Can you make cannabis seeds at home?

What does it look like to make your own seeds?

I'm no expert on seed making. Far from it. I've done it once.

But, like many grow-related tasks, the idea of making your own seeds at home is attractive for a few reasons:

• Genetic preservation (keep something you like around for the future)

• New varieties (offspring offer the potential of something new)

• Curiosity (Simply to see if you can do it)

I fell into all three buckets.

So, on September 6th, I started the process of making my own seeds.

My goal with this project was simply to see if I could make my own seeds in a 2x2x4’ tent in my home office.

My goals for the seeds were to keep my Sour Papaya around in seed form, and to cross her with a few others in the grow to create new varieties to eventually grow out.

This is not a “how to” make seeds, nor am I in any fashion suggesting consistently making quality, homogenous, stable seeds is easy. 

With that said, it is absolutely possible to make a handful of seeds at home in a small tent if you’re a hobbyist with a knack for figuring things out firsthand.

Seed-Making Basics

To get cannabis seeds, you need a pollen donor and a pollen recipient.

Typically, that’s a male plant (the donor) and a female plant (the recipient).

It’s also possible to make seeds with two female plants, often referred to a feminized breeding and/or “reversals.” This is because a seed maker must reverse a plant’s natural tendency to express as a female plant, encouraging male traits (such as pollen production) to express in their place.

Feminized seeds offer a variety of advantages, especially as a hobby grower.

For the grower, there’s less guesswork involved in (and the costs associated with) sexing plants.

For the seed maker, you do not require a male in order to make seeds.

In my grow, I do not keep males. 

Plant counts, space, and nutrients/supplies all come into play, and keeping a male around doesn’t fit into my situation. Additionally, I don’t have any experience growing males.

Additionally, because this was my first time attempting to make seeds, I wasn’t expecting a large amount, and didn’t want that number to be reduced further when I culled males.

The Feminizing/Reversal Process*

*Again, if you are looking for proven ways to go about doing this, there are much more specific, experienced, scientific sources. These are the basics.

To make feminized seeds, you need two female plants and some sort of reversal technique.

One of those plants is reversed, typically by disrupting hormone production and distribution in the plant. This can be done in a number of ways. I chose to use colloidal silver (CS).

Over the course of three months, I sprayed my pollen donor with CS to induce pollen production, and then had three other clones live in the same tent for the rest of their flower cycle.

The Results:

Sour Papaya • True S1 (Same Plant):39 Feminized Seeds

Sour Papaya • S1 (Same 🧬): 66 Feminized Seeds

Poon Tang Pie x Sour Papaya • R1: 12 Feminized Seeds

Apollo’s Altar* x Sour Papaya • R1: 55 Feminized Seeds

*Apollo’s Altar = Temple Kush x Crescendo by ETHOS Genetics

My hope is to have time and space to hunt the new crosses, and keep the S1’s for the vault.

Have you ever considered making your own seeds?