If you regularly use medicinal cannabis, then you may have found a seed or two in your weed and considered growing these cannabis seeds. But where does such a seed come from, and is it a good idea to grow such a found seed? What can you expect if you do?
It can seem like a godsend when you find a cannabis seed in your favorite weed variety. Originating from a marijuana strain that works well and, on top of that, being totally free. If spring has just begun, and you don’t really care whether your cultivation is successful or not, then growing such a seed can be a fun experiment. But be aware that it is a big gamble what a found seed will yield.
Found cannabis seeds can sometimes produce fine weed but on the other hand they can cause all sorts of problems. The better the quality of the weed in which the seed was found, the greater the chance that the seed itself will produce nice weed. On the other hand, found seeds can also produce poor quality weed, fail to germinate properly, produce hermaphrodite weed plants or be unpredictable.
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Where do found cannabis seeds come from?
To understand the unpredictable nature of marijuana plants from found seeds, you need to know where such marijuana seeds actually come from. If you find them in a bag of weed from the coffee shop, or from a commercial grower, then there is a good chance that they had a hermaphrodite ‘father’. The grow room may have contained a hermaphrodite plant, or a female cannabis plant that also produced male flowers and pollen.
Such a hermaphrodite plant can become hermaphrodite in several ways. It may have had a genetic predisposition to become a hermaphrodite itself. It is also possible that stress has caused the plant to become a hermaphrodite. Finally, cannabis plants sometimes produce a few small male pistils at the end of their flowering phase, which are also called bananas because of their shape.
Poor germination and substandard weed
Found cannabis seeds, to begin with, were not intentionally bred or crossed. So the breeder has not intentionally given the seeds time to develop properly. Because of this, found seeds will usually not germinate as often or as well as purchased cannabis seeds. This of course is not a big problem, since you’ve put very little time and energy into your found seed.
Because the seeds were created by accident, they are the product of the same mother and father plant, or two random cannabis strains. Suppose these are two very stable and different strains, then such a cross could turn out well. More often, however, it is a chance cross between two plants that are first or second generation hybrids themselves, and there is no way to predict what they will produce. Different found cannabis seeds will therefore produce different plants.
Hermaphrodite cannabis plants
Found seeds are also more likely to become hermaphrodites as plants. Especially if they came from a genetically hermaphrodite plant or one that has become hermaphrodite due to stress. This plant has then passed on the characteristic. In that case a little stress (light stress or temperature stress or something like that) can cause your plant to also produce male flowers, and subsequently fertilize other plants.
In the third case, where the seed has arisen through fertilization from a ‘little banana’, it is not necessarily the case that the plant itself becomes a hermaphrodite. These bananas only arise at the very end of the flowering phase, and usually produce feminized seeds. After all, the pollen is from a female plant, and therefore only passes on X chromosomes. There is a good chance that the plant itself will also produce bananas at the end of the flowering phase, but this is not a big problem since the flowering phase will be over anyway.
Male plants
Finally, it is also possible that male marijuana plants will grow from your found seeds. In that case the plant from which the seed came was fertilized by an unknown male plant. These seeds can grow to become both male and female plants. Regular seeds, but of an unpredictable quality.
In conclusion we can repeat what we said at the beginning about found cannabis seeds. If you see it as an experiment and don’t mind if your cultivation fails, then you can safely try growing them outside in the summer. However, it’s a waste of energy to waste on them indoors, and also if you want to make a success of your own growing you’re better off buying cannabis seeds. These provide predictable and usually much better results.
