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 widely they’ve become accepted within the community.
That’s why, in this article, we’ll explain the 10 good reasons to grow feminized cannabis. Anyone who thinks that autoflowering plants have been the best option so far will certainly change their mind, so follow along…
Nowadays, there is a wide variety 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, since they had to sort out the males and females at the beginning 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 longer or more 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 that makes us so fascinated by these feminized strains, whether we’re growing them 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 money on growing media, fertilizer, and insecticides
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 have 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.
If you really think about it, it’s true that all the components—the soil, the pots, and all the fertilizer used—are completely useless, because they’ll be lost forever and will have served only to produce male plants.
Even though the unit price of a 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 identify a plant’s sex, it’s important to understand that this leads to a lot of wasted effort, a huge waste of time, and, above all, a lot of wasted seeds. Regular seeds and male plants can be used for various stages of “breeding,” but most people are more interested in growing beautiful, attractive flowers for consumption.
The solution to this problem is clearly the use of feminized seeds. A 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 the seeds that germinate will produce high-quality flowers. The end goal? Optimal management of both your growing 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 having to tend to them—we’ll see a significant reduction in our overall daily workload, and we’ll be able to focus more of our attention on growing feminized cannabis plants. The direct result is that we’ll spend much less energy and time on 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 to refine the care you give 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’s when it comes to growing cannabis or simply our daily lives.
In addition, the cost of equipment and supplies is rising these days, even for fairly basic items such as water, indoor lighting, planting pots, potting soil, and the nutrients your plants need during the many weeks it takes to grow them.
4- Optimal management of the growing area
Most people don’t have a place with ideal climate conditions for growing 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, the dedication you bring to the process, and 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 worth the effort, and passion is priceless.
In addition, feminized seeds produce high-quality results, even in limited spaces. Choosing a Sativa or Indica variety—or simply the seed that best suits your primary goal—is crucial for the future outcome.
Once you’ve carefully planned and set up this part, you’ll be able to set the best possible expectations for your indoor grow, which will yield a bountiful harvest—whether in a cabinet, under the stairs, on a rooftop, or in any 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 for the area, while also preventing the risk of fungal diseases and pests.
In addition, it's also important to choose the right type and size of pots 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’ll 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 way.
5- The Power of Feminized Seeds
It’s true that autoflowering seeds are proving to be more potent than in the past, but it’s also clear that feminized photoperiod 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 as high as 30%; such potency was not available just a few years ago.
Today’s feminized cannabis strains benefit from research and development that makes these genetics incredibly appealing for various reasons—including, among others, ever-increasing potency—but it’s important to keep in mind that the grower plays a crucial role in bringing all of this to the fore. For a plant to reach its full potential, it must receive the necessary amount of nutrients.
6- The flowers contain more resin
For now, it’s a fact that feminized plants contain more resin than any autoflowering strain, even though this will certainly change in the near future. Therefore, by sheer logic, it’s clear that growers will obtain a plant with a higher yield, but this will also—and above all—affect the final quality of the flowers as well as the various types of extracts (hash, oil, etc.).
It’s important to give careful consideration to the cannabis seeds you choose, as not all of them produce the same amount of resin. 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 effects and flavor produced by each plant, as well as the THC content of each one.
7- Avoid sexing issues with your cannabis plant
As we’ve mentioned before, feminized seeds increase your chances of growing a female cannabis plant. The main advantage for beginners is that they can grow plants easily and without stress. This is quite the opposite of growing with 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 lost.
8- Higher yields from your cannabis plants
Feminized seeds have easily found their place in the market because they can give you 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 much higher yield.
Once again, it’s essential to do your research to find the cannabis seed that best suits your goals.
There is a huge variety of plants available these days. It’s also important to ensure an adequate supply of all the necessary resources—such as water, light, and soil—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 are the “lungs” of your plants. 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 gardening—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; we’re spoiled for choice when it comes to feminized cannabis strains. To the delight of most people—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 the same 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 more plants in pots outdoors—to limit their size—in order to maintain a certain level of privacy from neighbors, for example, 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—especially seeds from American strains. Mastering certain pruning or cultivation methods, such as Screen of Green (SCROG) and Sea of Green (SOG), Fuck I Missed (FIM), or lollipopping (lollipop-shaped flower development) 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 okay—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 managing all the details that will allow you to grow a cannabis crop worthy of the name.
