Will seeds from a female plant be female?

Recently, more and more growers are choosing to buy feminized cannabis seeds and remove male plants, which are much poorer in cannabinoids than females, from their gardens. Those who want to go further and engage in the cultivation and selection of marijuana on their own are wondering: can female seeds be used for this? If you are also interested in whether plants grown from feminized seeds will produce the same feminized offspring, read our article.

Where Do Feminized Seeds Come From?

Feminized marijuana seeds are widely available and can be easily purchased online from seed banks around the world. For example, on the Herbies website, you can find over 2,000 feminized seeds for every taste. Few growers want to mess around with separating male and female plants during the growing process, so there are far fewer buyers of regular sorts for sale.

Experiments with obtaining feminized seeds began in the 1980s, and at first, this product was considered toxic and unreliable due to a large number of hermaphrodites. However, after 10 years, breeders have learned to produce feminized seeds that give 99.9 out of 100 female cannabis plants.

To achieve the desired effect, breeders subject the mother plants to genetic manipulation to induce the female plants to produce pollen. The pollen of such plants does not contain male chromosomes and therefore will produce exclusively female offspring.

Ways to Feminize Cannabis Seeds

Usually, only male plants produce pollen, but under the influence of stress factors, the procreation mode is turned on in female plants and they begin to produce pollen on their own. There are several ways to start this process and get pollen containing exclusively female chromosomes:

• Spraying with colloidal silver. As the plant begins to flower, breeders spray the buds with colloidal silver. This causes the growth of pollen sacs, the pollen from which can be used to fertilize the female plant.

• Treatment with silver thiosulfate. This substance inhibits the production of ethylene in the plant and stimulates it to produce pollen. The genetic mutation caused by this process also produces pollen to produce feminized cannabis seeds.

• Rodelization is a method without using chemicals in which the female plant is left in the flowering phase for so long that the self-pollination mechanism is activated.

Seeds obtained by any of these methods generally produce female offspring. However, there is no 100% guarantee that a male plant will not grow from feminized seed. That is why feminized seed producers are advised to closely monitor plants during growth and remove plants that begin to form pollen sacs in time.

Can Plants From Feminized Seeds Be Used For Further Breeding?

Plants germinated from feminized seeds will not produce offspring without additional pollination. If you removed all the males in time, then the appearance of pollen and the start of the process of seed formation is impossible. The exceptions are plants that have been in the flowering phase for too long and have entered the process of natural rodelization. However, experienced growers do not recommend using seeds obtained in this way for further cultivation due to the high probability of obtaining hermaphrodite plants.