From Norcal Farms:
Question: What is a feminized seed?
Answer: Here’s what High Times had to say…
Some of the best breeders in the world offer feminized lines and more join them every day. They’re big in Europe, representing over 90% of sales in some countries, states Green House seeds.
Feminized genetics are ideal for quick and easy growing and flowering, Sensi Seeds writes. “With feminized seeds, gardeners decide how many bushes they want, germinate that number of seeds, then simply grow, flower and reap their rewards.”
Breeders make feminized seeds by stressing a female plant into growing male sex features like pollen, and then using this pollen to fertilize another female. The resulting seeds lack male chromosomes.
Stressing products in use include eliteXelite, the hormone giberillic acid, or the more popular silver thiosulfate solution, Cervantes said.
There is little difference in aroma, flavor, and THC levels between a regular and ‘fem’ variety,
High Times reports. But feminized seeds got a bad reputation due to early efforts with plants that had high hermaphroditic tendencies.
“The problem with this method is that subsequent generations will have the same latent intersex tendencies. Stress also brings on inter¬sex tendencies earlier,” said Cervantes.
Modern techniques coax pollen from highly unhermaphroditic strains, but they’re still not the best mothers.
Hard core growers turn their nose up at feminized seeds,
Cannabis Culture writes, and prefer mother plants and clones. But outside The Netherlands and North America (where shipping seeds breaks federal law) cloning isn’t as popular.
Feminized seeds are great for growers without access to clean clones, or for demoing an exotic strain you can’t get in clone form locally, or for folks that don’t want to clone their own — especially newcomers, and guerrilla growers.
MORE: It has been our experience that feminized seeds suck. Because a Feminized seed has been treated or stressed to become Feminized, all of that trauma and or hormonal treatment is turned into genetic information that is carried on to offspring. Seeds that are feminized are NOT stabilized sexually and in our OPINION, they are weakened and confused. Feminized plants tend to freak out from any stress from lighting, feeding and or temperature. Using Feminized seeds can become your worst nightmare when you find your finished crop has seeds! *A quick note and reminder that Feminized seeds may also be an unstable strain as well as unstable sexually.