Why not pollinate your first grow to get more seeds?

I see a lot of threads discussing the risks and costs of ordering from a seedbank, but I have seen very little advice suggesting to take your first grow and try to produce more seeds. Why is that? Is there something I am missing? I would think that it would make sense to use your first grow to produce more seeds than you will ever need, and then forego the risk and cost of ordering from a seedbank in the future.

The only drawback I see is that if you are running a small grow op, you are essentially giving up some of the productivity of the first grow, but the gains seem to outweigh the costs...

Thanks in advance.

People buy seeds and then clone the females. Why would you want to go to the bullshit of sexing every single plant?

I agree with you 100 % I always make seeds and I'm usually growing 3 strains at a time so I make crosses of them too.

twoplustwo said:

I see a lot of threads discussing the risks and costs of ordering from a seedbank, but I have seen very little advice suggesting to take your first grow and try to produce more seeds. Why is that? Is there something I am missing? I would think that it would make sense to use your first grow to produce more seeds than you will ever need, and then forego the risk and cost of ordering from a seedbank in the future.

The only drawback I see is that if you are running a small grow op, you are essentially giving up some of the productivity of the first grow, but the gains seem to outweigh the costs...

Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

I've been asking the same question for a long time.
It just makes no sense to me for a person to pay for seeds, then kill any males that may grow because they'll pollinate the fems.
I say: Let 'em grow. Get your money's worth and make more seeds, not just for yourself, but for trading too.

Imagine if everybody did that?
It'd be like - I'll trade you 250 of my Such and Such for 250 of your White Whatever.

Cool idea, huh?

people do pollinate thier females to get seeds.

just a suggestion tho, dont leave the males to polinate the ENTIRE grow, when u find out sex, remove males (kill all nut 1, make some hash or some shit) then wait for the flowers to open and collect a good pollen sample on a clean paintbrush, now that you have pollinted paintbrush, just pollinate a couple of nodes on the female and WALLAH!!! you will have a couple of nodes that will be full of seeds, can even let them grow on the plant after you harvest the rest so they get nice and bulging with seeds and that wil give you enough seeds for as many grows as you want in the future.

but like the OP said, cloning is easier and you dont have to worry about picking out males BUT!!!! if your an outdoot grower and only grow once a year then this might be a good plan for you as cloning is more of a indoor growroom that is operating year round.

Some do, yes. But from what I've seen, most people don't pollinate and immediately kill the males. And the only problem with clones is that they don't yield as much as a plant grown from seed. I was just thinking.... what if you have to take a break from growing for a while? Only having clones would kinda suck.

You want to make sure that the plants you use are the best of your bunch too, you don't want to make hundreds of seeds of substandard genetics.
I'm thinking about doing a big pollination once, to get a few hundreds seeds of my favourite strain, once I have decided on something that I really like.
I'll still use clones where possible but like you say, if I have a break or go on holiday, it would be cool to not have to worry about ordering seeds online.
Never know when the enforcement of the customs laws will get more strict, would be nice to know I have a cache of magic beans...

I think many people just like variety.

This doesn't apply to me personally but I would understand the logic - Say I can only grow 6 plants at a time and like to try different strains. I can grow 6 females each of a different strain or I can grow just three stains, 1 female and 1 male of each strain for seeds; I end up with half the bud - and it's seeded, but I have seeds for next time. Next time I want to try new strains regardless of how good these ones where. Crap - I just cut my yield in half for seeds and seeded bud and I'm not even going to use the seeds.

Keep in mind you can buy feminized seeds for $10/each - $60 a grow which nets 3/4 - 12lbs in bud. $60 capital investment in seeds for $1,000-36,000 in bud.

yeah like i said, pollination is definatly an option and i think some are definatly oblivious to this option but most people who know what they are doing do get seeds for later use, they just dont let them entire grow get pollinated.

if i were to order seeds i would not buy fem seeds because i would in fact want to pollinate and get some seeds for later use, but thats me.

Rj41 said:

Some do, yes. But from what I've seen, most people don't pollinate and immediately kill the males. And the only problem with clones is that they don't yield as much as a plant grown from seed. I was just thinking.... what if you have to take a break from growing for a while? Only having clones would kinda suck.

Click to expand...

I'd heard that the clones carry the identical characteristics of the mother. Why would yield decrease?

Yield doesn't decrease, that's bullshit.

a clone can be just as big or bigger than a plant started from seed, it all depends on how long you vegg for, Most people just vegg for a few weeks then into flower because it gives them a harvest more frequently.

like i said before a cloning rotation with mothers is for full time growers. pollinating is for seasonal growers. it really all just depends on how you grow and what suites your needs. it would be stupid for full time growers to try and plant seeds every 3-4 weeks so they get a good cloning system down and do thet.

outdoors people who only have 1 window of grow time a year usually start from seed in early spring, having a good supply of quality seeds would be handy for this style grow

Whoever said clones yield less than seeds is MIGHTILY misinformed. Not only are you getting an exact replica of your best female of the bunch, you're getting a plant that requires less veg time that is also more thc potent.

Quoted in marijuana horticulture by Jorge Cervantes "a six-month old plant produces more cannabinoids than a one-month old plant. By cloning, a horticulturist is planting a THC potent plant that will continue to grow in potency at a very rapid rate. A month old rooted clone acts exactly like a four month old plant and can easily be induced to flower"

To answer the original question, IMO a 10 pack of seeds is to be used only to find one to two mothers. That's why I toss the males.

Yeah people with first grows want to get high not count seeds IMO its common sense. Hey guys let's grow a bunch of weed for 3-4 months to make some completely worthless seeds we can't sell it's about making product to offset your growing cost.

matthebrute said:

a clone can be just as big or bigger than a plant started from seed, it all depends on how long you vegg for, Most people just vegg for a few weeks then into flower because it gives them a harvest more frequently.

like i said before a cloning rotation with mothers is for full time growers. pollinating is for seasonal growers. it really all just depends on how you grow and what suites your needs. it would be stupid for full time growers to try and plant seeds every 3-4 weeks so they get a good cloning system down and do thet.

outdoors people who only have 1 window of grow time a year usually start from seed in early spring, having a good supply of quality seeds would be handy for this style grow

Click to expand...

Cool thing about clones is that they retain the maturity of the mother as well.

Destillat said:

Whoever said clones yield less than seeds is MIGHTILY misinformed. Not only are you getting an exact replica of your best female of the bunch, you're getting a plant that requires less veg time that is also more thc potent.

Quoted in marijuana horticulture by Jorge Cervantes "a six-month old plant produces more cannabinoids than a one-month old plant. By cloning, a horticulturist is planting a THC potent plant that will continue to grow in potency at a very rapid rate. A month old rooted clone acts exactly like a four month old plant and can easily be induced to flower"

To answer the original question, IMO a 10 pack of seeds is to be used only to find one to two mothers. That's why I toss the males.

Click to expand...

That's the source I used as well. Jorge knows weed.

Rj41 said:

Some do, yes. But from what I've seen, most people don't pollinate and immediately kill the males. And the only problem with clones is that they don't yield as much as a plant grown from seed. I was just thinking.... what if you have to take a break from growing for a while? Only having clones would kinda suck.

Click to expand...

And the only problem with clones is that they don't yield as much as a plant grown from seed??????????????????????????????????????/


I don't understand what you mean here ???? Could you please explain your info

Thank you

0calli said:

Yeah people with first grows want to get high not count seeds IMO its common sense. Hey guys let's grow a bunch of weed for 3-4 months to make some completely worthless seeds we can't sell it's about making product to offset your growing cost.

Click to expand...

If you only pollenate one or two lower branches you can get tons of seeds and barely affect your yield. Making seeds off of your first grow is crucial if you are growing out autoflowers, since they can't be cloned. I am amazed that people even buy feminized autoflowers.
I think it's a good idea to keep a good collection of seeds. You never know when the sources we are used to relying on for seeds could get shut down.

TheGrotesque said:

Yield doesn't decrease, that's bullshit.

Click to expand...

Obviously a noobee.

A plant grown from seed will have more branching, leading to more bud sites, which in turn produces a higher yielding plant.

That is fact and not debatable.

Do some research and get your facts straight before you open your mouth, Noobee.

I think what he means is seeds show hybrid vigor...
But who knows what he means...