Yet we’re doing it with an entire generation of human beings
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100% this.
I’ll look for winner plants only from the strongest, most vigorous seedlings. If I don’t like anything about the way a plant looks (floppy stems, too stretchy, not stretchy enough, not enough vigor) it gets culled. Some lines throw nothing but vigorous perfect looking plants and I might flower all the females that make it to sexing. Some lines I might flower 1 of 10 seeds or even none at all. I got too many damn seeds to waste valuable light and space on pretty runts.
On average less than half the plants I germinate even make it to sexing.
Someone could argue that the more vigorous plants are slightly more likely to be more “feral” wild type expressions but I haven’t found this to be true. The distribution seems similar, you just have to waste a lot of time and seeds growing out plants you’ll never flower. From those plants, though, now you have to select plants that fit your goal, and there’s no guarantee you’ll find what you’re looking for.
As far as seeds go, I don’t think it matters much. The big thick broadleaf shells are designed to last through winter to an opportune time to germinate, since it don’t rain much in Central Asia. Tropicals can seed whenever, and since almost everything is a hybrid, expect any variance in between. I’ll perform surgery to remove the pericarp but I’m much more interested in the qualities of the seedling/plant itself than it’s shell.
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Thought provoking, very interesting perspective. Thank you.
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@Northern_Loki I agree. Heres my uneducated(and high AF) opinion on the subject. I like that people are going both ways in all aspects. We have people working to preserve landrace and heirlooms. We have people reversing and crossing all the hype cuts. We have people crossing elite cuts with proven males. We have people crossing elite cuts with landraces/heirlooms. We have people breeding autos. We have people working with ABC/ducksfoot/freakshow wacky genetics. Its all awesome and fun and as long as we have people working to preserve the landraces and heirlooms that are the building blocks everything is gonna be okay.
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Mosca Pink Line Mix from @cogitech
Current plan is, I can be wind and rain. A puff took the helmet off. Embryonic sack is going to be a problem.
They came up tail first. What kind of inbred bullshit is that? While they were smart enough to turn back toward the ground they didn’t have leverage to dig. I knocked them over and blanketed them with a tuft of soil.
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A Naturalist’s Justification for Direct Sowing your Seeds Deeper than Normal:
Wild plants tend to shatter and hit the ground as soon as the seeds are ripe, and plants holding onto their seeds is usually a sign of domestication. Without human intervention when Winter hits the dying plants and falling leaves create a mulch layer over the seeds. Then when germinating they have to travel through this damp and humid labyrinth, losing their seed coat in the process.
Our light fluffy seed starter mixes do a terrible job of simulating this mulch layer, so we need a certain planting depth, to provide enough time to soften the coat and friction to peel it off.
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Love it! I am sold.
Now, how to tell them which end is up?
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Lol, I don’t know, but If you lay the seeds sideways there’s no such thing as up!
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Theres no way, the ones that cant find up dont live in the wild. Half the plants out theres are lanky and weird too, if you have stinging nettles round where you live i find they are very similar to what i imagine a native cannabis would grow like.
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Oh man, pure seed comedy, good morning chuckle on that seed heading for the next pod 
.
Currently my 5-6 seeds per strain will all get sandpapered and freed from their shells etc.
When there’s a bag of seed, selecting for vigor and behavior will be appropriate.
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Feral hemp still grows wild in Iowa and Nebraska. Smells wonderful, big buds and no need for human intervention. Gives you a fuckin headache . But at the same time lots of bag seed makes its way to the side of the highway and always will. Life finds a way. May not be worth a damn…but its here.
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Turns out I am a weak spined softy. I pulled the sack off the straight standing Pink and the topsy turvy kid is rewarding my knockdown with vigorous growth. Gonna have to take notes!
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I suspect that cannabis has cultivated me to be this way.
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It’s a symbiotic relationship.
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I hope you find something good in those:).
Helping with helmet removal has been required on occasion but has never been an issue for me. I figure that we all need a little help from time to time. No biggie.
There’s been good suggestions in previous posts. Increasing humidity to soften them up and increasing aggregate and planting depth in medium sound like great solutions.
When it does happen I usually use tweezers by anchoring my twitchy hands near the seedling to prevent them from completely ripping it from the soil. I hold the helmet with the thumb and index finger and use the tweezers to gently pry it open. When the embryonic membrane stays behind I gently pinch the very tip of it. Pulls it right off without hurting the seedling.
Found these images on the internets. Maybe something to try?
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This will help me become a more knowledgeable grower. It sounds like some top dressing experiments may be in my future as well.
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, if this is true I’ve been doing it wrong … 
This is exactly opposite what I was told previously. 
Last grow I made sure that the tap roots were down and they all came straight up like bottle rockets, but I use Jiffy peat pellets. Perhaps the growing medium might have some influence.
Cheers
G
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