Differences Between Regular, Feminized, and Autoflowering Cannabis Seeds

If your business is ready to bathe in the sweet profits of selling cannabis seeds, the great journey into this rapidly expanding and blooming business niche starts with partnering with reliable wholesale cannabis seeds suppliers. But the next big step is no less important, as business owners need to provide a fine and wide selection of marijuana seeds to suit different tastes, needs, and preferences, and thus, appeal to a broader audience and rake in more in return.

Selecting the most profitable strains to sell starts with understanding the differences between regular, feminized, and autoflowering cannabis seeds.

Selecting and Selling Regular Cannabis Seeds: The Basics

In order to comprehend the differences between regular, feminized, and autoflowering seeds, one must first get better acquainted with the basic morphology of the cannabis plant.

Now, to put things in the most basic terms possible, let’s look at the cannabis seed from the perspective of the seed being a cannabis plant that is still in its embryonic stage. Much like humans and animals do, plants reproduce by, (unsurprisingly) reproduction.

More importantly, the very process of cannabis plant reproduction isn’t totally dissimilar from that of animals.

For the purpose of producing seed, the cannabis plant’s ovule (you can picture it like an ovum, or an egg) must be fertilized by pollen (pollen working in a similar way as sperm does in human and animal reproduction).

As soon as the plant’s ovule is fertilized by the pollen, the tiny cannabis seed is formed.

Similarly to an embryo, a cannabis seed contains a whole wealth of genetic material, patiently awaiting to reach its fullest potential after germination takes place and the seed’s waxy, durable protective coat gets cracked up.

Then again, much like animals, the fate of the cannabis seed is deeply dependent on multiple factors, starting with excellent or poor genes, and going through how the seed is stored, and subsequently, how it is treated from the early to the late stages of development.

The female cannabis plant’s flower must be pollinated by a male cannabis plant for it to reproduce, and hence, to produce seeds, although there are also hermaphrodites which are marijuana plants containing both male and female reproductive organs.

Regardless of whether a male cannabis plant pollinates a female cannabis plant or if the plant happens to be a hermaphrodite and self-pollinates itself, seeds can be created in either way.

After a female cannabis plant is pollinated by a male, it ends up producing seeds that stand a 50/50 chance to turn out as male and female plants, and this is what is referred to as regular cannabis seeds.

For a huge part of the growers, it is mostly female cannabis plants that matter since male cannabis plants fail to produce a bountiful harvest. However, male cannabis plants have versatile uses, too, and some growers would always prefer to stick with growing weed from regular seeds simply because these seeds are formed without human interference.

The Summary: Regular cannabis seeds will give rise to an equal ratio of male to female cannabis plants. While male plants are invaluable to cannabis breeding purposes, they do not provide sufficient yields upon harvesting.

A lot of cannabis cultivators prefer to grow marijuana from regular seeds as these seeds haven’t been backcrossed as much as feminized or autoflower seeds. However, growers need to sex out the seeds as soon as their reproductive organs can be spotted during the flowering stage, and to then discard the males that could potentially pollinate females, resulting in seeded flowers, unless the grower plans to breed his/her own strains.

Business owners selling cannabis seeds should best make sure that regular cannabis seeds represent at least 10% of the total seeds in the menu but should better avoid going for more than 40% regular cannabis seeds as opposed to feminized and autoflowering seeds.

The First Principles of Selecting and Selling Feminized Cannabis Seeds

Feminized cannabis seeds are the product of years of careful studying of the ancient marijuana plant, regardless of the difficulties and obstacles related to the ban on marijuana. Feminized cannabis seeds can be created in several ways, one of which is by Rodenization.

A hermaphroditic condition can be caused by spraying a female cannabis plant with silver colloidal spray or gibberellic acid, thus, causing the plant to self-pollinate itself, which results in plants that can be female or hermaphrodites but they can never be males.

After strengthening the new generation of seeds and making sure that they are turning into female plants and not into hermaphrodites, the seeds can be collected and sold as feminized seeds because of giving way to the only female cannabis plant.

The Summary: Feminized cannabis seeds are guaranteed to be bud-producing, as they give way to only female cannabis plants, thus, providing growers with the bountiful harvest they crave for.

Best of all, feminized seeds make up for growers not having to wait for over a month to be able to tell the sex of male and female cannabis plants before discarding males from the grow space. Business owners should best make sure that feminized cannabis seeds represent at least 25% of the seeds available for sale in their offline or online marijuana retail stores.

Selecting and Selling Autoflowering Cannabis Seeds: The Rudiments

Autoflowering cannabis seeds are, undoubtedly, among the best sellers ever since they emerged on the global stage of cannabis, and especially in the recent years, thanks to modern-day autoflowering strains’ genetics being polished to perfection.

Autoflowering seeds are based on the genetics of Cannabis Ruderalis species. When Cannabis Ruderalis’ genetic heritage is merged with the genetics of a cannabis strain that can be traditionally grown from regular or feminized seeds, the result is an autoflowering variety. Thus, any cannabis strain can be turned into an autoflower variety by the skillful breeders.

Cannabis Ruderalis is known to start flowering “automatically” once the marijuana plant reaches a certain age. This happens with no regard for light exposure as with feminized and regular cannabis seeds that are photoperiodic, meaning that flowering is initiated only once the plant is introduced to 12 hours of continuous light vs. 12 hours of continuous darkness.

Apart from not needing to be exposed to strict periods of light vs.dark hours to start flowering, autoflowering cannabis strains are ready to harvest much sooner than most strains grown from feminized or regular seeds. Autoflowering seeds will only turn into female cannabis plants, and not males, which promises bountiful harvest for growers.

What’s more, autoflowering cannabis seeds are known to give rise to plants that are typically much shorter and compact than the very same strain grown from a regular or feminized seed.

The Summary: Autoflowering cannabis seeds are especially appealing to beginner growers but they are also a favorite choice for many experienced growers alike due to their unique benefits.

Autoflowering cannabis seeds provide growers with the opportunity to save time and money, as well as to grow weed perpetually. Autoflowers are very well-suited to colder climates, too, as they are able to tolerate cooler temperatures better than cannabis varieties that are not equipped with the sturdy genetics of Cannabis Ruderalis.

On the downside, since Cannabis Ruderalis is a low-THC plant species, autoflowering strains are typically a bit less potent, as compared with the potency a strain grown from regular and feminized seeds can reach. However, for the people who are eager to grow cannabis don’t want to or simply can’t spend a lot of time doing it, autoflowers are a brilliant option.

As a rule of thumb, it is best to make sure that your cannabis seeds menu consists of at least 35% autoflowering seeds.

Differences between Regular, Feminized, and Autoflowering Cannabis Seeds: The Takeaway

After taking into account the differences between regular, feminized, and autoflowering cannabis seeds, business owners can get down to compiling an alluring selection of magic beans that are bound to make their customers gladly come back for more.

As a rule of thumb, it is crucial that you offer a little bit of everything, meaning that all the three major types of cannabis seeds should best be a part of your online or offline store’s menu.

Most business owners give preferences to autoflowering and feminized cannabis seeds because of their advantages for easing and speeding up the marijuana grow mission but regular seeds are not be underestimated as an important and intricate part of cultivating cannabis.

As long as your business keeps track of the accomplished sales based on the type of seeds sold, you will be able to understand your target market’s needs and demands better and better as time goes by, dooming you to succeed in establishing a winning business strategy while simply enjoying the favorable winds of change blown by the legalization as you get to see the numbers in your bank account greatly increasing.