I breed for Potency and Flavor.
There are 3 types of seeds growers are looking for when growing cannabis. Regular, Feminized and Autoflowering.
Regular, Photoperiod Seeds are created the most natural way by using Male and Female plants. These are the only types of seeds I like to produce myself.
Feminized Seeds are created by stressing a female plant out until she produces male pollen. The pollen from a stressed female plant often produces mostly female seeds but can also produce hermaphrodite seeds often as a result of the stressed genetics. Therefore we notice feminized seeds are stressed seeds and often lack the vigor and potency of regular seeds.
Autoflowering are created by crossing popular cuts with the dwarf Siberian Hemp Plant, also known as, Ruderalis. Due to the geographic origins of the Ruderalis plant it has evolved to automatically flower in a short season. These genetics by themselves haves extremely low cannabinoid potency. The idea behind Autoflower is to create strains that will flower in a shorter time outdoors. In my opinion there is zero reason to grow an auto flower indoor. Further, there are very high potent Afghani and Indica photoperiod plants that also have short flowering times that should be utilized for cannabis breeding instead of Ruderalis in my opinion.
Breeders make feminized and auto flower seeds simply to make more money. They want their customer to keep buying the same seeds they like over and over rather then being able to F2 them with male pollen that can happen with regular photoperiod seeds. Creating the F2 generation opens the gene pool up and instantly enables the grower to start working all the potential lines of those genetics. F1, F2 regular Seeds and Male plants are of high value to the breeder.
In Conclusion, when a grower wants to find the strongest, most potent pheno’s to create their mother plants, regular photoperiod seeds gives you the best opportunity to find the best. For the breeder, regular seeds are the holy grail for stronger more stable genetics, in addition to the high value male plants.