There is some debate among for growers about whether it is better to start with clones or seeds. Each one has certain advantages and disadvantages.

Clones

The advantages to growing from clones are:

Shorter vegetation time by 3-4 weeks.
Guaranteed females.
No hermaphrodites.
You can turn a clone into a mother plant and make more clones.
No strain variance.

Seeds

The advantages to growing from seeds are:

You get a taproot, giving stronger growth structure.
Seeds won’t come with PM.
You can have a variety of phenotypes to choose from.
You can breed your strains and make new strains.
Easier to transport.
Easier to trade genetics.
They don’t have any odor.

At Doctor Grow®, LLC we grow all of our plants from seeds or from clones of plants that we started from seeds. We have found that getting clones from other places, especially retail stores and dispensaries, tends to invite powdery mildew (PM) and spider mites into our grow.

It is really hard for big commercial grows to control pests and pathogens completely. Because of that, it is pretty common for clones you get that come from large commercial grows to have PM or other problems.

We grow organically, and will not use pesticides to control these problems. That means we end up having to destroy a grow if it becomes infested. Having done that a couple of times in a row because we got clones from someone else, we made the decision to only grow from seeds.

When growing from seeds, I do not recommend using “feminized” seeds.

Feminized seeds are created by Spraying either gibberellic acid or colloidal silver onto the female flowers while the plant is flowering. This causes the plants to produce some male pollen sacs and self–pollinate. Basically, they are turning the female plant into a hermaphrodite.

This process can produce seeds that will result in more hermaphrodites or mutants. I understand that when people are spending as much as $10 or more for a seed, that they want to guarantee that seed will be a female and so they are willing to take the risk by buying feminized seeds. However, I do not believe it is ideal for starting with seeds.

Check back next Saturday at 4:20 PM mountain time for my next article on how to properly germinate seeds.

Victoria Young

Victoria Young has co-authored six books on growing marijuana and has several more in progress. She is co-owner of Doctor Grow, LLC a business that teaches growing through books and classes. Their mission is teaching people to grow weed safer, cheaper and better than some of the methods that have been taught for years.
Her Bachelor's Degree is from Metropolitan State College in Denver and her Master's Degree is from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, AZ, where she also edited the school paper. Victoria has spent more than 30 years as a writer and designer.

Victoria grew up in Littleton, CO and lived in Boulder for over 15 years. She also lived on Kauai, HI, and in Ventura, CA for many years. Now, she resides in nearby Firestone, CO.