The majority of cannabis breeders in the industry are often called "pollen chuckers." They select two plants they like, make a cross, and sell the seeds. Growers then sift through overpriced seed packs looking for one or two plants to clone for future production—wasting time, space, and money.
At GTR, the vast majority of our releases are F1 hybrid cannabis seeds, and all are feminized. The selective F1 breeding process is commonly used in agriculture, though it requires significant time and space to bring a new line to market. We typically spend around 3 years on each line before releasing it. But it's worth it.
Learn more about F1 cannabis seeds and the basics of how we create them.
What Are F1 Cannabis Seeds?
F1 cannabis seeds refer to the first generation of offspring produced by crossing two purebred parent strains, often labeled as "P1" or "parental" lines. This process, known as hybridization, results in seeds that exhibit a blend of traits from both parent strains. The "F1" designation indicates that these seeds are the first filial generation, displaying a uniform blend of the parents' characteristics.
Key Characteristics of F1 Seeds
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Hybrid Vigor (Heterosis): F1 seeds often show hybrid vigor, meaning they tend to grow more robustly than either parent strain. This can lead to faster growth, increased resistance to pests and diseases, and better overall plant health.
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Uniformity: F1 seeds typically produce plants that are more uniform in appearance and characteristics compared to those from open-pollinated seeds. This uniformity helps cultivators predict growth patterns and optimize care, making it easier to manage plants that mature around the same time.
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Predictable Traits: F1 hybrids inherit specific traits from their parent strains, such as cannabinoid profiles, terpene content, and growth habits. This predictability is valuable for growers seeking specific effects, flavors, or growth characteristics, including novel cannabinoid production.
Advantages of F1 Cannabis Seeds
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1. Enhanced Yields
Due to their hybrid vigor, F1 seeds often produce higher yields than their parent strains. This makes them an attractive option for commercial growers looking to maximize production.
2. Consistent Plants and Maturity Times
It makes growing seeds substantially easier when you can prune them, flip them, trellis them, feed them, and harvest them all around the same time. F1's give you the consistency to make your tent or field efficient and manageable.
2. Improved Resistance
F1 hybrids may exhibit greater resistance to common pests and diseases, reducing the need for chemical interventions. This resilience can lead to healthier plants and a more sustainable growing process.
3. Tailored Effects
With careful selection of parent strains, growers can create F1 hybrids that target specific cannabinoid and aroma profiles, allowing for customized effects. This adaptability is particularly beneficial for medicinal users seeking precise therapeutic benefits. For novel cannabinoid producing varieties, F1 genetics are the only way to ensure their precense.
4. Faster Growth
F1 plants often mature faster than purebred strains, enabling quicker harvest cycles. This can be particularly advantageous in regions with shorter growing seasons or for growers seeking rapid turnover.
5. Every Seed Pack Comes With Keepers
Instead of having to grow out 10 plants, and discover half of them are males, and another quarter are plants you'd never grow again, with F1's virtually every plant is a keeper. There are slight differences between plants, and growers always find one they like more than others, but it really takes the guess work out.
Polyhybrid Genetics
Polyhybrids make up the majority of cannabis genetics on the market. They are the result of crossing two already hybridized varieties (Take two plants you like, and cross them). Everything from Animal Face to Zkittlez is a polyhybrid. While obviously they can produce some great plants, they come with lots of disadvantages compared to F1's.
1. Unpredictability
Due to the complex genetic makeup of polyhybrids (with multiple parent strains involved), the plants may exhibit a wide variety of traits. This makes it harder to predict the outcome in terms of flavor, potency, yield, and growth characteristics. For growers and breeders aiming for consistency, this unpredictability can be a challenge. For small scale growers that just pop a few seeds, the probability of ending up with a dud is fairly high in poly's.
2. Genetic instability
Polyhybrids often have a higher likelihood of genetic instability compared to more stabilized varieties. Over multiple generations, the genetic diversity can lead to recessive traits surfacing, like tendencies to hermaphrodite, disease susceptibility, structural issues, etc. In F1's these recessive traits are generally bred out of the plants.
3. Heterogeneity
Polyhybrids can result in a wide range of genotypic variations within a batch of seeds. This means some plants might grow taller, have different flower structures, or produce different effects from others in the same grow. The plants themselves can all be very genetically different - which can be a huge hassle. Plant vigor can be all over the board making everything from feeding to trellising a huge headache. Not to mention maturity times - packs can have huge variation from autoflowers to 11 week flowering times.
4. Wasted Resources
In order to preserve any of the populations growers like, they must grow out everything, take cuttings of all, and wait for plants to flower out before knowing which are deserving of being kept. Meanwhile, space and resources must be dedicate for a population that is around 50% male plants.
For packing a grow tent at home, or a field with thousands of plants - it just doesn't make sense to grow polyhybrids.
How to Make F1 Cannabis Seeds
While F1 hybrids are standard in agriculture, they require tremendous time to produce. Here are some basics on how we make them.
1. Choose Quality Parents
Selecting high-quality parent varieties is crucial for producing desirable F1 hybrids. We consider traits such as potency, flavor, and growth habits when choosing parental lines. Our first selection is never perfect, but that is where the work begins.
2. Outcross and Test
After selecting a plant with characteristics we would like to breed into a line, such as a novel cannabinoid, we will often outcross it with another plant with characteristics we like. We grow out all of the seeds we have space for, search for our desired traits (when searching for novel cannabinoid rich plants we also must test all for cannabinoid makeup), and keep a population that shows promise.
3. Inbreed and Inbreed
After selecting our "keepers" we grow them all out independently in isolated chambers and each plant is self pollinated. This is done by applying STS to individual branches to create male pollen bearing flowers, which then pollinate the remainder of the female flowers. We replant from the populations that showed the characteristics we were searching for.
And repeat, this time with fewer plants as our selections grow smaller. By the 3rd or 4th round of inbreeding we will select a parent that we want to use for breeding stock. The process requires lots of time, space, and testing - by this time we have grown out thousands of plants - with dozens of cuttings taken along the way to preserve our perspective parents prior to culling. The inbred lines themselves are generally slow growers with some traits left to be desired.
One challenging aspect of cannabis is, plants generally become sterile (the pollen is no longer viable) after the 4th generation of inbreeding. The gene pool is heavily narrowed, but a far cry from crops such as corn which can be inbred for over a dozen generations.
4. Repeat on Second Parent
After, or while, we dial in one parent, we repeat the process on a second. In the case of our breeding program we virtually always use an autoflower as one of the parents. Day neutral plants are genetically different than photoperiod plants, so when crossed the stark differences in genetic makeup help hybrid vigor. If shooting for a novel cannabinoid producing F1 line, we must breed that cannabinoid into the day neutral plant. Steps 2-3 are repeated, testing, inbreeding, observing, and culling. After 3-4 generations we will pick out our second parent.
5. Produce F1 Cannabis Seeds
From there, we fill a room with cuttings of our first selection. These are grown out for weeks to over a month before we drop our light cycle and induce flowering. Simultaneously we start seedlings from our second parent, the day neutral plant. Around a month into their lives they are treated with compounds which produce male flowers on the female seedling. We only use female plants in our breeding program, which allows us to produce feminized seeds. Once the male flowers being producing pollen, we coat the room full of females and watch the seeds grow. Plants are harvested between 9-11 weeks after flowering is initiated. The triploids require a few extra steps.
Limitations of F1 Cannabis Seeds
While F1 seeds have numerous advantages, there are some considerations to keep in mind:
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Cost: F1 seeds are more expensive than regular seeds due to the effort involved in creating them. However, many growers find the investment worthwhile given the potential for higher yields and improved quality. Our seeds are not the cheapest out there, but for good reason.
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Loss of Traits in Subsequent Generations: If you breed with F1 genetics, the offspring show a wild array of characteristics from both parents - and are non-uniform. You can dig through this population for keepers, but don't expect any sort of consistency.
The Low Down
Just like other agricultural industries, F1 cannabis seeds will likely become the gold standard. With robust plants, high yields, consistency, and predictability - they just make sense.
