By Marguerite Arnold Reviewed by: Andreu Francés

Everyone knows what a cannabis plant looks like, right? Actually, not so fast! Not all cannabis looks the same. With the rise of hybrid experimentation, mutations are increasingly common, if not deliberately bred into strains downstream. Certain strange mutations have actually become the basis for some of the most popular strains out there.

But what do these mutations look like? And what do they mean for the plant? If not your yield?


Twin Seedlings

After placing a cannabis seed in the soil, growers expect one shoot to emerge several days later—not two! However, just like human twins develop in the same womb, two seedlings occasionally emerge from the same seed. Botanists refer to this phenomenon as polyembryony. It occurs either when more than one embryo develops in a single seed or as a result of the cleavage of a fertilised ovum.

Twin Cannabis Seedlings: Good or Bad?

You’re the parent of plant twins. Should you celebrate? Or is it a cause for concern? It totally depends on the grower. If you’re looking to remain stealthy with a micro grow, then you’ll want to snip one of the seedlings just above the soil surface and discard it. If you have the desire to grow more plants, then you can pry these two babies apart and grow them into highly uniform plants.

How to Separate Twin Cannabis Seedlings

If you want to keep your twins, you'll need to separate them to prevent stunted growth. Follow these steps to do so without causing any damage to your young plants.

Step 1: Extract Seedlings

Step 1

Start by removing your twin seedlings from their growing medium. If you sowed directly into soil, dig under the roots and pry them out. If you sowed into a soil plug or rockwool cube, carefully tear the growing medium apart and extract the seedlings.

If you germinated seeds in a cup of water or between moist paper towels, you’ll have immediate access to the root system and won’t have to mess around with any growing medium.

Step 2: Clean and Untangle

Step 2

Next, gently dip the root system of your seedlings into a glass of water to remove most of the debris surrounding the roots. Now, slowly and carefully untangle the roots, and gradually pull them apart until separated.

Step 3: Inoculate

Step 3

If you have any to hand, dip the roots into arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi spores. Alternatively, add propagules into their new growing medium. These microbial allies will help your seedlings grow into large, healthy plants and minimise the threat of fungal infections and damping off.

Step 4: Transplant

Step 4

Once separated and inoculated, transplant your seedlings into their new homes, and give them a light watering to help keep them turgid.

Foxtailed Cannabis

This mutation is caused by calyces that grow stacked on top of each other. This creates a very oddly-shaped bud formation. This is not a detrimental mutation, but it is not necessarily beneficial either. This mutation breaks up the bud structure of the plant. Instead of growing into a rounded shape, the bud spreads out in an elongated way. It can also show that your plants are not ripening in the right way.

Heat and light stress can also cause this mutation. The calyxes literally form spires.

Foxtailing is not always an anomaly. Some Purple or Cole Train strains commonly produce foxtailed bud structures. Strains that hail from Colombia or Thailand also commonly exhibit these characteristics.

Ducksfoot

Ducksfoot Cannabis

This mutation hails from Australia. A breeder then took advantage of the odd variety by cultivating it into a real “strain” - although the leaf mutation can occur across various strains. This mutation gets its name from the webbed, foot-like leaves that it grows. However, the different looking leaves are just the start of it. Most ducksfoot cannabis grows up to be sativa plants.

This strain is great for camouflage. Ducksfoot cannabis looks very unlike “normal” cannabis. Thus, it is perfect for cultivators in jurisdictions where growing is still verboten. The plant will also produce beautiful purple buds if the temperature is cold enough.

Variegation

Variegation is one of the most beautiful cannabis mutations. This can occur either fully or partially in different sections of the plant where white (or yellow) and green parts coexist. This mutation results from a plant’s inability to produce chlorophyll. It can occur on leaves, the heads of buds, or can wash out the entire plant in white.

In the most extreme cases, plants will not live very long as chlorophyll is necessary in the production of sugars for plant energy and development.

Variegation also means lower yields. A lessened ability to photosynthesise equates to slower growing plants. That said, some variegated plants can grow to be quite tall.

Purple Cannabis

Whorled Phyllotaxy

This kind of mutation is also very pretty. Cannabis plants have a great deal of natural geometry. This mutation creates a slightly different kind. Regular plants have two leaves that grow from each internode. Whorled phyllotaxy plants have three leaves instead. Plants with a whorled phyllotaxy tend to be extra bushy. That said, the trait is not useful to breeders as it can lead to greater yields, but will disappear once attempted to be bred and replicated.

Creeper Cannabis

Creeper cannabis tends to exhibit itself in tropical strains. These strains are already large and grow in humid conditions. The plant’s lower branches bow down to touch the ground. Once they reach the floor, the branches continue to grow, even forming new root sites. This phenotype is super useful for disguising grows. However, creeper cannabis is a rare mutation and has not been developed commercially.

Two Toned Leafs

Australian Bastard Cannabis

ABC is an Aussie invention. It was first “discovered” near Sydney in the 70’s. This strange anomaly grows more like an herb than a shrub. The leaves are not serrated; instead they’re smooth and shiny, growing no more than 5cm in length.

The original ABC was more like hemp and was low in all cannabinoids. However, underground breeders managed to boost the THC levels. This mutation made ripples about a decade ago. No strains have (yet) been made commercially available.

Vine Cannabis

Is it a true breed or just an extension of ABC? Nobody really knows. But Aussie breeders claim that ABC crosses can produce vine-like mutations in the plant. This includes the ability to form stems that wrap in a pattern around each other.

The mutation is extremely rare. It may only exist because of deliberate breeding to trigger this effect. While this trait is interesting, it is not advantageous to yield or cannabinoid concentration. No commercial strains currently incorporate this mutation.

Leaf Buds

Most flower sites on cannabis plants occur at the nodes, where the stalks originate. However, leaf buds occur at the base of the leaves themselves. This is an unusual (if pretty) mutation. It can also be advantageous to yield because the plant grows more bud sites. However, experienced growers tend to remove them as they form; they take up nutrients that can otherwise nourish the main flower sites.

Leaf Buds

Polyploidism

Polyploids in nature are organisms that possess double the number of chromosomes than their non-mutant genetic twins. This trait can sometimes be fixed into plant species via selective breeding. Cannabis plants can spontaneously develop polyploidism. It can also be induced in plants via treatment with a powerful chemical called colchicine.

This is a hugely useful trait for significantly increasing THC production, as well as yield. Extra-large plants produce extra-large buds, of course. At this time, there are no true-breeding strains with this mutation that have been stabilised.

Upright Phenotype

This is a common mutation, particularly in hybrid strains. The plant develops into a truly massive form - much like a tree. These massive cannabis plants look like indicas, but have the height of tropical sativas. This phenotype has one massive stalk that can grow up to 4m high. The plant looks either like a Christmas tree or a candelabra. The leaves are narrow, unlike the wider leaves of landrace  sativas. While the plant is absolutely impressive and yields are prodigious, its height is a disadvantage in indoor grows.

Cookies settings

We are requesting your permission to use your data for the reasons stated below:

Functional cookies

Functional cookies help our website to function optimally and allow us to personalise certain features.

Preference cookies

Preference cookies allow us to remember information that influences the way our website looks, including your preferred language based on your region.

Analytical cookies

Analytical cookies give us insights into website traffic and customer behaviour, including how many people visit our site, how long they browse for, and which parts of our site they visit.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small pieces of data from a particular website that get stored on a user’s computer while they’re surfing the internet. Cookies have several different functions. Some of them track browser activity that enables businesses to deliver targeted advertisements. Other cookies serve to remember user login details to different websites to make jumping on social media, or other sites, a more fluid process. Because each cookie has its own unique ID, these pieces of data allow website owners to measure the unique traffic coming into their site.

Why do we use cookies?

Cookies come in handy when you visit our website. They ensure you stay logged in, that you can shop safely, and that the items you add to your cart stay there before you make a purchase. But cookies also help us. The data they provide allow us to improve our website and enable us to present you with targeted advertisements that are compatible with your interests.

What kind of cookies do we use?

Functional cookies

Functional cookies help our website to function optimally and allow us to personalise certain features.

Preference cookies

Preference cookies allow us to remember information that influences the way our website looks, including your preferred language based on your region.

Analytical cookies

Analytical cookies give us insights into website traffic and customer behaviour, including how many people visit our site, how long they browse for, and which parts of our site they visit.

How can I disable or delete cookies?

Not a fan of cookies? No worries. You can disable them (with the exception of necessary cookies) in your browser settings. However, blocking cookies may impact your browsing experience and prevent you from enjoying all of the technical features of our site.

Privacy Policy - Royal Queen Seeds

To ensure a safe online environment and guarantee adequate data protection, we strictly comply with all legal requirements. In this privacy statement, we provide information about how and for what purpose data is collected, safety measures, storage periods and contact details.


COMPANY NAME: SNORKEL SPAIN, SL (hereinafter ROYAL QUEEN SEEDS)

C/ Vilar d'Abdelà, 5 (nave 1) CP: 08170 de Montornès del Vallès

+34 937 379 846

support@royalqueenseeds.com


The present Privacy Policy sets out the terms on which we will treat personal data at ROYAL QUEEN SEEDS; this includes any personal data collected through our website https://www.royalqueenseeds.com/ as well as any other data we process in the course of our business activities.

ROYAL QUEEN SEEDS collects the following personal data for the purposes listed below:

SECTION 1 – PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT

1.1 Account purchases

Account purchases can only be made if you are in possession of a personal account. When you create an account or purchase something from our shop, as part of the buying and selling process we collect the following personal information that you provide to us:

This information is required for delivery. In addition, when you browse our shop, we automatically receive the Internet Protocol (IP) address of your computer. Based on this information, we can optimise your online experience and at the same time protect our online environment.

Purpose of data collection

We collect and store account-related data for the following purposes:

(a) to carry out obligations arising from any contracts between you and us, and to provide you with information, products and services that you may request from us;

(b) to set up, manage and communicate with you about your account and your orders;

(c) to conduct market research and analysis;

(d) to confirm your age and identity, and to detect and prevent fraud.

1.2 Newsletters

With your explicit permission, we may send you newsletters about our shop, new products and other updates. We send newsletters based on your explicit consent. In the event that you purchase a product, and in accordance with current regulations, we may send you commercial communications in accordance with the legitimate interest of our company, always about products or services similar to those you have purchased or contracted. In any case, you may exercise your right of opposition through the channels announced in this Privacy Policy. The following information is collected in relation to the newsletter:

We do not need to know the sex of the person in order to send the newsletter (data minimisation: by law we must ask for data that is strictly necessary to provide the service, and in this case knowing the sex is not necessary to send the newsletter).

Purpose of data collection

The data collected is used to:

(a) personalise our emails, including your name and gender;

(b) provide gender-specific content.

You can withdraw your consent at any time by using the link provided in the newsletter or the contact information provided in section 2.

1.3 Customer service and contact form

In order to provide appropriate support, our customer service employees have access to information related to the account. Consequently, their support will be highly effective and friendly. The data provided in our contact form is used by our CRM provider, SuperOffice. We will only use your details to respond to your message.

SECTION 2 – LEGITIMATE INTEREST

If you have purchased any of our products, please note that we may process your personal data for promotional purposes, based on Royal Queen Seeds' legitimate interest only to offer you products or services from our company and about products or services similar to those you have purchased. You may exercise your right to opt out of future messages by the means set out in this Privacy Policy or through any notification you receive.

2.1 How do you withdraw consent?

If you change your mind, you can withdraw your consent for us to contact you for the purpose of collecting, using, or disclosing your data at any time by reaching out to us at: support@royalqueenseeds.com.

SECTION 3 – DISCLOSURE

We may disclose your personal information if we are required to do so by law or if you breach our Terms of Service.

SECTION 4 – HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR DATA?

At Royal Queen Seeds, we will not retain your data for longer than is necessary for the purposes described in this Policy. Different retention periods apply for different types of data; however, the longest period we will normally hold any personal data is 10 years.

4.1 Account information

Data relating to the account remains relevant for as long as the consumer is in possession of an account. Therefore, the data remains documented for as long as the account exists. When our customers delete an account, the associated data will be deleted within a reasonable period of time. Requests regarding the inspection or correction of stored personal data or the deletion of an account can be sent to support@royalqueenseeds.com.

4.2 Newsletters

In the event that you give us your consent to inform you about our products or services, we will keep your data until you express your wish not to receive any further communications from us. However, we regularly (every month) carry out a relevance check. Registered customers (and their personal information) will be deleted whenever customers do not reply to our request. In addition, our newsletter mailing has an opt-out feature. Consumers can withdraw their consent by using this opt-out feature.

SECTION 5 – COOKIES

Cookies are small information files that notify your computer of previous interactions with our website. These cookies are stored on your hard drive, not on our website. Essentially, when you use our website, your computer displays its cookies to us, informing our site that you have visited before. This allows our website to function more quickly and remember aspects related to your previous visits (such as your username), making your experience more convenient. At Royal Queen Seeds, we use two types of cookies: functional and analytical.

5.1 Functional Cookies

Functional cookies are used to enhance your online experience. Among other things, these cookies track what is added to your shopping cart. The use of these cookies does not require prior authorization.

5.2 Analytical Cookies

Analytical cookies are used for research and market analysis. The data collected with these analytical cookies is anonymous, making it unusable for third parties. The use of these cookies does not require prior authorization.

SECTION 5 – THIRD-PARTY SERVICES

Third-party services are required to conduct transactions and provide our services. In general, the third-party providers we use will only collect, use and disclose your information to the extent necessary to enable them to perform the services they provide to us.

However, certain third-party service providers, such as payment gateways and other payment transaction processors, have their own privacy policies regarding the information we must provide to them for your transactions.

We encourage you to read the privacy policies of these providers so that you can understand how these providers will handle your personal information.

In particular, certain suppliers may be located or have facilities located in a different jurisdiction than yours or ours. Therefore, if you choose to proceed with a transaction involving the services of a third party, your information may be subject to the laws of the jurisdiction in which that service provider or its facilities are located.

Once you leave our website or are redirected to a third-party website or application, you are no longer governed by this Privacy Policy or the Terms of Service of our website.

Web analytics service (anonymous data)

On this website we have integrated an element of a web analytics service (with anonymisation functionality). Web analytics can be defined as the gathering, processing and analysis of data about the behaviour of visitors to websites. An analytics service collects, among other things, data about which website a person came from (the so-called referrer), which sub-pages they visited or how often and for how long they visited a sub-page. Web analytics is mainly used for website optimisation and for a cost–benefit analysis of internet advertising.

Courier service

To complete deliveries we use a courier service. This courier service carries out the delivery between our company and the consumer's home. To complete these logistics, the company requires access to the consumer's name and address information.

Mailing service

Royal Queen Seeds uses a third-party mail service provider to send its newsletter. This provider has access to limited account information related to opt-in consent (e.g. email address).

Marketing services

Royal Queen Seeds has the support of a company that specialises in marketing and communication activities. Their access to personal information is very limited and mostly anonymous.

Payment services

At Royal Queen Seeds we use external payment services to handle our transactions (e.g. credit card payments).

SECTION 6 – SECURITY

To protect your personal information, we take reasonable precautions and follow industry standard best practices to ensure that it is not inappropriately lost, misused, accessed, disclosed, altered or destroyed.

If you provide us with your credit card information, the information is encrypted using secure socket layer technology (SSL) and stored using AES-256 encryption. Although no method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is 100% secure, we follow all PCI-DSS requirements and implement additional industry standards that are commonly accepted. Information related to the account is protected with a hashing method. This method transforms the information into a generated hash. As a result, confidential information is protected and invisible, even to us. In addition, our databases are exceptionally protected against unauthorised access. For example, access to the database is only possible and permitted via approved IP addresses (e.g. from Royal Queen Seeds headquarters). Other attempts and addresses are rejected at all times.

Furthermore, data is anonymised as much as possible, so it cannot be directly linked to a specific consumer. With this data, however, we may be able to carry out market research and analysis. In addition, the third parties concerned (e.g. mailing service) are examined prior to our collaboration, comply with the GDPR from the EU and receive a processing agreement. Within Royal Queen Seeds, employees are assigned different access permissions. Specific permission provides access only to information that is strictly required to perform a task. Digital security measures are subject to change and must meet high requirements to ensure the safety of online customers. That is why, at Royal Queen Seeds, we appoint a security officer. Regular verification and improvement of security measures (where necessary) are part of the role.

SECTION 7 – CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time, so please check back regularly. Changes and clarifications will be effective immediately upon being published on the Website. If we make substantial changes to this policy, we will notify you here that it has been updated so you will know what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances, if any, we use and/or disclose it.

SECTION 8 – YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO: