Feminized or Fem for breeding

Was talking to a gentleman the other day about crosses and he mentioned during the conversation that I must have used regs for my first cross, as you don’t want feminized females for breeding. I asked why and he couldn’t really elaborate, just what he has always been told. I’ve not heard that before but it left a question mark in my mind.
Anyone have anything to add or subtract from this? I figured a good mothrr plant is a good plant no matter how the seeds were made but willing to learn if I’m missing something…

13 Likes

It seems some think that crossing a female with female pollen will ultimately lead to herm genetics which isn’t true…

Also some people just flat out won’t grow fems for the same reason… Weird but to each their own

14 Likes

I tried to comment on this thread but I couldn’t word it correctly so kept deleting my comment. You hit the nail on the head bro :+1:

8 Likes

Male plants will not know the difference between a plant that was grown from feminized seeds compared to a female grown from regular seeds. They will stick their pollen wherever.

I have read in a few places saying not to use fems but nothing to back it up or why.

8 Likes

If the pollen you are using is viable it will pollenate anything. I do believe some cultivars are harder to pollenate if your not using pollen from the same strain.
Open pollenation is where it’s at if you want seed. Pollen will always be fresh and viable during an op. Also white pollen imo is not very good if at all. If you have a male that’s producing white and yellow pollen save the yellow because the white prolly won’t be so good

9 Likes

Yah like @toastyjakes mentioned. Possibly getting herm traits was the only thing that came to mind for me.

4 Likes

I’ve read that as well, I believe it was in DJ Short’s book.
He didn’t really elaborate and it didn’t make obvious sense to me.
A later conversation suggested that the resulting progeny might have combined double recessives that would be detrimental.
…Above my pay grade :nerd_face: :call_me_hand:

Cheers
G

7 Likes

herming is not a breeding thing, its a nature thing. a lot of landrace strains herm to survive. especially equatorial strains. many legendary strains come from herms. its like sts, but free :grin::+1:

6 Likes

Very true… If left to its own devices, a female plant of the cannabis variety will most definitely try to save it’s own genes by popping a nanner or two and selfing itself, thus leaving it a chance to try again next season…not a herm trait, no.

Now being two weeks into flower and farting sideways the next town over causing nanners on your plant… Herm trait lol

7 Likes

Yeah avoid feminised seeds Banana kush. Seen nana’s two weeks ago so I just rode her out. When I chopped her I found about 30 seeds. I bet that doubles once she’s dry :-1:

2 Likes

you better breed that plant to f5. thats not a herm. that a miracle god gift plant can understands farts on command. :rofl::rofl:

4 Likes

I crossed two different strains and popped 55+ seeds and one plant threw out some nanners as well as calyx. We will see how the next generations go to see if the lone one was just trying to be different or I just got lucky with the 50.

1 Like

I heard some speak of fears of sterile plants due to something to do with chromosomes. I myself don’t like the fact that people often believe fem seeds will be just like the plant they were created with and that is often far from the case. I’ve grown a lot of feminized seeds and some were better then others, but over all I’m not impressed.
I’ve heard conversations about missing male chromosomes and what that does to a line, guess it depends on your goals in breeding.

6 Likes

Personally I don’t see a difference. I do regular seeds for a reason. They are cheaper. To be honest I’ve been having pretty good luck. I’m not going to change that.

4 Likes

Unless im wrong the S1 doesn’t have same phenotypes as F1? And there was a thing called hybrid vigor not sure its still a thing tho

1 Like

Hi ! The s1 are f2s, f1a * f1a, if the parental plant is a f1. In general s1 are like a cross with a brother plant.

3 Likes

Way over my head. I don’t know about f1 and the crossing terms. I just let them keep crossing until I get a nice plant. It takes a minute. Something I need to understand.

3 Likes

Oh ok so the f1would be different seeds with mix of genotypes of parent plants while s1 would different seeds of the genotypes the mother plant inherited (just the one seed)? So like trying to get the Ortega pheno from black domina S1 might not be possible if the mother plant did not inherit it it?

2 Likes

There seems to be some confusion here… as far as whether feminized seeds “lose” anything compared to regular seeds due to lacking the male chromosome, I haven’t seen any definitive research one way or the other. It’s possible that some traits are passed down only through the Y chromosome and then cross over during recombination, but we simply don’t know enough to know what we don’t know about the cannabis genome. As far as losing sex-linked traits that are carried on the Y chromosome and don’t cross over, it simply isn’t relevant whether non-recombinant male sex-linked genes are passed down, assuming males aren’t grown out except for breeding purposes.

That being said, feminized seeds aren’t automatically from self-pollinations. You can have feminized F2s from crossing a reversed female with another female of the same generation. They’re still subject to the possibility of negative recessives popping up, whether S1 or F2… and no, neither one will automatically be the same as the mother plant, unless it’s an IBL. The Punnett square still applies, even with reversals. That means there may be genotypes that don’t make it into F2 seeds, depending on how those F2s are made - open pollination with reversed females will carry all genotypes - and S1 seeds will be almost guaranteed to lock out some genotypes. In fact, locking out genotypes is arguably the whole point behind a S1 in the first place, like any selective breeding. :wink:

15 Likes

this is great stuff now you had me looking up this
https://www.maximumyield.com/definition/4486/true-breed-ibl-cannabis

3 Likes