High-quality feminized cannabis seeds first appeared in the mid-1990s and quickly became a huge hit with the vast majority of growers around the world. When you look at the thousands of strains available on the market today, it’s easy to see how widespread their use has become within the community.
That’s why, in this article, we’ll explain the 10 good reasons to grow feminized cannabis. Anyone who thought that autoflowering plants were the best option until now will surely change their mind, so follow along…
Today, there is a wide range of top-quality genetics available in the form of feminized seeds, which naturally offer a multitude of possibilities to growers around the world. In the past, growers had to make do with regular cannabis seeds that produced unpredictable results, as they had to sort out the males and females at the start of the flowering period (sexing). Feminized seeds have allowed us to solve this problem and finally achieve a 99% ratio of female plants.
What are the benefits of feminized cannabis seeds?
Whether you prefer Sativa or Indica, energizing or relaxing effects, or have a preference for either elongated or compact flowers, one thing is certain: every grower is sure to find the option that best suits them for producing female plants. What is it about these feminized strains that makes us so fascinated by them, whether we’re growing indoors or outdoors? What is the real added value of these seeds?
Below, we explain 10 good reasons to grow feminized seeds.
1- Feminized seeds help save on growing media, fertilizer, and pesticides
It stands to reason that the more plants we grow, the more expensive cannabis cultivation becomes. If you use regular cannabis seeds for cultivation, you obviously need to buy growing medium and fertilizer, as well as pesticides and fungicides to protect against diseases and insects—and you need to do this for all your plants until the first pistils appear, which is when you can finally sort out the males from the females.
When you really think about it, it’s true that all the components—the soil, the pots, and all the fertilizer used—are completely wasted, since they’ll be lost forever and will have served only to produce male plants.
Even though the cost per pot is fairly low and varies depending on size, it’s best to conserve these precious resources and use them only to grow female plants, since it’s their harvest that we’re really interested in. Choosing a seed or a variety is therefore not a matter of chance…
2- Sprout only the seeds you plan to use
Before the early 2000s, cannabis growers had to germinate twice as many seeds as they intended to plant, because they knew in advance that there was a 50% chance of getting male plants.
Since it takes a few weeks to clearly determine a plant’s sex, it’s important to realize that this leads to a lot of wasted effort, a huge waste of time, and, above all, the waste of many seeds. Regular seeds and male plants can be used for various stages of breeding, but most people are primarily interested in growing beautiful, attractive flowers for consumption.
The solution to this problem is clearly to use feminized seeds. The cannabis seed is the starting point of a grow. As we mentioned earlier, you have a 99% chance of getting a female plant, so growers can rest assured that all germinated seeds will produce high-quality flowers. The end result? Optimal management of both your space and the timeline of the various stages of the grow.
3- Savings at every level thanks to feminized seeds
If we eliminate the possibility of obtaining these male plants—and thus the need to tend to them—we’ll see a significant reduction in our overall daily workload, allowing us to focus more of our attention on growing feminized cannabis plants. The direct result is that we will devote much less energy and time to tasks that add no value to either the quality or the quantity of our harvest.
The upside is that you’ll be able to make better use of your time, allowing you to refine the care of all your plants in order to achieve the best results. Time is a precious part of our lives, and we need to manage it with a certain degree of flexibility, whether it comes to growing cannabis or simply our daily lives.
What’s more, the cost of equipment and supplies is on the rise these days, even for fairly basic items like water, indoor lighting, plant pots, soil, and the nutrients your plants need throughout the many weeks of their growing cycle.
4- Optimal management of growing space
Most people don’t have a location with ideal growing conditions for cannabis. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t effectively manage the growing space you do have.
With the help of a good growing guide in the early stages, as well as your ingenuity and the dedication you bring to the process—not to mention the feminized seeds you choose—you’ll be able to grow as many plants as you’d like. It’s true that this requires some personal research over a period of time, but it’s well worth the effort, and passion is priceless.
In addition, feminized seeds produce high-quality results, even in small spaces. Choosing a Sativa or Indica strain—or simply the seed that best suits your primary goal—is crucial for the outcome of your grow.
Once you’ve carefully planned and set up this part, you can look forward to the best possible results from your indoor grow, which will yield a bountiful harvest—whether in a cabinet, under the stairs, in an attic, or any other discreet outdoor space you have available.
It is essential to create a well-organized and structured indoor growing space to ensure good air quality and circulation, allowing the plant’s leaves to breathe properly and providing optimal oxygenation of the environment, while also minimizing the risk of fungal diseases and pests.
In addition, it’s also important to choose the right pot type and size based on the variety you’ve selected, as this will directly affect both the plant’s final size and your harvest yield.
What we’re anticipating here is a series of chain reactions. We recommend that you also pay close attention to the quality of the water you use during cultivation (pH), as well as to the specific light spectrum required during both the growth phase and flowering. Depending on the crops grown around the world, there are a variety of techniques for approaching this activity in a fun and engaging way.
5- The Power of Feminized Seeds
It is true that autoflowering seeds are proving to be more potent than in the past, but it is also clear that photoperiod feminized cannabis seeds currently have the highest THC levels. It is not uncommon to see more and more of the latest generation of feminized strains reaching THC levels of 30%; such potency was not available just a few years ago.
Today’s feminized cannabis strains benefit from extensive research and development, making these genetics incredibly appealing for a variety of reasons—including, among others, ever-increasing potency—but it’s important to keep in mind that the grower plays a crucial role in bringing out the best in them. For a plant to reach its full potential, it must receive the necessary nutrients.
6- The flowers contain more resin
For now, it’s a fact: feminized plants contain more resin than any autoflowering strain, although this will certainly change in the near future. Logically, it’s clear that growers will get a higher-yielding plant, but this will also—and above all—affect the final quality of the flowers as well as various types of extracts (hash, oil, etc.).
It is important to give careful consideration to the cannabis seeds you choose, as not all of them are equal when it comes to resin production. Here too, the quality and quantity of nutrients in the soil play a crucial role. All of these factors will influence the intensity of the plant’s effects and flavor, as well as its THC content.
7- Avoid gendering issues with your cannabis plant
As we mentioned earlier, feminized seeds increase your chances of growing a female cannabis plant. The main advantage for beginners is that they make growing stress-free and easy. This is quite the opposite of regular seeds, since you have to be vigilant and remove the males before they pollinate and ruin the flowers in your harvest.
Sexing is done at the end of the growth phase or even at the beginning of the flowering phase (generally 10 to 15 days after switching to a 12-hour light cycle for the flowering phase, depending on the variety), and it requires extreme care; otherwise, your harvest yield could be completely ruined.
8. Higher yields from your cannabis plants
Feminized seeds have easily established themselves on the market because they can deliver a higher yield from your cannabis plants—something that autoflowering varieties simply cannot match. Since photoperiod varieties require both a longer growth phase and a longer flowering phase, they grow to a much larger size and, as a result, produce a significantly higher yield.
Once again, it’s essential to do your research to find the cannabis seed that best suits your needs.
There is a huge variety of plants available these days. It’s also important to ensure that all the necessary resources—such as water, light, and soil—are provided in sufficient quantities as the weeks go by. It’s important to be willing to invest a little money in soil amendments, such as high-quality pots.
It’s important to ensure that your soil and roots are well-oxygenated, since the roots act as your plants’ lungs. It’s also important to spray the leaves with clean water during the growing season to clean the stomata and optimize their respiration. This is a holistic process, in which every detail matters. Enjoy growing; using the right equipment makes things easier.
9- A market offer that’s enough to make your head spin
The market for cannabis seeds is incredibly vast these days, and we’re spoiled for choice when it comes to feminized cannabis strains. To the delight of many—and since we all have very different personal preferences—there are thousands of cannabis strains currently available on the market. So these days, it’s easy to choose the cannabis strain or strains that suit you best.
You can therefore make your choice based on one or more criteria at a time, whether it’s the length of the growth phase or the flowering phase, the taste, the effect, yields, or the THC content of a particular strain, or whether it’s better to grow certain seeds indoors in soil or outdoors, what type of lighting or nutrients will be needed in the coming weeks to maintain healthy roots, etc.
It is important to thoroughly research the characteristics of each plant so that you can also determine whether it might sometimes be better to grow them in pots outdoors to limit their size—for example, to maintain some privacy from neighbors—even if cultivation is legal in the country in question.
10. Knowing how to prepare for the trellising phase
It’s important to plan ahead for this stage, which is crucial for certain cannabis plants, particularly for seeds from American strains. Mastering certain pruning or growing methods, such as Screen of Green (SCROG) and Sea of Green (SOG), Fuck I Missed (FIM), or lollipopping (lollipop-shaped flowering), is crucial for certain U.S. cannabis hybrids. If you neglect this aspect, you risk being disappointed by the low yield of your plants.
Even if you make mistakes at first, it’s no big deal—you learn by doing. The cannabis plant has an excellent ability to regenerate, so feel free to practice using either a grow guide or online tutorials; there’s no shortage of them these days. Keep in mind that it’s the management of all the details that will allow you to grow cannabis worthy of the name.
