A seed run is a grow, or part of one, dedicated to producing seed: chosen parents are flowered together or hand-pollinated, and the plants are run until seed matures. The resulting batch is a seed lot, and every seed in it should share documented parents.
In practice
A clean seed run needs isolation (no stray pollen), labelled branches or plants, and patience: seeds generally need several weeks after pollination to mature and darken, and should be harvested from dry, intact calyxes. After harvest, a good breeder dries the seed, records yield and germination rate, and only then calls it a release candidate.
The seed run is only the first half. Seed from an untested cross is a hypothesis. Tester grows show what it produces: uniformity, vigour, chemotype, and herm rate. GenetixBay's featured lines need a 10-plant screening grow with zero herms, and only about 150 or more pooled community plants can earn "Verified under 2% herm rate" (see herm threshold).
Don't confuse with
- Pollen chucking: making seed without selected parents, testing or records.
- Seed lot: the batch from one seed run; a seed run can produce several lots from different crosses.
- Germination test: a quality check on a seed lot, not the run itself.
Botanically, the sepals of a flower; in female cannabis a thin, reduced perianth on the ovary, though growers use the word for the resinous bract.Germination is the stage where a viable seed absorbs water, splits its shell and pushes out a root (radicle), usually within 1-7 days at 20-30 °C.A chemotype is a plant's chemical phenotype, in cannabis usually its dominant cannabinoid class: THC-dominant (I), mixed (II), CBD-dominant (III), CBG-dominant (IV) or cannabinoid-free (V).The herm threshold is GenetixBay's two-tier herm standard: a 10-plant screening grow with zero herms to be featured, then about 150 or more community-grown plants before a line can be Verified under 2% herm rate.In cannabis growing, a plant (usually female) that develops both pistillate and staminate flowers or anthers; botanists call it intersex or monoecious expression.Pollination is the transfer of pollen onto a female flower's stigmas; in cannabis it is usually by wind, or by hand when breeders pollinate chosen branches to make seed.A cross is the offspring of mating two different plants, written female x male, as "A x B"; one cross starts a line but is not one.A test grow (tester grow) is growing out a sample of a new seed line, often by several independent growers, to measure uniformity, vigour, chemistry and herm rate before release.Male selection is the choice of which male plants become parents, judged by their vigour, structure, early aroma and above all by the quality of their offspring.Pollen is the fine powder released by male flowers that carries the male gametes; when it lands on a female's stigmas it fertilises the ovules and produces seed.
