Feminized Cannabis Seeds: Are They Worth It? Pros and Cons

Published Apr 20, 2024

by Nebula Haze

You’re shopping at a cannabis a seed bank and see that seeds can be “regular” or “feminized”. Hmmm. What does “feminized” mean? Should you buy regular or feminized marijuana seeds? What are the pros and cons of each type of seeds? Get the answers now!

Why grow “feminized” cannabis seeds?

“Feminized” cannabis seeds are seeds that grow only female plants. This is useful for cannabis growers because regular seeds produce half male and half female plants. The issue is that you can’t easily tell the difference between male and female plants at first. You have to wait until plants grow their first flowers or pre-flowers, which can take several weeks, before you find out the plant sex. Why do you want only female plants? Only female plants make buds.

Quick Answer: All feminized seeds make buds. With regular seeds, only half of plants make buds.

Feminized seeds always make buds.

That means if you start with feminized seeds, every plant will grow into a bud-making female plant. On the other hand, regular seeds yield a 50/50 split of male and female plants. Male plants produce pollen sacs with low THC (not smokeable) and can pollinate female plants, leading to seedy buds with lower potency and yield.

With regular seeds, half of plants are male and only grow low-THC pollen sacs. Most home growers throw them away.

The problem is you can’t easily tell the difference between male and female cannabis plants until they start growing flowers.

Young male and female cannabis plants look exactly the same.

…Unless you start with feminized seeds. Then you know every plant is female even though you can’t tell just by looking.

All these plants are known to be female since they were grown from feminized seeds.

Growing feminized seeds ensures all cannabis plants grow buds.

It’s easier to plan your grow when every plant is female. Otherwise you have to wait until plants get bigger, and then throw half of them away.

Feminized vs. Regular Cannabis Seeds: Pros and Cons

What are the advantages and disadvantages of feminized vs regular marijuana seeds? Find out below.

Feminized Seeds

Pros

Every plant grows buds – Since every plant is female, every plant makes buds.
No male plants – No need to worry about male plants taking up space or seeding your buds.
Consistency – Feminized seeds,often highly inbred, may produce more consistent yields and bud quality.
Cheaper per female plant – Although feminized seeds tend to cost a little more than regular seeds, they don’t cost twice as much. But you get double the amount of bud-growing female plants. That means each female plant costs less overall if you use feminized seeds.

Cons

Not good for making seeds – Since you don’t have male plants to make pollen, you can’t easily make more seeds. Growers can use special techniques involving chemicals to make seeds with all-female plants, but it is a somewhat intensive process.
Not good for breeding – Feminized seeds lack genetic diversity and are a poor choice for breeding new strains even if you go through the trouble of making seeds with them.
Fewer options – Not all strains are available in feminized form. That means there may be strains you can get in regular form, but not in feminized form. If you want to grow those strains, regular seeds may be your only option.

Related Article: Are feminized seeds more likely to “herm”?

With feminized seeds, you can germinate just 1-2 seeds per strain, and know every plant will make buds.

Regular Seeds

Pros

Great for breeding – Regular seeds tend to have more variable genetics and be less inbred. This greater genetic diversity gives you a rich base to breed new strains.
Great for making seeds – If you would like to produce your own seeds at home, it is far easier to do so if you have male plants to make pollen.
More strain choice – It’s harder to make feminized seeds, and therefore many strains are only available in regular form. That means if you’re willing to start with regular seeds, you typically have more choice when it comes to strain. Also, a lot of the newest cutting-edge strains are only available as regular seeds.

Cons

Must toss half the plants – If your goal is just to grow buds, you will want to identify and remove male plants as soon as possible. That means once plants reveal their sex, you have to throw half of them away.
Higher cost per female plant – Although regular seeds tend to cost less than feminized seeds, they don’t cost half as much. But you will end up with half as many female plants.
Sometimes less consistent – There are regular seeds that have been stabilized with a great breeding program over several generations. However, since there is inherently more variability with regular seeds, on average, they’re less likely to all “breed true” with each other. In other words, you may grow a bunch of seeds of the same strain, but all the plants grow different (the buds look different, smell different, have varied potency, different yields, etc.).

Half of regular seeds are male, and male plants don’t make buds.

Note: One way to overcome a lot of the cons with regular seeds is to germinate a bunch of regular seeds, wait until the plants get old enough that you can determine their sex, then clone the female plants. That way, all the clones are known females. However, this process adds a month or two onto your total grow time. If you’re just starting out, that might be more time than you’re willing to spend before you start your actual grow.

Is it worth buying feminized cannabis seeds?

Like many things in life, it depends. Whether you should buy regular or feminized seeds depends on your personal needs.

If you plan to start a breeding program, you should start with regular seeds. If you want to produce your own seeds, definitely start with regular seeds. If the strain you want to grow is only available as regular seeds, you don’t have a choice and must start with regular seeds.

But for home growers who want total control over their grow from seed to harvest, feminized seeds remove a lot of uncertainty. You can start growing 5 plants and know all 5 will make buds.

With regular seeds, if you’re unlucky, you could grow 5 plants and every one of them might end up being a male plant. On average, at least 2-3 of them will be male. That can make it hard to plan. For example, I like to grow plants so they fit tightly in the grow space and fill it up completely. This maximizes yields. You can’t do this when you don’t know which or how many plants will have to be tossed.

It’s difficult to fully fill up the grow space with buds like this if you have to throw away half the plants right when they start flowering.

Personally, as a home grower who grows under 20 plants at a time, I always start with feminized seeds unless I have no other option for a particular strain. When I do start with regular seeds, I germinate them while the last grow is still happening, wait until I identify the female plants, then clone them. Clones from female plants will always be female, so they’re like starting with feminized seeds. This adds extra time, but gives you a “feminized seed” experience with regular seeds.

Tips for Feminized Seeds

Best seed banks for feminized seeds

There are hundreds of cannabis seed sources out there, and many of them are a great source of genetics. Personally, I have had excellent results growing feminized seeds from these seed banks. This isn’t a comprehensive list of the best seed banks, but these are the ones I use for myself when I’m buying feminized cannabis seeds online.

Seed Supreme – Excellent customer support, seed guarantees, wide variety of strains from different breeders. I like their in-house strains, which they breed themselves. They also have an excellent feminized autoflowering selection from FastBuds, which produces the fastest-to-harvest strains I’ve ever grown (as little as 56 days from germination). For a lot of home growers, being able to harvest weed in just 2 months is fun and efficient. Ships out of California, USA.
North Atlantic Seed Co. – Also has outstanding customer support and a big variety of strains. Tends to carry different breeders than Seed Supreme. I especially love that they carry strains by Ethos Genetics, one of my top 3 breeders. Between the two of them, you can get pretty much any popular strains available today. Ships out of Maine, USA.
MSNL Seeds – This seed bank has a much smaller selection as it only carries strains bred by MSNL. However, the company is run by a geneticist who really takes pride in his work. I think his strains are incredible for their consistency. If he says a strain will grow a way, look a way, have a particular potency, etc. I’ve found the seeds always grow exactly as expected. I especially love their feminized Kushberry Moonrocks strain (also available in autoflowering form: Kushberry Moonrocks Auto). Ships out of the Netherlands.

You can’t tell whether seeds are feminized by looking at them. You have to get feminized seeds from a trustworthy source.

3 Recommended Feminized Strains

I grow mainly only grow feminized cannabis strains, and pay close attention to what’s currently performing well for other marijuana growers, as well as the current industry trends. Based on my experience and the experience of other growers, here are some of my most recommended feminized cannabis strains.

Kushberry Moonrocks by MSNL (also available in autoflowering form: Kushberry Moonrocks Auto).

Easy to grow
Big yields
Buds are gorgeous
Smell amazing
VERY high potency (if that’s what you’re looking for)

Three Kushberry Moonrocks plants grown by Victor

Planet of the Grapes by Ethos Genetics

I used to love grape-flavored strains when I started growing in 2008, but they got harder and harder to find. I loved when I found this strain by Ethos. He somehow combined the delicious unique grape smell of the old days, but the buds have modern potency, bud structure, and BIG yields.

A Planet of the Grapes bud not long before harvest.

Platinum Cookies by Seed Supreme

Excellent bud quality and potency
Check out my full review here
Check out a grow journal featuring this strain.

The two Platinum Cookies cannabis plants I grew.

Platinum Cookies was a crowd favorite! We ran through it all.

I hope this tutorial helped clear up any questions you have about feminized cannabis seeds. But if you’re ready to learn more about cannabis seeds, we’ve got tutorials that dive even deeper!

About the Author: Nebula Haze

Since I co-founded GrowWeedEasy.com, I’ve dedicated my life to teaching home growers how to grow their own weed at home. My goal is to make the growing process simple and straightforward. The fact is, producing top-shelf weed at home is easy when you have the right information!

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