Sourcing marijuana seeds

Back in the days of ” The $10 Lid” (ounce bag of low grade weed) seeds were considered a scourge and a way for shitty dealers to “cut” the weed. Few people thought about trying to grow their own back then as the risk was too high for the high. Indoor grows back then meant costly halide & sodium lights wanting huge electricity draws. Backyard grows were risky due to police helicopters and nosey neighbors.

Imagine this: It’s 1976 and you come home from Dimebag Park and your stoner teenage sibling asks what ya got? “Oh I bought some seeds from a kid there, only $5 a piece so I bought 2”. You better believe that your sibling gathered every stoner in the neighborhood and they went to Dimebag Park with baseball bats (no gloves and no ball) and came back with blood spattered Kiss T-shirts and the $10 you spent. The guy selling seeds was never seen in Dimebag Park again. Jesus Christ–SELLING seeds? If someone was ballsy enough to say they wanted to grow you GAVE them some seeds. It was like not bogarting the joint–you shared.

In all fairness to the seed merchants–that’s all they are selling as far as interstate commerce. They can’t ship ounces across state lines even if you have a medical card as a recipient until the feds back off & legalize. Us old heads will bristle up at the notion of paying $5 (or more) for a seed because of the relative history. The way you really need to look at it is that the $5 invested along with some dirt, light & your time might yield 1/2-1 pound of weed. With dispensary prices averaging about $260 an ounce as of this writing that saves you $2120-$4240 in dispensary costs. Not bad for a $5 investment.

As legalization has increased to I believe 13 states here in the US the sources of marijuana seeds has increased, or seemingly so. In testing the waters I ordered from a couple of online suppliers. I took a chance with seedsupreme and ILGM  and 1 other site.The sites have a wide variety of strains & types. Most all of the sites have offers of getting so many free seeds when you buy some or the buy10-get 10 free bulk deals.

What struck me as very odd is that when I got my seeds in a padded USPS plain brown envelope the return address was the same–they all shipped from the same PO Box in San Diego ! This leads to the following thoughts: 1. The websites are all owned by the same company but have diverse marketing. 2. The companies are not related per se but their seeds are contracted to a 3rd party who actually grows them and “drop ships” them.  So, if you were thinking that you might get better genetics from one seller vs another that might be debatable. I’m sure there are other people shipping seeds and we have a diversified market.

The sellers have all shipped so no blatant fraudsters. My one complaint is that from ILGM a good portion of one batch of marijuana seeds did not germinate and  they tout a money back guarantee, good luck collecting it. I had 3 emails to their support/claims dept describing my germination process etc then I was ghosted. Not a good customer service experience.

UPDATE: 1/29/22–I heard back from ILGM and apparently there was an email snafu and they are replacing my seeds. If there is more drama I will report fully.

2/5/22– ILGM owed me 13 seeds that didn’t sprout. I received 15 replacements. They are honest merchants who stood by their product.

The way our co-op is going to work is that I will buy 20 of the Afghanistan Bananstand strain, The next farmer gets 20 of Green Cheese, the next 20 seeds of White Widow etc. 5 people in the group all get a different strain. Each person keeps 4 of their original seeds and then trades 4 with each other farmer. So in the end we all still have 20 seeds but now we have 4 of each variety. This allows all of us to simultaneously test each strain . If all of us notice a poor showing from one strain we know not to re-order that. If we all get a bumper crop thats a keeper If one farmer has a bad showing we might look at their environment.

The types of seeds offered by most vendors are as follows:

• “regular seeds”–these have NOT been altered genetically or chemically and may produce male or female plants. If you want to be free from purchasing seeds in the future and don’t want to mess with cloning you will want to produce your own seeds. Male pollen can be harvested and kept frozen for later pollination with flowering females.
• “Feminized Photoperiod”–these are seeds that have been altered to produce only female plants and grow in a normal cycle where the plant grows for 5-7 months and produces buds when the days grow shorter. They also produce a lot of shade leaf which is a consideration if you make a lot of tinctures, vape juice & edibles.
• “Feminized Auto-Flowering”– these are seeds that have been genetically altered to produce only female plants AND will go to bud in a short time cycle of about 3 months. They dont produce as MUCH at a time but produce bud QUICKLY so they are “built for sprint”. The fact that they remain small helps to keep them “on the QT” for stealth grows not prone to prying eyes. They are also great for beginners as they are easy & quick to grow.

IMHO (and this is what a blogsite is–someone’s opinion) the photoperiod plants be they regular or feminized are better done on an outdoor grow. The reason for this is as the plants mature you must mimic the tilt of the earths axis & shortening of the days in your grow room by cutting the time & intensity output in order to properly trigger flowering. Hassle. Feminized Auto Flower I keep indoors as less risk of weather, critters & thieves so I’m pretty much guaranteed a yield there.

UPDATE:1/27/2022 –I am testing a new source of seeds from weed seeds and I will say their site is impressive. Huge variety and very good pricing. I ordered 20 seeds total of 2 strains. The cost was a reasonable $77 and they are throwing in 6 bonus seeds.

UPDATE 2/1/2022– In 5 days weed-seeds.com delivered my order. Not the same return address as noted from previous suppliers so yes, we do have a diversified market not all funneling through 1 real supplier behind the scenes. The seeds were nicely sorted and packaged in small crush proof plastic vials. The other suppliers ship the seeds in small meth head ziplock baggies. The only issue there is that if the envelope gets stepped on your seeds could get crushed in transit–not likely with the seeds from weed-seeds. I’ll do a sample germination from the variety I ordered.

Don’t forget to carefully inspect your seeds under a magnifying glass or loupe before you try to sprout them. You want to check for cracks or chunks and other signs of rough handling. A common practice back in the day to clean weed and separate the smoke from the seeds was to run it through a flour sifter. This was a little rough on the seeds but then there was no intention of planting them. I imagine these seed houses have some form of screening process that is hopefully not too rough.