About Feminized Seeds

It's often said on the boards that the feminized seeds of some breeders are more hermie-prone than others but I've never come across discussion of techniques for breeders to make feminized seeds less hermie prone.

If a seed vendor is selling seeds that are hermie prone, then what exactly is it they're doing (or not doing) that the better feminized seed vendors are not?

It is believed that forcing a female to throw male floweres by environmental stressors (eg. Light, ph, or long flowering period) passes along more hermaphroditic possibilities than using hormonal or chemical procedures to get "feminized" pollen.

The level of stress caused by hormonal or chemical procedures (eg colloidal silver, gibberrelic acid) is debatable, so unfortunately I do not know for sure, but that is common belief. Some do seem to disagree. Soma uses long flowering time to get his bananas, I've never grown his gear but have heard great things and will try him someday.

I also believe environmental stressors cause more damage to the next generations stability. Not that you will definately get a hermie, but environmental stressors in your grow are more likely to cause a hermie. I also believe feminized seeds are all to a degree instable. I think anything you want to have around for generations and generations should be from regular seeds to be safe, and breeding projects. If you just want to grow 1 run of something you have had your eye on and don't want to mess with males, go fem.

RoloTomassi said:

If a seed vendor is selling seeds that are hermie prone, then what exactly is it they're doing (or not doing) that the better feminized seed vendors are not?

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Hermies happen, sometimes it is your fault (stress) and sometimes the batch is unstable. I personally do not buy fem seeds or Autos whenever possible...

a dog named chico said:

Hermies happen, sometimes it is your fault (stress) and sometimes the batch is unstable. I personally do not buy fem seeds or Autos whenever possible...

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Thanks for weighing in but you seem to be missing the point of my question. If there is no concrete science upon which a strategy is based to breed non-hermie-prone fem seeds then what justification to people have to claim that some seed vendors produce inferior female seeds and others produce good ones?

Is the whole notion of "quality" feminized seeds a myth? Are all feminized seeds more or less the same?

TheLastWood said:

It is believed that forcing a female to throw male floweres by environmental stressors (eg. Light, ph, or long flowering period) passes along more hermaphroditic possibilities than using hormonal or chemical procedures to get "feminized" pollen.

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I'd tend to think that application of 'hormonal or chemical procedures' would be the preferred method and that a majority of seed vendors use this method (?). If true we could at least lump all seed vendors that document their use of colloidal silver or whatever chemical and broadly characterize the quality of their fem seeds as being ... what? better than average? Since 'it is believed that forcing a female to throw male flowers by environmental stressors passes along more hermaphroditic possibilities'.

The reason some fem seeds are haveing more hermie tendicies is that they are not true females to start with.A true female will not herm even with envioramental stress(chemicals only will stress a true female) a breeder needs to work with a strain long enough to know whether it has any herm issues before he ever uses it to breed with.Some breeders are just takeing cuts then spraying them with STS and makeing S1s before they really even know much about the strains they are useing

Mr.Therapy Man 2 said:

The reason some fem seeds are haveing more hermie tendicies is that they are not true females to start with.A true female will not herm even with envioramental stress(chemicals only will stress a true female) a breeder needs to work with a strain long enough to know whether it has any herm issues before he ever uses it to breed with.Some breeders are just takeing cuts then spraying them with STS and makeing S1s before they really even know much about the strains they are useing

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This is not true. Even females that refuse to show bananas with stress can be brought to herm with the overripe technique. Herming is a natural defense that the plant has developed to avoid extinction in the wild. If there are no males around to pollinate the flowers, after a time, the plant will pollinate itself to ensure the survival of the species. Stress herming is a genetic issue that CAN AND SHOULD be bred out of crop cannabis through breeding only the strongest plants that are the most resistant to environmental stresses.

i am subbed i hope we can get some more scientific tests!

personally i only use reg seeds