How are feminised seeds produced? Is this done through natural means or does it involve genetic engineering?

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How are feminised seeds produced? Is this done through natural means or does it involve genetic engineering?

In: Biology

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s done by “masculinizing” a female plant – which is when you get a female plant to produce male parts (specifically pollen) which is then used to pollinate a female plant and produce seeds. Because the masculinized plant and the target plant are still both genetically female the seeds that get produced are female (i.e. feminised)

It can be done naturally by waiting until late in the budding cycle and hoping some male parts develop or it can sometimes be brought on by stressing the plants by fucking around with their light cycles, temperature, etc

Nowadays though it can also be done with certain chemicals that will induce male flowers – not really sure of how the science behind that actually works but certain chemicals like silver nitrate will get female plants to produce male flowers.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Female plants, under the right circumstances, can be induced to produce male flowers. If this happens, the pollen produced by these flowers will not contain any male chromosomes, so 100% of the seeds produced with this pollen should have female genetics.

Normally, a male plant will produce pollen with both chromosomes so the resulting seeds could be either sex.