Why are F2 seeds less expensive?
Contributed by: Crazydevs
Why does one strain cost less from one seed breeder than it does from another?
Let’s start off by saying that in terms of seed prices, younormally pay for the strain genetics, but this is not always the case,some seed makers (breeders) will always try to charge more on a strain,simply because they seek a larger profit margin than some of theircompetitors. Also, some breeders have to pay premiums to the original,big name strain breeders, to be able to use the original copyrightedgenetics strain name(s).
It’s also worth noting that just because you have grade A genetics,it does not always mean your going to get top grade plants. Growingconditions and experience can play a much bigger role in a plants endresult than the strain genetics.
So why do some seed makers charge so little in comparison to others? Is something wrong with their genetics?
No, there is nothing wrong with the genetics. These seeds come fromF2 stock, and are sometimes just fast knockoffs of the originalstrain(s).
What is F2 stock?
Ok, I’m not going to go into great depth here on just what an F2stock of seeds is. Basically, you start of with homozygous strains.These are considered true breeding strains, and will show littlevariation in phenotype. When you start mixing true breeding strains youend up with heterozygous strains. The phenotypes in these will vary alittle more than the homozygous parents. A heterozygous strain isconsidered to be a hybrid. An F1, F2, F3 etc are all hybrids!
F1 hybrid - is the first generation of a cross between any twounrelated seed lines in the creation of a hybrid. F1 hybrids can beuniform or variable depending on the parent stock used.
F2 hybrid - is the offspring of a cross between two F1 plants.
You can also get F1, F2 crosses etc, but I wont go into that.
Basically, all you need to know is that a seed bank will have adescription of a strain and its characteristics. For F1 seed stock,most of the plants will remain true to that description, with littlevariance. F2 stock will vary more, your get maybe 3-4 plants out of 10seeds that will be true to the seed bank description, the rest will bea little different.
So what’s this phenotype about?
A phenotype is a particular trait or characteristic of a plant. Itcould be high yield or berry like aroma, but a seed bank will oftengive you a description of a strain, normally listing the bestphenotype. F2 stock phenotypes will vary more than F1 stock. And itgets worse as you progress to F3, F4 etc.
So basically, when you order an F2 stock of seed, be prepared forlots of different looking plants. However no potency or yield is lostbetween F1 and F2 plants.
When ordering F2 stock, the idea is to search out the betterphenotypes, and clone them so in future you only work with the bestgenetics of the bunch. With F1 stock, you should have more uniformplants that all perform similar, and if the breeders done his jobcorrectly, this should be as close to the original description thattempted you to buy the seeds in the first place as you can get!
So that’s why some breeders charge less for their seeds thanothers. Remember breeders prices will vary anyway, it’s always worthshopping around for a strain price.
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