All of the plants capabilities start with the seed or clone.
This article will prepare you to find the right genetics for you!
Healthy seeds should have a "tiger stripping" and be dark brown, almost black with tan stripes.
This is definitely the biggest consideration you're going to make when starting an indoor garden, not only in what you get to smoke but the plant's maximum potential. Whether you start from seed or clones everything is “capped” by those genetics. You'll never grow a beefsteak tomato from a cherry tomato seed. The same is true for cannabis, the THC percentage, flavors and smells,its size and how it grows are all limited by that clone or seed.
How well you grow it will determine if it reaches that maximum potential or not.
The importance of quality genetics can not be stressed enough, before you start make sure the genetics you have are from a trusted source.
The Most Important Consideration
This is definitely the biggest consideration you're going to make when starting an indoor garden, not only in what you get to smoke but the plant's maximum potential. Whether you start from seed or clones everything is “capped” by those genetics. You'll never grow a beefsteak tomato from a cherry tomato seed. The same is true for cannabis, the THC percentage, flavors and smells,its size and how it grows are all limited by that clone or seed.
How well you grow it will determine if it reaches that maximum potential or not.
The importance of quality cannabis genetics can not be stressed enough, before you start make sure the genetics you have are from a trusted source.
Male And Female Cannabis Plants
Cannabis can be separated into two categories: male and female. The male plant is used for its pollen to make seeds in the female flower, sound familiar? Remove the male and there are no offspring, or seeds. Males are used for desirable traits in breeding. Size, finishing time, smells, etc are all matched with a mother plant and seeds are made. On and on it goes until you have the perfect genetics you want. Of course, genetics from trusted breeders will have "stabilized" them over time to reduce variance, or phenotypes, in seeds.
Male pods will cluster together with the most noticeable clusters being the first two that form a "crab claw" over each other. Beyond that they stack together more and more as pictured below. The first signs will appear very late in vegetative stage or early flowering.
Females produce the flower or bud you have smoked and enjoyed. Without having any males around there will be no seeds. Unless the plant produces male pods sometime during flowering which is not uncommon. Do not worry, a "banana pod" here and there is not the end of the world! While your goal should be to have no male sites, it does happen. Looking for them diligently in the flowering stages will reduce the number of banana sites and resulting seeds. Stable genetics are less likely to produce males sites.
Female flowers can be identified from their symmetrical spade shape with 2 thin long pistils or "hairs" that form a "V". From there the "bud" will form and many more pistils will shoots out. Some genetics produce more hairs, some more bud and some more leaf. Knowing what the buds will look like when they finish will help you know what to expect yourself if all goes right!
Feminized Seeds
Feminized seeds are a great way for a home growers to limit investment and time and produce only female plants. There are a few ways that breeders make feminized seeds. I wont go into detail about that because I am not an expect on the topic. I will say that they have perfected the methods so that a very large percentage of the seeds you germinate will be female.
Research The Lineage
There are so many different types of cannabis these days, it can be overwhelming. Leafly can be a useful tool to find out what you can expect for tastes and smells, effects or high, as well as how it grows. There are many sites that you can use for free to research genetics. Sometimes knowing the parents and how they grow can help you pick out the plants that grow how you want, or prepare you to adjust what you need to do.
Not All Genetics Are The Same
You are growing Girl Scout Cookies?! Awesome! From which breeder...
Ill use GSC genetics as an example. GSC is a famous genetic that was made by crossing OG Kush with Durban Poison. So simple enough, take some OG Kush find a male, get some Durban Poison and get a female and voila! Not exactly. Within those genetics we have "phenotypes". Those are the variations of each type of genetics. So a batch of OG Kush seeds may have a couple or many numbers of phenotypes. Then which Durban Poison you breed it with will be a factor. THEN, when those two produce seeds, which one of THOSE phenotypes are the real GSC.
This can make the seeds you get vary drastically from the ones your friend has if they come from different geneticists. Knowing the breeders finished product or seeing that specific breeder on Leafly will tell you more.
Find Genetics That Grow How you Grow
A tip I suggest is find genetics that “grow how you grow”. What I mean is that I personally use a lot of foliar sprays, feed heavy, expect fast growth, and want my plants to finish in either 8 weeks or 10. Earlier is ok as well, but no longer than 10 weeks. That has to do with harvesting space and timing it out to not overlap. Therefore I have to abandon some genetics that are desirable because they run too long, or dont like a lot of feeding, etc. The trade off is that then I am not struggling to keep up with how the plants each grow, adjusting to them. No, they grow how I grow, not the other way around.
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