Elikirshtein Home

Marijuana growers typically waste a lot of time, energy, and money removing the male plants from their garden in order to grow sinsemilla, which are all-female plants whose flowers are not pollinated. But what if every seed you planted turned out to be female instead of the typical 50-50 ratio? You would get a head start with less work.

When an online seed company has a web page with a gorgeous topless woman almost covering her nipples with marijuana leaves and directly below is the comment “Feminized marijuana seeds represent the peak in quality and genetics of marijuana seeds,” the BS sensors start ringing in my brain. Naturally the reason so many seed companies and banks are pushing them is because they can make more money with them. There is no known method for treating existing normal seeds to feminize them, but you can create your own feminized seeds for the next growing cycle.

A hermaphroditic top showing both male and female flowers.

The basics behind creating all-female seeds are simple. A female flowering plant is induced to grow male

pollen sacs and produce pollen. This pollen, which has only female genetic material, is used to fertilize other females. The results are seeds that will be mostly female. The seed companies would have you believe that the plants grown from these seeds are universally female. That’s not always true, but at least with feminized seeds, the odds are a lot better than 50-50 for producing female plants.

There are several different ways to make the female plants produce male pollen sacs. Some females will do it as a result of stress from heat, while some will make a desperate attempt (forgive my anthropomorphism) to pollinate themselves because there are no males handy. There are two chemical treatments that will induce male parts on female plants: colloidal silver and gibberellic acid. But before you go to all that trouble, let’s get another opinion.

Some seed companies don’t sell feminized seeds and instead recommend cloning your female plants. One company calls feminized seeds an “unstable and unpredictable hermaphroditic breed.” That said, at least 250 varieties of marijuana are available with seeds that are both feminized and autoflowering. Most feminized and autoflowering seeds are at least twice as expensive as regular seeds. From what I’ve read and experienced, making clones is, indeed, the answer for increasing the number of female plants if you’re on a budget (more on this on http://www.ilovegrowingmarijuana.com).