There is a very good chance that the seeds will be unstable,so the slightest amount of stress will turn them hermi.

Mithrandir.

Make sure you have lots of headroom if they are Skunk#11 those babies stretch like buggery.

Nope...the seeds from a hermie will be feminized.....!
I've read this somewhere - but can't remember where -sorry!

Couldn't agree with you more on this point Elzzar, half the fun of germing and growing them on is selecting the best females from them.....

Having said that I have followed a couple of grows where the proportion of males have been so high they are a nightmare

EO

Not just gateway seeds Dohped....they have been bred with care & knowledge, making for a more reliable seed. Too many people are currently growing FDM strains for this to be coincidence! Quality!

Yeah, they are. But there is more to it than that!

Again this is down to the seed breeder. It should take months and months of back-crossing to create true "feminised" seeds, and not just the off-spring of a hermi plant!!

Each time you germ a "feminised" seed, there is a percentage of female genes, and a percentage of male, (hermi) genes, (for instance; Nirvana were known for creating some terrible "feminised" seeds, with extremely high hermi ratios).

The seed breeders that have a good reputation for feminised seeds will have taken the time to find a line which gives a high ratio of females over hermi genetics.

There is quite an interesting article in the latest issue of soft secrets if you want to know more. I'll quote the important bit here;

Soft Secrets Issue 2 - 2004
Hermaphrodites are double sexed plants, having both male and female characteristics. Within this sort we have various types. Some hermaphrodites are 90% male and 10% female, others are 90% female and 10% male, or 50/50 male/female.

In the case of those that are 90% female hermaphrodites, we can still just remove the males and in this way, still develop harvestable, unfertilised - and therefore seedless - buds! The pollen these hermaphrodites produce will for the most part, produce female seeds!
End!



So as you can see, there is no guarantee of an entirely female crop, even if you use feminised seeds with the very best reputation, (a nightmare for NFT growers)!

My choice, (for what it's worth) would be to spend the money on some top quality standard genetics, germ them all and sort the females from the males. Then, grow the females on until sexual maturity and take cuttings, (this can result in (upto) 50 new, nailed-to-the-wall females from a pack of seeds costing around £30.

You can then grow that variety out for a year or more, using the cuttings you created from the original seeds.

I was lucky enough recently to acquire 2 C99 and 2 DP Sk#1 cutz.

I grew them on until they were big enough to give me cuttings. Then I took around 40 cuttings (20 of each) and thats my year sorted out. An added advantage of this is that you have already smoked the end product, therefore you already know what the plant is going to "give you" back for all of the time and trouble you take to care for them when growing.

We also grew some Nirvana Silver Pearl from seed, weeded out the males, (4 from 6), and grew 2 females, (harvested last week)! We also have 6 cuttings waiting in the wings, and after smoking the Silver Pearl for a few days, (made some fab polm too), we are keen to get the silver pearls under the HPS again, as we liked very muchly the effect we got from them.

Of course this all takes time to set up, (it's taken me over 9 months to get to the stage I'm at)!

Having said that, if you buy "ropey" feminised genetics and it all goes pear shaped, you could waste 4 months just trying to get to the stage of creating good reliable mums.

Sorry for the "monster" post, but this "feminised" thing really interests me!

Peace.

RD