Feminized Seeds

All feminized cannabis seeds are made through the process of causing a female cannabis plant to produce male sex organs and subsequently, pollen. The pollen from these, hermaphrodite or reversed sex plants all carry female chromosomes producing seeds that are 99% female. There are many ways to cause the cannabis plant to hermaphrodite and some cannabis types come with a genetic predisposition to hermaphroditism making them easily feminized (we never use those). The method of feminization that is employed by a breeder and level of predisposition to hermaphroditism, or lack there of, makes a huge difference in the quality of feminized seeds. At Humboldt Seed Company, plants that have a predisposition to hermaphroditism are discarded and never used as a short cut to feminized seeds. 

Full sex reversal is the appropriate way to produce stable feminized seeds without an increased propensity for hermaphroditism, not light shifting, predisposed plants or hormones. Humboldt Seed Company only sells first time feminized seed, not seeds from compound feminization which tends to cause increased mutation. There are drawbacks and advantages to feminized seeds and we encourage growers to become familiar with the male sex organ of the cannabis plant no matter what seed you are growing, particularly if you are growing feminized seeds from another company, although there are others that use proper methods. One drawback of feminized seeds can be a lowered level of hybrid vigor depending on how the feminized seed is created. A clear advantage of feminized seeds is that you will end up with 99% female, smokeable, bud producing plants. You may be wondering about the 1% that may be male, this is essentially the cannabis plant's evolutionary back up plan and is present and possible with every single feminized seed in the world. This is why we are very careful to tell our farmers and gardeners to remain vigilant and learn how to identify cannabis sex organs (see our famous instructional video), no matter if they are growing from clone, tissue culture, regular seed, or feminized seed. We also warn individuals wanting to breed that compound breeding with feminized seeds can cause increased mutation, we definitely implore breeders to use regular seed. 

Cannabis is primarily a dioecious plant meaning that male and female plants exist seperately and are required to flower at the same time and in vicinity to each other to produce seeds. Many other plants are monoecious, for example corn, has both male (tassels) and female (silk/kernels) organs on the same plant. It is possible for cannabis to become monoecious and too much compound feminization and or poor feminizing practices could create more monoecious cannabis types either appearing in dominant or, much worse recessive genes. We don't want to see the species evolve that way due to cavalier breeding practices. At Humboldt Seed Company we are committed to breeding stable cannabis seeds that don't come with the problems created by breeding shortcuts, lack of research.and not vetting brood stock or even progeny. Our regular seed is usually 60% female and unbelievable healthy, we grow 100% regular seed when we do flower production runs on our farm. We understand the need for feminized seeds and we have spent the last two years working with our University of California genomics and breeding consultant team to develop our proprietary method of breeding feminized seeds. Whether you choose to grow our feminized seeds or our regular seeds, you can rest assured that our team of very experienced cannabis farmers and scientists have spent years selecting, researching and vetting each strain before the stabilization process even begins. We literally work year round breeding cannabis and with that as our entire focus, the best available science through partnerships with Steep Hill Labs, Phylos Bioscience and more, and twenty years of breeding and farming experience we feel we make the best possible products to leave you with a great cannabis growing experience!

Source: HSC website

Cracking Regular Seeds