Browse through most seed shops today and the regular section is the shelf at the back: smaller every year, marked cheaper than the feminized packs next to it, and bought by a shrinking number of people who understand exactly what they are looking for. It is easy to read that as the end of a technology. It is nearer to the truth to read it as a library losing shelves while the bookshop next door grows. Every female-only line started as a regular one, each new cross needs a male at some point in its history, and the diversity of cannabis genetics that exists at all exists because someone held onto regular seed. Specialists such as https://breederregularseeds.com stock lines that trace to the 1980s, sold in packs of 10 seeds since a pack is intended to be a population, not a one plant. This article makes the case for that unfashionable pack: what the male contributes, what a grower gives up by not growing one, and how to work with a pack instead of a clone.
The Other Half of the Genome
The easy account of a male cannabis plant is “a pollen source”, and for a flower grower that is all it. To a breeder it is half the genome of every seed which follows, and half is chosen with the same care as the mother.
A male contributes structure, vigour, maturation time, tolerance to mould and pests, trichome production and the terpene profile just as the female does; it just shows some of those qualities less visibly since it never grows a smokable flower. Those who breed with regular seed spend as much time choosing males as females, which is the work that a feminized line borrows and can never repeat. Feminizing a female yields pollen; it cannot provide a second line of selected genes.
How Diversity Leaks Away
A great deal of the feminized catalogue is built from S1 seeds: a one famous clone, treated and pollinated with itself. Every generation of that process halves the surviving genetic diversity, and after two generations what remains is close to one plant repeated across slightly different ways.
That is fine for a grower who needs that one plant. It is a loss for everyone who comes after. Recessive faults emerge: hermaphrodite tendencies, weak stems, sensitivity to a particular mould. Qualities that were present in the original line but not in the selected clone vanish out of the population altogether. A generation of this leaves a market full with variations of a dozen plants, and a breeder wanting to make something different discovers there is nothing remaining to work with. Regular seed from a true outcrossed line is the store that replenishes the market, and it can only exists if somebody grows it.
How to Judge a Male
Guides on choosing females are easy to find; guidance on picking males is scarce, since most growers do not keep one long enough to judge. For anyone making seed, the following are the signs breeders look for.
- Stability. Any male that at the same time shows female flowers under normal conditions is rejected outright; the trait is the one thing worth carrying forward.
- Timing. A male that declares sex first and matures in step with the females is far more useful than an early one that sheds pollen before any female is receptive.
- Structure. Short internodes, a strong central stem and a frame that resembles the desired female habit are passed on; a stretched, floppy male passes that on too.
- Restraint. Males that dump enormous quantities of pollen early are frequently also the least selected genetically; breeders prefer steady shedders.
- Resin on the stem. Rub a stem or a pollen cluster and smell it. A male with trichomes on its sepals and a clear aroma indicates it holds the terpene traits worth keeping.
A Pack Is a Population
The error first-time regular-seed growers make is seeing a pack as 10 attempts at the one plant. It is the opposite. A pack from a real outcrossed line is a sample of a population, and the value of running it is to observe the range and choose from it.
About half the plants will be male, which means a pack of 10 seeds gives something like five females to compare and five males to either discard or assess for breeding. Within the females, look for noticeable variation: height, flowering time, aroma, bud structure, resistance. This variation is not a flaw in the seed; it is what the seed is for. The grower who keeps the strongest female and the best male has something a feminized pack cannot supply: a pair of chosen parents which are theirs.
Making Your Own Seed
Owning chosen parents is only worth something if making the next generation, and here the options multiply. Three approaches cover most of what home breeders attempt.
- Selected cross. One chosen male to one or a few chosen females, every other plant else removed. The offspring inherit the traits of two specific plants and show less spread than the parent pack. Done over generations with consistent selection, this is how a stable line is made.
- Open pollination. Let every male pollinate every female. It preserves the full range of the line, produces a generous quantity of seed, and involves no choosing at all. This is how traditional lines are kept going, and it is the right method when the goal is preservation not refinement.
- Backcross. Cross a selected seedling again to one of its parents to lock in a specific trait. It narrows the range quickly and is used when one parent shows something worth keeping and the second contributed mostly vigour.
Each of these require only a isolated space for the male, a paintbrush or a small bag, and a few weeks. None of them calls for the chemical treatment that feminized production requires.
Keeping Old Lines Alive
A number of lines were never feminized and probably never will be: landraces collected from regions where cannabis was grown over centuries, and old crosses from the first decades of indoor breeding. They are available as regular seed since the breeders keeping them regard the population as the whole value, and selfing a single clone would destroy precisely what makes the line worth keeping.
Running a landrace from regular seed is different from growing a commercial hybrid. There will be wide variation, long flowering times in tropical lines, tall plants, and qualities that made sense in a mountain valley but not under a tent. Expect too flavours and effects that do not appear in the hybrid market anywhere. Breeder Regular Seeds holds a separate landrace and heirloom section, with each line labelled with its origin of origin and the generation it has been grown out since the original collection.
When the Library Is the Wrong Shop
None of the above makes regular seed the best choice for everyone, and pretending otherwise would the product no service.
A grower with room for three plants who wants every one of them to finish is far better served with feminized seed. The same is anyone unable to inspect the plants every day around the onset of flower, since a missed male in a small space seeds everything inside days. A person growing a single autoflower on a balcony has no use from a pack they cannot choose from. And a buyer who is after a known famous cut reproduced as closely as possible is looking for a feminized S1, not a regular cross. Regular seed is for the grower who intends to select, to keep and eventually to produce something new; for everyone else the back shelf is safely left alone.
Before You Buy
Breeder Regular Seeds sends each order in plain parcels with the breeder’s packs intact inside and nothing on the outside to indicate the contents. Orders to the United States are not taken, as seed import is not permitted there. Seed law differs widely by country: in a good number of places buying seeds is lawful as genetic preservation while germinating them is not, and in others both are allowed under licence or neither is. Checking the rules in your own jurisdiction is the buyer’s job, and nothing of this article should be read as legal advice.