Yes, you can pollinate a feminized cannabis plant. Feminized plants are fully functional females with complete reproductive systems, so they produce seeds when they receive pollen just like any other female cannabis plant. The more interesting question is where that pollen comes from, because the source determines whether the resulting seeds will be regular, feminized, or something in between.
How Feminized Plants Get Pollinated
There are three ways pollen reaches a feminized plant. The first is from a standard male plant, which produces pollen naturally. The second is from another female (or the same plant) that has been chemically reversed to produce male flowers. The third is from hermaphroditic flowers that occasionally develop on stressed female plants. Each route produces seeds with different genetic outcomes.
When a regular male pollinates a feminized female, the resulting seeds are regular seeds with roughly a 50/50 split of male and female offspring. The feminized status of the mother doesn’t carry over in any special way. She contributes female genetics, the male contributes male genetics, and you get a normal mix.
When pollen comes from a chemically reversed female, the seeds are feminized. Both parents carry only female chromosomes, so the offspring are almost exclusively female. This is the standard commercial method for producing feminized seeds.
The Chemistry Behind Reversing a Female
Female cannabis plants naturally produce ethylene, a hormone that maintains female flower development. To force a female to grow male pollen sacs instead, growers apply a silver-based ethylene inhibitor. The two most common are silver thiosulfate (STS) and colloidal silver.
STS works by replacing copper in the plant’s ethylene receptors. Ethylene receptors need copper to function correctly, and when silver ions outcompete that copper, the ethylene signaling pathway shuts down. Without ethylene doing its job, the plant defaults to producing male flowers on what is genetically a female plant. A single foliar spray of STS during the vegetative stage, followed by a shift to 12-hour light cycles, is enough to trigger this reversal.
The reversed plant grows pollen sacs that look like a male’s but typically produce less pollen. Reversed females also take longer than natural males to start releasing pollen, so growers who want to pollinate a specific plant usually start the reversal process at least a week before flipping the target female into flowering.
Collecting Pollen From a Reversed Plant
Pollen from reversed females is handled differently than pollen from regular males. The yield per flower is smaller, so instead of shaking branches over a collection surface, growers pluck individual mature male flowers with tweezers and tap them against a clean surface. A dark table makes it easier to see the fine pollen grains as they fall.
Once collected, the pollen needs to dry for at least 12 hours in a low-humidity environment before storage. After drying, it can be scraped together with a card and funneled onto folded paper or into a sealed container. Storage conditions are the same as for regular pollen: cool, dry, and airtight. Properly stored pollen stays viable for weeks to months depending on temperature.
What the Seeds Will Be
The sex ratio of your seeds depends entirely on the pollen source. If you use pollen from a reversed female (who is genetically XX), every seed inherits an X chromosome from both parents. The result is near-100% female offspring. Research on seeds from hermaphroditic flowers on female plants confirms this: genetic testing showed all seedlings carried the female marker, with the male-specific marker completely absent.
If you use pollen from a standard male (XY), you’ll get a conventional 1:1 ratio of males to females. The seeds are considered “regular” regardless of whether the mother was grown from a feminized seed. There’s no genetic memory of feminization passed to the next generation through this cross.
Seeds produced by self-pollination of a reversed female onto itself are called S1 seeds. These are genetically very similar to the parent, which can be useful for preserving a specific plant’s traits. However, this inbreeding narrows the gene pool, and growers should check S1 seedlings for germination rate and overall vigor compared to the parent, since repeated generations of selfing can reduce plant performance.
Hermaphrodite Risk in Offspring
One concern growers raise is whether seeds from feminized-to-feminized crosses are more prone to developing hermaphroditic traits. Some cannabis strains are naturally more susceptible to producing both male and female flowers under stress, and this tendency is heritable. If either parent showed hermaphroditic behavior (not from chemical reversal, but spontaneously), the offspring are more likely to do the same.
Chemical reversal with STS is not the same as natural hermaphroditism. STS forces male flower production through hormone manipulation, not because of an underlying genetic instability. Still, selecting parent plants with strong, stable female expression and no history of spontaneous hermaphroditism reduces the chances of problems in the next generation.
How Pollination Affects the Mother Plant
Once a female cannabis plant is successfully pollinated, you’ll notice changes within days. The bracts, the small leaf-like structures surrounding the flower’s reproductive parts, begin to swell as seeds develop inside. Pistils (the white or orange hairs) darken and retract earlier than they would on an unpollinated plant.
The bigger trade-off is what happens to cannabinoid production. Research on hemp cultivars found that pollinated flowers produced lower overall cannabinoid levels in extracts compared to unpollinated flowers. The plant redirects energy from resin production toward seed development. This is why commercial cannabis is grown as sinsemilla (seedless): keeping females unpollinated maximizes the potency and weight of the harvest. If your goal is seeds rather than flower quality, this reduction is the expected cost of doing business.
For growers who want both seeds and usable flower, a common approach is to pollinate only a few lower branches while leaving the rest of the plant untouched. The pollinated branches will develop seeds while the upper canopy continues producing seedless flower, though some overall reduction in resin production still occurs plant-wide.