What are Feminized Cannabis Seeds?
Feminized hemp and cannabis seeds are produced to grow primarily female plants, while regular hemp and cannabis seeds have a 50% chance of being female. Since cannabis is a dioecious plant, it evenly produces male and female plants, or plants with male and female flowering parts. The feminization process allows breeders and seed producers to create seed that is almost entirely female. Though we keep our exact recipe, frequency, and timing proprietary, growers typically use a colloidal silver spray for feminization.
Producing primarily phenotypically presenting females is an efficient approach to streamlining the cultivation of cannabis and hemp flower. Though there is no way to completely remove the risk of male plants pollinating and seeding female flowers (as least with normal, diploid cannabis), farmers and cultivators can save an enormous amount of production space and time by removing males from the equation at the beginning of the growth cycle of the cannabis plant.
Understanding Feminized Seeds: Quality and Production Rates
Not all feminized seeds produce equally. The process is easy to learn but tricky to master. We’ve heard many anecdotal stories of fly by night seed producer lots producing 20-30% males, so apparently it’s a thing you can encounter if you’re not careful. Atlas Seed feminization rates tend to range from 1:1000 to 1:4000, or 99.99% in either case. These rates compare with the best feminized seeds in the world. To date we are not aware of anyone offering “100% feminized seed.”
Some breeders and producers claim their feminized seeds produce no males. However, they may show a small number of hermaphrodites. From the grower’s perspective, this distinction is merely semantic. In either case, we are still discussing pollen-producing male parts that can seed your crop. With Atlas Seed’s feminized cultivars, depending on the amount of plants you have per acre, you’ll basically end up with somewhere between 10-20 males per acre. For more information on conducting a proper hunt for male and hermaphroditic plants, please see our male hunt guide here.