Frederick Jace
More people are beginning to experiment with cannabis outside of the occasional joint or edible as more people enter the vast, strange world of cannabis culture. At-home cultivation, which allows you to grow and process your weed supply, is one aspect of cannabis culture that may have stimulated your interest.
However, when you first move into the world of cultivation, you are confronted with a disturbing decision: do you start with seeds or clones? What exactly do these terms mean, and how can you form an opinion? Continue reading to find out.
What Are Seeds?
Seeds are what they sound like: seeds that, when adequately sown and cared for, grow into their cannabis plants. Cannabis plants can only reproduce sexually in the wild, which means that the pollen of male cannabis plants must fertilize the flowers of female cannabis plants to produce seeds.
Breeders frequently separate male and female plants in captivity, which helps female plants grow large, beautiful buds that can be harvested for consumption. If pollination occurs, female flowers lose up to 30% of their potency, and because high power yields higher profits, keeping male and female plants together is usually not beneficial. On the other hand, some breeders pollinate their crops by hand or through natural processes to produce seeds for sale to enterprising home cultivators or you can get more info here.
Pros and Cons of Seeds
Pros
- Seeds are discreetly packaged and legal to buy and sell almost everywhere in the world, making them highly accessible even if you do not live in a jurisdiction where medical or recreational marijuana is legal.
- Once you’ve grown a few cannabis plants, you can start breeding them together to try new strains.
- As long as you properly care for your seed-grown crops, seeds tend to produce healthy plants free of persistent diseases or pests.
Cons
- Seeds can grow slowly or never germinate if they are old or improperly stored before planting. This usually means that you’ll need to buy more sources to ensure a healthy crop.
- If you do not purchase feminized seeds, you will most likely end up with a mix of male and female cannabis plants. Male plants do not produce cannabinoids in their buds, making them essentially useless to home growers who are not interested in experimenting with breeding.
- Seeds from well-known strains can be costly, and the costs of planting and caring for seeds can quickly add up. Always Buy popular strains of cannabis from Homegrown Cannabis Co and attempt to grow lesser-known strains at home in usually more cost-effective ways.
What Are Clones?
Cannabis can also reproduce asexually, though this occurs only infrequently in nature. Taking cuttings from a mature plant and propagating them, or growing roots and planting that cutting as if it were a seedling, is how cannabis plants reproduce asexually. This is referred to as a clone. Read more about cloning in MyBiosource.com.
Breeders create clones for a few reasons. For one thing, they are less challenging to produce than seeds, which require breeders to maintain a crop of males while allowing female plants to lose potency when they goto source. Furthermore, clones have a nearly identical genetic profile to their mother plant, which has both advantages and disadvantages.
Pros and Cons of Clones
Pros
- Because breeders do not sell male clones, clones are always female. As a result, you are purchasing a plant with harvestable buds.
- Clones are typically sold at a more mature stage of growth, which means you won’t have to wait as long to harvest your flower.
- Clones are predictable in their growth patterns and potency levels because they have identical genetics to the mother plant. This can remove a lot of the guesswork from cannabis cultivation and make home growing a little easier, particularly for beginners.
Cons
- Many breeders believe in “genetic drift,” the idea that successive cloning will result in crops that look nothing like the original mother. Some credible science supports this theory, so you must always trust the source of your clones to ensure high quality.
- Clones exacerbate problems that existed in the mother plant. If the mother was afflicted with a disease or pest, the clone is likely to be afflicted as well.
- Clones are more delicate, necessitating specific light, soil, and moisture conditions to thrive. Clones frequently die unexpectedly before flowering due to insufficient care.
You Need To Be Careful
Seeds are caustic. They can be thrown directly into the ground. Clones are delicate and must be handled with care. Cuttings will die if you take them aggressively or do not give them a good start.
On the other hand, fragile cuttings necessitate a specially tailored environment with customized parameters to ensure the best possible start in life. They require optimal humidity levels as well as temperatures that are finely tuned and consistent. For these reasons, you’ll need to make more room in your grow room to accommodate their needs, significantly if you’re also growing from seeds.
Which Is Better – Clones Or Seeds?
The answer is entirely subjective. It all comes down to the grower’s personal preferences and skills. Beginners will have a much easier time — and better results — if they use seeds. Clones are more challenging to work with and should be reserved for slightly more experienced growers. On the other hand, veteran growers will select sources for breeding purposes or to see plants through from start to finish.
Experimenting will allow you to find your way of doing things. Experiment with both and see which works best for you and your evolving style. Best wishes!
