Walk through most seed shops today and the regular section is the shelf at the back: smaller every year, priced cheaper than the feminized packs beside it, and bought by a dwindling group of people who understand exactly what they are after. It is tempting to read that as obsolescence. It is closer to the truth to see it as a library losing shelves while the paperback rack next door grows. Every female-only line started as a regular one, each new cross needs a male at some point in its pedigree, and the diversity of cannabis genetics that exists at all survives only 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 because a pack is meant to be a population, not a one plant. This article sets out the argument for that unfashionable pack: what the male contributes, what a grower loses by not seeing one, and how to work with a population instead of a copy.
The Other Half of the Genome
The lazy account of a male cannabis plant is “a pollen source”, and to a flower grower that is the whole of it. For a breeder it is half the genome of every seed which follows, and that half is chosen with the same care as the female.
A male passes on structure, vigour, maturation speed, tolerance to mould and pests, trichome density and the aromatic chemistry just as the female does; it just expresses some of those traits less visibly since it never grows a smokable flower. Those who work with regular seed invest as much time selecting males as females, and this is the work that a feminized line inherits and cannot repeat. Feminizing a female gives pollen; it cannot provide a second line of selected genes.
The Narrowing
A great deal of the feminized catalogue is built from S1 seeds: a single popular clone, treated and pollinated with itself. Each generation of that process cuts in half the remaining genetic variation, and after two rounds what is left is essentially one plant expressed in slightly different forms.
That is fine for a consumer who needs that one plant. It is a loss for everyone who comes after. Recessive faults emerge: hermaphrodite tendencies, weak stems, sensitivity to one particular mould. Qualities that were present in the original line but absent in the chosen clone vanish out of the population altogether. A decade of this produces a market full with variations of a dozen clones, and a anyone wanting to create something new discovers there is nothing remaining to work with. Regular seed from a true outcrossed line is the store that replenishes the market, and that reservoir can only exists if people grows it.
How to Judge a Male
Articles on selecting females are easy to find; advice on picking males is scarce, since most growers never keep one past the first week of flower to look. For anyone producing seed, these are the signs breeders look for.
- Structure. Short internodes, a strong main stem and branching that resembles the desired female habit are inherited; a stretched, weak-stemmed male hands that on too.
- Resin on the stem. Rub a stem or a pollen cluster and smell it. A male with trichomes on its sepals and a strong scent indicates it holds the terpene genes that are worth keeping.
- Timing. A male that shows sex early and matures at the same pace as the females is far more workable than an early one that releases pollen before any female is receptive.
- Stability. A male that also forms female flowers under normal stress is rejected without exception; the tendency is the one thing worth carrying into a line.
- Restraint. Males that dump enormous amounts of pollen all at once are often the less desirable in other respects; many breeders prefer steady producers.
What 10 Seeds Actually Give You
The error first-time regular-seed growers make is treating a pack as 10 chances at the one plant. It is nothing of the kind. A pack from a real outcrossed line is a sample of a population, and the point of growing it is to observe the range and choose from it.
About half the plants will be male, so a pack of 10 seeds gives around five females to evaluate and five males to either discard or assess for breeding. Among the females, expect noticeable variation: height, finishing time, smell, bud structure, resistance. This variation is not a flaw in the seed; it is what the seed is for. The grower who keeps the best female and male now owns something a feminized pack cannot supply: a pair of chosen parents that are their own.
Three Ways to Cross
Owning chosen parents is only worth something if producing the next generation, and there the options multiply. Three approaches cover most of what home breeders do.
- Selected cross. One picked male on one or several chosen females, every other plant else culled. The offspring carry the traits of two specific plants and show narrower spread than the original pack. Done over several rounds with stable choices, this is how a new line is built.
- Open pollination. Let each male reach every female. It preserves the whole diversity of the line, produces a large volume of seed, and does no choosing at all. This is how traditional lines are maintained going, and it is the correct approach when the goal is preservation not refinement.
- Backcross. Take a chosen seedling back to one of its original parents to lock in a specific quality. It tightens the genetics fast and is useful when a single parent has something worth concentrating and the other brought mostly vigour.
Each of these need only a separate space for the male, a soft brush or a small bag, and patience. Not one of them calls for the chemical reversal that feminized production does.
Keeping Old Lines Alive
A number of lines have never been feminized and probably never will be: landraces gathered from places where cannabis was grown over centuries, and heirloom crosses from the early decades of indoor breeding. They are sold as regular seed since the breeders keeping them regard the population as the entire value, and reversing a single clone would erase exactly what makes the line worth the trouble of preserving.
Growing a landrace from regular seed is different from growing a commercial hybrid. There will be large variation, extended flowering times in tropical lines, tall plants, and qualities that made sense in a mountain valley but not under a small room. Expect too flavours and chemistry that do not appear in the commercial market anywhere. Breeder Regular Seeds keeps a dedicated landrace and heirloom section, and each line labelled with its origin of origin and the generation it has been grown out since the original collection.
The Honest Exclusions
Nothing of the above turns regular seed the right option for everyone, and pretending that it is does the category no favours.
A grower with space for a handful of plants who needs each one of them to finish is better off with feminized seed. So is anyone unable to check the plants every day during the start of flower, because a late male in a small space seeds everything within days. A person running a single autoflower on a balcony gets no use from a pack they cannot choose from. And anyone who is after a known famous cut repeated exactly is better off looking for a feminized S1, not a regular cross. Regular seed is for the grower who intends to select, to keep and eventually to make something of their own; for everyone else the regular shelf is best left where it is.
Before You Buy
Breeder Regular Seeds sends each order in plain parcels with the breeder’s packs sealed inside and nothing on the exterior to reveal the contents. Orders to the United States are not accepted, because seed importation is restricted there. Seed law varies widely by country: in many places owning seeds is legal as collectables while germinating them is not, and in others both are permitted under licence or both is. Knowing the rules where you live is the buyer’s job, and no part of this article is legal advice.