About the Different Kinds of Cannabis Seeds for Home Growing

Lesson 1: Seeds Verses Clones

The average public believes that growing marijuana is easy (since it’s called weed) and believes that smokable cannabis flower is grown straight from seeds but this is mostly a misconception. Back in the day the best quality weed was grown from clones taken from adult cannabis plants referred to as ‘moms’. Growing cannabis is easy. Getting a female plant to produce delicious tasting flower with high THC content requires great skill and labor.

A clone is taken simply by cutting the developing leaves (typically you want a cut branch containing 4-7 leaves) and rooting the cuttings in some kind of rooting hormone and growth medium. A cutting from an adult branch can begin to develop roots within 24-hours and will be ready to be planted in growing medium within 1 week. The flowers that grow from first-generation female clones make the best quality flower with the highest THC levels. These are first generation clones since they were cut from an original mom.

If you make second generation clones from a first generation clone you will have reduced THC content and reduced flower quantity in your harvest. First generation clones produce the highest yield of the strongest smokable flower. Ideally you want a first-generation clone for farming. Each successive generation will produce a lower yield with lower THC content.

Lesson 2: There are different types of available marijuana seeds for home growing

This may blow your mind if you did not realize but in very recent years there have been great strides made in seed evolution. Many different types of seeds are available to those who want to grow from home. It is important to have a basic understanding of what is available before selecting the seeds that are right for you. Selecting the wrong seeds can be very costly and sometimes be the cause of crop failure. Be sure to understand what is available to you and understand what the differences are so you can ensure both the most convenient care regimen and highest harvest.

Normal marijuana seeds that come from any flowering plant (that’s how they get the seeds), can produce either a male or female plant. Male plants do not produce flower. It is important to understand how to tell whether a plant is a male or a female for this reason. When you are growing marijuana plants for flower it is also important to keep any male plants well away from the female flowering plants. Male plants in the vicinity of female flowering plants will cause the female plants to go into seed rather than produce potent flower.

If it is not clear yet let me repeat; keep male plants out of the flowering grow.

Cannabis plants can hermaphrodite. That is, a female plant can morph into a male plant if it is not getting enough water, nutrition or light to produce quality flowers. Another reason to know how to tell a male plant from a female plant if you are going to grow your own.

Lesson 3: The Different Seed Types

1)        Regular, Feminized Cannabis Seeds: We already discussed this more commonly known cannabis seed type. Feminized seeds are regular seeds that have been genetically bred to produce a female plant. These are the types of seeds that require you to first produce a ‘mom’ from which to harvest clones. Producing a plant from seed that is large enough to harvest clones from takes about 3 months. Then once you begin cutting clones they take another few weeks to produce roots to planted in their final growing medium. The clone method can be the most affordable way to produce a large amount of clones to produce the maximum amount of flower. Professional growers will most likely use this growing method since the cost of producing each first generation clone becomes lower as the mom plant gets older and is capable of producing hundreds of clones from a single seed.

2)        Autoflower, Fast Version or Photoperiod Seeds: Autoflower seeds eliminate the step of cloning. They are a relatively new product that saves time over regular seeds since you do not have to produce a mom plant for clones. With autoflower seeds you simply grow the plant from seed to flower-no cloning required. The important thing to know about autoflower is that your yield will be lower than what you will get from regular seeds and the plants in general are smaller than clones from regular seeds. But the potency of the flower produced can be just as good with autoflower as with regular clones, you just get a smaller plant with less flower. Some may see the smaller/shorter plant size as a benefit to full sized clones. The difference is plants that average 4-6 feet for autoflower plants and 6-10 feet for regular clones (depends on strain and growing conditions).

3)        Super-Autos: These are the latest and greatest autflower seed types strictly developed for outdoor growing. They grow from 10-feet and taller (depending on conditions) and promise the most incredible yields of high-quality flower. This gives you two types of autoflower to choose from; Regular autoflower that always produces a female plant and typically grows from 4-6 feet in height (can be grown indoors) and now Super-Autoflower which has such incredible light and height requirements that it can only be grown outdoors. Keep in mind that this giant plant will require giant amounts of water to maintain itself.

You can buy your seeds from us!

We sell cannabis seeds directly from our dispensary. You can see the available varieties online. In addition we can get any seed strains you are looking for with enough notice.

If you are not great at starting your own seeds then feel free to contact us to pre-root your seeds for you. That way you can pick-up a living plant instead of a seed(s) if you like. We can pop and pre-root any seed strain in our inventory to save you the trouble and time. Then you can simply plant it in your garden as a small plant instead of a seed. But we sell the seeds too if you prefer.

In the spring we produce many plants for resale. Be sure to get your plants in the ground as soon as the outdoor temps are into the 50’s. The growing season in New England is short. By getting your plants already started it will give you the head start you need to produce a harvest before the winter weather arrives.

Feel free to contact our knowledgeable staff with any questions or assistance we might provide.

Here are some great videos for recommended clone or seed production:

Watch Me Cut Cannabis Clones! | Step-by-Step Demo – by Mr. Grow It - On YouTube

Germinating Cannabis Seeds 100% Success Technique – by BudsGrowGuide.com