Cannabis cultivation starts with choosing the right seed between regular, feminized, and autoflowering depending on your plant plans.
Your choice of seed goes a long, long way toward how easy your grow will be, how much effort you will need to put in, and what kind of product you will be harvesting.
Whether you are growing for personal, medicinal, experimentation, or commercial production, the right cannabis seed is the first step toward a satisfying harvest.
Understanding cannabis seed types and how they affect growing goals is key to the difference between a disappointing harvest and a bountiful grow.
Notably, home grow remains a felony in New Jersey. However, the police do not seem to want to make an example of someone for growing a small number of plants. Many different NJ cannabis advocates have been working on the issues for years and have made progress in building a coalition and support since it must go through the legislature.
Choosing the Right Cannabis Seed for Your Crop
Regular, feminized, and autoflowering seeds all have their benefits and uses.
Regular seeds offer the foundation of genetic diversity and are necessary for breeding and long-term crop development.
Feminized seeds offer ease, consistency, and large yields for those who are focused on bud production and easy growing.
Autoflowering seeds are for growers who desire a quick, easy experience of growing earlier harvests and less upkeep.
Understanding your goals, environment, and experience level can guide you to the perfect seed choice for your specific needs.
Regular Cannabis Seeds for Breeders, Purists, and Traditionalists
Regular cannabis seeds are the most natural form. They are formed through standard pollination between a male and a female plant. Regular cannabis seeds have around a 50/50 chance of producing male or female offspring.
They are popular with breeders and traditionalists who prefer to cultivate cannabis in its most unadulterated form. One of the main benefits of regular seeds is that they are genetically stable. They haven’t been bred to suppress specific traits. So, the plants they grow into tend to be hardy, robust, and rife with desirable genetic traits.
This makes regular seeds valuable in breeding programs where growers are trying to develop new strains, stabilize hybrid genetics, or preserve heirloom strains.
Regular seeds offer unmatched breeding possibilities and long-term value in genetic creation. They are ideal for cannabis breeders, seed banks, genetic preservationists, and growers who wish to develop a self-sustaining seed supply.
With regular seeds, there’s no method of knowing whether a plant is going to be male or female until the early flowering stage.
So. Cannabis growers looking to harvest flower to smoke using regular seeds must carefully monitor their plants and eliminate males as quickly as possible to prevent them from fertilizing females. If the male plants are not removed in time, they will pollinate the females. It makes them produce seedy buds and lowers the overall yield of smokable flower grown.
Feminized Cannabis Seeds: Stress-Free and Yield-Focused Cultivation
Feminized cannabis seeds have revolutionized growing for many cultivators. They are bred specifically to eliminate male chromosomes, thus producing only or almost only female plants. So won’t have seeds, which is known as sinsemilla in Science Latin. It is good for those looking for convenience and efficiency.
Female cannabis plants develop resinous buds packed with cannabinoids like THC and CBD. So feminized seeds skip the need to eliminate males, which is a risk and time-consuming step in the cultivation process.
So, feminized seeds are an excellent choice for growers wanting to get the most out of their space, time, and resources.
With feminized seeds, growers can look forward to a hefty yield of usable flower. They are particularly well-liked by smaller and commercial growers.
Feminized seeds perform well both indoors and outdoors. Because the risk of accidental pollination is virtually nonexistent, growers can focus their energy on growing plants for potency, terpene profile, and aesthetics.
Furthermore, feminized seeds are ideal for growers who rely on consistency.
They’re especially good for medical cannabis patients who must have foreseeable cannabinoid content and effects with every crop.
However, feminized seeds are not ideal for breeding unless paired with advanced techniques such as feminized pollen collection. Since they do not produce male plants, they cannot be used in traditional crossbreeding programs without additional effort.
Feminized seeds are perfect for first-time growers seeking a trouble-free experience, commercial growers focused on bud production, and medical users needing consistency. Their usability and consistency have made them one of the most popular seed types globally.
Autoflowering Cannabis Seeds: Fast & Easy
Autoflowering cannabis seeds are the top choice for growers seeking speed, simplicity, and stealth.
These seeds are produced by breeding classical Cannabis sativa or Cannabis indica strains with Cannabis ruderalis. It’s a subspecies that hails from colder, more hostile climates in Russia and Central Asia.
Autoflowering seeds do not require a change in the light cycle (photoperiod) to start flowering.
They automatically move from the vegetative to the flowering phase about 2 to 4 weeks into growth, regardless of how much light they receive.
This trait gives autoflowering seeds a big advantage, especially in regions with unpredictable daylight or short growing seasons.
Autoflowering seeds mature quickly and require less upkeep. So, they’re ideal for new growers wanting to try their hand at cannabis cultivation without too much to learn.
Most autoflowering strains complete their entire life cycle in just 8–12 weeks and are perfect for multiple harvests per growing season. They also happen to be shorter and more discreet than photoperiod plants. That makes them perfect for indoor growers with limited space.
While they are convenient as autoflowering seeds, their compact size means less yield per plant. So, previous autoflower generations were consistently faulted for lower THC levels.
THC is the cannabinoid known to get people high and about the only one with CBD as a distant second.
Thanks to breeding advances, most autoflower strains today are equal to standard strains in quality and potency. They are perfect for hobbyists, micro-growers, patio or balcony growers, and those who want to make light management easier.
Autoflowering seeds are especially useful for outdoor grows in less-than-ideal climates or for growers looking for quick, multi-cycle harvests.
Seed Bank Companies
There are a range of companies selling cannabis seeds now.
Seed Banks are popular across the United States in the different states and cannabis markets. Several companies specialize in acting as a place where one can get a lot of seeds.
Cannabis is just one of the plants that one can find a type of seed bank. They can also further differentiate themselves by what they carry.
For example, Pacific Seed Bank specializes in selling all types of cannabis seeds, and they ship nationwide.
(Heady NJ is holding a Craft Cannabis Celebration on Saturday, May 3rd, in Jersey City, discussing what it takes to grow quality weed!!)
