Marijuana Cannabis Seeds

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Cannabis Seeds

More about marijuana seeds
Anatomy of a cannabis seed
Seedless cannabis
How cannabis seeds are produced
What’s the difference between feminized, regular, and autoflower Seeds?
Is it illegal to buy marijuana seeds?
Where to buy marijuana seeds
Do dispensaries sell seeds?
How much do marijuana seeds cost?
How many seeds should I buy?
How to store cannabis seeds
Germinating cannabis seeds
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The embryonic plant protected by an outer shell, formed when pollen fertilizes the female plant. Marijuana seeds are ready to plant and grow once they successfully germinate, or once the root has broken through the seed. They can be found in multiple forms; regular, feminized, and auto-flowering. Home growers of cannabis often choose to grow feminized seeds to ensure that the adult plant will be a flowering female.

Plants grown from seed develop stronger root structures.

I found a seed in my weed.

cannabis seeds closeup

More about marijuana seeds
As with all angiosperms, or flowering plants, cannabis produces seeds that contain all of the genetic information needed for growth and reproduction. When a seed is planted, the translation of this genetic material dictates each unique physical characteristic the mature plant will have. If these are desirable traits, like potency, smell, vigor, etc., a breeder can select for these through a long process of genetic stabilization through generations, which eventually leads to the creation of a cultivar, or strain.

Anatomy of a cannabis seed
Cannabis seeds are about the size of a peppercorn, ovular in form, and pointed on each end with a ridge that transverses longitudinally on only one side from tip to tip. It is this ridge that opens up during germination. The other side opposite to the ridge is rounded. The body of the seed is brown, but underdeveloped and unfertilized seeds can have an off-white color and are typically smaller in size.

The body of a marijuana seed is spotted or striped, most commonly with light brown specks, but some varieties of cannabis can have red or yellow markings. Plant embryos are contained within seeds and house all of the cells that will eventually differentiate into leaves, roots, and stems. Embryos, found within the reproductive organs, are protected by an outer envelope called the pericarp. Crucial components of the plant embryo are the cotyledons, the first leaves to appear from the seed, and the radicle, which develops into the primary root. Once the seed germinates and begins its growth into a mature plant, special structures called root caps protect the growing tips of the plant.

Seedless cannabis
Today’s common-market cannabis does not contain seeds; the cultivation practices that have made this widespread are rooted in fundamental biological concepts. Cannabis is a dioecious plant, meaning it has separate male and female organisms, just like humans. If a female plant matures in the presence of a male plant, pollen from the male will fertilize the female, and its bracts will contain seeds at the end of the flowering cycle. Seedless cannabis is commonplace even in the product originating from mass-produced outdoor cultivation, but not too long ago, this was not the case.

Around the middle of the 20th Century, growers discovered that culling male plants as soon as they display their sexed traits, would result in a crop containing exclusively unfertilized females, yielding cannabis flowers higher in THC that don’t require the removal of seeds before smoking. This seedless cannabis was from then on dubbed sinsemilla, which translates to “without seed” in Spanish. It is also commonly spelled sensimilla.

How cannabis seeds are produced
Cannabis seed production begins with the pollen grain of a male plant. From this grain, a pollen tube grows, producing male generative cells that disperse in the form of pollen. The migration of pollen into a female plant ovule triggers pistils to fall off and seed production to begin. The bracts, which contain the ovule, will then fill with seeds.

What’s the difference between feminized, regular, and autoflower Seeds?
In 1982, Indian breeders made a major advance in cannabis botany with the development of the feminized seed. The key difference between feminized marijuana seeds and regular marijuana seeds is that feminized seeds have been engineered to produce exclusively female plants, whereas with regular seeds you can’t really predict if the mature plant will be male or female. This matters for cultivation since smokable flowers are produced only by female plants. Further, a male plant can potentially ruin a harvest if it pollinates nearby female plants, which produces flowers full of seeds.

Popularized and marketed extensively by Dutch seed companies, feminized seeds produce female plants more than 99% of the time. Growers that use feminized seeds shoul