Marijuana 101

How to Choose the Best Seeds for Growing Marijuana?

Item: How to Choose the Best Seeds for Growing Marijuana?
Rating: 5
Author: Charles Hover

Charles Hover

January 28, 2019

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How to Choose the Best Seeds for Growing Marijuana?: When it comes to growing marijuana – there are a number of different methods and techniques you can employ to grow it. However, in terms of basic methods of growing – there are only two.

You can grow cannabis plants with the help of seeds, or you can do it without the seeds too. The method in which you do not need seeds is called cloning – and we will detail it out later. Let us first take a look at how to grow marijuana with the help of seeds.

How to Choose the Best Seeds for Growing Marijuana?

Even when it comes to growing with seeds – there are a number of different methods you can make use of, especially by changing the variant of medium that you are using. While you can simply and easily grow marijuana using your regular soil, there are other options too. We shall give them a detailed look later. Let us now take a quick look at the various kinds of seeds you can use to grow marijuana and how to choose the best seeds:

Things To Keep in Mind About Seeds for Growing Marijuana

Before we proceed with choosing the best seeds – here’s some info about marijuana seeds. Seeds are only produced by female plants. These seeds are produced after a male plants pollinates a female plant. The thing that you need to know here is that when it comes to growing marijuana – the aim is to grow female cannabis plants as it is these plants which grow buds.

Here’s what you need to keep in mind:

Make Sure You’re Using Feminized Seeds: When it comes to the natural selection of seeds, there’s a chance naturally growing cannabis seeds will be split in 50% male seeds and 50% female seeds. However, when it comes to growing buds, we are looking only at female seeds. You can either try your luck and grow all the seeds, or buy specialized, feminized seeds – which we highly recommend.
The Strain: Thanks to breeders and growers who have been growing marijuana plants carefully over the years, there are a number of different strains and varieties of marijuana plants! Before you select the seed that you want to grow, make sure you’re buying the strain of your choice.

How To Choose A Seed?

When it comes to choosing a seed, many people who have never seen marijuana seeds in the past would be confused. There are three main factors that need to be kept in mind:

Color: A good, healthy marijuana seed would be darker in color. There would be a dark brown, black or tanned pattern on the seed. It is strongly recommended to avoid choosing seeds which are light or green in color.
Pattern: Another interesting thing about marijuana seeds which will help you identify the strain too is the pattern on the seed! Indica seeds tend to be larger, as well as come with a striped pattern. Sativa seeds on the other hand don’t really have a pattern and come in a single color. They are smaller compared to indica seeds.
Hardness: The third major factor that you need to keep in mind before selecting the seeds is the hardness. The harder the shell of the seed, the better it is. Avoid going for softer seeds.

The Different Strains of Plants

Let us now give a quick look to the different strains of the seeds so that you know which kind of seeds you might want to plant. A ‘strain’ is basically the genetic type of the plant which defines its basic characteristics. All marijuana plants are variants of Cannabis Sativa. Here’s a quick look at the four major genetic types of marijuana plants:

Cannabis Sativa: Sativa plants tend to be tall and thin. These plants take longer times to mature, but also produce a better yield when compared to Indica plants. The high that you get from the sativa strain is energetic and allows you to think creatively.

Cannabis Indica: The Cannabis Indica strain of marijuana is usually a short and bushy plant which tends to mature early compared to the cannabis sativa plants. However, it yields lesser output and the high that it gives you is lethargic and allows you to rest and relax better.

Ruderalis (Auto-Flower): These auto flower plants are of strains which allow faster growth. These plants are such that they can grow at a faster pace because of their ability to consume light all the time. Unlike other regular strains which need rest, these strains can be under constant grow lights. However, these plants lack potency and are often crossed with other strains to improve THC levels.

Hybrids: When two or more strains are crossed to create a new variant of a plant, it is termed a hybrid. In a hybrid, there’s always one dominating strain, but it tends to have a different effect when it comes to the psychoactive experience and the sort of ‘high’ it provides.

Grow Your Own Seeds

While male plants are usually undesirable by those who just want to smoke weed, they are important and for a reason too! Male plants can impregnate the female plants with the help of pollination! Once you have grown a male plant and a female plant, place them really close to each other and shake the male plant. This shaking of the male plant will release pollen which will fall on the female plant and help impregnate it. Rotate the female plant around to ensure all parts of the plant get pollinated.

Once you have successfully pollinated a plant, you can expect it to bear seeds in about 4 to 6 weeks.

Preserving Seeds

After you have created your own seeds or bought seeds from somewhere – and you are done planting for now and have extra left, what do you do? You need to preserve the seeds but that needs to be done in the right manner. If preserved correctly, marijuana seeds tend to last for years.

The basic rules when it comes to preserving the seeds are:

Keep your seeds in a dark place. Do not, under any circumstances, have them exposed to direct sunlight.
Keep them away from moisture – the seeds must not be wet.
Keep them at room temperature. If the temperature goes too hot or too cold, it might end up damaging the seeds!