Browse through most seed shops today and the regular section is the shelf at the back: smaller every year, marked lower than the feminized packs next to it, and bought by a dwindling number of people who know exactly what they are after. It is tempting to see that as the end of a technology. It is nearer to the truth to see it as a library shrinking while the bookshop next door expands. Every feminized line began as a regular one, each new cross needs a male at some point in its pedigree, and the breadth of cannabis genetics that survives at all exists because somebody held onto regular seed. Specialists such as https://breederregularseeds.com carry lines that trace to the 1980s, sold in packs of 10 seeds since a pack is meant to be a population, not a one plant. This article sets out the case for that half-male pack: what the male contributes, what a buyer loses by never seeing one, and how to work with a population instead of a clone.
What a Male Plant Is Actually For
The lazy account of a male cannabis plant is “the one that makes pollen”, and for a flower grower that is the whole of it. For a breeder it is half the genome of every seed which follows, and half is selected with the same care as the mother.
A male passes on structure, vigour, maturation speed, tolerance to mould and pests, resin density and the aromatic profile just as the female does; it just shows several of those qualities less visibly since it does not grows a smokable flower. Breeders who breed with regular seed spend at least as much time selecting males as females, which is the work that a feminized line inherits and cannot replicate. Feminizing a female gives pollen; it cannot provide a second line of selected traits.
How Diversity Leaks Away
Much of the feminized market is made from S1 seeds: a single famous clone, reversed and crossed with itself. Every generation of that process halves the surviving genetic variation, and after a couple of generations what is left is essentially one plant expressed in slightly different ways.
That is acceptable for a consumer who wants that one plant. It is a problem for everyone downstream. Hidden faults emerge: intersex tendencies, weak stems, sensitivity to one particular mould. Traits that were present in the parent line but absent in the chosen clone disappear out of the gene pool altogether. A generation of such breeding leaves a market full with versions of the same few plants, and a breeder wanting to make something new discovers there is nothing remaining to cross. Regular seed from an outcrossed line is the reservoir that replenishes the pool, and that reservoir only persist as long as somebody keep growing it.
How to Judge a Male
Articles on selecting females are easy to find; guidance on picking males is scarce, since most growers never keep one long enough to look. For a grower producing seed, the following are the marks breeders look for.
- Restraint. Plants that release enormous quantities of pollen all at once are often the least desirable genetically; many breeders prefer steady shedders.
- Structure. Tight internodes, a thick main stem and branching that resembles the desired female shape are inherited; a lanky, weak-stemmed male hands that on too.
- Timing. A male that declares sex first and flowers at the same pace as the females is far more useful than an early one that releases pollen before the female is receptive.
- Resin on the stem. Scratch a stem or a flower cluster and smell it. A male with resin on its flower parts and a clear scent suggests it holds the terpene traits worth keeping.
- Stability. Any male that at the same time shows female flowers under normal stress is rejected outright; the trait is the one thing anyone wants breeding into a line.
A Pack Is a Population
The mistake first-time regular-seed growers make is seeing a pack as 10 attempts at the one plant. It is nothing of the kind. A pack from a genuine outcrossed line is a slice of a population, and the point of growing it is to see the spread and choose from it.
Roughly half the plants will be male, so a pack of 10 seeds gives around five females to evaluate and five males to cull or assess for breeding. Within the females, expect noticeable differences: height, flowering time, aroma, bud structure, resistance. This variation is not a flaw in the seed; it is what the seed is selling. The grower who keeps the strongest female and male has something a feminized pack can never supply: a pair of selected parents that are their own.
Making Your Own Seed
Holding chosen parents means producing the next batch, and here the options open up. Three approaches account for most of what home breeders do.
- Open pollination. Let every male pollinate every female. It keeps the full range of the line, makes a generous volume of seed, and does no choosing at all. This is how traditional lines are maintained going, and it is the correct method when the goal is preservation rather than refinement.
- Selected cross. One picked male on one or several picked females, everything else removed. The seeds inherit the traits of the two specific plants and express less variation than the original pack. Done over generations with stable selection, this is how a stable line is built.
- Backcross. Cross a chosen offspring again to one of its parents to fix a specific quality. It tightens the genetics quickly and is useful when a single parent has something worth concentrating and the second brought mainly vigour.
Each of these need nothing more than a isolated space for the male, a soft brush or a paper bag, and a few weeks. Not one of them needs the chemical reversal that feminized seed-making does.
The Seeds That Only Exist as Regulars
Some lines were never been feminized and likely never will be: landraces gathered from regions where cannabis was grown over centuries, and old hybrids from the early decades of modern breeding. They are available as regular seed since the breeders keeping them treat diversity as the entire point, and selfing a single plant would erase precisely what makes the line worth keeping.
Growing a landrace from regular seed is different from running a modern hybrid. There will be wide variation, extended flowering periods in tropical lines, lanky plants, and qualities that made sense in a field but not in a tent. There will be too flavours and effects that do not appear in the hybrid market anywhere. Breeder Regular Seeds keeps a dedicated landrace and heirloom section, with each line labelled with its origin of origin and the number of generations it has been reproduced since the first collection.
When the Library Is the Wrong Shop
Nothing of the above turns regular seed the best option for everyone, and pretending otherwise does the product no favours.
A grower with space for three plants who needs every one of them to flower is far better off with feminized seed. So is a grower who cannot afford to check the plants each day around the onset of flower, because a missed male in a confined space seeds everything inside days. Someone growing a single autoflower on a balcony gets no value from a pack they cannot choose from. And anyone who is after a specific clone-only plant repeated as closely as possible is better off looking for a feminized S1, not a regular cross. Regular seed is for the grower who wants to choose, to hold onto and at some point to produce something new; for anyone else the back shelf is best left alone.
Practicalities
Breeder Regular Seeds sends every order in unmarked parcels with the original packs intact inside and no on the exterior to indicate the contents. Orders to the United States are not accepted, as seed importation is not permitted there. Seed law differs widely by country: in a good number of places owning seeds is lawful as collectables while germinating them is not, and in others the two are allowed under licence or neither is. Knowing the rules in your own jurisdiction is the buyer’s responsibility, and no part of this article is legal advice.