Browse through most seed shops today and the regular section is the shelf at the back: shorter every year, marked cheaper than the feminized packs beside it, and picked up by a dwindling group of people who understand exactly what they are after. It is tempting to see that as the end of a technology. It is nearer to the truth to see it as a library shrinking while the bookshop next door grows. Every feminized line began as a regular one, each new cross needs a male somewhere in its pedigree, and the diversity of cannabis genetics that survives at all exists because someone kept regular seed. Dedicated sellers such as https://breederregularseeds.com stock lines going back to the 1980s, offered in packs of 10 seeds because a pack is intended to be a population, not a single plant. This article sets out the argument for that half-male pack: what the male is for, what a grower loses by never growing one, and how to work with a pack rather than a copy.

What a Male Plant Is Actually For

The lazy description of a male cannabis plant is “the one that makes pollen”, and for a flower grower that is the whole of it. For a breeder it is half the genome of every seed which follows, and half is selected with the same care as the female.

A male passes on growth habit, vigour, flowering time, tolerance to mould and pests, resin density and the terpene profile just as the female does; it simply shows some of those qualities less visibly because it does not grows a finished flower. Those who work with regular seed spend at least as much time choosing males as females, and this is the work that a feminized cross inherits and cannot replicate. Reversing a female gives pollen; it does not provide a second set of selected traits.

The Narrowing

Much of the feminized market is built from S1 seeds: a single famous clone, treated and crossed with itself. Each generation of that process cuts in half the remaining genetic diversity, and after a couple of generations what remains is close to one plant expressed across marginally different ways.

This is acceptable for a consumer who wants that single plant. It is a problem for everyone who comes after. Hidden weaknesses emerge: hermaphrodite tendencies, weak stems, sensitivity to one particular mould. Traits that were present in the parent line but not in the chosen clone disappear from the population entirely. A generation of this produces a market crowded with versions of a dozen clones, and a breeder wanting to make something new finds there is nothing left to cross. Regular seed from a true outcrossed line is the store that replenishes the market, and that reservoir only persist if people keep growing it.

How to Judge a Male

Articles on choosing females are easy to find; guidance on choosing males is scarce, because most growers do not keep one long enough to judge. For a grower making seed, these are the marks breeders look for.

• Resin on the stem. Rub a stem or a pollen cluster and smell it. A male with resin on its flower parts and a strong aroma indicates it carries the resin traits that are worth keeping.
• Stability. Any male that at the same time shows female pistils under ordinary conditions is discarded outright; the tendency is the last thing anyone wants carrying into a line.
• Structure. Short internodes, a strong main stem and a frame that resembles the desired female habit are passed on; a stretched, weak-stemmed male passes that down too.
• Restraint. Plants that release enormous quantities of pollen all at once are often the least selected in other respects; many breeders favour steady shedders.
• Timing. A male that declares sex first and matures in step with the females is more workable than a very early one that sheds pollen before the female is receptive.

What 10 Seeds Actually Give You

The error first-time regular-seed growers fall into is treating a pack as 10 chances at the same plant. It is nothing of the kind. A pack from a real outcrossed line is a sample of a population, and the value of running it is to see the spread and choose from it.

Roughly half the plants will be male, so a pack of 10 seeds yields around five females to compare and five males to either discard or judge for breeding. Within the females, look for noticeable variation: height, finishing time, aroma, density, tolerance. That variation is not a flaw in the seed; it is what the seed is for. The grower who keeps the best female and the best male has something a feminized pack can never supply: a pair of chosen parents that are theirs.

From One Pack to the Next

Holding chosen parents is only worth something if producing the next generation, and here the choices multiply. Three approaches account for most of what home breeders attempt.

• Open pollination. Let every male pollinate each female. It keeps the full diversity of the line, produces a large volume of seed, and does no choosing at all. This is how traditional lines are kept going, and it is the correct method when the aim is preservation not refinement.
• Selected cross. One chosen male to one or several picked females, every other plant else culled. The offspring inherit the traits of the two selected plants and express narrower variation than the parent pack. Done over several rounds with consistent choices, this is how a stable line is built.
• Backcross. Cross a chosen offspring again to one of its parents to lock in a particular trait. It tightens the range fast and is used when one parent has something worth keeping and the second brought mainly vigour.

All three require only a isolated space for the male, a paintbrush or a paper bag, and patience. None of them calls for the chemical treatment that feminized seed-making does.

The Seeds That Only Exist as Regulars

A number of lines were never been feminized and likely never will be: landraces gathered from places where cannabis grew over centuries, and heirloom crosses from the early decades of modern breeding. They are available as regular seed since the breeders keeping them treat the population as the entire value, and reversing a single clone would erase exactly what makes the line worth preserving.

Running a landrace from regular seed is different from running a modern hybrid. There will be wide variation, long flowering periods in equatorial lines, tall plants, and qualities that made sense in a mountain valley but not under a tent. There will be also flavours and chemistry that do not appear in the commercial market anywhere. Breeder Regular Seeds keeps a dedicated landrace and heirloom section, and each line marked with its origin of collection and the generation it has been reproduced from the original collection.

Who Should Not Buy Regular Seeds

Nothing of the above makes regular seed into the right choice for everyone, and pretending otherwise would the category no favours.

A grower with space for a handful of plants who needs each one of them to flower is far better served with feminized seed. The same is a grower unable to inspect the plants every day around the start of flower, since a missed male in a small space seeds the whole crop inside days. A person running a single autoflower on a balcony gets no use from a pack they cannot select from. And anyone who wants a known famous cut reproduced as closely as possible is looking for a feminized S1, not a two-parent cross. Regular seed is for the grower who wants to choose, to keep and at some point to produce something new; for anyone else the regular shelf is best left alone.

Before You Buy

Breeder Regular Seeds dispatches each order in unmarked parcels with the breeder’s packs intact inside and no on the exterior to reveal the contents. Orders to the United States are not taken, as seed import is restricted there. Seed law varies widely by country: in a good number of places buying seeds is lawful as collectables while germinating them is not, and in others the two are permitted under local rules or both is. Knowing the position in your own jurisdiction is the buyer’s responsibility, and nothing of this article should be read as legal advice.