do not like them they are not as stable as regular seeds & from what I have found this is true.

As an example: Nirvana Seeds - Very hit & miss, usually unstable genes, but you can get very lucky.
Sensi Seeds - Very good genetics but very pricey, you will find it hard to get a freak from the 'high end' seed companies like Sensi & White Label seeds

This is only from my personal experience so people will prob have their own opinions on the above seed companies.
 

Guile

Active Member
Much like althor I have not encountered hermaphrodites at anything near the frequency people would seem to suggest..

I only once hermaphrodited female plants and it was exclusively for the purpose of obtaining feminized seeds. This was back in the late 90's and probably among the first set of experiments I conducted on pot plants. I doubt there was any control established for comparisons (regardless, I've since lost the journal that contained the specific info)..

If I'm not mistaken I light stressed a couple plants and allowed them to seed out naturally (which I believe they did quite impressively). Both plants produced alot of seeds and all that I grew out were female, with no (0) occurrence of hermaphrodites. (though I only sprouted a small fraction of them).

Since then I have read more about how inbreeding a plant could cause "genetically weak" plants that are more prone to hermaphrodisum and I can believe it in the scope of a preexisting genetic disposition to producing hermaphrodites becoming more prevalent in the offspring of an inbred plant. However if there is no underlining genetic predisposition to produce hermaphrodites in the first place I find it unlikely that you would encounter a dramatic occurrence of hermaphrodites among its offspring.

Regardless I believe that breeders may avoid this entire train of thought by breeding hermaphrodites to other female plants (that are not clones of itself). so that the more desirable (common/shared) traits of the parrents are more likely expressed than an undesirable recessive trait of either..
 

althor

Well-Known Member
I have found regular seeds to be more stable & true & fem seeds can be very hit & miss at least with regs you have a 50/50 chance of it being a female & usually a good one at that. With female you have a higher rate of getting a female but the genetics can be a bit off.. that's why many people do not like them they are not as stable as regular seeds & from what I have found this is true.

As an example: Nirvana Seeds - Very hit & miss, usually unstable genes, but you can get very lucky.
Sensi Seeds - Very good genetics but very pricey, you will find it hard to get a freak from the 'high end' seed companies like Sensi & White Label seeds

This is only from my personal experience so people will prob have their own opinions on the above seed companies.
I can agree with what you are saying. I generally go with 1-2 fem and 1-2 regulars each batch. I use fems to guarantee a spot in the box and regulars to look for those "wow" phenotypes. But at the same time I think the mother plant genetics and breeders play a significant roll in what is really good and not.

I have grown several DNA/Reserva feminized strains multiple times. The genetics have been pretty stable with very high quality product.
I have grown several strains from Dinafem. What I tend to say about them is, "they give a fair representation of the strain" It isnt going to be the talk of your garden but you will get very solid plants.
I have grown several strains from Female seeds. The C99 hybrid I put into jars 2 days ago seems to be fantastic. I havent messed with it really, waiting to give it plenty of cure time before I really sample it, but I expect it to be incredible. When I transfered my buds from the brown grocery sack into the jars, I had some shake left over at the bottom. Took about 3-4 one hits off of it and was getting a little bit trippy vision out of the corners of my eyes along with a very heads-on buzz.
I have a BF Tangerine Dream feminized in veg right now, first BF feminized I have grown, we will see how it is.
I have a Royal Queen seeds feminized Blue Mistic in flowering right now, showing female. Had a deep purple growing right along side it, ended up being male, shredded and disposed.


As far as "bad" well based on my experiences, I havent gotten to the bad breeders yet. Alot of the female hermie threads I read end up being seeds from Greenhouse. I cant say since I havent grown any of theirs, but I can say I wont bother growing any of theirs.
 
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