Home Growers Corner
Making Cannabis Plant Babies
Some general understanding of the plant’ s anatomy is crucial.
by Gerry Donovan, contributing writer
Gerry’ s homegrown plants.
We’ re not going full-blown scientific geneticist here when discussing“ Making Cannabis Plant Babies.” First, let me start with a firm warning: having a male plant in and / or around your female plants can result in a completely seeded-out, unsmokable harvest. You’ ll be trying this at your harvest’ s risk!
There are ways to cross and back-cross many different generations to create hybrid styles of cannabis and breeding that can result in very stable or varied seed batches, depending on your wishes, but we are not going to dive-in that deep. Let’ s keep it simple here. I’ ll discuss how the plant breeds, some misconceptions, and describe some methods, genetics aside, for achieving“ regular” and“ feminized” seeds.
Some general understanding of the plant’ s anatomy is crucial before going any further.
1. There are male plants and female plants! 2. Male plants make pods that look like tiny banana bunches, which release pollen( think: Plant Sperm).
3. Female plants develop“ buds” with“ hairs”( stigma) that are responsible for“ catching” the pollen and then developing and protecting the seeds within the“ seed pod”( calyx)—( think: Pregnant Woman).
As a home grower, you are generally growing for just the buds, so you want to cull( discard and destroy) all male plants from your garden. However, if you’ d like to play in the realm of making your own cannabis genetics, because that’ s just plain awesome and fun, there are two pollination methods: natural spread versus pollen collection.
Natural Spread pollination is just like it sounds:
1. You keep a male or pollen-generating( we’ ll circle back to this idea) plant growing with your females.
2. As they develop, the pollen pods will open and release pollen into the air / environment. As your air circulates, your ventilation and airflow will spread the pollen to the females throughout your garden.
● Pro: Just like it would take place in nature.
● Con: Less precise control over what gets pollinated.
● Depending on how the wind blows, you might get a bunch of seeds, or you might get just a few.
● Really direct the air for maximum pollination!
The Pollen Collection method allows for later, more precise pollination techniques.
Grow a male or pollen-producing plant on its own: 1. Separate from other plants, away from any shared ventilation, possibly even another location. 2. After the plant releases pollen, simply collect it. Note: I do not use fans when growing single male plants to avoid disrupting pollen dispersal.
This male plant is full of Pollen Pods.
22 March 2026
Female plant Stigma Hairs
There are several collection methods, but sometimes the simplest is the best. I prefer to set a tray under the plant and just scrape up the pollen.
● Dry it and dry-store or freeze it.
● You can now utilize this known pollen to precisely pollinate future bud sites individually without seeding out the whole plant.
There are two types of seeds: Old School Traditional Regular Seeds and nowadays, very highly popular Feminized seeds— not to be confused with Regular Photo and Autoflower Plants.( See my